Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 272 - The Opioid Epidemic

Episode Date: November 29, 2021

Covering a lot of ground today! Going over the history of human opioid usage - the opium poppy is one helluva plant. What different types of opiates and opioids are out there? Why are we having a record number of opioid overdose deaths now when we've been using opiates going back at least as far as the ancient Sumerians? What changed in the 1980's to lay the ground work for the opioid epidemic we have today in the United States? What is Big Pharma's role in this epidemic? What are we doing to help millions struggling with a very, very powerful narcotic addiction? And what the Hell is Whipple Chill!?!  A lot to unpack today on an especially informative, drug! drug! drug! edition of Timesuck. The Bad Magic Productions charity of the month is IAVA - Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America- thanks to you we are able to give $15,800 to this very deserving cause. IAVA serves and empowers the post-9/11 veterans' community. They offer guidance and support, such as helping vets get and use their GI bill, helping them with housing, directing them towards mental health support, and more.For additional information, please go to https://iava.org/Watch the Suck on YouTube:  https://youtu.be/ZMWQ-1alDwQMerch - https://badmagicmerch.com/  Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89vWant to join the Cult of the Curious private Facebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" in order to locate whatever current page hasn't been put in FB Jail :)For all merch related questions/problems: [e-mail] (copy and paste)Please rate and subscribe on iTunes and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcastWanna become a Space Lizard? We're over 10,000 strong! Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcastSign up through Patreon and for $5 a month you get to listen to the Secret Suck, which will drop Thursdays at Noon, PST. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. You get to vote on two Monday topics each month via the app. And you get the download link for my new comedy album, Feel the Heat. Check the Patreon posts to find out how to download the new album and take advantage of other benefits.

The opioid epidemic, you've no doubt heard the term opioid epidemic. It's thrown around in the news. The epidemic also known as the opioid crisis has been a hot button issue for quite a while now. You also probably know someone, either someone close to you or someone you know of, that struggling or has struggled with opioids. It'll be hard to find a person whose life hasn't in one way or another been affected by these very powerful drugs. Opioids are a class of drugs either naturally found in the opium poppy plant

or made in a lab to work like drugs naturally found in the opium poppy plant. Naturally, we've been using them for thousands of years, but the opioid epidemic is new, just a few decades old. The opioid epidemic specifically refers to the growing number of deaths and hospitalizations from opioids over the last 20 to 30 years in the US, including from prescriptions and also illicit drugs. In recent years, death rates from these drugs have ramped up to over 70,000 and a 12-month

span here in the States. Drug overdose is now the leading cause of accidental death in America, largely due to this opioid epidemic. All the epidemic in its havoc may be relatively recent. We meet sex have such a long history using opium and opium derivatives. We love it. We love feeling good from it. It has to do with the way our brain chemistry works as we're pre-programmed with opioid receptors that process the brain's naturally occurring opiate neurotransmitters. The stuff our body releases when we're in pain to relieve that pain. Also, part of our reward cycle that dopamine

that makes us feel like we've had a really good sense of accomplishment, just feel great, produces euphoria, a sense of inner peace, tranquility. Opioes feel good when they're in your system, but of course, they also can create terrible side effects. Diction with dralls, not being in control of your body, a high that just keeps getting lower every time you achieve it, overdoses that can't often do end in death. Today we're going to explore the opioid epidemic in depth.

How do they work on our brains? How can they kill us? Why are they so addictive? And did Big Pharma create millions of opioid addicts knowing their new products were insanely addictive and dangerous? All this and more right now on this drug-fueled edition of Time Suck. This is Michael McDonald and you're listening

to Time Suck, you want to listen to Time Suck? You want to listen to Time Suck? To talk some. Happy Monday. Happy Monday. Welcome to the Cult of the Curious. Welcome back. A lot of interesting information to cram into your ear holes today.

Recording like usual from the sucked dungeon and cordal lane Idaho. Just starting to spit snow today just a little bit. As a record, come on snow, let's open up the ski hills. I'm being calm as the master's sucker, the suck master, the fresh prince of Beverly Hills not bell air. How did I mess that up last week? Idiot. Thomas the master sucker, the suck master, the fresh prince of Beverly Hills, not bell air. How did I mess that up last week? Idiot.

A recently snorted coke with a stranger, not thinking about how it could be laced with the powerful opioid like fentanyl. And this is time suck. Hail Nimrod, Hail Lucid Fino. Please don't judge us for the extra holiday weight. Praiseable jangles and thanks for continuing to kick out great holiday tunes, triple M. Recording this before Thanksgiving, hoping to have a good time down at Riggins Idaho with

some family, guests, and I did. Had a great time in Denver for sure and Lovelin Colorado for sure a little while back with many of you. Thanks for coming to the comedy works and the re-alto. It was a blast. Love Colorado. I love all that sunshine. I hope I have fun and tamper this week looking forward to more warmth than Colorado and hopefully

some more sunny days and a lot and a lot of places to get smoothies randomly. You know, I love a smoothie and looking forward to some great Cuban food, not as much there as there is Miami, but a lot more than there is here in Idaho. To come a coming up and that's the last standup dates of 2021 and then so many fun places coming up in the first half of 2022. Hollywood Chovis, uh, LaHoya, aka San Diego, Austin or Lando Oklahoma City, Charlotte, Mizzula, Tempe, Salt Lake City, Chicago, Davenport, Raleigh, and Atlanta, Atlanta, uh, links to the dates at Dan Cummins dot TV.

One more real quick announcement and then some show, a lot of show. Last reminder that our charity this November is the veteran focused IAVA. I reckon Afghanistan veterans of America dedicated to serving and empowering the post 911 veterans community. And for more info, you can of course go to IAVA.org. And now for a topic that possibly touched the lives of literally everyone listening. Again, you've either likely been prescribed, opioid yourself, or have recreationally used one yourself, or at least know someone, or related to someone who's struggling, or has struggled with some form of opioid addiction.

Way too common. For me personally, although we were never close as adults, we did share a bedroom for six months or so growing up. I lost a stepbrother to opioid addiction. Jake's struggle with heroin for years. Starting somewhere around the time, he dropped out of high school. His life quickly became a cycle of stealing

to get things he could then sell to get money, to buy drugs, to then getting caught for stealing things or for using drugs, going to prison, getting out of prison, using again, stealing again, being incarcerated again, and then eventually apparently feeling so hopelessly caught in this terrible cycle and probably worrying that it would just never end. He took his own life by shooting himself in the mouth. Sadly, variants of his story, not that uncommon.

Statistically, a large percentage of us have used opioids before, either recreationally or because we've experienced some kind of pain. They were used in pain management. If you've had your wisdom teeth out, or really almost any kind of surgery that leaves you with significant pain management needs, you have likely been prescribed opioids. I once around a decade ago had a nagging cough. I could just not get rid of the lining of my esophagus, became inflamed or irritated or something. And one of the things I was prescribed

was coding cough syrup. I don't remember exactly the symptoms I had, but I do remember coding cough syrup. My God that I love it. Of course I did. Opioids very good at their job. Coding weaker in action than is more common common pain killing cousin morphine used typically as a pain reliever and or as a cough suppressant. I'll define Coding morphine a bunch of other common types of opioids here soon. Anyways, holy shit, did that syrup work? Opia, it's not always bad. Sometimes very helpful.

There's a lot of reasons they become very popular and only one of them is because they're very addictive. Not only did that cough syrup suppress my cough, it gave me literally the best night of sleep in my life. I still think about this night of sleep, and this was like over 10 years ago. I took it before bed. First night I took it. I slept for, and I just remember this

because I was talking about it later. I slept for 14 hours straight. Best night of sleep in my life, 14 hours of hard, deep, undisturbed quality sleep. Did not wake up once to use the bathroom, did not even change positions. That was like one of the weirdest parts to me. I woke up in the exact same position

that I'd fall asleep in. Not even a position I normally sleep in. I just like laid on my back, fell asleep instantly, and then like the covers were undisturbed and I just woke up 14 hours later in the exact same position. It was fucking eerie, it was magical. Oh man, my prescription, you know, one of so many opioid prescriptions.

And I remember then thinking like, oh, I could have some, I could get into some trouble with this. I could get used to this real easy. And just a year, 2017, healthcare providers across the US wrote more than $191 million prescriptions. That's so many. In one year for opioid pain medication, a rate of 58.7 prescriptions per 100 people. That is nuts. A lot of prescriptions get prescribed extremely, or, you know, people get prescribed extremely

addictive opioids year after year. And likewise, a high number of people have struggled with addiction. In 2017, again, alone, there was 11.4 million past year opioid misusers, age 12 or older in the US, the population at year, 325 million, 3.5% of the US population had misused opioids in just the past year alone. And not just had used, had like, you know, abused one in 28. The opioid epidemic is definitely a topic that hits close to home for a lot of people. It's an emotional topic.

And I'm going to try a suck in a rational way, including looking at perspectives of some people who don't believe that opioid use is necessarily a bad thing. In our timeline, we'll look at the long history of meat sacks, use of opioids. Oh, we've used them for long, long time. Probably aren't going to stop anytime soon. But how we've used them in the past few decades, that is new. Recent usage is different in troubling. More needs to be done if we're going to curtail the current opioid epidemic and stop losing, you know, tens of thousands of people a year to overdoses. We'll look at some possible solutions at the end of the show. Let's get into all of it right now.

So what exactly are people talking about when they refer to the opioid epidemic? Mostly when that term is thrown around, it's in relation to the rise and the consumption of opioids, specifically in the United States in the past 25 to 30-ish years also often called the opioid crisis Other nations have been dealing with an increasing amount of opioid abuse as well, but no one loves opioids like the US Where number one? Where number one drugs drugs drugs drugs To show how we stack up against the rest of the world in 2016 For every million people the US was prescribing just under 50,000 doses Canada second most in the world in 2016, for every million people, the US was prescribing just under 50,000 doses. Canada, second most in the world, just over 30,000 doses prescribed for every million people.

So way down from us, 50,000 to 30,000. New Zealand, just to kind of show how we line up with a perspective or compared to most places in the world. New Zealand 15th down in the list. So still really high out of all the countries in the world, uh, around 10,000 doses. So the US prescribing roughly five times as many opioids per capita than the nation with the 15th highest rate of opioid prescriptions in the world. And again, drugs, drugs, drugs, fucking love drugs here in America. But only the hard shit if it's prescribed, then it's good and clean and wholesome

Shoot up heroin and allie. What's wrong with you? You fucking dirty. Worthy worthless stupid junkie Come on But have your doctor over prescribed you essentially the same drug for the same problem Just one that comes into prescription bottle instead of a little baggy. Oh, that's totally cool That's the kind of narcotics that honest hardworking Americans use and abuse and get addicted to and have their lives fucking completely unravel to thanks to that addiction. The groundwork for the opioid crisis late in the 1980s when pain increasingly became recognized as a problem that required adequate treatment. Before the 80s, pain management for a long time in the US was basically dealt with the

so popular today in some circles, tough it out or walk it off approaches. That is how I was raised. We're that something can work better than those approaches. I mean, crazy that if say you have crushed discs in your spine, and now your vertebrae are slamming into each other, thanks to no longer having nature shock absorbers in between them, that there could be a better way to deal with that pain than just walking it off. Strange that there could be a more effective way of dealing with stomach ulcers, or a rheumatoid arthritis, then just toughen it out. USA began to start passing intractable pain treatment acts in the 80s, which removed the threat of prosecution for physicians who treated their patients pain aggressively

with controlled substances. I wonder who lobbied for those acts to be passed. Hmm, big pharma maybe. Big pharma in just 2016 spent $152 million just on lobbying in Washington DC. Back in 1995, the American Pain Society, a physician's organization in Chicago, an organization I have to wonder if Big pharma financially supported, launched a campaign that framed pain as a fifth vital sign that should be monitored and managed as a matter of course, the same way as heart rate and blood pressure Before these changes right back in the early 80s prior to the 80s opioids were prescribed mainly for short term uses such as pain relief after surgery

Or for people with advanced cancer or other terminal conditions They weren't used in ongoing pain management Not anymore. We will talk about LODN and other older opioids being used for long-term pain management, like the 19th century and earlier. But they weren't used for ongoing pain management because there was this concern that prescribing opioids for long-term use might not end well because, well, heroin. Heroin's been thought to be pretty damn addictive and destructive for quite some time. A lot of people assume the same would be true for other you know newer opioids and those people will be right

But in the 80s large portion the medical community began to convince themselves that maybe just maybe These new opioids weren't that addictive after all Not the good clean prescribed kind made by US pharmaceutical companies you yes, hey Right if we have something to do with it, it has to be good, right? A variety of pharmaceutical companies who had a lot of money to game from selling opioids, working real hard to reassure doctors of these drugs, these opioids, this new shit, that's totally fine. Show's up in a little orange bottle.

It has to be safe. By 2014, the annual US prescription opioid market was worth $24 billion a year. This massive industry really got going. With the letter to the editor in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1980, when they reported that of 11,882 hospitalized people who were prescribed opioids, only four became addicted, only four, and almost 12,000,

but this stupid fucking short letter to the editor, it provided no evidence to back up this claim. Who wrote it? I don't know, probably a big farmer exec. Not even kidding. Years later, widely cited 1986 study involving only 38 people, just 38. It's fucking nothing.

Advocated using opioids to treat chronic pain unrelated to cancer, saying the prescription opioids were great at pain management and not that addictive. That's half true. They are great at pain management, but they're super addictive. The prevailing view now is that this and other similar studies were just not well done or their results were intentionally heavily manipulated. Overinterpreted, straight up faked size, you know, far too small, et cetera.

But at the time, this kind of shit was enough to convince a lot of people who are going to make a lot of money to say, ah, fuck it. Hope you like street pain very well. And that's important. And it makes us doctors and pharmaceutical execs and salespeople a lot of money. So, you know, win, win, win. Let's not overthink it. That's not worry about anything else.

I mean, how bad could a cousin of heroin be and then cut to like a mid 80s scene of Vietnam vets strung out and homeless across the fucking West Coast because of a heroin addiction they picked up fighting for America? Ignore those guys. That's totally different. That's last last last weeks.

opioids get out here. I actually don't think it was totally that nefarious. opioids as you will learn. I mean, they are very good at treating pain. I'm sure some people, execs included, who are part of this problem here, I'm sure, you know, they were at least able to convince themselves, like, yeah, but pain is, you know, is terrible. And people in chronic pain, that is horrible.

That is a real, you know, debilitating situation. And this is going to help them. And then they just kind of ignored some of their stats or maybe they weren't good at reading stats. I don't know. I'm trying to find some kind of positive in this. It was definitely the very least, you know, the addictive qualities of these new opioids downplayed by the medical community at large. Because of a fresh new perspective on opioids in the early 80s, prescriptions for pain management increased gradually throughout the 80s and early 90s, then OxyContin showed up and, oh, what a game

changer. Oxy Cotton was no opioid has contributed more to the current opioid epidemic than this motherfucker. Oxy Cotton began to be manufactured by Purdue Pharma founded in 1992 based in Stanford Connecticut, Purdue had been making pain management medication since the start of the 70s. And then in 1996, it's extended release formulation of oxycodone, oxycontin, first hit the market and quickly became the company's biggest money maker by far.

And then Purdue had a very long and very profitable run with oxycontin. Then in 2019, drowning litigation for starting the opioid epidemic that made its execs rich. And I'm sure hoping to get off the hook for a lot of money people now wanted from them, Purdue filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy on October 1st, or I'm sorry, on October 21st, 2020, Purdue reached a settlement, potentially worth 8.3 billion, admitting that it, it quote, knowingly and intentionally conspired and agreed with others to aid

and abet doctors dispensing medication without a legitimate medical purpose. Awesome. Good job, you mother fuckers. Intentionally prescribing opioids, knowing they had no legitimate medical purpose and many prescriptions and knowing this shit was super addictive. What could go wrong? How come millions of lives end up being heavily damaged or completely destroyed in that situation? Prior to selling oxyconn, Purdue conducted a clinical trial in elderly patients with

osteoarthritis to test the safety and efficacy of its new wonder drug. It enrolled 133 patients, only 63 completed the trial. Very small sample size, again, feels pretty corrupted when only 63 complete the trial. Just over 82% of the 63 patients had some sort of adverse effect thanks to treatments. 52 of 63 had some sort of adverse event happened during the treatment. Like I don't know, becoming addicted. Yet Purdue concluded that the study, quote, demonstrated that controlled release oxycodone is a safe and effective analgesic for the control of osteoarthritis-related pain. That's an interesting interpretation. That kind of shit is why they got stuck with

that massive settlement. A bunch of internal communications revealed that Purdue intentionally marketed oxycontin for use in treating chronic pain and that through marketing research determined that they could convince a high percentage of doctors to prescribe it routinely because their studies had falsely shown that it was safe for long-term use. Looking over a bunch of their communications, it seems like they put a lot of money into studies

determining how many people they could potentially sell oxycontin to, how much money they could potentially make. A lot more money went into that than it did into studies determining how badly this stuff might fuck people's lives up. And studies that did show how badly this stuff can fuck your life up, work Nord or creatively, creatively reinterpret it. In short, produce lied so they can make a lot of money and trick hundreds of thousands

of doctors into prescribing their highly addictive shit to hundreds of millions of people. And ta-da! And opioid epidemic has been launched. And a lot of other pharmaceutical companies start selling oxy-contin equivalents because now there's a lot of new drug money to be made. And today litigators are coming after a lot more companies than just Purdue. Thousands of cities and counties are suing drug makers and distributors in federal court, one tentative dollar amount floated earlier in October of 2019 to settle with just four

of the companies, 48 billion. Back in the late 90s, when the opioid market was first heating up, more and more prescriptions are going out, more and more people are becoming addicted, and then more, you know, are later turning to street opioids when their doctors are no longer prescribing them oxycontin and similar opioids. So that's how it really kickstart the epidemic. Right? People get prescribed oxycontin,

and that ends up increasing the demand for heroin when they can no longer get their doctor to prescribe them oxycontin or they can no longer afford prescription medicine. And a lot of people start dying. Nearly 450,000 people died from overdoses involving some type of opioid, including prescription opioids from 99 to 2019.

And since 2019, the death toll has further escalated. The rise in opioid overdose, overdose deaths can be outlined in three distinct waves. First wave began with increasing prescribing of opioids in the late 80s, 1990s with overdose deaths, prescribing involving prescription opioids, natural and semi-synthetic opioids, and methadone, really showing market increases

starting around 1999. Second wave began in 2010 with rapid increases in overdose deaths, specifically involving heroin. The third wave began in 2013 with significant increases in overdose deaths involving synthetic opioids, particularly those involving illicitly manufactured fentanyl, which is often combined with heroin counterfeit pills, other drugs like cocaine, making it easy to overdose when unsuspecting

users accidentally ingest it. I'll break down why fentanyl in particular is so fucking dangerous here soon. Between May of 2020, April of 2021, 100,300 Americans died of opioid overdoses, most ever reported in a 12 month span. First time that over 100,000 people died in 12 months. 28% spike in the previous years deaths and researchers attributed the spike primarily to fentanyl, over 70,000 of that, 100,000 plus, you know, were from opioids.

