alibi: toxicology report

reposted from alibi V.21 No.8 | February 23 - 29, 2012

The Drugs Are Winning

We’re using more than ever

By Samara Alpern

New Mexico is the longtime world heavyweight and still national champion in deaths by drug overdose. But lawmakers passed a landmark memorial that could put a dent in the yearly death toll. The measure, SM 45, is a formal state request that the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Center for Health Policy study the effectiveness of medically supervised injection facilities. There are none in the United States, but 27 around the world serve as clinical settings for users to inject illegal drugs.

Whether the controversial approach is the best way to deal with our substance abuse problem remains to be seen, but the fact that New Mexico is willing to look at new methods is worth celebrating. Despite the drug war, abuse remains at record levels, and the bodies are piling up.
It was 1971 when Nixon first declared war on drugs. A lot of vets were coming back from Vietnam shooting heroin, and those needles were really freaking people out. To the patriotic highball set, criminalizing the hell out of substance abuse was a sensible strategy to take that seedy element off the streets.

To a certain degree, the plan worked. In terms of turning users into criminals, the war has been a spectacular success. Per capita, the U.S. incarcerates more of its own citizens than any other country on Earth. More than Russia. More than China. This year’s distant runner-up for prisoners per capita: Rwanda.

Since Nixon named drugs public enemy No. 1, the U.S. prison population has increased by more than 700 percent. Apparently, there are a lot more people into drugs than just counterculture deviants.

Are we really this sick? This unhappy? This weak?

Though there is no language explicitly targeting any one group, minorities have clearly been the big losers in the war’s justice lottery. To use an old-fashioned term, it’s racist. African-Americans are 13 times as likely to go to jail as white people for the same drug offense, and today, more African-Americans are caught up in the criminal justice system than were enslaved on the eve of the Civil War.

This tactic doesn’t seem to be having much impact on the street market, however. Though we are smoking, snorting and shooting slightly less than we did in the ’70s, the U.S. is still the biggest consumer of illegal drugs in the world. And when you consider how many people are reaching for legal pharmaceuticals, the fact is today—after more than 40 years of drug war, millions of incarcerations and record levels of overdoses—we are consuming more drugs than ever.

Over the counter sales are up, too, from $2.9 billion in 1971 to $17 billion in 2010, according to the Consumer Healthcare Products Association.

While the criminal justice system is culling vast throngs of miscreants who turned to drugs to solve their problems, our medical system has been promoting drugs as the answer to everything from depression to limp dick. We’ve got a whole slew of drugs to help you get off the other drugs. We’ve even got drugs for people who were born with sparse, bald-rat eyelashes. Hallelujah for modern medicine! The lashless will suffer the indignity of applying mascara no more!

Spending on legal prescriptions doubled from 1999 to 2008, when the grand total came to $234.1 billion. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that nine out of 10 elderly Americans took some kind of prescribed substance in the past month. Our nation’s children are also apparently terribly ill, with one out of every five kids under the age of 12 taking at least one prescribed medicine in the past month.

This is the crisis of today: Nationwide, overdose deaths doubled in the last decade thanks to the surging popularity of painkillers. For the first time in history, ODs outnumber traffic accidents as cause of death. Pills are responsible for more overdose deaths than heroin and cocaine combined. It’s a worldwide epidemic, but as the most medicated country in the world, America is leading the trend. And, of course, New Mexico has the highest overdose rate in the country.

Which brings us back to that measure up in Santa Fe. The memorial calls for a study into several harm-reduction strategies, including medically supervised injection sites for intravenous users. While controversial, such programs have been proven effective in reducing overdose fatalities while increasing access to drug treatment programs and health services. Hopefully the study will help guide New Mexico away from its heritage as the likeliest place in America to die of overdose. Our state government’s unanimous support for the memorial should be applauded for seeking alternatives to the clearly ineffective drug war.

But even the most innovative harm-reduction programs do nothing to address our nation’s fundamental problem: We use drugs for everything. That is the underlying pattern of behavior causing us true harm. Are we really this sick? This unhappy? This weak? And, if so, are drugs really the answer? When we toss back those little pills, we need to take a hard look in the mirror and ask ourselves: Why?

duke city fade

by gabe jaureguiberry
ace barber shop
109 4th st sw
albuquerque, nm

solid gold 67 camaro rs

1967 chevrolet camaro rs
albuquerque, nm

more from the marigold parade

"free haircuts for the 1%"

watching the parade from his backyard

this lady says we should boycott bueno foods because they do business with monsanto

marigold parade 11.6.11
albuquerque, nm

dia de los muertos marigold parade-- bicycle edition

making marigolds

juan on a tiny bike trailing a tonka truck w a cassette recorder strapped on top

young one says, "i ran out of candy to throw because i ate it all."

our crew

marigold parade 11.6.11
albuquerque, nm

albuquerque csi!

here's the new video, "pliers," by gnash quintet, gusher. the track is off the upcoming release, drought valley gruncle core, which drops next week.  pick up your copy at the album release party saturday, november 12th 8pm at  outerspace (albuquerque, 309 washington se) experience gusher live, performing alongside abq grind godfathers, ronoso, and wet witch (from jersey).



