Before getting into the feedback and my responses, l need to explain the purpose and expectation of the “End the War on Drugs” room on Clubhouse.

First, please don’t expect to get the answer in just a one hour dialogue. If it was that easy, more people would understand the solution and I wouldn’t be having such a hard time explaining it. It took me 6 years and 8 trips to California and Toronto, Canada—one for a full month and the others for full weekends plus extracurricular study, to unravel and piece together what I learned to develop the knowledge I share.

I started this first dialogue with the history of how drugs became the target of our government, following the Spanish American War of 1898 for the purpose of making America a world power. I also did not intend for the meeting to become a lecture from me. I encourage and appreciate other’s contributions. And we had a great conversation at our first meeting, which I was very happy with.

So people need to come to the room weekly, add to their knowledge as the new information each week is presented, and gradually the pathway to end the attacks on drugs will be lit.

I asked for feedback after the first room meeting, and I want to share what was sent to me, plus give a response.

Feedback from a patient/doctor advocate:

1. 1.  IMO,  “we” are not going to get bureaucrats and/or the media to do .. in the issues that the pain community has been dealing with for decades….

   For example, I communicated with the local TV channels about this case of $7 million award to family of a pain patient who killed himself after being refused pain medicine refills.

   The only channel that covered this case was the local Fox channel.  I could not get one other channel to consider to cover this. Does this suggest that the media is so much in lockstep with the DEA agenda that they don’t care to cover anything that is not aligned with the DEA narrative?
   IMO, it would not take more than 1-2 substantial awards to pts from such lawsuits for about every TV advertising personal injury law firm to quickly have a civil rights division and start filing lawsuits against these large healthcare corporations hand over fist.

Answer: Naturally, since I haven’t really covered how to end the war on drugs, your comments are based on current methods.  I agree, those current methods won’t work.  I’ve given speeches to media, at rallies and personally, and in their presentation, they still add in the anti-drug propaganda.  They have been indoctrinated like most of the citizens. It doesn’t take long for propaganda to take hold, and it is hard to get rid of it. But with attending my room on Clubhouse, it is possible.

2.  The only way that the USA is going to outsmart the cartels, is to take all the illegal fentanyl tablets, validate the purity and potency (DEA claims that only 40% of those tablets contain a lethal dose) and have pharma make a standardized potency fentanyl tab and give them away or sell them at a price that the cartels cannot match. Hardly a day goes by that I don’t see something on TV about illegal fentanyl tabs being confiscated. They just reported that for fiscal year ending 09/30/2022 the amount of illegal fentanyl confiscated was like 3-4 times the 2020 fiscal year.

They claim that about 100,000 people/yr die from the use/abuse of alcohol. Yet only about 1% (1,000) die of alcohol toxicity. Maybe this is because the abuser knows their limit and is able to buy a known purity/strength of the drug of choice to abuse.

Ohio is the poster child of how the legalization of MJ should not be handled, invoking such high taxes and permit fees on all segments of the MJ industry that the cost of an ounce of MJ is about FOUR TIMES that of Colorado and that the cartels are coming into the state and undercutting the price and making a larger profit than when they were selling it illegally.

Answer: That is why we need to legalize all drugs. Once legalized, all of these regulations and the cartels will fade away.

3. I have not heard anything recently about how much the war on drugs costs us…but the last I heard from years ago it was 80 billion/yr. It has to be north of 100 billion/yr by now.

Historically, 40% of the members of Congress has been attorneys…  the very same bureaucracy that passed the CSA bill and turned its enforcement over to the DOJ. The war on drugs has become a very large industrial complex and while there is about 10,000 employees at the federal level… that 100+ billion/yr covers a lot of . starting with the cop on the street.. to all parts of our legal system all the way up to the DOJ/DEA. I find it hard to believe that 40% of Congress that belongs to the same judicial fraternity will do much to reduce that work force.

Another part of the problem is all the private prisons, most of which have a contract with the local bureaucracy that unless the private prison maintains a certain census, the state’s bureaucracy will have to make up the $$$ that are being lost… I have heard that some bureaucrats have signed contracts that they agree to maintain a 100% census to avoid paying the private prison some $$$ to cover their losses or lower profits.

Answer: Again, the legalization of drugs will end these exorbitant costs which don’t do anything to end addiction because they aren’t addressing the real cause.

4. Take this recently published article outlining basically the genealogy of the MME system… clearly demonstrating that it has no science nor double blind clinical studies supporting its conclusion and is basically JUNK SCIENCE..  likewise … the FDA does not reference the MME system in any of its published professional dosing references.

I see the DEA & VA jumping on the 50 MME/day mentioned often in the 2022 guidelines. When published, they will start pushing 50 MME as the new standard of care and best practices.  IMO, getting some sort of legal challenge to the MME system—that the CDC has no statutory authority to publish such guidelines and that the guidelines themselves fail to have any valid criteria supporting their validity and conclusions and that any entity that adopts some sort of MME/day as a practice’s policies and procedures—could be challenged in the courts as practicing “bad faith medical care”

Secondly, we need to encourage families who have had a family member who has committed suicide because of being forced tapered or just cut off cold turkey to have the estates of these people who have committed suicide to file lawsuit against these large healthcare corporations, Insurance/PBM & chain pharmacies. Maybe that would encourage these corporations to take some of their lobbying budget to lobby Congress and state legislatures to repeal their laws pertaining to controlled substances, and get these corporations to drop using the MME system like a “hot potato”

Answer:  Chasing the CDC guidelines rabbit won’t solve a thing. Granted that I didn’t get to the real solution during our first dialogue.  But we had a great turn-out. Hopefully those people will return next week and bring their friends.  I will start the meeting off with an explanation of the real cause of addiction.  I know it will open up a door of discussion. So I hope you come back and share your thoughts about it.  Thanks for coming to the first session.

Want to participate and learn?

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The next scheduled room will be Tuesday, November 7, at 9PM ET.  Be sure and join and connect with me by following me. Invite all your contacts.