Over 100,000 lives lost in just one year. And there's concern that can become worse than that. Losing all these lives, other opioid-related trauma has made the opioid epidemic super expensive. Financialists estimated to have cost US economy over $500 billion during the period that began in the late 90s up until 2018, when this particular analysis wrapped up the research. In 2018, the US Council of Economic Advisors attempted to quantify the total societal

costs of opioid overdose and concluded that previous estimates have significantly underestimated the high cost of fatalities due to overdose. The council used the value of a statistical life VSL analytic method, which is routinely used by federal agencies and cost-benefit analysis of regulations and policies, including health-related interventions. The VSL method considers the cost of other valuable activities in life other than work that may be related to the value of non-work-related activities, such as volunteering, family rearing, rather than only loss work, productivity, and earnings.

And according to calculations made with this VSL approach, the true cost of the opioid epidemic to society is around 504 billion. And that, as of, you know, a couple of years ago. So more now, with 15% of the total from non-fatal and 85% from fatal overdoses. And I'm guessing what, at least another $100 billion or so has been lost since 2018. It makes sense that the biggest contributor to the cost of the epidemic comes from overdose deaths. In 2018, every day, an average of roughly 130 people died from opioid overdoses.

Most of them were in the 25 to 55 age range right in the middle of their prime working years and lost earning potential accounts for most of those costs. The next biggest amount comes from healthcare costs. The researchers took several large databases of insurance claims that have been scrambled to hide the identity of the patients and flagged people who had been coded as having opioid use disorder. Then the researchers calculated their overall healthcare costs not just directly related to their addiction, but any additional costs and compared them to similar patients without

addiction. Opioid addiction is linked to other health problems like HIV and hepatitis C spread amongst injection drug users, opioid addicts often develop health conditions like anemia, liver disease and pulmonary heart disease. A lot of money spent, treating those issues. There are also health costs for people who live in the same household as someone with an opioid use disorder. Their lives might be more complicated, their mental and physical health can suffer as a result. Then they're the cost of infants born dependent on opioids, what's called neonatal

abstinence syndrome, results of the cost of criminal justice related to opioids, estimated at 10.9 billion, child and family assistance and education, estimated at 9 billion and, you know, on and on and on. So many other costs that the report couldn't capture, including elevated costs for patients whose opioid use disorder disorder is undiagnosed and potential ongoing expenses for children born with neonatal abstinence syndrome as they grow up. It all adds up to a lot of lives lost, a lot of money lost as well over half a trillion dollars in counting. To now further understand the opioid epidemic, let's figure out what kind of opioids there

are, how they work, why they're addictive, how you can die from overdose, then we'll meet a man, Dr. Carl, Carl L. Hart, a seemingly very smart man, highly educated professor, who presents some interesting pro arguments for opioid use. Have opioids actually saved some lives in addition to taking many? Yeah, probably, as weird as that might sound. Next we'll jump into the timeline and learn about humanity's long history with opioids, including how law enforcement and public health programs have tried to combat the current opioid climate, and finally we'll finish up with some possible solutions going forward.

So what are opioids? Well, opioids are super fucking fun. Especially when you ingest them via the tastiest version of them you can find on the market made by one of this episode sponsors Whipple Chill. Whipple's new low energy cocktail. Hey man. Life isn't always about being so uh, up you know Sometimes you gotta you gotta come down

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Hermesage lotion, 7% Kenny G Sweat, 18% horse tranquilizers, 20% Camel Milti, 10% Melatonin, and about a half percent of either synthetic cherry, mint chocolate or blackberry flavors. After drinking, you know, traditional Whipple, the kickstart, your morning. Drink new, whipple, chill. Calm back down. Warning. Do not operate heavy machinery while drinking whipple, chill.

Or drive a vehicle. Fly a plane, captain a boat, walk on a treadmill, try to learn how to ride a unicycle, stand up, make financial decisions, talk to loved ones, talk to strangers, talk to anyone. Talk and use the bathroom. Eat anything you could choke on. Eat anything at all.

Make eye contact with anyone. Use your phone or even wear underwear that you really care about. Don't worry about you or your family getting fucked. Just come sit here on this cloud with me, calm down. You're like a unicorn getting hugged by a rainbow. When you drink Whipple, chill, addition. Huh, nice. I mean, I gotta say that's a great product idea

from the Whipple people. I mean, they've cornered the market on energy drinks. Why not double their money? Get all their customers, calm back down, double up on those dollars. They created the demand, now they fuel the supply. Okay. But seriously, what are opioids?

Opioids are synthetic derivatives from the opium poppy. Same plant that drugs like heroin and more fiener made from. An opioid, an opioid is given to patients to treat moderate to severe pain. When opioids bind to opioid receptors in the spinal cord, the brain is compelled to send reduced pain signals throughout the body. Many people use the term opioids and opiates synonymously, but they're actually slightly different. Opioids refer to all the natural synthetic or semi-synthetic chemicals that interact with opioid receptors on nerve cells in the body and brain, and reduce the intensity of pain, signals, and feelings

of pain. The class of drugs includes the illegal, or this class of drugs includes the illegal drug heroin, synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl, pain medications available legally by prescription, such as oxycodone, hydrocodone, coating, morphine, many others. Rescription opioids are generally safe when taken for a short time and as directed by a doctor, but because they produce euphoria in addition to pain relief, they can be misused and have addiction potential. Opiates refer only to the natural opioids, such as heroin, morphine, and coating. Opiodes refer to all natural, semi-synthetic, and synthetic opioids.

It's the wider category. So we'll use opioids to refer to these substances throughout the episode. Also, did you know that technically only opioids are narcotics, even though cocaine often gets called an narcotic, and under federal and state laws is classified as an narcotic. That's not technically correct. The DEA defines narcotics as drugs that relieve pain and dolda senses, and the use of the word is most commonly associated with opioid drugs from the DEA's own website.

Though some people still refer to all drugs as narcotics, today, narcotic refers to opium, opium derivatives, and their semi-symthetic substitutes. A more current term for these drugs with less uncertainty regarding its meaning is opioid. No mention of cocaine. I just found that interesting. Before I explain how all these opioids work, let's meet them individually. The nine most commonly abused opioids are morphine, a naturally occurring opioid, coding, another naturally occurring opioid, and the next four are semi-synthetic, heroin, oxycodone, oxymorphone,

hydrocodone, and the final three 100% synthetic opioids. That's a buprodnorfine, methadone, and uh... Whipple, chill. Totally synthetic but so very very, very good. So very, very low. No, fentanyl, meant to say fentanyl. Let's define all night. Morphine, I'm gonna start there. Morphine is found naturally in the poppy plant. Commonly known as the opium poppy or the bread seed poppy, we should get to know this

plant right off the bat. Did you know the poppy seeds, like from a poppy seed muffin, come from the exact same plant is heroin. They do. And although the seeds themselves don't contain opiates, they are often contaminated with morphine residuals or morphine residue during harvesting. That's why if each of many poppy seeds, there's a small, very small chance that you could fail a drug test for opiates.

Like if they weren't clean properly, basically, before they got put into that sweet muffin. I've always heard that about poppy seed muffins, but never truly understood why. I'm back to this very unique plant, the poppy and annual herb, growing to a height of about 40 inches, known scientifically by its Latin name of popover. Some nifram grows wild in eastern and southern Asia, south, eastern Europe, believed to have originated in the Mediterranean region, and it grows real, real well in Afghanistan. More than 80% of the world's opium supply comes from Afghanistan and has for many years

now. The plant is a flowering herb with white mauve or red petals, and it bears fruit. A little seed pod, a hairless rounded capsule, topped with 12 to 18 radiating stigmatic rays, what's called a fluted cap. And in optimal growing conditions, you can grow enough poppy to produce about 320,000 of these little poppy fruits per year per acre. A lot also grown in Australia, actually,

a lot of legal stuff for use in pharmaceuticals. And the opium part of this herb, and it's dried latex, or the milky fluid, obtained from the fruit, or seed poppy of the plant. The opium is the, yeah, it's that dried latex. I bet most of you would pop the head off a stock of like a dandelion before. Picture that milky fluid that sometimes comes out of the stem.

That is the dandelion's latex. Or if that description doesn't create, and aha, okay, now I get it, now I get with the opium part is that latex, you know, the visual in your head, picker the male ejaculate. Latex is kind of like plant come. Opium is like poppy come. So when you're snorting, say heroin, it's almost like you're giving yourself a plant come facial, which was that was unnecessary. Let me get back to more proper description. Opium contains a special

class of naturally occurring alkaloids. Alcalo is being a class of nitrogenous, nitrogenous, no, whatever, nitrogenous, there's so many signs where it's saying Jesus Christ, you have to forgive me for him, I don't have a chemistry degree. Or getting nitrogen, Jesus Christ, nitrogen, like nitrogen, with OUS, nitro, I fucking had it my head earlier, you don't even have to send an email,

I can look it up after the episode, but nitrogen based organic compounds, I'm a plant origin that create a pronounced physiological action on humans. So basically it fucks us up for better for worse. Basically, things shit from plants either gets as high or poisons us. More fiend is in alkaloid, so is strict nine.

Not every plant substance that gets as high is in alkaloid though, like a THC in marijuana. You know, that's a cannabinoid. Cannabinoids are any group of closely related compounds which include cannabinal and the active constituents of cannabis. THC or tetrahydro cannabinal is the chemical responsible for most of marijuana's psychological effects. And it acts much like the cannabinoid chemicals

made naturally by the body according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Yep, we already have weed in our bodies. Naturally occurring weed. You're all fucking hippies, every one of you. And there's some little part of you inside of your body that's, you know, playing some drums, listening to some grateful dead, hitting the peace pipe. I can't have annoyed receptors or constrict in certain areas of the brain associated with

thinking, memory, pleasure, coordination, and time perception. THC attaches to these receptors, activates them, affects the person's memory, pleasure, coordination and time perception. THC attaches to these receptors, activates them, affects the person's memory, pleasure, movements, thinking, concentration, coordination, right, and sensory and time perception. I mean, that time perception part. That's where weed gets me every time, and I like it because time slows way down for me on a weed. I love it. I'm like, I'm getting some bonus life right now.

I'm getting two hours for every one hour. But we're not talking about weed. We're talking about opioids. I just find all this shit fascinating. And it's interesting how weed affects the brain in a similar way to opioids as you'll see soon. Back to opiate alkaloids. The predominant opiate alkaloid making up

about 12% of, you know, opium of the opium latex, a higher percentage than any other alkaloid is morphine. Morphine is the strongest, most popular opium. Coding is the second most popular opium alkaloid. Morphine, I should have said, is the strongest, you know, like alkaloid. Makes of about 2% of opium. Coding does. When people, for example, smoke opium, they're ingesting a bit of morphine, coding, and a

variety of other, you know, alkaloids, opium, naturally current amounts. Smoking opium is smoking dried, a dried form of the poppy seed pod. Now back specifically to morphine, how is it isolated and extracted from dried opium latex? There's a few different ways now, thanks to modern science.

But here's the traditional way to do it when you're preparing it to be used illegally, not for pharmaceuticals. The way it's been done in Afghanistan, for example, for decades, raw opium has a very strong odor that can be detected easily by, say, customs officials. Not good when you're trying to sell it obviously. So it gets converted into a morphine base in order to be smuggled out of the country. To create a morphine base, opium latex is added to boiling water. The raw opium dissolves into a clear brown liquid or liquid opium, plant

scrapings, other impurities float to the top. They're scooped up tossed out, slaked lime, slaked SLAKED, aka calcium hydroxide is then added to the liquid so that the morphine alkaloid reacts with the lime to form a new opiate solution. To be clear, this kind of lime doesn't have shit to do with fruit. Not that kind of lime. this is a kind of come from limestone. Sleight lime has been used as a type of mortar, for example, for many centuries. The Romans made an ancient formate concrete by mixing lime with volcanic ash. And this kind of lime helps turn morphine powder into a stronger powder that can say, hold the shape of a brick. The solution is poured through a filter to remove any impurities such as other alkaloids,

that have sunk to the bottom Concentrated ammonia then added to the solution. It's reheated the morphine solidifies settles at the bottom of the pot A cloth then used to filter out the solid white chunks of morphine base The morphine base then wrapped into blocks dried out in the sun now those morphine bricks. That's just ready for shipment Morphine generally uses a pain reliever those morphine bricks, that's shit's ready for shipment. Morphing generally uses a pain reliever. And last anywhere from three to seven hours for street use, it's attracted because of

it's pain relieving properties. And also the feeling of euphoria that all popular opioids give you some form of. And high enough doses, it can also make you hallucinate, believe in various delusions. And the high can last anywhere from 1.5 hours to seven hours. So that's a long high. Side effects if there are any are typically nausea

and or constipation, but are rarely severe enough to warrant stopping treatment when used medically. And if the dose is too big, you can OD. You can shut down your respiratory system, you can die. You know, go into cardiac arrest, same is true for all the opioids on this list. Recreationally, the behavioral changes associated with long time morphine use present a marked

change from the way the person behaved before. Like faking injuries, hurting oneself to get a new prescription, stealing to buy morphine, not giving a fuck about anything but morphine, ignoring friends, family, hygiene, career, et cetera. Now let's talk about coding. Coding can be extracted from opium in a similar way as morphine. And it's a long and frankly boring process, unless you want to start harvesting and selling coding

or studying to become a pharmacist or drug historian or something. So I'm not going to get into the nitty gritty details. This alkaloid can be separated from morphine and other alkaloids in a few different ways. Coding not as potent as morphine, typically used to treat moderate pain. Also proven to be an effective cough suppressants, like I mentioned earlier, it also be used

to treat diarrhea or irritable bowel syndrome. Coding interestingly works following being broken down by the liver into morphine. Like other opioids, it's addictive, common side effects, drowsiness, constipation. The high is again, some euphoric feelings, milder than morphine, possible to hallucinate and experience delusion still though. Coding cough syrup became popular to ingest recreationally in the 90s, I remember this,

in a form called purple drink, purple drink. It was Coding cough syrup, mixed with spright, great crush, mountain dew, or some other soda, and then also mixed with jolly ranch ranchers or another type of hard candy. Sometimes also mixed with pro methanine and antihistamine or dextramorphin, oh my god dextramathorfen. Another cough suppressant in the form of robotocin or some other equivalent. Purple drank, also called dirty sprite, purple jelly, scissorpor p Texas T lean and robo tripping I'd only heard of purple drank and robo tripping

I had some friends who would go robo tripping in the late 90s and if there to be believed they said they saw all kinds of shit Said the trip through balls off Um, you know, they also had a lot of other drugs in their systems I once again, of course people have died from overdoses on this and continue to die. Next up, heroin, processed morphine, smack, H, junk, China white, the beast, the horse, the bear company, B-A-E-R, right maker of aspirin. They started the commercial production of heroin

and the US and 1898, marketed as a wonder drug, especially effective in treating respiratory diseases. A lot of people already suffering from consumption, tuberculosis, soon we're also now heroin addicts, but their cough was better. As a result of a massive rise in addiction, Congress made it illegal to make import or sell heroin when it passed the Anti-Hairwin Act in 1924.

Hairwin in recent years shows up in three main forms, black tar, brown powder, and white powder. Each kind of heroin contains slightly different ingredients, and all are likely to have various other substances added. These can add to the drug's potency, in some cases, making it even more dangerous. How long to hide from heroin last, how quickly you feel high, as with other opioids depends on how you ingest it. Herwin used by injection produces a high within seconds, peaks around two hours,

lasts for up to four hours or longer. But the beginning of the peak can start in just a few minutes. For people who snorted or smoke it, the effects of heroin hits you in about 10 minutes, while the nodding aftermath longs, lasts as long as four to five hours. Harrowing hits you with an intense euphoric feeling that sometimes like the peak of it will last less than 10 minutes. Over time, the intensity duration of this euphoria reduced significantly. Drowsiness and a sensation of a disconnection with the world may also occur.

The stages of a heroin high are somewhat unique for each person, but it usually follows the similar process of, you know, first comes a quick feeling of nausea, followed by a rush, depending on a user's tolerance. The rush may last up to 20 minutes. During this time, the user may have the sensation that his or her body is made of liquid. A heavy feeling in their extremities. And sometimes the not as nice feeling of burning hot skin with heat originating from inside your body. After the initial rush, mental function and becomes foggy, then the heart rate breathing become profoundly slower, possibly to the point of being life threatening, which then of course can result in coma, permanent brain damage, or death. Heroin is more fiend that has undergone

a sedalation. And what is a sedalation? It's a reaction usually with a sedic acid or a cedic acid that induces or Introduces in a a settle radical into an organic compound. What does that all actually mean? I don't I fucking have no idea Really digging into some of the ways these drugs differ just led me to sources that were nothing but medical journals Where I would say 40% of the words I was reading were hard to pronounce To explain all the medical speak would require very long and painfully boring explanation for most people and it would be very frustrating to hear my mouth trying to live it about why different forms of morphine

work faster and stronger than other forms. For our purposes here, just know that heroin is the street form of morphine and after it's put through that process of a sedalation, it's pain-releaving euphoric and possible hallucinogenic effects are amplified. To make it a mixture of heroin-based, AKA that morphine that was processed to be smuggled out earlier, like with a slate lime and all that, the bricks.

Teeded at 85 degrees Celsius, 185 degrees Fahrenheit for two hours with acetic or acetic acid. During this time, the morphine dissolves and when cooking is completed, the mixture cools and the morphine and the acid chemically bond to form heroin. Next, water is added to the mixture

to now dissolve the heroin. Sodium carbonate, a common ingredient in soaps, added to the heroin solution to create a heroin base, 2.5 pounds of sodium carbonate, per pound of morphine. And a pound, 16 ounces of morphine will end up making about 11 ounces of heroin. This process basically purifies the morphine-based further, makes it a stronger opiate.

When injected directly into a vein, right? heroin has two to the three times the effect of a similar dose of morphine, thanks to this refinement method, two to three times stronger. The heroin-based then typically mixed with other substances substances such as sugar, starch, caffeine, quinine, other opioids like fentanyl. This is another reason the shit is so fucking dangerous. You don't know who's mixing it with what. Just like with cocaine heroin can be cut into all sorts of ways to turn a little bit of

pure heroin into a lot of street heroin to greatly increase drug dealer profits. This makes me think of all these gangster movies. I've watched where a drug deal's going down, you know, in some big kingpin buyer wants to taste the product. You know, they put a little in their tongue, maybe rub in their gums, snored a little bit, whatever. Why do they do that? To make sure it's pure.