"pliers" by gusher
video directed by stephen turselli
albuquerque, nm

album release party:saturday, november 12th 8pm at outerspace (albuquerque, 309 washington se) 

new mexico has highest drug overdose rate in the country

new mexico now  leads the country with the most deaths by drug overdose per capita with 26.63 deaths per 100,000 people, according to the latest cdc data.  new mexico’s overdose rate is more than double the national average. 

meanwhile,  the fbi annual crime report released in september shows that last year, more americans were arrested for drugs than any other crime.   driving under the influence, another drug-related offense, placed second.  here in new mexico , 8,814 people were arrested for drugs and 11,301 people were busted for d.u.i.  

the ever-skyrocketing number of drug arrests have done little to stem overdoses. nationally, the overdose rate has nearly doubled in the last ten years.  12.7 people per 100,000 now die from overdose.  in 2000, that number was 6.7.  for the first time in history, more people die by od in than in car crashes.   

it's prescription pills that are responsible for the current spike in overdoses.  narcotic painkillers and anti-anxiety meds are responsible for more overdoses than cocaine and heroin combined.  the incidence of overdose parallels the increasing prescription of these medications:  vicodin is now the most widely prescribed drug in the u.s.  

the american medical establishment has as big a drug problem as the rest of the country. given this track record, why are we trying to medicalize marijuana?  trusting doctors with drugs is like trusting banks with money.  

despite the overdose statistics, the federal government is now aggressively prosecuting marijuana users, and even state-licensed medical marijuana dispensaries.  a major crackdown in underway by u.s. attorneys in california.  no word on how this general federal pressure will affect new mexico’s small medical marijuana program, but one california ruling  may have local repercussions.  the i.r.s. is using a part of the tax code that was originally designed to hurt drug cartels.  that code is now being used to bar state-licensed dispensaries from taking any business-related tax deductions.  

while the current federal government cracks down, former new mexico governor gary johnson,  legalization advocate and  still flickeringly viable presidential aspirant, is actively courting the stoner vote.   in an interview with outside magazine, johnson calls marijuana users the “largest untapped voting bloc in the country.”  

asks johnson, “a hundred million americans have smoked marijuana. you think they want to be considered criminals?”

hell, no.  we want to be accepted, just like any pill popper.   

57 corvette

1957 chevrolet corvette
tijeras, nm

el descanso de rachel ibarra

descanso for rachel ibarra
a few miles south of truth or consequences, nm

gary johnson declares war on the war on drugs

 

in a passionate op-ed in friday’s washington times, former new mexico governor and republican presidential candidate gary johnson  unleashed marijuana legalization into the mainstream national debate.   unfortunately, many people were too distracted by watching the economy trip and fall down the stairs to notice. nevertheless, future opportunities to bring the issue to the fore are assured; johnson is a viable republican candidate, and he is making ending the drug war a platform of his campaign.  

for the first time in forty years,  we get to seriously discuss not how the drug war should be fought, but whether there should be a drug war at all. 

johnson has been straightforward about his views on legalizing drugs before-- ending prohibition is a natural feature of his libertarian principals.   but in his editorial he elaborates, framing the debate around money and security.  the piece is titled, "Hitting the cartels where it hurts:  Legalization of marijuana would end profiteering and violence," and it goes on to describe the drug war in terms of, well, actual war.

receiving scant coverage among english language news sources for such a bloodbath so nearby, the violence in mexico has escalated dramatically since 2006.  that was when then-newly elected mexican president felipe calderon declared war against the cartels. now the death toll, according to johnson, is 28,000  (his figure is conservative.  stopthedrugwar.org estimates 40,000 people have been killed). 

johnson distinguishes immigration from border violence, calling out the hazards and hypocrisy of marijuana prohibition. 

Border violence... is a prohibition problem. Just as we did for Al Capone and his murderous colleagues 90 years ago, our drug laws have created the battlefield on which tens of thousands are dying. By doggedly hanging onto marijuana laws that make criminals out of our children while our leaders proudly consume wine at state dinners, we have created an illegal marketplace with such mind-boggling profits that no enforcement measures will ever overcome the motivation, resources and determination of the cartels.

along with the times op-ed, worth reading in its entirety, johnson released an ad that compares the tally spent on imprisoning marijuana offenders ($3,100,000,000, according to johnson) to the number of deaths from marijuana overdose (zero, according to everybody).

johnson's overture to end prohibition comes as part of a recent rationalist wave of thinking on the drug war.  in january of this year, calderon's predecessor, vicente fox, stated that he favored and end to drug prohibition. two weeks ago, the naacp adopted a resolution calling for an end to the war on drugs.*  

however, even as sanity begins to flicker in the mainstream, the obama administration is now charging against weed with guns blazing full force .  gone is the avuncular moderate of 2009, willing to let medical marijuana smokers hang out and burn down in the basement. that year, the justice department released the ogden memo, formally promising to ignore medical marijuana users who were acting in accordance with state law.   

but those golden days of civil indifference are over.  now the obama administration is exercising some hard dick enforcement straight out of the bush years.  at the end of june 2011, the department of justice issued  a memo targeting medical marijuana dispensaries .   just last week, obama's drug czar, r. gil kerlikowski,** presented a new strategy that has the capacity to expand the drug war infinitely,  merging the war on drugs with the war on terror (i think its called efficiency in government when two amorphous, unwinnable wars are consolidated into one).

meanwhile, the global economy is stumbling backwards and flailing for the bannister for dear life.  it maybe that when it hits the landing, we end up so broke that we'll have to do as a nation what so many american families were already doing on the DL--  flipping weed to pay the bills.  

* do you know what this means?  stoners and black people could end up voting republican 2012.  i'm not saying it's a lock, but it's not the long shot it once was.

**

r. gil kerlikowske, director of white house office of national drug control policy

 somehow i believe director kerlikowske when he says he never smoked a joint in his life, don't you? his shits are probably like buckshot pellets, pinging in the pan.