To make sure that they're buying, you know, in this example, pure heroin, and not just a bunch of fucking baking soda or something. Sometimes really horrible shit's mixed in, like black shoe polish, seriously. Sometimes black tar heroin mixed with shoe polish to make it look darker and cooler, and to dilute it, make it more profitable.

And shoe polish, if you didn't know this for some reason, not good for you. Shocking, right? Not supposed to eat shoe polish. Sometimes, harmless shits is mixed in to dilute it like a flour, talc, powdered milk, and very sugars. When I was in Amsterdam years ago, a buddy of mine bought what he thought was coke and it was nothing but flour.

I always think about whoever sold it to him. What a great business model. Are you kidding me? Just bag up little bits of flour. Celatum American tourists, call it cocaine or heroin, whatever they're looking for. Celatum Graham, a flower, to people already fucking hammer drunk. They don't know what they're doing. Sell to them for up to 150 bucks, make about 149 bucks a pop.

That's a solid markup. Next up, oxycodone. The first truly synthetic lab created opioid. Originally made, still made, for a medical purpose. All the rest of these opioids will be lab-born. Oxycodone, just a brand name for OxyCodone. OxyCodone highly addictive made by artificially modifying the vein. Another one of those alkaloids found in opium, right?

A cousin of morphine and codi. And it is fucking crazy that one random flower has so much shit inside its little fruit that can fuck you up in so many different ways, right? And a little seeds right next to all these opium alkaloids, seeds, you know, covered in that latex, they're actually not bad for us at all. Don't plug us up one bit. Poppy seeds, rich in fiber, healthy fats,

several micronutrients, an excellent source of manganese. Manganese is great, helps the body form connective tissue, bones, blood clotting factors, sex hormones, plays a role in fat and carbohydrate, metabolism calcium absorption, blood sugar regulation, manganese also necessary for normal brain and nerve function. How much shit is in one plant? Plus the opium poppy was created by ancient wizards, or witches or something. Is it loose afina, or maybe it's help make it?

I wouldn't doubt it. It's a magic whipped up by her Nimrod. Back to the vein now, another alkaloid. The Bane very chemically similar to both morphine and coating. Makes sense? Interestingly though, it has stimulatory rather than depressant effects. So it's going to give you a lot of the same euphoria and pain relieving properties. You know, it's also found in both poppy pods and the stalks beneath them, but not going

to make you sleepy. Right? Same high. more alert. Like other opioid, analgesics, oxycodone tends to induce feelings of euphoria, relaxation, reducing anxiety, and occasional users. The most common side effects, constipation, feeling sick, and for some reason, with some people, they get unlucky, and they do feel sleepy. You can ingest it like other opioids in a variety of ways, you can crush it, you can snort it, you can shove it up your ass via a suppository, heat it up, shoot it in your veins, smoke it, rub the powder in your gums, etc.

And the U.S. oxycodone is approved only for use by mouth. Available as either a tablet or as an oral liquid solution. Most commonly oxycodone available is a controlled release tablet, intended to be taken every 12 hours and used medically for pain management. Now up oxymorphone. While oxymorphone is generally prescribed for moderate pain, oxymorphone for more potent and more severe pain. Typically like post-surgical pain. It's either injective via a needle or in pill form and either in an immediate release form or extended release form and the extended release usually a tablet brand names are Neymorfen Opanna among others Started being used back in 1959 and in 2017 the FDA actually asked manufacturers to then remove it from the US medical market

Due to this opioid epidemic and they have complied also derived from the bane from the bane like oxycontin But synthesized to be twice as strong. So it's the ripple version of oxycontin now for another oh don't Rhymes with the sorry hydrocodone. Oh my god. I'm gonna read my own note there started to Just so I wouldn't say like now for another another Odin, like the North God, I wrote Odon and I wrote rhymes with cone. Good note, I'm rehydrocodone. Like codine, hydrocodone is used as a pain reliever and as a cough suppressant. It's often combined with acetaminophen.

Why can I say that word easily? And some other ones just escaped me. Tylenol is a popular example of a acetaminophen or it's mixed with an ibuprofen. Advol is a popular form of ibup, Jesus Christ, it jinxed myself. ibuprofen, generally sold in pill form to treat moderate pain. About half as strong as oxycontin. First patented in 1923, most commonly prescribed

in the US by far. In 2010, 99% of all prescribed hydrocodone was prescribed in the US. We fucking love us. Some hydrocodone. What we did, it's derived from coding to be a stronger form of coding. Oh, no, wait, we do still have this one. So I got my mind for a second. I got this oxymorphone.

Oh, no, it is the one that's no longer. They all sound so similar. This is the one that is no longer sold. I'm talking about a lot of people who are talking about the most of the people who are talking about the most of the most of the people who are talking about the most of the most of the people who are talking about the most of the most of the people who are talking about the most of the most of the people who are talking about the most of the most of the people who are talking about the most of the most of the people who are talking about the most of the most of the people who are talking about the most of the

most of the people who are talking about the most of the most of the people who are talking about the most of the most of the people who are talking about the most of the most of the people who are talking about the most of the most of the people who are talking about the most of the just a hydrocodone, a set of fetamine, a set of, Jesus Christ, a seat of metapheam combination. I took some vikin' after back surgery in my late 20s and man did that shit make me feel good. Not a care in the world with enough vikin' into my system. I didn't know it was narcotic. I just knew that I really liked it.

I immediately understood why some people abused prescription pills. I remember after just one round of those pills thinking like, oh, I could get used to this. Whatever problems, you know, I felt like I was having at the time when I had enough vikin' into my system like, oh, I could get used to this. Whatever problems, you know, I felt like I was having the time when I had enough viking into my system, like, oh, no longer problems. Only half as strong as OxyContin.

But that's scary. Never been a big pill guy, man. Viking in is the only prescription I've ever abused recreationally. It scared me because I generally don't feel like I have a real addictive personality. Don't worry about getting hooked on something, but with viking in, I saw myself getting, you know,

real hooked, real quick if I've always been careful. And OxyCon, more addictive. Three more starting with BuPraNorfine. BuPraNorfine. These last three, 100% lab made. They are opioids that are not derived from any form of opium. Scientists who studied morphine, coating, the vein, other alkaloids thought, well, this shit's really strong.

How can we make it so much stronger? And they made this stuff. Shit that really helps some people absolutely annihilates others. Their opioid moniker comes from the fact that despite not being derived from opium, they do bind with opioid receptors in the brain just as opioids derive from opium due. How they're made is a long process involving numerous chemical agents and lots of big words known only primarily to a small slice of the medical field. Bupra norfine used to treat again pain,

also to treat opioid use disorder, which means it's an opioid sometimes used by people with withdrawals as they try to wean themselves off of an opioid addiction. Proof for clinical use in October 2002 by the FDA. And this shit, yeah, this shit is fucking strong. Anywhere from 20 to 50 times more potent than morphine, depending on how it's administered.

But not as addictive and interestingly, not as dangerous. There's a lower risk for overdose with it based on how it binds to opioid receptors. We'll get into that soon. But you're nephrine can suppress breathing like other opioids, but has a ceiling effect in it that limits the danger of overdose even as more is consumed. That effect diminishes, though, if the drug is taken with tranquilizers or alcohol, and then death can result. And it is often used in conjunction with other drugs. Recreationally, it often shows up on

the street as suboxone. Suboxone is mixture of puenephyrene and naloxone Naloxone is a fucking miracle drug. It's administered on its own via an nasal spree nasal spray or intravenously used to rapidly reverse an opioid overdose. It is an opioid antagonist Analoxone blocks the effects of the opioid medication pu but you're nephrine. And when mixed with butanephrine, suboxone floods your dopamine receptors. Makes you feel real good. Shows up in pill form and the pills are known on the street, commonly as stop signs, boop,

sobo's, subbys, or oranges. The feelings of getting high, similar to other opioids, usually just not as intense. Sometimes these are crushed, crushed the pills, snort them for rapid introduction into the bloodstream, a little bit more intensity. Its use is not real widespread because the high again, just not as intense, is a lot of other opioids, but it does have some appeal because it's a lot cheaper than most other opioids. And this is from a 2007 Baltimore Sun article. Urban Fegan, a 36 a 36 year old recovering heroin addict from West Baltimore, first brought

or first bought suboxone on city streets last year for about five bucks a pill. He saw it, he saw it to make it through the rough spots that arose when he couldn't buy heroin. These days, I couldn't get $10 or $20 for heroin or the days, excuse me, the days I couldn't get $10 or $20 for heroin. I'd buy boop, if you can say it. Two more. Okay, first up, methadone. Methadone sold under the brand name's Delofin and methadose is another opioid use like

Bueneffarine for both pain management and opioid addiction treatment. First approved by the FDA in 1947. Rarely snorted or shot up, usually taken orally via a pill, a wafer, or a liquid solution. And like you're nepharine, of course, gets used recreationally. Emergency room visits related to non medical use of methadone rose 73% from 2004 to 2008. Under most circumstances, a personal experience pain relief from about four to eight hours, but not the euphoria of other opioids. Methadone blocks the effects that make one feel high from other more popular opioids like heroin, morphine, hydrocodone, oxycodone.

But it can definitely still make you feel real chill and real good, no pain. Even though methadone can be used to get you off, say heroin, you can also then get addicted to methadone. And the side effects can be wide-raging and fucking insane. Many of these side effects also apply to the other drugs on this list. It's just too repetitive to list them out every time. But check out this fucking nightmare. Adverse effects of methadone can include, and this is just a partial list, constipation,

heat intolerance, dizziness, weakness, exhaustion, insomnia, nausea, vomiting, low blood pressure, headaches, chest pain, abnormal heart rhythms, weight gain, memory loss, difficulty urinating, swelling of the hands, arms, feet and legs, blurred vision, decreased libido, impotence. Watch this big deal, it happened happened to many guys more than this, not the problem. Difficulty in reaching orgasm. Then, if you deal with some of this shit and you stop taking methadone,

now you can deal with a variety of horrific withdrawal symptoms. They can include, but are not limited to, spontaneous orgasm. Ain't that a bitch? Go from not being able to come to coming randomly. That's awesome. Lightheadedness, more nausea, vomiting, more diarrhea now, fever, sweating, chills, tremors, severe body aches, increased heart rate, high blood pressure that can lead to a stroke, elevated pain sensitivity, suicidal ideation, depression, delirium, auditory,

visual, even olfactory hallucinations. Yep, you can start seeing, hearing, and smelling shit does not real. You can also experience feelings of anxiety, agitation, paranoia, panic, apathy, delusional thoughts, even anorexia. So fuck yeah, bro. Opioids can sometimes really help you, but holy shit, can they rock your fucking world? Last one, really bad boy. And currently, the one most people believe to be the most dangerous opioid of them all I think it's not even a close race is fentanyl fentanyl is 80 to 100 times stronger than morphine About 50 times stronger than heroin sweet Jesus

I was first approved for medical use in the United States in 1968 after Satan himself made it in hell's laboratory. No, Janssen, pharmaceutical, a Belgian company, made it in 1959. That company later bought out by Johnson and Johnson and it was made to be administered as a powerful pain reliever and as an anesthetic numbs your body so you can't feel anything and can be operated on. Super popular as spinal anesthesia. The most popular drug of that kind in the US, it acts fast within five to ten minutes

and lasts from one to two hours. It's also a popular epidural for childbirth. And if you moms might have had fentanyl, not even know it. Has a lot of useful purposes. Combat medics use it and have used it or did use it. Excuse me, in Afghanistan to treat military personnel injured, for example, in IED blasts, proper because it acts fast and is super strong. A fentanyl is used mostly in cancer patients,

are those suffering from terrible chronic pain. And it can shut down your respiratory system like other opioids, but because it's so fucking strong, it can do it really fast and really teeny tiny amounts. Just two milligrams is a fatal dose for most people who have not built up a tolerance, you know, when injected intravenously. That amount is so small. There's a pick online of that much fentanyl powder next to a penny, and it's not enough

to even cover the year the penny was made in. It's like one shake of salt's worth of powder. The illustrate house stupid, strong, the shit is in Ohio police officer in 2017 pulled over two guys in a traffic stop. They tried stomping out some fentanyl, right? They had, they're trying to destroy evidence of an narcotic in their car. They had on the floorboards just stomping it down there, you know, trying to make it settle in, blend into the dirt down there. And the fucking dust sent into the air caused this officer to OD in minutes. He started slurring his words less than 60 seconds after talking to the suspects, right?

He's outside the car. Just talking to him through an open window, started having trouble breathing less than a minute after that. Dude would have died if EMTs hadn't shown up and given him the nasal spray Narcan, aka Naloxone. Excuse me, that opioid antagonist we learned about a bit earlier, that drug that attaches to opioid receptors and blocks and reverses opioid effects, and does it quickly,

again, pretty miraculous bit of modern chemistry. Yeah, so this thing is so, so powerful, and it's wicked addictive, more addictive than heroin, the most powerful and powerfully addictive opioid out of the market. So why does anyone fuck around with fentanyl? Who needs something so much stronger than heroin? Well, most people who take it, most people who die of fentanyl overdose don't even know

that they've taken it. It was snuck in, it was cut in and mixed with whatever else they were using because of money. The stuff is made in a lab, it's not harvested from poppy fields, and it's way cheaper to produce. In 2019, a kilo of heroin cost around $50,000, whereas a kilo of fentanyl cost around $3,000. So it's like heroin, if heroin was way stronger

and on sale for 94% off. And because it's so much cheaper, so much more powerful, so addictive, Shady ass street drug manufacturers will cut other drugs down with fentanyl, press into pills, mix it into powders, et cetera, street level dealers often don't even know that the shits are selling has been mixed, you know, the fendels been mixed into heroin, cocaine, Xanax, oxycon, et cetera. It'll even sometimes get mixed in with meth. So one of the fucking main problems of street drugs

is that you often have no clue what you're actually getting. And neither does your dealer in many cases. This drug is pretty new as far as common recreational use goes. It's only been hitting the streets the past few years. Before that, only available in a medical setting. Because it's led to another huge spike in overdoses, fentanyl test trips can now be commonly bought.

You can get them on Amazon, used to test for the presence of fentanyl and injectable drugs, powders, and pills. Rates of overdose deaths involving synthetic opioids other than methadone, which include fentanyl and fentanyl analogs increased over 16% from 2018 to 2019. Overdose deaths involving synthetic opioids nearly 12 times higher in 2019 than in 2013 Thanks almost entirely defenal So how do all these opioids actually work like exactly why do they make us feel high? one word

magic All right, let's move on to the next section. Let's get into that time suck timeline now and go over the history of the relationship between us meat sacks and opioids. Shrap on those boots soldier. We're marching down a time suck timeline. Come on, JK, Castang, that'll be shitty. For real though, how do opioids work? We meet sex are born with natural opioid receptors throughout our bodies.

Mainly these receptors are clustered in the brain, spinal cord, and throughout our gastrointestinal tracks. Opioid receptors are part of our endogenous opioid system, which is the body's internal system for regulating pain, reward, and addictive behaviors. And this system regulates feelings of pleasure, relief, and moods. Studies have even shown they can affect feelings of attachment or basically love. So if you're in dodging a opioid system, it's sufficiently fucked up from, say,

abusing opioids over a long period of time, you essentially cannot feel love anymore. Like, how terrible is that? You won't feel attached to your partner, family friends, or I'm sorry, family friends, family friends, whatever. And also, by manipulating the system, the feeling of love can be 100% manufactured, right? Get high enough and you can truly feel like you love someone, like you're really attached to someone, a person you otherwise might not give a fuck about. It's crazy. Certain neurochemicals naturally produce in our brains will bind these opioid receptors in response to various situations, moods, interactions, etc. And these

neurochemicals are responsible for as I just went over feelings of pleasure, pain, well-being, etc. The brains naturally produce neurotransmitters such as endorphins, also known to decrease pain, which can make you feel great, right? And even prevent some symptoms of depression. Also, importantly, to how opioids can kill you, these neurotransmitters help regulate respiration. They help calm you down, which is good, but calming you down can also involve slowing down your breathing, which can be real bad. Relax, you're breathing too much, and you stop breathing altogether and you die. Coming back to feeling good, opioids are appealing because you can trick your body into

releasing more endorphins than it would ever do naturally on its own. And we'll get into cardiac rest as another way. And a second, this stuff can kill you. You've experienced feelings of pleasure that are truly impossible to replicate naturally with this stuff. Sorry, people who like to throw out cliches like, I'm high on life. Good for you. Truly, glad that you feel great naturally, but you do not feel as good as you would if you were

high on heroin or some other opioid. It's just not possible. That's part of their appeal. They can make you feel better than it's possible to feel like without them. In its natural state, the brain just does not ever produce large amounts of these neurochemicals. For example, if you were to break, you know, your arm, your brain would produce pain relieving neurotransmitters to treat that pain, but not enough to have your arm not hurt at all. It would still hurt quite a bit. With enough non-natural opioids in your system, flooding your opioid receptors, you don't go fuck about your arm. If you could somehow stay awake while you're doing it, you might be able to try and just cut your arm off. You could

probably do it if you didn't bleed to death. You just cut your arm off and be like, no, I'm fine. Feels great. Synthetic opioid drugs, opiates, and opium will attach to opioid receptors, flooding the brain and body with lots and lots of extra endorphins, and also additional dopamine that produces extreme highs and blocks feelings of pain. Dopamine, similar to endorphins, but not endorphin. It's a neurotransmitter. A chemical released by neurons, aka nerve cells, to send signals to other nerve cells. It's a mood-boosting

neurotransmitter released after you reach a goal. Part of the reward circuit in your brain that helps to motivate you towards completing more tasks. In a higher amount of endorphins being flooded in your system, typically leads to more dopamine production. Endorphins and dopamine are like co-workers. To help explain how endorphins and dopamine work together, say you're an idiot and you decide to torture yourself by doing something really fucking stupid, like running a marathon. Take it kind of. I don't actually think it's stupid, I just don't know how the hell you run or do it.

But you might feel motivated to participate in a marathon because of your dopamine reward system, which as you actually train is further reinforced by the endorphins that are released during the actual act of participating in the running. Then when you complete the marathon, your dopamine reward system rewards you big time with the big boost of good for you. You did it. Happy chemicals. Right.

That's a special feeling of accomplishment. That's powered by dopamine. In the marathon example, endorphins are the quicker acting feelings, the runners high, you experienced during the marathon while dopamine is the long acting after glow, the euphoric feeling of a men's satisfaction once you cross the finish line. Now what if you could get all those feelings, not run it all, but a sip by popping a pill or snorting some rails or shooting into a vein, etc. That is part of the appeal of opioids.

And what if you could feel like you just completed a hundred marathon in world fucking record time, back to back to back to back to back to back. Even though you can't run a full block of real life if your life depended on it. That's how the appeal of these drugs. Again, when someone takes opioids, the chemicals and the drugs attach to the receptors, cause the receptors to go into overdrive.

Opioids mimic the brain's naturally occurring opioids, but to a much more extreme degree. Our brains and bodies, they can't tell if the opioids they're primed to receive and respond to are natural or synthetic. A drug like heroin creates tidal wave in the reward circuits of our brains. On the inside, you feel like a true master of the universe.

Like your being is one heroin user said, hugged by Jesus. No wonder they're addictive. Anyone to experience that? Right, why wouldn't you want to experience that again? Let's look further now at why they're addictive. Our dopamine-based reward system drives us to repeat natural things we enjoy,

or need to do to survive, like eating when we're hungry. Also, our brains create lasting records or memories that associate good feelings with the circumstances and environment in which they occur. These memories called conditioned associations often lead us to crave the drug that made us feel so good. The brain responds to opioids and the surges and dopamine they cause can also rewire circuits in the brain.

Where essentially animals get in signals to say, this is good, repeat it. Come on, more, more heroin. These memories make it harder to stay away from using again when the abuser re-encounters the people, places, the smells, the sounds, etc., associated with previous usage. From a clinical standpoint, opioid withdrawal is the most powerful factor driving opioid dependence. Repeat the exposure to escalating dosages of opioids, alter the brains so that it functions

more or less normally when the drugs are present, and then abnormally when they're not. How fucked is that? Opioid tolerance occurs because the brain cells that have opioid receptors on them gradually become less responsive to opioid stimulation. More opioid is now needed to produce pleasure comparable to that provided in previous drug taking episodes. Pretty soon, your natural opioid levels become so low

thanks to opioid tolerance, thanks to your brains chemistry getting all fucked up that there are now not enough opioids naturally present in your system to suppress certain brain activity that can lead to jitters, anxiety, muscle cramps, diarrhea, a whole bunch of other nastiness like the withdrawal symptoms I talked about earlier. Now you're going into withdrawal. How terrible. Now you feel way less happy normally than you did before you started taking opioids. Right, you feel way more pain than you did before you started taking opioids.

And you probably started taking opioids because you weren't happy and felt pain in the first fucking place. Now you can sick if you don't get high. And even when you do get high, the high not as good as it was at first because your opioid receptors are all fucking jaded and bitter. It's like the difference between being excited about music the first time.

Right when you really start to discover, you know bands for yourself and How someone feels about music after they've worked in a record shop for 25 fucking years. That's a difference We like the first heroin hit and maybe you know the 300th. You know your brain has gone from that first high of like holy shit Oh my god, this is the best. I didn't know that sound could feel so good you know, the 300th. You know, your brain has gone from that first high of like, holy shit! Oh my God, this is the best! I didn't know that sound could feel so good. It's like an ear orgasm. It feels like it's gonna last forever.

But then 25 years later, or 100 opiate highs in, your brain is like, yeah, yeah, fuck whatever. Every single band you just mentioned has ripped off both the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. And the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and the Beatles and the Rolling Stones hacks They ripped off Buddy Holly and Elvis and those motherfuckers ripped off Little Richard and Chuck Berry No one makes original music kid. Why would they stupid young fucks like you consistently reward mediocrity now get out of my story to bag a dicks I'm closing early. I hate music almost as much as I hate stupid customers like yourself

I'm closing early. I hate music almost as much as I hate stupid customers like yourself. Right? That's like the level you're reaching way in. How evil that these things take you to the highest of highs once, then you just chase that dragon until you quit or you die trying. Let's talk a little more now about how they can kill you, how they can stop your breathing in an overdose and also kill you in other related ways. Opioids impact many different parts of the brain of body and not just feelings of euphoria

and pain management. They affect the brain stem, which control things like respiratory function and cardiac rates. Opioids taking a large amount can interfere with receptors between the brain and the lungs, also the heart causing the heart rate to slow down or even stop. As breathing slows, oxygen levels fall, which may trigger abnormal heart rhythms. Lips, fingernails begin to turn blue, signaling the lack of oxygen. In some cases, this can lead to cardiac arrests.

Your heart just does not get in the right signals from your brain to keep pumping. Opioid overdoses can also cause respiratory depression, which slows a person's breathing sometimes to the point of not breathing. An opioid overdose can also cause pulmonary edema, a fluid leak that fills up the airspace of the lungs. That fluid can cause foaming at the mouth, because the gag reflex also suppressed by the opioid effects, the person may be unable to swallow or spit, which can lead to choking. Vomiting as a result of an overdose can lead to aspiration, which can lead to choking.

You can just choke on your own vomit. In an overdose, your body is unable to handle the drug and your breathing slows or stops. Yeah, during an overdose, a lot of terrible shit can go wrong with your body. Vane can collapse. A person's bloodstream can become filled with opioids, which can suppress normal blood flow throughout the body. When too many opioids enter the brain, oxygen flow becomes limited. Permanent brain damage can occur with only four minutes of oxygen deprivation. Opioid overdose can

also cause seizures, which can further damage the brain. Permanent brain damage can leave people paralyzed, unable to speak. Your body's getting the wrong messages, right? Slow everything down. More. Further. Slow the heart rate. Slow the breathing. Relax the neck. More until you're gone. Opioid abuse can also damage your heart and increase your risk of having cardiac arrest long after you've quit taking them. So maybe don't fuck around with opioids. I'm pretty loosey-goosey with a lot of drugs, but these fuckers have always scared me.

But they don't scare everyone. Let's now look at a very different perspective on all this. Let's hear from some people whose lives have not been ruined by long-term opioid use and recreational use. People who believe that opioids have only enhanced their lives, mostly here from one person, but also a little bit from a few others, historically. It is book Drug Use for grown-ups chasing liberty in the land of fear, tenured professor at Columbia University, neurology, researcher Carl L. Hart claims that drug, opiate use in particular, not as dangerous as we may think. I did order that book so I can read the whole thing someday when I have more free time.

A very well reviewed book, this guy in noted academic, currently a psychology department chairperson at Columbia University, a neuroscientist specializing in drug abuse and drug addiction. And Hart has taken a controversial perspective on opiates, made even more controversial by the fact that heart, himself, is a practicing opioid user. In the prologue, he writes, I am now entering my fifth year as a regular heroin user.

He couldn't imagine using heroin grown up or any other hard drugs. He wrote that while grown up in hard circumstances in Miami, heart bottom to the widespread belief that smoking crack is like putting a gun in your mouth and pulling the trigger. As one PSA he saw put it. He believed that many of the social ills he saw growing up in low income in a low-income

neighborhood was due to the pervasiveness and addictiveness of drugs. And then in 1986, heart-listened in disbelief, as James Baldwin, his intellectual hero, argued for the legalization of drugs. Baldwin thought that the only effect of then-recently past anti-drug abuse act would be the incarceration of poor and marginalized people and not the halt of drug use. He was right. The anti-drug abuse act passed in 1986 by the Reagan administration. Chains the system of federal supervised release from a rehabilitative system into a punitive system.

Heart when he was a younger man in 1986, he didn't agree with Baldwin. He thought drug addicts and low level dealers should be put into prison, do what's necessary to stop the spread of destructive narcotics. But as he came to research neurology later and became a drug user himself,

he started to push back on the idea that drugs are inherently evil, the destroyers of people in neighborhoods. Heart studied the neurochemistry of different drugs for years, including crack cocaine, meth, and opioids. And he summarized his research in a very interesting way. He said, I discovered that the predominant effects produced by the drugs discussed in this book are positive. It didn't matter whether the drug in question was cannabis, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, or

psilocybin. The positive effects, heart-sites include greater empathy, altruism, gratitude, and sense of purpose. For heart-personally coming home and smoking heroin at the end of the day helps them to suspend the perpetual preparation for battle that goes on in my head. He doesn't think, from an anecdotal perspective or from a scientific perspective that drugs aren't evil. He points out that if we're going to start calling some drugs or the drugs are evil,

he points out that if we're going to start calling some drugs bad and some drugs good, we should probably look at a cytomedicine, aka Tylenol, which is the number one cause of liver damage in the US. He also pushes back on the idea that drugs harm the brain. For example, hearted and deep investigation into a study conducted in 2014 by researchers at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Northwestern University, which claimed to find through MRI evidence that marijuana use damages young people's brains. In the study, the researchers compared brain sizes of 20 cannabis users with 20 control participants by scanning the brain of each

participant once. The result was that the by scanning the brain of each participant once. The result was that the part of the brain belonging to the cannabis users was on average slightly larger than the corresponding part in the non-candabis users, and not in a good way abnormal enlargement, but heart points out that these people were only scanned once, meaning those brain differences could have been just been there since birth, just like people are taller or shorter than the average person, so some people have bigger, smaller sections of their brains. The second aspect of the study was that cannabis users also reported using tobacco and alcohol.

And since there wasn't a control group, the consumed cannabis, but no tobacco and no alcohol, it couldn't be proven that cannabis was responsible for the brain difference and not alcohol or tobacco. The third thing that heart stress is about the study is that it didn't include behavioral or cognitive testing. Just measurements about relative brain or relative brain size.

He says it's highly likely that if both groups were given tests that measured complex learning or memory, they would have performed equally well or equally poorly. Basically, he's saying that it doesn't mean it's worse if your brain is working properly. You know, sorry, basically, he's saying that bigger doesn't mean worse if your brain is working properly, you know, sorry, basically he's saying that bigger doesn't mean worse if the brain is working properly based on testing cognitive performance.

Even more troubling for Hart with this study than the erroneous conclusions he feels the scientist drew was the way the media handled the findings. Headlines in the Washington Post and the New York Times proclaimed, even casually smoking marijuana can change your brain, study finds. And recreational pot use harmful to young people's brains.

So, you know, they had a knee jerk overly emotional reaction to the story, possibly. Possibly sensationalized, weird. I will give back to media bias in a second. First, a little more about Hart's position. It's important to note that Hart's argument does not deal with addiction. He emphasizes that he's talking about drug use for grownups by which he means people who can still do their jobs, meet their obligations to their families and communities, and don't do damage to their overall health as a side effect of their drug use. Heart sites have figured that 70% are more of drug users, whether they use alcohol,

cocaine, prescription medicine, other drugs, do not make the criteria for drug addiction. He writes about how research shows repeatedly the serious, negative issues only affect 10 to 30% of those who even use the most stigmatized drugs, such as opioids or methamphetamines. According to Hart's argument, this is a problem not only because the issue of addiction itself may be overblown, but also because it becomes all we can talk about when we talk about drug use.

Making drug use seem like in every instance like a huge problem. This he says, you know, a media bias has affected the opioid crisis in a big way. He writes, recreational drug use is an activity engaged in by millions of closeted adults around the globe. Media coverage of the current so-called opioid crisis is but one clear example of the pervasive spread of misinformation about drugs and the people who partake of them. This type of coverage has made it damn near impossible for rational adults to acknowledge publicly

their recreational opioid use. He fights against the media a lot with this perspective. He writes, the stories about the opioid crisis sell everything from newspapers to documentary films and without drug law violators to punish a tremendous amount of people would be unemployed, meaning everyone from prosecutors to journalists to prison wardens. He also thinks the way deaths are reported often incorrectly in his opinion has led us

to thinking the opioid epidemic is not, um, is, you know, like, as it's worse than it is. For instance, just because the media may report a certain number of opioid related deaths, that doesn't mean that people did for sure die thanks to opioids. For example, in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, collect mortality data from death certificates, which contain the cause of the person's death. The certificates themselves are filled out by thousands of different individuals across the country, with each date determining its own standards and requirements for individuals

conducting investigations into cause of death. As a result, death investigators vary widely in terms of how they're trained, how much experience they have. Medical examiners, for example, are physicians with special training in forensic pathology, whereas coroners are not required to have any medical training, except in a handful of states. Corners are elicited by the voting public, which means any eligible voter can become a coroner regardless of their knowledge in most states.

These different standards can and do produce considerable variation in the collection and reporting of cause of death data, including drug overdoses. Adding to this is the variety of circumstances surrounding opioid related deaths. In most cases, heart says more than one substance is found in the body of the deceased and concentrations of drugs are not determined, making it very difficult, if not impossible, to attribute the death to one single drug. So when the media claims it's so and so, you know, a diet of a drug overdose and such and such drug cause the death, that's not necessarily the case.

If it's alcohol and fentanyl, is it alcohol? Is it fentanyl? Is it, you know, both? Just one. Related point is that the fatal overdoses that involve multiple drugs in an individual death can be counted more than once. If the body contains three drugs, for example, three separate overdoses can be reported. The alternative death toll then overstates the total death toll and hinders the public's

ability to get an accurate picture of what's actually going on. I didn't know that could be done actually with death reporting. A recent report published in the Journal of Science reveals even more problems with the current systems of tracking fatal overdoses. In about three quarters of the deaths, no drug is listed on the death certificate. I'm sorry, in about a quarter, excuse me, of the deaths, no drug is listed on the death certificate. And in many jurisdictions, corners have the ability to test for some drugs, but not for others.

Even when they do have the ability to test for a wide range of drugs, they can be motivated to test for a specific set by media attention to a particular set of drugs, as well as their own beliefs about which drugs are the most dangerous. So it can all get pretty subjective. But the presence of fentanyl can be tested for, you know, can be tested for easily and someone who has died and it has shown up more and more in recent years and deaths listed as overdoses. So how can that be incorrect reporting? Regarding fentanyl, Hart says that the problem is the same as with the people who take multiple drugs at the same time. Not that the issue is drug consumption, but it's more ignorance.

That was better public health campaigns, more openness about recreational drug use, which drugs not to mix together. People would know what not drugs, yeah, what drugs they should not mix. They would test them more. They would have more opioid antagonists on hand, like Naloxone, that miracle drug that, you know, can stop an overdose. I mean, currently you need a prescription for that, but why? Why not make that so much more widely available so people can help friends not OD.

Heart doesn't say that opioids and other drugs are harmless. He just argues that if they were legal, if they were less taboo, we could learn more about them. If education was better, if less were less taboo, we could learn more about them. If education was better, if less money was directed at incarceration and more at rehabilitation, society would be better. Statistically, less overdose deaths, less drug-related crime, actually, less overall economic cost to society. And I've already made this argument as well.

Back in suck 239 and El Chapo, the scene of lower-car sale on the war on drugs, right? Took a look at Portugal, a country with the most relaxed drug laws in Europe, if not the back in suck 239 and El Chapo, the scene of lower cards held on the war on drugs, right? Took a look at Portugal, a country with the most relaxed drug laws in Europe. If not the world today, examine this crime and overdose rates and found out they're better than ours. Not sure I would agree with Hart on opioids, specifically being a good thing directly, recreationally use. However, I've never given them a real chance.

And probably won't definitely never given, you know, heroin chance or fentanyl. I don't think I will. Hard is not the only successful person to be claiming to claim though, being a functioning opiate user. Famous jazz singer Billy holiday once said, heroin not only kept me alive, but it also kept me from killing. I can love that quote. Holiday also died from cirrhosis at the liver at the age of 44, brought on by alcohol

abuse though, maybe not the best example of drugs are fine. Holiday also died from cirrhosis at the liver at the age of 44, brought on by alcohol abuse, though. Maybe not the best example of drugs or fine. Marcus Aurelius, one of Roman Empire's greatest emperors, famous for his book Meditations, which continues to inspire modern leaders. He was an opioid user, or opiate user, never physically a strong man. However, being an emperor of Rome, Marcus was expected to lead his army because of his friend illness. He was often sick from various ailments. The cold bothered him a lot. He could barely eat during the daytime, said to only eat at night, you know, eat then you eat then very

little to combat his kind of frailty royal. Marcus's physician, Galen prescribed a medicine called the reic. And it apparently worked because Aurelius could endure the rigors of war as result when he was taking it. The drug that he received was opium. According to records by Galen Aurelius couldn't take the drug in the daytime because it made him too drowsy, but he took it at night every night because he couldn't sleep without it. He couldn't have been hopelessly addicted though to opium because he did manage to write meditations during this time. There are more famous and productive folks who have used opium. Samuel Johnson, one of the most important men in English history.

Johnson effectively established the English language that we have today by writing a dictionary of the English language. Also the subject of what has been described as the most important biography in English history, life of Samuel Johnson. Almost people don't remember him today without Johnson's contribution to English, the world would be very different. And according to a friend of Johnson's, he used opium in great quantities. At for 1765, when he would have been in his mid fifties, Johnson regularly took opium

to get relaxation of the breast, as he called it. He preferred a mixture of the drug, where he mixed a marshmallow with a poppy, all right? This mixture enabled him to take large amounts, sometimes as much as three grains by his own account, which would be about 200 milligrams, that's a fucking lot. He used the drug for almost 30 years until his deaths in 1784.

And there are other examples, Florence Nightingale, Charles Dickens, Benjamin Franklin, all those people used opium. Up for debate, whether they could be called healthy opium users or functioning addicts, but none of them died of an opioid overdose. Many of them lived until advanced ages. Of course, there's also many famous people who died young of opioid overdoses, like Sid Bishops at the sex pistols. Heroin overdose, just 21. Actor River Phoenix, dead at 23

from overdosing on a dangerous mixture of cocaine and heroin, a speedball. Door singer Jim Morrison, dead at 27. No official autopsy conducted, but strongly believed to have died of a heroin overdose. Singer Janice Joplin, a Janice Joplin, dead at 27 of heroin. Comedic actor John Belushi, dead at 33, another speedball death, more cocaine and heroin. Chris Farley, dead at 33 from speedball death, Speedball Overdose, actor Philipsy Moore Hoffman, dead at 46, heroin, cocaine, meth, and more found in his system. Actor Michael K. Williams, Omar from the wire, Chucky White from Boardwalk Empire, dead at 54 from an overdose on heroin, cocaine, and fentanyl. And there's many other names. Hart would say that many of these people

were battling mental illnesses of some kind though though. He does not consider using drugs to essentially treat mental illness to be responsible drug use or advisable. What if, again, less money went into nonviolent, offender incarceration would have more money went into drug rehab, education, mental illness treatment. If more people were getting the mental health care they needed, it's of his less stigma about mental illness and narcotic use. If more OD prevention medication was available, would these deaths have occurred? Is heart correct?

His broader ethical argument is that the US drug policies have done more harm than good, and it prevented people from being educated about drug use leading to a lot of avoidable deaths. He also thinks, based on the idea set out in the Declaration of Independence, that people, in America, should be free to pursue life, liberty, and happiness, and that could include drug use. Is the right is the right to use whatever drugs you want to use as an adult, actually super American, cue ball, eagle screams, wave to flag, play, lead, greenwood. I think so.

Should we punish crimes committed while on drugs and not drug use itself makes sense to me. Whatever you think about a hard to argument or mine, whether we decriminalize that or not drug use, including opioid use is not going away. It's been a part of the human story since we discovered drugs, and I think it will continue to be part of the human story for as long as that story continues to be written. We're never getting rid of drugs. The war on drugs, it's never going to be one.

So I think that all that matters is how we choose to fight it or not fight it. Let's now dig into some facts. Not just my opinions about humanity's historical predilection for opioids and see how the current opioid epidemic was a long time coming in this week's time suck timeline. Right after this week's sponsor break. And now let's learn more about our meat sack history with opioids, drugs, drugs, drugs. Shrap on those boots, soldier. We're marching down a time, time, time line.

Kick things off way back. 3,400 BCE. The earliest recorded reference to opium. They'd spacked to 5,500 years ago when poppies were cultivated in lower Mesopotamia. The Samarians called the opium poppy Holtgill, meaning the joy plant. Fuck yeah, they did. How crazy that we've been using this shit recreationally for all of written human history. And I'm sure for a lot longer than that.

The Samarians would soon pass along the plant and its euphoric effects to the Assyrians, and then the art of poppy culling would continue from Assyrians to the Babylonians who in turn would pass their knowledge on to the Egyptians. All those ancient people in the biblical Old Testament days had access to opium. It's surprising to me for some reason. I don't know why it is. With the Sumerians, the first to figure out that the Poppy milk gets your highest fuck, yeah, again, I doubt it.

I bet someone figured out that plant had a little extra kick to it long before early humans figured out how to keep written records or anything. Probably slowed down. The time it took us to get to written records. They're like, ah, fuck writing. I just come eat some more of this plant. Drink some more of this tea. You won't care about writing.

At least as early as 1300 BCE in the capital city of Thebes, ancient Egyptians began cultivation of opium for use not just as a way to get high, but medically for use as a painkiller. The opium traded flour not just as a way to get high, but medically for use as a painkiller. The opium traded flourished during the reign of several pharaohs, including King Tut. They began trading opium with other civilizations like the Venetians and Minowans who then further traded it around the Mediterranean in degrees, Carthage, your rest of Europe. Everybody wanted that sweet, sweet opium. Of course they did. Making all those ancient peoples

feel so good. I'm sure sending a lot of them into opium addiction Of course they did. Making all those ancient peoples feel so good. I'm sure sending a lot of them into opium addiction as well. Cosine, who knows how many of them to die of overdoses? Around 1100 BCE on the island of Cyprus, the peoples of the sea crafted surgical quality coli knives to harvest the opium, which they'd been cultivated and trading since around the time of the fall of Troy.

Around 460 BCE, hypocrites, the time of the fall of Troy, around 460 BCE, Hippocrates, the father of medicine. Well, sometimes during his life, which was 460 to 357 BC, he acknowledged opium usefulness as an archotic. He prescribed drinking the juice of the poppy mixed with the seed of nettle, nettle being another plan with long history of use in traditional medicine. Opium juice, early whiple chill recipe. The ancient Greeks who held the opium pop, early Whipple chill recipe. The ancient Greeks who held the opium poppy sacred claimed it was a demeter goddess of agriculture who discovered it. Archaeologists would later find figurines of poppy goddesses and

Crete or maybe Lucifina figurines. Alexander the Greek or actually Alexander the Greek. Alexander the great subject of suck 210 took opium with him as he expanded his empire. Arabs, Greeks, Romans, use it as a sedative. And 330 BCE, Alexander introduced opium to the people of Persia, India. It would flourish in the land that is now Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. Roughly seven centuries later, around 400 CE opium from the Egyptian fields, Thebes, first introduced to China by Arab traders. Nearly all of Europe and Asia, Middle East, Northern Africa,

familiar with the opium by now. Jumbe way ahead now to the 1300s. Some people in power start to think maybe opium not so good. In Europe in the 14th century, the Catholic Church, and organizations certainly in the running for the biggest fun killers of all time, they will begin to stigmatize opium use. Starting in the 1300s, opium disappears

for about 200 years from European historical records. Opium became a taboo subject for those in circles of learning during the holy inquisition. It's ban the witch, ban the opium, ban the opium, devil, poppy drinking witch. And the eyes of the inquisition, anything from the east was now linked to the devil. Of course, right? OPM is of the devil now. And to use it was to risk being branded a heretic and being burned at the stake, you know, suffering some kind of other similarly horrific fate. But of course, people kept doing opium.

No one's going to let a little devil talk, let a small possibility of being burned alive has got intended to keep them from that sweet opium. And the late 1500s, the Portuguese, while trading along the East China Sea, initiate the smoking of opium, possibly something to Dutch, introduce smoking opium, using a tobacco pipe, the Chinese closer to 1700. Everybody seems to think that Europeans first started

smoking opium though, not Asians, which I found surprising. Smoking opium in a way can actually be traced back to Americans. Native Americans smoked tobacco long before Europeans, and from America, smoking tobacco spread to Europe, and then in Europe, some Portuguese, or some, you know, Dutch, some Europeans, you know, figured out that you could smoke chando, a concentrated preparation of opium made by straining and boiling raw opium. And when you did that, it was better than drinking it. It kicked harder, right?

To better than taking a pill, which was how it was traditionally ingested, either you like, in pill or kind of like tea or liquid form. The effects almost instantaneous. Yeah, hit harder. Smoking opium was a practice of the Chinese, was a practice the Chinese considered barbaric and subversive at first.

But of course, you know, think Chinese opium dens in the American West, many Chinese would later learn to love it and became a huge problem in China. Opium would become big in Europe again, beginning around 1527. During the high to the reformation, opium reintroduced into European medical literature by Paracelsus. Paracelsus, yeah, yeah. It just looks weird to me.

As a lot of them, whiskey, lot of them, tall saw lot of them would become very popular in America later on again, you know, bringing things back to the movie tombstone white herbs common law wife in the movie Maddie Blaylock struggled with an addiction to lot of them. Real Maddie died in 1888 from taking a lethal dose of lot of them in alcohol her death ruled as suicide by opium poisoning. It's buried in Arizona. The Arizona ghost town of Penal City. Now anyway, Rodinum is a tincture a medicine made by dissolving a drug into alcohol of opium containing approximately 10% powdered opium by weight, the equivalent of 1% morphine. In short, Rodinum is prepared by dissolving extracts from the opium poppy and ethanol.

Most of use is a pain reliever and is a cough suppressant. The medicine of choice for consumption. Backing up a bit now, 1606, ships chartered by England's Queen Elizabeth I instructed to purchase the finest Indian opium and transported back to England. India was once the world's biggest, grower and exporter of opium. India, of course, not far from Afghanistan.

In 1676, physician Thomas Sidenam made one of the biggest impacts on society by publishing his recipe for lawdnem, sharing his discovery worldwide. Now it becomes wildly popular across the growing British empire and then across the empires of other giant European colonizers.

Until the early 20th century, it would be sold across the world without a prescription. The side effects of lawdnem were expanded upon by a surgeon George Young who wrote in 1753, everybody knows a large dose of Lodham will kill. So need not be cautioned on that head, but there are a few who consider it a slow poison, though it certainly is. It's addictive qualities where notice particularly in women who, according to French doctor, Jay Hector St. John Day, Chris Year,

We're taking a dose of opium every morning and so deep-rooted, is it that they would be at a loss, how to live, without this indulgence? In the 17th century, the English physician Thomas Brown conducted experiments upon the dosage of opium on various animals. Brown's contemporary, the physician Thomas Sidenem, so-called father of British medicine declared, among the remedies which has pleased the Almighty God to give to man to relieve his sufferings,

none is so universal and so efficacious as opium. In 1729, the first opium-related regulation that we could find popped up. That year, the Chinese emperor, Young Chang, issues an edict prohibiting the smoking of opium and his domestic sale, except under license for use as medicine. He does this because he's noticed the Chinese citizens who have started smoking opium all fucking willy-nelli, suddenly not the best parents, not the best workers or court subjects. Of course not. Their highest fuck all the time. Their opium addicts. In 1750, the British East India Company assumes control of the opium growing districts of

India. British shipping, British shipping, excuse me, now dominates the opium trade out of Calcutta, big money. Less than two decades later, 1767, the British East India Company is importing a massive amount of opium from China. 1775, opium first arrives in America. A few people hadn't already snuck it in already. I'm guessing there were some down low opium users who just didn't show up on this historical record.

Old-timey doctors now prescribe an opium radonum and in other forms to their patients to manage pain as well as help with dysentery, coughs, other maladies. Colonists are cultivating opium in their gardens, even founding father Thomas Jefferson, grows opium poppies at Monticello. With no regulation on the use of opioids, there is widespread marketing, use and abuse. It's sold as a cure all for everything ranging from diarrhea to a toothache. By 1793, the British East India Company has a complete monopoly on the opium trade in the Far East, all poppy growers in India forbidden to sell opium to any competitor trading companies. This will soon lead to some wars. They're monopoly. They're trying

to hold over there, some or their opium interest over there will 1799 China's emperor, judging Bands opium completely, because it's been drastically weakening the Chinese empire. Makes trade and poppy cultivation legal. Long before America's opioid epidemic, China had one of their own opioid epidemics. You're later in 1800, the British 11 company purchased nearly half of all the opium coming out of Smyrna, Turkey, strictly for importation to Europe and the United States. If China won't grow it, right, they'll get it from somewhere else. So many people taking opium. It's a big business. The British are making a lot of money, supply and demand. All right, I'm sorry, I guess China,

I don't know, China was growing it, so they just don't want it anymore. They're still getting it from India, to some places, but now they're also taking it from Turkey and to Europe and the US. A lot of people taking opium all around the world now, right? British are making a lot of money, a lot of supply and demand. They have most of the world supply,

and wherever people are using opium, they're, you know, suddenly it's a big demand. In 1806, Frederick Wilhelm Schurtner of Germany isolates the most popular pain-killing alkaloid from opium, calls it morphine. After morphius, the Greek god of dreams. Morpheus, kind of a scary dude in Greek mythology, he shaped and formed the dreams through which he could appear to mortals in any form. This talent made Morpheus a messenger of the gods, able to communicate divine messages to sleeping mortals.

That we could take any form. Morpheus's true form was that of a winged demon, Ichiwawa. Some statues of Morpheus have been sculpted that depict him having one winged ear. As I said, to symbolize him, listing to dreams through his regular ear and then delivering messages from the gods through dreams with his winged ear. Got one of those sweet winged ears. You don't see those very often. Morphine has lauded his gods own medicine for its reliability,

long lasting effects and safety shortly after his creation. 1819, writer John Keats, other English literary personalities experiment with opium, intended for strict recreational use, simply for the high, taken at extended intervals, one poet poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote to his brother, Lodnam gave me repose, not sleep, but you, I believe, I know how to, but you, I believe,

know how divine that repose is. What a spot of enchantment, a green spot of fountain and flowers and trees in the very heart of a waste of sense. Okay. It was clearly high as fuck as you wrote that. Percy Shelley was said by scholars to have used opium to alter his state of thinking and free his mind, hope with creativity, creativity, to dampen his nerves. Shelley took a lot of them, according to letters he wrote, as well as biographies, when Shelley's secretively began to become romantically involved with Mary Godwin, he started to carry a flask with a lot of them in, you know, to call his nerves.

After Shelley was banned from seeing Mary, he reportedly ran into her house, gave her Lodinum, waving a pistol in the air and shouting, by this, you can escape tyranny. They wish to separate us, my beloved, but death shall unite us again. He's fucking super high there. Shelley believed that opium allow the individual to question societal norms and beliefs, while allowing for ideas of radical social change to form. So drugs, uh, yeah, they are great at getting you to see things from a different perspective. Shelly soon learned that not all was well though with opium.

He began experiencing body spasms and upon visiting a new doctor was warned to stop taking london. He did not heed the doctor's warning and continued to have spasms haunting dreams, confusions about reality. Hello, Craig, Craig. Opium use did catalyze his creativity, creativity, but conversely, detrimentally affected his mental health and wellbeing. Then he died, he drowned in a shipwreck at the age of 29 and 1822. Wonder how much longer he would live with his opium addiction, had he not drowned? Backing up a year to 1821, English author, literary critic Thomas De Quincey publishes an autobiographical account

of opium addiction, confessions of an English opium eater. Drinking a lot of number smoking opium, the two ways most people were taking opium at that time. De Quincey started using opium as a reliever, pain reliever for a toothache in 1804, and his book was the first documentation of an opium addict to be published. He focused on the pleasures and pains along with his influence on his work. His book was often accused of encouraging individuals to try opium addict to be published. He focused on the pleasures and pains, along with its influence on his work. His book was often accused of encouraging individuals to try opium and was blamed when they subsequently suffered

from its side effects or addiction. With the ability to purchase a lot of them, easily, for many street vendors, Dick Quincy was quoted saying, happiness might now be bought for a penny. With respect to literary triumphs, Dick Quincy notes in confessions how the increased activity in the brain because of opium

increases his ability to create new things out of raw material. And he would live a long life. And he would write a lot. He would live at the age of 74. 1827, E Merck and Company of Germany began the commercial manufacturing of morphine to our kicking it around the world.

1830, the British dependence on opium for medicinal and recreational use reaches an all-time high. Jardine, Matheson, and company of London, inherent India, and its opium from the British East India company, also in the 1830s. With the US undergoing the industrial revolution, the first manufacturing of morphine happens stateside. On March 18th, 1839, the first opium more begins between the British Empire and China's Qing Dynasty. Despite opium being illegal between the British Empire and China's Qing dynasty. Despite opium being illegal in China for decades at this point, British merchants were still

selling tons and tons of opium in China to Chinese smugglers, so they're selling it illegally every year. And Chinese officials know it and they're getting pretty fucking pissed. In 1838, they began to make selling opium or smuggling it a crime punishable by death. The British are pressuring the Chinese to legalize and tax it they don't want to. Finally in 1839, the sick of the British put an opium, you know, pushing it on the Chinese. Qing emperor, Dao Guang has a bunch of British merchant ships seized has the opium on board destroyed.

Also orders a blockade of all foreign ships on China's Pearl River, and the British respond with war. The first opium war, the last almost exactly three years. Over 3000 Chinese will die compared to around 300 British, and then the Chinese fearing that a lot more than were about to die, signed a peace treaty on August 29th, 1842, the Treaty of Nanking, and this treaty fucks China. This treaty basically allows British merchants to trade with Chinese merchants as much as they fucking want to.

And you better not check our fucking ships for opium. Still illegal, but don't look at our ships. Don't you fucking even think about looking at our ships. This treaty also gave Hong Kong to the British. Opium continues to flow into China. A lot of opium flowed into America around this time too. 1840 New Englanders are bringing in so much opium. The estimated 24,000 pounds a year that the US customs office promptly puts a duty fee on the import of opium, right? If people are making money at it, the tax guy got it has to get involved.

1852, the British arrived in Lower Burma importing large quantities of opium from India, selling it through a government controlled opium monopoly there too. The British are pumping opium into Southeast Asia big time. 1853, another big year for opium. Alexander Wood of Scotland devises the first hypodermic needle to administer morphine, to a patient suffering from neuralgia or nerve pain. The needle has been introduced to opium. And while it would not become a super popular method of ingesting for over a century,

there's no putting this genie back in the box now or bottle. I don't know what the genie lives. It's in a box or bottle. It's hard to remember. Students straight into the bloodstream, man, the most powerful way to use opioids, effects felt essentially instantaneously. You can achieve a p-kind just a few seconds.

Compared to alcohol, I'd be like pounding a bitch, big shot of whiskey, right? So I want a big shot of whiskey back. And then immediately, you're fall down blackout sloppy drunk. 1856 there's another opium war. The second opium war begins October 8th of that year. We'll last just over four years. Excuse me, this time the British and the French are ganging up on the Qing empire.

It was fought again due to Chinese resistance to having Europeans pump their empire full of massive amounts of opium. Chinese Marines once again capture a vessel that belongs to the British British don't like that war ensues the US will aid the British a bit in this war. The result is that there will be a full legalization of opium in China now even though Chinese the empire doesn't want that a little more land for the British around Hong Kong and

a very weakened Qing dynasty. A couple years later during the American Civil War morphine utilized as a battlefield and a state weakened chain dynasty. Couple years later during the American Civil War, morphine utilized as a battlefield, anesthetic. Jesus. Many soldiers will develop morphine dependency as a result and addiction that will be known as soldiers disease. This will lead some physicians to start wondering about how powerful an addiction of morphine really is.

Start to call it narco mania. We got some narco maniacs around here. In the 1860s, Americans now buying all kinds of over-the-counter pills and elixirs. They contain opiates to treat menstrual cramps, teething, headaches, and other kinds of aches or pain. And yes, teething like, isn't babies. Get that baby some heroin.

Jesus Christ, I mean technically morphine, but you get it. It's fucking insane. 1874 English researcher, CR Wright, first synthesizes heroin or DIA settle morphine more thing, but you get it. It's fucking insane. 1874 English researcher, C.R. Wright, first synthesizes heroin or DIA settled more fiend by boiling more fiend over a stove. Oh, and actually before I continue to just flash to my brain, I do remember reading it back a long time ago now about how you're like, yeah, babies would die quite a bit. And they thought that part of the death rate was from this, you know, this fucking lot of them that the babies are being given.

Okay, more governments now. Try and, sorry, back, what the hell am I? I distracted, I ran them top up, I had a gop on my notes, and I don't know where I am now. Here we go. 1874, San Francisco, smoking opium, and the city limits is banned and is confined to neighboring Chinatown and their other,

and their opium dens. More governments try and begin to halt other and their opium dense. More governments try and begin to halt the consumption of opium in the late 19th century. 1878, Britain passes the opium act in India with hopes of reducing opium consumption in their Asian territory. The fucking problem they started under the new regulation, the selling of opium restricted to registered Chinese opium smokers and Indian opium eaters while the Burmese are strictly prohibited from smoking opium.

So let's kind of weird lines to draw, but short made sense of time maybe kind of. Again, trying to curb a problem they created, just like America is doing now. Another opioid epidemic occurred long before ours. 1890 US Congress and its earliest law enforcement legislation on narcotics imposes attacks on opium and morphine. But you can still use it however you want. 1898, heroin is first produced for commercial distribution by the Bayer company, the same company that produces aspirin today.

Right? It's not mentioned earlier. In the early 1900s, the philanthropic St. James Society and the U.S. mounts a campaign to supply free samples of heroin through the mail to more fanatics. We're trying to give up their opioid habits. This, as you might imagine, does not work well. What a fucking ridiculous addiction. To morphine, boy, howdy, do we have a cure for you?

Nothing gets somebody off morphine like heroin. It's so much stronger. You think morphine makes you feel good? Morphine is for little babies. Take the binky out of your mouth and try heroin. That'll put some heroin in your balls. That'll put some pregnant you tits. So fucking crazy, the people just trying to help.

We're actually giving fucking heroin to morphin addicts. Let's try and get them off of opioids. Oh man, you're struggling with alcoholism. Knock him back 15 beers a day. Do I have a cure for you? It's called tequila. Unreal. Also in the early 1900s, Americans start to crush the pills and inhale opiate powder

for a faster, more intense high. Now we're snorting it. 1906, several physicians now experiment with treatments for a growing number of heroin addicts, many of whom have gotten addicted to heroin while trying to wean off of that morphine addiction. Dr. Alexander Lambert and Charles B. Towns, tout their popular cure is the most advanced effective and compassionate cure for heroin addiction. It consists of a seven day regimen, which includes a five day purge of heroin from the addict system with doses of Beladonna Delirium, aka nightshade. Nightshade is another plant like the opium poppy. They can fuck you up with its alkaloids.

They can cause euphoria and hallucinations and in high doses, disorientation, memory loss, coma, even death. What they can't do is effectively help you get off a heroin. So now you just got two things in your system. The same year, US Congress passes the Pure Food and Drug Act, drug act, requiring contents labeling on patent medicines by pharmaceutical companies as a result of availability of opiates and the number of opiate consumers significantly declines. But you can still get it if you want.

1909, the first federal drug prohibition passes in the U.S. outline, the importation of opium. Now it's a lot harder to get it. February 1st, 1909, the International Opium Commission convenes in Shanghai, heading the U.S. delegation, Dr. Hamilton Wright, an Episcopal Bishop Henry Brent, both tried to convince an international delegation of the immoral and evil effects of opium. They try and get the British immoral and evil effects of opium. They try and get the British Empire to stop filling Asia with opium. 1910 after 150 years of failed attempts to get rid of opium, the Chinese finally successful in convincing the British to dismantle the opium trade there.

1910, more legislation in the US. Congress passes the Harrison Narcotics Act, which now requires a written prescription for any narcotic, importers, manufacturers, distributors of narcotics, most registered with the Treasury Department, pay applicable taxes. This act passed in response to the sudden emergence of street heroin abuse, or is passed as a response to the sudden emergence of street heroin abuse as well as morphine dependence. Street opiates are now illegal, but penalties for dealing in possession, not very severe. Not a felony to use heroin, not minimum sentencing requirements. As the U.S. enters prohibition in 1920, there's a serious pushback against narcotics.

Enter the grin and bear it, era, for pain relief. Sympathy for those dealing with chronic pain greatly diminishes now for a while. With propaganda films like Reef for Madness for Weed, there's a strong association between Simpathy for those dealing with chronic pain greatly diminishes now for a while with propaganda films like Reef for Madness for weed. There's a strong association between drugs in general and being a lazy and filthy degenerate. Someone of the lowest moral fiber. Patients with unexplained pain in the 1920s regarded as deluded malingerers, abusers, junkies, cancer patients from 1920s all the way up until the 1950s

encouraged to stay away from opioids until their lives could quote be measured in weeks. Wait for the very end. You fucking dirty, hippie, beat Nick, pussy piece of shit. Well, you're dying of cancer. You want some morphine to ease your pain? What are you? Some kind of pinko, comey. This attitude persisted into the latter half of the 20th century. The general

worldwide, uh, opiophobia spread through American Europe. 1923, the US Treasury Department's narcotics division, first federal drug agency, bands, legal narcotics sales. With prohibition of legal venues to purchase heroin, addicts forced to buy from illegal street dealers. In the wake of the first federal ban on opium, a thriving black market emerges in New York's Chinatown, then elsewhere across the country. World War II will disrupt the global heroin trade greatly, several years later. After the war from 1948 to 1974, Corsican gangsters dominate the US heroin market through their connection with Sicilian, Mafia drug distributors.

Distributors. Now the Mafia is controlling the heroin supply. After refining raw Turkish opium and French laboratories, the Mafia's heroin is made easily available for purchase by drug users. First on New York City streets, then elsewhere across the US. But mostly in big cities. 1950s, US efforts to contain the spread of communism in Asia stopped the red spread easy bojangles. don't have a stroke.

It involves forging alliances with tribes and warlords inhabiting the golden triangle and expands covering Laos, Thailand and Burma. Thus providing accessibility and protection along the Southeast border of China. So in order to maintain their relationship with the warlords, while continuing to fund the struggle against communism, the US and France supply drug warlords and their armies with ammunition, arms, air transport for the production and sale of opium in some cases. The result and explosion in the availability and illegal flow heroin into the US and into

the hands of drug dealers and addicts. The price to pay for feeling more secure against Chinese communists was making deals with southeast Asian opium traffickers. Also Afghanistan first began producing opium and significant quantities in the mid-1950s. To supply its neighbor Iran, after poppy cultivation was banned there. Afghanistan neighboring Pakistan increased production soon become major suppliers of opiates to Western Europe and North America in the mid-1970s. When political instability following the Vietnam War, combined with a prolonged drought,

disrupts opium supplies from the Golden Triangle. Speaking of Vietnam, US involvement in Vietnam is blamed for a massive surge in a legal heroin being smuggled into the States. And the CIA played a huge part in that. The CIA's role in the opioid epidemic is a big story, perhaps for another day. The A-US allies, the CIA sets up a charter airline, Air America. There was a movie done about this to transport raw opium from Burma and Laos. During these years, the number of heroin addicts in the US reaches an estimated

750,000. The controlled substances act written into law now, 1970. It goes into effect to following year under President Richard Nixon's administration, creates groupings of drugs based on their potential for abuse. This should be ridiculous. Heroin is classified as the Schedule I drug, while other opiates, including morphine, fentanyl, oxycodone, methadone, or Schedule II. There are five classifications, with Schedule I drugs being deemed the worst. Drug is not safe to use even under medical supervision. What's interesting is that marijuana

is also listed as a schedule one drug. What a fucking joke. Marijuana now legal in most dates, at least medically, but federally still considered to be a schedule one controlled substance right up there with heroin. Other schedule one drugs, DMT, LSD, MDMA, A.K.A, XC or Molly, psilocybin, you know, Shrooms, POD, Mescalin, and more. What a fucking joke. Cocaine is a scheduled to drug. So cocaine, federally, not as problematic in theory as wheat. Why is that?

Because historically cocaine is a white collar, white wall street drug. The Nixon administration also repealed the federal two to ten year mandatory minimum senses for possession of marijuana, started federal demand reduction programs, drug treatment programs. America's prisons for the first time flooded not with violent offenders, but with nonviolent drug users. People struggling with say, in opioid, in opioid addiction, and this shit's crazy. I've already talked about it, you know, here earlier talked about it a lot in the L chapel sucks. So we'll move on. June 1st, 1973, President Nixon creates the DEA, Drug Enforcement Administration, under the Justice Department to consolidate virtually all federal powers for drug enforcement

and a single agency and really start pursuing and punishing drug abusers. The war on drugs, right? Full on. It's still being waged. 1980, a letter entitled, Addiction Rare in Patience Treated with Narcotics, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, touched on that earlier. Not a study, just an exploratory article, looked at incidents of addiction at a very specific set of hospitalized patients, probably not carried out well.

This article became one of the most widely cited as proof that narcotics save treatment for chronic pain, not that addictive. How interesting that the groundwork for the opioid crisis laid during the Reagan years, right? The war on drugs going fucking full steam ahead. Meanwhile, opioids like, nah, just sneak these out there. Now, we're going to punch everybody real hard for street drugs.

We're also going to flood the country with the same kind of drugs that just show up in a little orange bottle instead of a baggy. In the first term of the presidency of Ronald Reagan, he signed the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984, which expanded penalties towards possession of cannabis, established a comprehensive federal system of mandatory minimum sentences for drugs like, you know, heroin, established procedures for civil asset forfeiture related to drug crimes. Great optics plays really well into the simple thinking, just say, noted drugs, voting base. People who also think that teaching only abstinence for sex

that is super smart. What an easy never have to think hard, you know, way to go through life. Don't want an unexpected pregnancy, just don't have sex, never have it. You don't want to go to prison for drugs, just never ever take them. You don't want to be persecuted for homosexuality for being a truck or for being a transsexual. Just be straight. It's that sample You don't want to be a victim of racism. Just don't be black. Come on Put it together 1996 The World Health Organization Address the or addresses the under treatment of post-operative and cancer pain in

or addresses the under treatment of post-operative and cancer pain in 96, with their cancer pain monograph. Suddenly, many people are wondering how to treat pain the best. If opioids, which had relatively been untouched by physicians in the first half of the 20th century because of their association with crime, were actually safe to use on patients, suffering long-term pain, thanks to some new studies, let's use them. Same year, Congress passes the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 96, right? More Reagan, tough on crime, wore on drugs, pand's use them. Same year, Congress passes the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, right? More Reagan, tough on crime, more on drugs, pandering, bullshit. The suburban voting crowd who never looked at this issue in the way this episode is laid out. For people again, who seem to be allergic to thinking complexly. This new 1986 Act establishes mandatory, you know, more

mandatory minimum prison sentences for a range of drug related crimes, including a death resulting offense involving the sharing or the sale of drugs. Congress assumed the legislation would lead law enforcement officials to target high level traffickers. It does not. America's prisons are instead filled even further with low level offenders. Meanwhile, elicit drug use and trafficking continue unabated. See how stupid all this is? Drug abuse and drug trafficking just continue.

But now lots of people are in prison, which weakens the economy in a variety of ways. Families are broken down. Prime working years are lost to incarceration. The national tax burden has increased, right? In the midst of the war on drugs, 2003 to 2014, US heroin use fucking tripled. In 2014, the National Institute on Drug Abuse reported that an estimated 24.6 million Americans over the age of 12 had used an illicit drug during the last month. This accounted for a nine four point, this accounted for nine point four percent of that demographic and increased from eight point three percent in 2002.

Why are we fighting the war on drugs again? If it doesn't lead to less drug abuse but does lead to more incarceration, logically, why the fuck are we doing it? I've never gotten a good answer for that. Refocusing this on opioids by 1999, 86% of US medical patients who are using opioids are using them for non-cancer pain now, right?

It's the days of just like walk it off, just grin and bear it, they're over. It's like, no, no, you shouldn't hurt at all. The pain should be gone. Just take a lot of drugs. Communities where opioids are readily available and prescribed, liberally are the first places to experience increased opioid abuse and diversion. Of course, the transfer of opioids from the individual, for whom they are prescribed to others, which is legal, right? People taking their prescriptions, selling them, giving them to other people. From 1997 to 2002, shortly after it hits the US market, OxyContin prescriptions increased from 670,000 to 6.2 million.

In 2000, the Joint Commission publishes standards for pain management, emphasizing the need for organizations to conduct quantitative assessments of pain is recommended by the Institute of Medicine. The Federal of State Medical Boards and the Drug Enforcement Agency also issued statements promising less regulatory scrutiny over opioid prescribers, calming down physicians who are reluctant to prescribe large amounts of opioids. So that's awesome.

Just fucking right as many as you want, you won't get in trouble. The Rapid Institution of Strict Standards for Pain Management in the hospital systems culminated in several unintended consequences. Physicians now mandated to provide adequate pain control by the TJC, resulting in heavy reliance on opioid medications. The fear amongst hospital administration is that if new TJC benchmarks are not met, they're going to be unlikely to receive federal healthcare funds going forward. They've been incentivized to prescribe more opioids. Hospitals that invested more readily in opioid therapy would then receive better satisfaction

rates as well amongst the patient population leading to even more funding. Pharmaceutical companies heavily pushed use of opioids as a humane treatment option, often using paid physician consultants to expound on the safety benefits of opioid use, not prescribing opioids for a patient with pain risk being labeled as inhumane, sometimes even to the extent of litigation for the under treatment of pain, you can be sued as a doctor for not prescribing enough opioids. The culture change driven by intent to ensure access to pain relief had now really opened the floodgates to the current opioid epidemic. Now we're 2007. The federal government files criminal charges against Purdue pharma for advertising oxy

con as a safer and less addictive treatment or less addictive alternative than other opioids. Purdue pharma, a handful of executives do plead guilty, but they don't go to prison. Purdue agrees to pay a total of $634.5 million to resolve justice department investigations as well as 19.5 million in a settlement to 26 states in the District of Columbia. And they can afford to pay all this because they've been making fucking billions and they keep selling it just in a new formulation now. In 2010, the FDA approves a new formulation of OxyContin said to contain abuse or said to

contain abuse deterring qualities, but it doesn't. It's still abused. The second wave of the opioid epidemic starts around 2010 with the rapid increase in deaths from heroin abuse. Got a lot of new heroin addicts thanks to OxyCon because once they run out of that, once they can't get a new prescription, once they can't afford more, they turn to heroin.

And a scheduled one controlled substance, right, is sending a lot of users to prison for long stays now. The use of heroin now increases in both sexes, the majority of age brackets, and all socioeconomic groups. Deaths due to heroin-related overdoses increased by 286% from 2002 to 2013, and approximately 80% of heroin users admit to misusing prescription opioids before turning to heroin, right? Four out of five of them started off with oxycontin or something similar, then went to heroin. 2012, the number of prescriptions written

for opioid pain medication reaches 259 fucking million, enough for every adult in the US to have a bottle of pills. The third wave hits in 2013 of the opioid epidemic. It began as an increase in deaths related to synthetic opioids like fentanyl. The sharpest rise in drug-related deaths occurs in 2016 with over 20,000 deaths from fentanyl and related drugs. I think actually that was from a source prior to 2021.

I think just recently during the pandemic, it was even worse of an increase. The increase in fentanyl deaths linked to a list ofly manufactured fentanyl as opposed to diverted medical fentanyl. So this, all this fentanyl in the streets isn't because people are stealing from hospitals, people are fucking making this shit now in their own labs. Now let's get into the story of one person in a challenging legal situation that would lead many to question

how the US government is combating the opioid epidemic. On April 27th, 2015, and there's so many stories like this. A young woman living near Columbus, Ohio, named Jamie, asked by her friend Courtney to get her some heroin Both women have been using opioids for quite some time at this point They weren't really good friends. Just kind of casual acquaintances Jamie was supporting two sons on her own as a single mom

Paying the bills by dealing blackjack at the local Hollywood casino She tried heroin as a young woman giving it up But then when she started working around the clock at the casino she tried tried some perk 30s, 30 milligrams of perk as said for pain relief, slash escapism, slash a little bit of euphoria, started using them regularly at work, still doing her job well, but also using daily. Eventually, she's paying more than 600 bucks a week for these perk 30s. The amount of heroin required to produce the same effect only $10 a day, 70 bucks a week. So she makes the switch to heroin, starts buying from her boyfriend. She meets some other people who deal small times and people who, you know,

would ask her to get heroin, other drugs for them, including Courtney, who worked as an antifair family in Columbus. On April 25th, Courtney heads to Columbus for her older sister's birthday party, joking that her boyfriend was driving her nuts. She tells Jamie, I'm about to do the rest of these Zanex, adding that when the pills are gone, she's going to be fucked. Jamie realizing the Courtney is afraid of withdrawals replies, well, worst case scenario, I can get you dope and that'll help. Two days later, April 27, 2015, Courtney asked Jamie for Xanax again. When an hour and a half elapsed with no response, she requests 150 bucks worth of heroin and a rig, meaning needle and a syringe. Jamie ends up buying Courtney 175 dollars

for the heroin, the two meet at Walmart on Hilliard Roam Road. At the Walmart, Jamie notices Courtney is slurring her words, asks if she's taken any Xanix. The combination of heroin and Xanix is known to produce a quote, Cadillac high, but can be very easy to overdose. Courtney says, nope, she's just sick. Jamie later testifies that she thought about how livid she'd be if another user inches away with held a substance that would immediately make her well. So she gives Courtney the heroin. And the next text from Courtney's phone arrives shortly after 11 o'clock and it says Courtney has passed away from an overdose or Jamie stomach sinks. What will happen next is a strange and terrifying criminal case. Originally Courtney's death not treated as a crime. After Courtney met Jamie in the Walmart parking lot, she drove across the road

to a Meyer gas station. Enter the restroom, remain there for more than an hour with the door locked. A corporate security manager eventually forced the door open, found Courtney lying unconscious alongside a used syringe. A police officer trying to revive her until a paramedic survived. His partner searched Courtney's belongings found a black rock substance, another syringe, a shoelace, two cinched spoons, a lighter, the migraine medication, so nepotryptin, and dozens of saboxone wrappers, right? Stop signs, boop, sub-ease oranges, remember? Paramedics administered three doses of Narcan, that opioid antagonist,

but it was too late. At 7.49 pm at the Columbus Hospital, Courtney's pronounced dead. Homicide detectives from the Columbus Division of Police initially classified the case as quote, not a crime. Later, when police finalized Courtney's autopsy, her death categorized as an accidental overdose. But three of Courtney's uncles on her mother's side, the planks, are police officers. One of them, Brent Plank, a long time narcotics officer and Columbus decides to independently investigate

Courtney's death. He wants to know who's responsible, who's selling the stuff. That's one way to look at it. You know, another fucking way to look at it is that Courtney was responsible. What happened to personal responsibility? All right, the only one putting those drugs

in Courtney's system was Courtney. On August 12th, Jamie had just begun her Wednesday night. She left when the casino security guard now pulls her off the floor to plain clothes detectives from the special investigation unit of the Franklin County Sheriff's Office are waiting to question her. Jamie responds to their small talk amulet or amicably, believes them when they said they weren't looking to arrest her for drug trafficking. They asked her when the last time she's in Courtney was, listen, we're't looking to arrest her for drug trafficking. They asked her when the last time she was in court and it was, listen, we're not here to

arrest you for drug trafficking. The sergeant tells her, women's the last time you've seen court and then she says, I got a text message saying she was dead, adding that she's seen her that day. Then they're asking, of course, you know, what do you remember what you guys did? She says she was trying to find drugs, what kind of drugs, anything to make her well, then did Jamie help her out. She first says she can't remember. Then the sergeant says he needs the truth.

We want to know where the dope came from that you gave to her. Panicked. She says she wants a lawyer, the sergeant then informs her that she's the subject of a homicide investigation now. The charge would be involuntarily and voluntary, excuse me, manslaughter under state law. Her offense would like rape and aggravated robbery, be a felony of the first degree. How could they do this to her?

Faced with the growing rise of opioid use and deaths, law enforcement officials and prosecutors had begun treating fatal overdoses as fucking homicides. The cases are categorized differently. Drug-induced homicide, murder by overdose, drug delivery resulting in death, and overdose homicide. More than two dozen states now have laws allowing prosecutors to bring felony charges against anyone who provides drugs, who provides drugs that prove fatal. What the fuck?

Again, what about personal responsibility? Should a doctor, who may be overprescribed opioids, that then lead to addiction, that then lead to someone seeking street narcotics, that then lead to an overdose, should they also be charged with murder? That is actually happening sometimes. Uh, what about pharmacy execs salespeople or, you know, big pharma execs salespeople who market and sell opioids that doctors then prescribe. Should they be put on trial for murder? Maybe the scientist who invented oxycontin? Should they be put on trial for mass murder? I mean, how far do we want to take all this? States without specific legislation, such as Ohio can indict a supplier

under existing statutes, manslaughter, depraved heart, reckless homicide, murder, potential punishments ranged from a year in prison to a death sentence. According to a recent study by the Northeast during University School of Laws, Health and Justice Action Lab, prosecutors and almost every state have now exercised the overdose homicide option. According to legal experts, this new legal maneuver can be traced back to one guy, Len

bias. Len bias was a superstar basketball forward at the University of Maryland. He collapsed on June 19th, 1986 in his dorm. Less than 48 hours earlier, he'd been drafted by the Boston Celtics. Bias had taken high quality cocaine, but politicians in the media associated his death with the nation's burgeoning crack epidemic. Democrats were trying to retake the Senate. They wanted to prove they could be tough on crime.

So House Speaker, Tip O'Neill urged Congress to craft forceful anti drug legislation that candidates can cite in their reelection campaigns. We cannot not our kids. Die on drugs. You know, it's some nice shit to say, but you gotta actually have a fucking plan. So, you know, plain political optics, fucking up people's lives again. Drugs are bad. Kids are dying. We have to punish people. Q grandparents in the suburbs, you know, who vote in droves, shaking their heads in agreements, sitting there watching the fucking TV, right? They're about to watch Wheel of

Fortune, maybe lifetime movie, then getting to bed by night. Q people of zero fucking complex understanding of any of this shit, being the ones who vote in politicians who then try to please them with solutions that don't work As Northeastern reported overdose homicide prosecutions tend to sweep up and harshly punish minor offenders who are struggling with addiction and who purchase drugs on behalf of themselves and their peers Right, it's not some kingpin boogie manages these people's friends who are also struggling with addiction Find this stuff a lot of times Leo Balezki the director of the Northeastern Law Lab, studied 263 prosecutions that occurred between 2000 to 2016. Founded about half of the defendants, or friends, family, or romantic partners of the person who died, not big time drug dealers.

Just people, not any different from the friend who ends up making the beer run for everyone else to the party. Should that person be put on trial for murder? If anyone dies of alcohol poisoning, shit's fucking ridiculous. Fucking hate frivolous legislation. I hate how much we consume in this country. I fucking hate it for so long. Oh my god. In Wisconsin, Daniel Adams, a defense attorney surveyed a year's worth of his state's cases from 2015, found that only 19 of 81 defendants were commercial drug dealers. Politicians seemed to have been, you know, extremely opportunistic in their champion, championing of overdose homicide law.

In his sentencing memo, Adams, that defense attorney in Wisconsin wrote that many state prosecutors criminalize addiction as a way to show action in the face of the opioid scourge. Just more bullshit optics. Look at the good job I'm doing mommy. I'm tough on crime. I'm a good boy. Can I have a hug? Fucking idiots. 2017 of Florida Sheriff would warn in the video that went viral on social media. If our agents can show the nexus between you, the pusher of poison, and the person that overdoses and dies, we

will charge you with murder for fuck's sake. They're the same person! Just two people struggling with addiction, heart and the right place with that sheriff but brain fucking up his ass. 2018 then attorney general Jeff Sessions would declare the prosecutors must consider every lawful tool they're disposable, including the fucking death penalty for people who get opioids to their friends. Is this the right way to fight the opioid epidemic? Many people, including me, obviously seem to think, fuck, no, so stupid. An article detailing Jamie's case had the headline, the wrong way to fight the opioid crisis. No one is formally documented. How many Americans are going to prison in overdose homicide cases, but the nonprofit drug policy alliance found the between 2011 and 2016 media references to such prosecutions rose by more than 300%.

The census can be outlandish. In 2015, Louisiana, Jared Macastland, whose girlfriend, Faley Overdost, found guilty of second-degree murder, automatically sends to life in prison without parole, Jesus Christ. Again, he didn't force her to do anything. And just like her, also addicted to opiates.

Thousands of people signed a petition arguing that Macastlan is being punished for being addicted and that the verdict is a slap in the face to all who seek help from this painful disease. Even the fucking judge said that it bothered him tremendously that he had to impose due to sentencing guidelines this life sense. Macastlan's appeals attorney later said,

the court was right to be troubled by a law that equates poor judgment with murder, exactly. Sadly, a lot of other similar cases. What about Jamie Nohio? Jamie was indicted in August 2015. In addition to involuntary manslaughter, she was charged with trafficking, as well as the lesser known felony

called corrupting others, a corrupting another with drugs. That's some bullshit moral stuff. I'm charging you with corrupting others with drugs. Oh my God. And Ohio that carries a mandatory minimum sense of two years in prison. She faced up to 20 and a half years, but not guilty, was found guilty. The judge Chris Brown called the case an undeniably tragic situation, noting that if Jamie hadn't given Courtney heroin, somebody else probably would have. Yep. Nevertheless, he followed the Jamie for having provided her the means, send start to a

term of four years and 11 months, so five years. Send to a woman's prison in Maryville, Mary'sville released in on April 25, 2019. Great. Single mom with two kids already struggling with an opioid addiction, spends several years in prison. And for what? For helping another addict get her fix. Good job, Justice System.

2016, the CDC published a specific guidelines for prescribing alternative pain medications for patients previously using opioids to fight chronic pain. They recommend over the counter. Pain relievers like, let's see the medicine. Hey, I know you're taking oxyconin habit for years, but why does this take some adveolar something or some, you know, bear fucking whatever.

Tylenol, it does not work near as well as opiates. Individuals who had previously managed their pain through opioid prescription now forced to find alternative methods of treatment, doctors no longer prescribing the stuff they were previously pressured to prescribe, another pressure not to prescribe. What does that mean? Well, it means more people find in street drugs, more felons, more people getting charged with some form of homicide for getting other opioid addicts, street opiates because they can't afford them anymore legally.

Fuck yeah. 64,000 people died from drug overdoses in 2016, over 42,000 of those from opioid deaths represents a 20% increase from a 50, 2015. Overdoses related to illegally manufactured fentanyl represent the greatest contribution to the increase accounting for twenty thousand deaths in total heroin accounting for fifteen thousand and prescription drugs for less than

fifteen thousand uh... two thousand sixteen former president obama asked congress for over a billion dollars to fight the opioid epidemic two thousand seventeen president trump declares a national public health emergency to combat the opioid crisis following year two thousand eighteen the national district attorneys association National Public Health Emergency to combat the opioid crisis. Following year 2018, the National District Attorney's Association in his first white paper on the opioid crisis urges law enforcement agencies and prosecutors to treat every overdose

death as a homicide and assign homicide detectives to respond to these saints. And the National District Attorney's Association sounds like a bunch of stupid cuts. Fuck those idiots. Fucking lawyers. I know there's a lot of good ones truly, but God damn it, the bad ones. I wish I could fucking gather them up, put them on an island and nuke it. The paper's authors argued that the potential of being charged with homicide provided an added incentive for a dealer to cooperate with law enforcement and provide other actionable

intelligence for broader distribution networks. State prosecutors can now exert leverage by threatening defendants with the prospect of federal charges, the mandatory minimum federal sentence for overdose homicide 20 years. Nice. State prosecutors can also send people who are, you know, not violent or they can send, you know, people who are not violent, who are just struggling with the really powerfully addictive drug to prison for at least 20 years. That's fucking great.

Same year, a nonprofit called the Urban Survivors Union launched reframe the blame, a campaign that urges users to sign a do not prosecute document. I love this. The directive reads, in part, if I die of an untimely accidental overdose, I ask that you do not use my accidental overdose as a tool of your drug war to blame and charge others with murder or homicide. He'll fucking Nimrod urban survivors union Fuck those dumb shit moralist prosecutors and politician getting passed on the back from the country club crowd for doing shit

They're fucking too willfully ignorant to understand Early this year February 3rd the New York Times releases an article detailing how McKinsey and, the consultant to blue chip corporations and governments around the world, has agreed to pay nearly 600 million to settle investigations into its role in helping turbo charge opioid sales. The firm reached a $573 million agreement with attorneys in 47 states, the District of Columbia and five territories. And guess how many of them are getting a minute or excuse me, minimum 20 years sentence, fucking zero. That's cool, that's cool.

That's fair. The settlements come after lawsuits on earth. The trove of documents showing how McKinsey worked to drive sales to Purdue, farmers, oxycontin, painkiller. The firm told Purdue that it could band together with other opioid makers. The head off strict treatment by the food and drug administration. The records highlight McKinsey's close relationship with Purdue over many years. In 2009, the firm wrote a report for Purdue saying that new sales tactics would increase

sales of oxycon by as much as 400 million annually, and suggested sales drivers based on the idea that opioids reduce stress and make patients more optimistic, and less isolated, according to a lawsuit filed in 2018 by Massachusetts, because that's all bullshit. McKinsey worked with Purdue executives and finding ways to counter the emotional messages from others with teenagers that overdose on the drug. These fucking monsters, but they're not going to prison for at least 20 years. In 2017 slide presentation for Purdue, Mackenzie laid out several options to shore up sales. One was to give distributors a rebate for every oxy-content overdose attributable to pills they sold. Again, these people don't go to prison.

They never do easier to punish the poor, these people don't go to prison. They never do. Easier to punish the poor, those who can't afford powerful lobbyists and a powerful defense team. Throw some more poor people into the wheels of the justice bus. Q, upper middle class applause. Yay, we can feel like our kids are safer now,

even though statistically they are not. Q, politicians shaking their hands. It's fucking pieces of shit. By 2018, senior executives in McKinsey were becoming aware that they might face liability for their opioid work, after Massachusetts sued Purdue, Martin Elling, a leader in the firm's pharmaceutical practice, wrote to another partner, it probably makes sense to have a quick conversation with a risk committee to see if we should be doing anything other than eliminating all of our documents and emails.

Suspect not but as things get tougher, there are someone, there are, Jesus Christ, suspect not, but as things get tougher, there someone might turn to us. I don't know what the last part means. Kevin Sneeter, the firm's global managing partner said, we deeply regret that we did not adequately acknowledge the tragic consequences of the epidemic unfolding in our communities with this agreement. We hope to be part of the solution to the opioid crisis in the US. Yeah, part of the solution to the problem.

You fucking created. In the settlement, the consulting firm the opioid crisis in US. Yeah, part of the solution to the problem, you fucking created. In the settlement, the consulting firm will not admit wrongdoing, cool, according to the multi-state settlement, but will agree to court ordered restrictions on us work, with some types of addictive narcotics, as well as provide email records of communications inside the firm. Meanwhile, poor people got going to prison for murder.

Fucking great. The blame game for the opioid epidemic continues on March 5th, 2021, a doctor who prescribed opioids charged with five counts of murder. For years, there were troubling signs about George Blattie's medical practice. In 2018, he set up a makeshift office in an old radio shack store. It's signed still visible outside the merchandise rack still in the walls. Prosecutor said, Mr. Blattie made the empty radio shack in a suburban strip mall, his office for a period of about 10 months before 2018 and 2019.

The rented space or the rented space in Franklin Square, a hamlet on Long Island bore no resemblance to a traditional doctor's office. The lone medical device in the office was a blood pressure cuff, prosecutor said, so this is pretty sketchy. There was rust and water damage on the ceiling, no heating system, visitors had to wear winter jackets and hats on cold days. The later he began meeting patients in his car and parking lots of hotels on Long Island, or sometimes they're nearby Dunkin' Donuts. Jesus Christ, just at the Dunkin' Donuts would prescribe pain medication without conducting any examination.

Many of his patients appeared to be already struggling with addictions to opioids or other drugs, but the doctor is 75 years old now just kept prescribing more. One of his patients, Michael Kinzer, a smoker with back pain asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease started seeing Mr. Blattie in 2013, according to court documents. The electrician from Valley steam was hospitalized for an overdose in October 2016, eight days after Mr. Blattie prescribed him morphine. The following month, according to court documents, Mr. Blattie prescribed Xanix and oxy-con. Combination prosecutors say it can be fatal, especially for individuals with decreased breathing capacity. Mr. Kenzer 44 died two days later.

Blattie would be arrested in 2019. Prosecutors took the unusual step of charging Mr. Blattie with the murders of five of his patients whose deaths were opioid related. The charges prosecutors said Mark, the first time that a doctor in New York had been charged with second-degree murder under the legal theory that depraved indifference to human life led to the patient's deaths. Madeline Singus, the NASA County District Attorney, called Mr. Blattie a serial killer who had knowingly prescribed huge amounts of painkillers to his patients, many of whom were already addicted to opioids or other drugs.

Mr. Blattie pleaded not guilty to the five counts of murder and 11 counts of reckless endangerment in the first degree. Does this guy sound like a good dude? No. Sound like a fucking quack and he does sound like, you know, maybe should be charged with murder. But if he's gonna be charged as murder, why aren't the big farmer execs charged with murder, right? If you follow that logic, like charging low level, you know, dealers with murder, charging doctors with murder has been seen by some law enforcement as a way to combat the opioid epidemic. In 2011, 88 doctors faced drug-related criminal charges, civil lawsuits, and medical license suspensions.

In 2019, that number was 477. And while criminal charges for overdose deaths, particularly murder charges are rare, their frequency has been increasing. In 2020, there were 50 different drug-related criminal cases against doctors that we don't know the specific charges. In New York, a pain doctor in Queens convicted of manslaughter in 2014 and the overdose death of two patients, California, a doctor convicted of three counts of murder in 2015 for prescribing large amounts of addictive drugs to patients who did not need them and

then died of overdoses. These cases can be tricky because the burden of proof proving that it's the doctor's fault, difficult, you know, the difficult case for the prosecution to make. Dr. in California was accused of over prescribing certain drugs, including opioids, acquitted in 2019 in the deaths of two of his patients. The jury failed to reach a verdict in other charges. And that brings us to the most recent, though certainly not the last, you know, development in this ongoing epidemic.

Let's hop out of our time-sack timeline and look again at some reasons for the epidemic as well as some possible solutions. Good job, soldier. You've made it back. Barely. So, if people have been using opium and it's chemical descendants, you know, for thousands of years, what's caused the recent opioid epidemic? The surge in addiction and fatalities that we've seen over the last, you know, 20, 30

years. Before I address that, I do have one final sponsor and not one that I like actually. This is a sponsor I hate. Today's time's luck unfortunately. It's brought to you by, well, it's a PSA sponsored by the Association of Safe Substances Connally Labeled Opients or Wicked Narcotics, Ask Clown, paid for by the pharmaceutical United States scapegoat society, plus.

Are you struggling with an opioid addiction? I don't know you, I don't know your situation, but I do know it's your fault. You want to blame an opioid manufacturer for creating something in the lab much stronger and much more addictive than more fiener, even heroin that was overly prescribed to you by doctors, pressure to prescribe it because of legislation, big pharma lobbyists, pressured politicians to pass if they wanted to get their next campaign funded? Yeah, okay, sure. That's why you're addicted.

No, it's your fault. It's not because these drugs were lab designed to quickly blow up your opioid receptors and tweak your brain chemistry almost instantaneously to the point of extreme physical dependence. No, it's your fault. Week character, bad parenting, poor choices, substandard morals, probably all of that. I don't know you, but I do know it's your fault. You're not a victim.

Sure, maybe you were prescribed a powerful painkiller taken after an injury you didn't cause, and then you lost your job in health insurance and couldn't afford the prescription meds anymore and chose to use street-level opioids 50 times less expensive so you could still manage the pain to let you un let you get out of bed normally and feed your new addiction and then you get arrested for a scheduled one controlled substance abuse and are sent to prison.

And that is somehow a big pharma's fault? No, it's your fault. For more information on how your opioid addiction is 150% your fault and yours alone, please go to it's your fault dot org this psa again is brought to you by the association of safe substances cunningly labeled opiates or wicked narcotics ass clown and paid for by the pharmaceutical united statescape so society

plus uh... like i said really like that sponsor but uh... the pocket and they pay well. Back to my pre that nonsense question, if people have been using opium and it's chemical descendants for thousands of years, what's caused the recent opioid epidemic, the surge in addiction and fatalities that we've seen over the last 20 or so years, right? We've already talked about

doctors prescribing more opioids to treat pain. We talked about how in the earlier part of the 20th century, doctors were typically cautious about prescribing pain medication. They restrained their use of pain prescriptions, which meant that pills were harder to obtain, but then the mentality regarding pain management shifted. It was seen as immoral not to give suffering people the drugs that would ease their suffering. And those drugs typically opioids, as a result, huge emphasis on responding swiftly to patient pain in the 80s and 90s. Big farmer drug companies like Purdue now step in, fall, seek claim that their products are not addictive, not that addictive and they're really good at managing pain.

Now doctors are trained to prescribe painkillers early and often all the time. In fact, to this day, many doctors will receive lower patient evaluation sources still, which are legally linked to hospital payments if they don't prescribe opioids. In short, physicians feel pressure from both their workplaces and their patients to pull out the prescription pads. But then, now maybe they'll be charged with murder? What the fuck? Here's how Steve Diaz and emergency medicine doctor in Maine described the situation to

USA today in 2016. The patient says, I'm in pain and you're not meeting my needs. And doctors might say, I'm being graded on this. I'll give this patient something to get them over the hump." He said, no one will overtly say, I'm doing this to not get a bad score, but in the back of their mind, how alarming. So this pressure, this system,

it definitely has helped massively increase the prevalence of powerful addictive opioids. The more prescriptions that go out, the more abuse, the more people end up seeking out street opiates when they're no longer prescribed opioids, or can't afford prescription prices any longer. Now let's talk about another opioid epidemic factor, loneliness and social disconnection. The age of the internet, social media, overwork, other factors maybe linked to the explosion of opioids. And this popular TED talk, everything you think you know about addiction is wrong.

British journalist and author Johan Hari highlights the link between addiction and social bonding. When we don't connect with one another, we turn to other substances to get the same feeling of well-being says we connect with drugs rather than one another. If we don't address the pain of personal isolation, we will not stem the tide of the overdose epidemic. The rise of social media platforms is not helping. In fact, the illusion of connectivity may be contributing to our lack of it. According to researchers of the University of Pittsburgh, the people who reported spending the most time

on social media more than two hours a day had twice the odds of perceived social isolation. The nose who said they spent half an hour per day or less on those sites. How sad is that? Social media fueling the opioid crisis, as it also fuels so many dumb shit conspiracies. All these logical echo chambers out there

stressing so many of us out, then there are these opioids that for a little while will make everything feel okay again. While researchers noted that heavy social media use does not necessarily cause social isolation, it's clear that we have a real issue with social isolation in our modern world. And that translates to vulnerability for drug addiction.

And social isolation means mental health issues. either previously diagnosed or new can ramp up. Anxiety disorders now affect 40 million adults in the US according to the anxiety and depression association of America. That makes anxiety the most prevalent mental illness in the country, impacting over 18% of the adult population, plus depression, which often co-occurs with anxiety, leading cause of disability in the US among people age 15 to 44. We now know that many people who struggle with addiction

have a dual diagnosis, a substance abuse issue combined with the mental health concern, how the fuck do we make things better? Here are a few possibilities to maybe, hopefully help curtail the opioid epidemic, education, education, education, simple solutions to complex problems do not fucking work. Take your simple slogans, shove them up your ass.

Like just say no. Just tossing people in cells when they're naughty doesn't work never will. It's important to educate doctors about the dangers of over-scribing opioids as well. Teach proven research-based pain management therapies and techniques that don't rely on op- don't rely on opioids. Those are out there. Important to educate society on what drugs are out there, what they do, how to use them more safely.

Again, just telling people, just say, no, that's shit like that's idiotic. Talk to your kids about what drugs actually do, how dangerous they are. Don't insult their intelligence by just telling them, they're bad, don't do them. Talk to them about fucking everything, in depth, sex, drugs, religion, politics,

have real discussions. Mine not saver from making terrible mistakes, but every fiber of my bean is screaming, it will help. As a society, we should take that approach. Talk about shit at length and in depth, and without just sitting around screaming at each other. Do you have a logical reason for your dissenting point of view about a topic as serious as opioid abuse?

No, then go do some research until you can bring one of the conversation. We need intelligent, well-researched discussions in order to help form solutions to problems as complex as this. And we need to accept that at the end of the day, people will A, always fucking use drugs and B, always die from abusing them. We can focus on reducing the deaths while also understanding that you can't save everyone, right?

And people who don't understand that at the voting polls, they can go suck fucking bag of dicks. We can be reasonable. To help curb this epidemic also necessary to make changes to the healthcare system to prevent over prescribing and alleviate the pressure on doctors to over prescribe, for example, by changing the form and content of patient satisfaction surveys, also employing use of alternative pain management therapies. Looking at some of you in a various big, far more exacts and lobbyists who are the reason

we have our current system, maybe try putting people's lives before profits for fucking once. We need to curtail aggressive marketing by drug companies. We need to punish white collar crime much more severely than street level crime. And as we just saw, it's important to maintain social connections. We need to create families and communities characterized by connection, purposefully putting down our devices, signaling out or signing out, excuse me of social media, conversing heart to heart more often. Now let's recap, the opioid epidemic.

It's a massive topic. All the stories of opioid users, as well as developments in drug use and law enforcement techniques, as well as public health measures, could easily make for an entire podcast series. So much more to cover, but I think we covered a fair amount and a little over, you know, two and a half hours. The opioid epidemic refers to the rise and opioid addiction and opioid related deaths over the past 30 or so years, beginning when doctors and pharmaceutical companies start to thinking that some synthetically produced opioids were less harmful than previous types

of opioids, right? That line of thinking, not new. People at one time thought heroin was less dangerous than morphine, medicine, not always in exact science. In our entire history, however long that will be though, you know, or long will be, we'll probably never know everything we need to know about how to treat the human body, or at least that's the long ways away. Our meat stack body is pretty, pretty complex, which is why we need to focus on becoming

robots and turn earth into a real-life westworld, digital immortality. That's where we should focus. That's not helping the taste topic. With the rise of these opioids, in the 1990s and 2000s, more and more people become addicted to opioids, then turn into listed drugs or elicitly prescribed medications to get their fix. Street drugs mix with other drugs like super strong fentanyl, cause more overdose overdose deaths. Get those fentanyl test strips, please. If you can fuck around with this stuff, our law enforcement system has struggled with how to approach these overdose deaths, with how to discourage people from using drugs. They've done Test strips, please. If you can fuck around with this stuff, our law enforcement system has struggled

with how to approach these overdose deaths, with how to discourage people from using drugs. They've done everything from charging small time dealers to doctors who write prescriptions. Even pharmaceutical companies have had their days in court. But it's not likely that we'll stop manufacturing or that they will stop manufacturing opioids. Just as not likely people will stop taking them.

Looking forward, it's important to be educate doctors on prescribing opioids, looking to other ways of treating pain, also important to be emphasized social connection and other ways to get those natural highs. The feelings of stability and safety that don't come from something new and jacked but from a safe, happy environment. It's important to be educate ourselves

and our kids about drugs. I wish we could legalize them. Put all the money we currently spend fighting the drug war and to rehab and education, but that probably won't happen anytime soon. In the meantime, let's keep talking. Have some grace, empathy, understanding for opiate addicts. The shit's no joke.

How sad to take something because you're already in pain, physical or mental or both, then this shit takes hold of you. It leaves you feeling so much more pain. Then the legal system treats you like a fucking murderer. You live in a crazy world. Let's try and re legislate it to make it a bit less crazy. Pay attention to what politicians have to say in this issue, where they stand. And if they stand in the middle of a big old pile of high and mighty bullshit, maybe

not vote for those motherfuckers anymore. I appreciate you, Zunze. For today. Help us figure all this out in Imrod. I looked at your divine ball sack or celestial guidance. Time now for today's Top 5. Take aways. Time, suck today's top five takeaways. Time, shock, top five takeaways. Number one, meat sex, love, opium.

Feels great. We've been using it for thousands of thousands of years, going back at least 5,500 years. As far back as the ancient Samarians, at least. Number two, the opioid crisis has taken a huge toll on the U.S. From 1999 to 2017, more than 399,000 people died from drug overdoses that involve prescription and or illicit opioids. In 2017 alone, there were 70,000 recorded drug overdose deaths of those deaths, 47,600

involved in opioid. We recently passed our first 100,000 drug overdoses in a single 12-month span over 75,000 of those deaths from opioids. But as we learned from Dr. Hart, maybe those deaths weren't counted in a way that accurately represents the true toll. Still, an enormous number of people have died. Number three, doctors are still trying to figure out the best and safest way to manage pain. We thought that opium was fine to consume for years, then the Civil War and the rise of drug addiction changed people's minds. Doctors avoided prescribing opioids for the first half of the 20th century, leading many cancer patients and other people suffering to get an overleaf.

That's not good. For the perspective, flipped and doctors began to over-prescribe opioids. That's not good either. Why do we have to be so extreme? Someday I hope someone can invent a true miracle drug, some kind of pain reliever that lessons pain significantly without fucking up our opioid receptors or sending us into a dangerous addiction. I think someone will.

Doctors and researchers, they don't always get it right. Not initially, but eventually, they usually do. Scientists, they're a pretty smart bunch. Yeah, they fuck up, you know, time to time, because they're fallible, you know, human beings, but from where I sit, they seem to have the best batting average out of any group of meat sacks when it comes to figuring out how to improve our quality of life here on this big floating space rock

drastically. Number four, who is to blame for the opioid epidemic? Fuck of I know. God, Mother Nature, we meat sacks, not invent opiates. They were here when we showed up. Probably big pharma lobbyists the most so. Do we blame pharmaceutical companies and the firms they worked with who estimated the number of overdoses,

you know, and still kept pushing sales opiates? Do we blame the small time dealers and sellers? Do we blame politicians? You pass bullshit drug laws? Do we blame law enforcement and lawyers who arrest and prosecute addicts for essentially becoming addicted to really addictive drugs? Do we blame doctors? Do we blame ourselves for not educating ourselves and our children on opioids enough. I think we mostly blame Big Farma, but the blame, you know, spread around. Number five, new info if your drug number opioid addiction get help. Nimrod commands, don't become part of the shitty stats that I've shared here today. You beautiful bastard. Don't feel ashamed for being powerfully addicted to a drug that grabs a hold of your head and skull fox,

yeah, opioids are so powerful. Stronger than, you know, me stronger than you. Don't beat yourself up, try and tough guy that shit out. Beat an opioid addiction. I guess it may work for some on their own, but for most of us, it's like trying to beat a grizzly bear in a bear-knuckle boxing match. There's a lot of places to go for help.

One good place to start would be the substance abuse and mental health services administration hotline. Uh, SAMHSA's national helpline 1-800-662-HELP. That's 1-800-662-4357. A confidential free 24-hour day, 24-hour a day, uh, 365-day year information service in English and Spanish for individuals and family members facing mental and or substance use disorders. So call it. Lucifino won't fuck you or let you get more dick if you don't. She seems serious. No but no dick no push. Not until you see got some help. Somebody who loves you whether you know it or not is dying for you to make that call maybe that's somebody is you. Time suck tough five takeaways.

Time suck tough five take away. The opioid epidemic has been sucked. Man, I feel like I still should have done more on it, but I also feel like I could have spent a second week on it and still feel this way as the end of the recording. Thank you to the Bad Magic Productions team for all the help making time suck every week. Queen of Bad Magic, Lindsey Cummins. She's an all star. She does so many other things that allows me the time necessary

to get these put together every week. Reverend Dr. Joe Paisley, sorry, thanks to Sophie Evans for the initial research this week. She killed it. Thanks to Biddelixer for keeping the time suck app run and smooth, Logan the art warlock Keith, our creative director,

creating all that merch at BadMagicMarch.com and more. Thanks also to Liz, the Enchantress Hernandez, running our call to the Curious Facebook private page, currently called to the Curious Two, and her wonderful all-seeing eyes moderators. Thanks to Liz for helping Logan with socials. Thanks to Beefstake and his mod squad, keeping over 10,000 Meadzacks happy on Discord. Next Monday on Time Suck, we go full Suns of Anarchy. God, I love that show. Watch every episode. A lot of them twice. Space actors have voted that we suck the notorious and exclusive motorcycle group known as the Hells Angels.

We're gonna look at their initiation rituals, cryptic patches, many links to violence across five continents over the course of several decades. What's true? What's hyperbole? What's real? What's propaganda? We'll also investigate the impact they've made on several nations' cultures, including the unique place in Hollywood over the years.

Our journey will take us to American GI's, Fightin' at World War II, and the new American motorcycle company they became loyal to. Some of them that will lead us directly to the modern motorcycle clubs that spawned the outlaw bikers known as one percenters, including the Hells Angels. That was hilarious. I don't know if you can hear it in the recording, but a motorcycle just rev their engine just right by the window, as I said that. Along the way, we'll meet some unique characters and follow the angel's evolution

from patriotic roughions to hired muscle to legit sophisticated organized criminals for the 70s and on into the early 21st century. We'll try and answer the question, are the hell's angels still a dangerous criminal organization today? Or just some motorcycle love and do to look tough? Come suck the hell's angels with me next Monday. The space lizards never lead us astray. And now let's head on over to this week's Time Sucker

updates. Updates, get your time sucker updates. Glad there is no medical terms terms I can remember these updates. My mush mouth feels like it just got punished. A couple hours. First update has really made me laugh. Lucifina Loving Meat Sack Nicole writes, dear Dan, just so you know I'm part of the BDSM community.

I bought the meat sack duffle bag with the explicit purpose of using it for my kink gear. It works great, roomy enough for my flogger, paddles, riding crops, all my ropes. The end pockets are great for a small first aid kit and safety shears. I can't wait for all the comments, I'm gonna get about my meat sack. I fucking love it Nicole, serious or joking, I love this. I hope you actually do use the duffel bag decorated to look like actual meat to hold your sex here in. I hope you go full incubus and make some sex slaves nervous. Lay down and submit

while I grab my tool, slave. Incubus needs to bring out the drill dough to prepare you for sexual ascension. Smart sucker Chris Allen had me concerned with the start of this following message. Hey, Mr. Bitch Fucker trucker sucker. I'm cruising through the catalog right now and I wanted to give you a bit of insight from an engineer on a hot button issue. We can both agree the world isn't flat, but I think we differ when it comes to whether anything south of the equator exists. Gravity would pull everyone down into space

if they didn't have on ground harnesses. And I've never seen people wearing ground harnesses so I will bet on those places not existing. This is a joke, please, not humiliating me. Also, if you give a shout outs to my buddy Nick, he's the one who got me into the show and he's going to be getting married soon. I think it'll be all caught up on the show by the wedding. This would definitely add to his great day.

Keep truckin, fuckin', fuckin' duckin', shuckin', suckin'. Mr. Doctor Professor Reverend Cummins with Love Chris Allen. Thank you, Chris. When I read the first few sentences, I was rolling my eyes. I was like, oh, here we go. So, I think we're just joking. And yes Yes, congrats Nick. Enjoy your big upcoming day. Remember this. You're in your partner's day. No one else's Fuck any family members. You're trying to hijack it. Make it about them. It's not mommy's day.

It's not mommy's last day. Ah, it's your day. You're in your partner's day. Sucker Sarah C gave me some cool info. I'd like to pass along to you. She writes Listed into the Menendez episode of the murder you talk about an Idaho small town cool info. I'd like to and Jimmy killed it. So they did a fantastic job and the story of Sarah Marie Johnson murdering her parents in Bellevue, Idaho in 2003. Happy to mention their podcast. I just talked to Jimmy that a week on the phone. Good guys. Lindsay talks to Sarah all the time.

James and me don't talk as much as we should because we're always researching and we don't want to be pulled away. Now a time-sucking pastor shares a nice reminder for me to keep focusing on individual merit. Even when the individual belongs to a group, I may be struggled to accept it times. This pastor writes, hey, Dan, I'm a longtime sucker. Just sign into the website. I thought you might be interested to know that I'm a pastor. I love your podcast and learn a lot from it. You have a great mixture of information inside and humor, which makes it a great way to learn about some very interesting topics. I also want to say that while I appreciate your open mind to so

many things, and that while you despise fundamental extremists of all religions, you respect and admire many of all faiths who seek to practice their faith. Anyway, it is refreshing thing in the world. So polarized by everything from religion to politics to race and gender. Thanks again, Pastor Tarrer. It is way too polarized. It is way too, polarized. It appears way too, polarized. I will say I would have more conversations with individuals out in the world about all these polarizing issues. I think it's the vocal minority riling up on both sides. Extremely left, extreme right. I still do think most people are in the middle. But thank you, Pastor Tucker. I bet you're a great compassionate pastor, truly. I hope you feel the same way about your congregation that you do about

me, right? That you can respect and admire some of them even when they deviate from some of your teachings. I bet you do that. And thanks for reminding me to not be careful or to be careful, you know, about my judgment, which you wouldn't even really do, but it made me think about that. Like, you know, I shouldn't be Too judgmental about people who belong to groups. I don't understand If the message you Her does get lost. Yes, I I've I've a great admiration for many Christians including many evangelicals And people of other religions. I admire people on the right the left the middle people who are atheists Catholics Mormons You know Buddhist hinduists

How you say it Hindus? There we go, what did I say, hinduists? Scientologists, Jehovah's Witnesses, yeah. Yeah, sure, look at Tom Cruise and Serena Williams, you know, for different reasons. I'm not kidding about Tom Cruise, by the way. I've teased him a lot, but he's a great actor and he's done a lot of philanthropy. So, I might not like Scientology,

but I like some of the things he's done. Too easy to write off a whole group of people a lot of times. I know there are good, big, farma-lobists even in execs, in case that got lost today. Some of the bad ones, I do want to set on fire. I know that there's good, tough on crime, drug crime, legislators, even though I strongly disagree with some of their beliefs. And even Nancy Reagan did some good stuff.

Even Ronald Reagan did some good stuff, not so sure about Nixon. One last update, boom, on Bo good stuff, even Ronald Reagan did some good stuff. Not so sure about next. One last update, boom on Boon Hill, the Kentucky cannibal episode from former law enforcement sucker, Kathy Bloomhagen. Kathy writes, hey, you just wanted to write in regarding the suspicion you had about plumber, the law man possible outlaw during that episode. You talked about how he ended up killing the one lady's husband after he tried to shoot

plumber and how she ran into the street freaking out about it, blaming him. I spent almost 20 years in law enforcement and I've seen on multiplications where a victim of domestic abuse, excuse me, we'll refuse charges or change her story about the abuser when it comes time for court and the charges get dropped all for the cycle to continue, which is so sad. Our presumed was just as bad then, when women rarely worked outside the home or had their own money and retaining one's honor was important. Also, I had a grandmother who didn't divorce her abusive husband. Yes, my grandfather, he's a piece of shit and nobody in the family is anything to do with anymore. So fuck that guy for 50 years.

Religion and social family pressure can be tough to stand up against. Thanks for living today's society. Thanks for the great episodes, Cat. PS also, thanks for mentioning Bannock Montana's ghost town. My fiance and I are going to check it out when we get married in big sky next year. Also, really enjoy your show in Kansas City, Missouri. Well, thank you, Kat. Great reminder that yes, just because the woman suddenly said that plumber didn't need to

shoot her abusive husband, that doesn't mean that his killing of that dude was not justified. Emotions and an abuser victim relationship can be pretty complex. I did not think of that in the context of plumber. Maybe he really was slandered. Maybe he wasn't innocent victim of mob mentality, right? Did not the leader of the innocence. And I hope you have fun and panic. I need to check that out someday

and congrats on your upcoming marriage. Big Sky is beautiful. So much of Montana, so beautiful. Thanks for coming to a show in Hale, Nimrod, everyone. Another big episode this week. ["Suckin' Up with Yourself"] Next time, suckers, I need a net. We all did. Thanks again for listening to another bad magic production's

podcast, Meat Sacks. Don't do fucking fentanyl this week or any week ever. And if you're gonna dick around with narcotics, get those fentanyl test strips. You can order them on Amazon. I, I may have done that myself. Now keep on sucking. And magic productions. I'm a legend.

They can always be all jacked up. Let's know what he goes through life, you know? Sometimes yeah, you want to kind of miss your cool-aid it and just fucking kick your way through a wall. You know, just bust into a room just like, oh yeah! Get everybody really pay attention to you, do some damage, kick some ass, whatever. Sometimes, maybe just wanna lay in the shadows, maybe just wanna lay in the corner, drink a little weapon, chill, relax, play with your nibbles. Check out what people are talking about. Now I feel like you need to contribute.

Maybe there's somebody across the room. Maybe they got an interest in your hair and you just want to count through your hairs. You want to take four hours to do it. So do it with whipple, chill. Maybe you want to think about how many different flavors of ice cream there are. How many more there could be if people just started mixing the existed flavors and new combinations. I mean, if there's hundreds of combinations, to the first of the hundreds of combinations and just mix that with each of the other combinations. And then went forward

with the additional combinations that would just exponentially increase the amount of flavors and the new flavors that you could then continue to mix and match it. maybe you just want to lay on the ground and think about that for eight hours. Do it with whipple. Chill. Maybe you just want to take too long to use words, they're in senses. And make podcasts, and this is hanging. Wrap to anticipation. That's on the clever you might be saying, come on up.

But you don't have anything clever this time. You fucked up. You ain't got a whole bottle of whip all you have He He just wants to leave Shhhhhh you