[Vision2020] To Daily News: Why Stonewalling Oxycodone Gate?

Tue Jul 17 15:07:50 PDT 2012

Isn't there an old saying about looking at the world through rose colored
glasses?

w.

On Tue, Jul 17, 2012 at 12:25 PM, Tom Hansen <thansen at moscow.com> wrote:

> Courtesy of a city council member during last night's (July 16, 2012) city
> council session.
>
> Guess who?
>
> <http://www.TomandRodna.com/Speeches/No_Problems_In_Moscow_071612.mp3>
> http://www.TomandRodna.com/Speeches/No_Problems_In_Moscow_071612.mp3
>
> Seeya round town, Moscow.
>
> Tom Hansen
> Moscow, Idaho
>
> "If not us, who?
> If not now, when?"
>
> - Unknown
>
>
>
> On Jul 17, 2012, at 10:55, "Saundra Lund" < <v2020 at ssl1.fastmail.fm><v2020 at ssl1.fastmail.fm><v2020 at ssl1.fastmail.fm><v2020 at ssl1.fastmail.fm>
> v2020 at ssl1.fastmail.fm> wrote:
>
> Thanks, Wayne.  I, too, have been wondering why we’ve not heard further
> about the local incident in the firehouse.  I certainly hope it’s not to
> protect those involved in the incredibly poor management decision-making,
> but if it is, it certainly won’t be the first time  L****
>
> ** **
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> Saundra****
>
> Moscow, ID****
>
> ** **
>
> Act as if what you do makes a difference.****
>
> ~ William James****
>
> ** **
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> ** **
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> ** **
>
> *From:* <vision2020-bounces at moscow.com> <vision2020-bounces at moscow.com><vision2020-bounces at moscow.com><vision2020-bounces at moscow.com>
> vision2020-bounces at moscow.com [mailto:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com] *On
> Behalf Of *Art Deco
> *Sent:* Tuesday, July 17, 2012 6:51 AM
> *To:* <vision2020 at moscow.com> <vision2020 at moscow.com><vision2020 at moscow.com><vision2020 at moscow.com><vision2020 at moscow.com>
> vision2020 at moscow.com
> *Subject:* [Vision2020] To Daily News: Why Stonewalling Oxycodone Gate?***
> *
>
> ** **
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> <http://www.nytimes.com/>[image: The New York Times]<http://www.nytimes.com/><http://www.nytimes.com/>
> ****
>
>
>
> <http://www.nytimes.com/adx/bin/adx_click.html?type=goto&opzn&page=www.nytimes.com/printer-friendly&pos=Position1&sn2=336c557e/4f3dd5d2&sn1=84e9b341/ba42e34f&camp=FSL2012_ArticleTools_120x60_1787509c_nyt5&ad=BOSW_120x60_June13_NoText&goto=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Efoxsearchlight%2Ecom%2Fbeastsofthesouthernwild>
> ****
>
>
> ****
> ------------------------------
>
> July 16, 2012****
> Rise in Pill Abuse Forces New Look at U.S. Drug Fight****By DAMIEN CAVE<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/damien_cave/index.html>and MICHAEL
> S. SCHMIDT<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/michael_s_schmidt/index.html>
> ****
>
> MEXICO CITY — America’s drug problem is shifting from illicit substances
> like cocaine to abuse of prescription painkillers, a change that is forcing
> policy makers to re-examine the long and expensive strategy of trying to
> stop illegal drugs from entering the United States. ****
>
> This rethinking extends beyond the United States, where policy makers are
> debating how to better reduce demand for painkillers. The effects would
> also be felt here and in Central America: With the drug wars in Mexico<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/mexico/index.html?inline=nyt-geo>inflaming violence, some argue that the money now used for interdiction
> could be better spent building up the institutions — especially courts and
> prosecutors’ offices — that would lead to long-term stability in Mexico and
> elsewhere. ****
>
> “The policies the United States has had for the last 41 years have become
> irrelevant,” said Morris Panner<http://www.hks.harvard.edu/cchrp/initiatives/latin_america/events/2010/month11/guatemala_17.php>,
> a former counternarcotics prosecutor in New York and at the American
> Embassy in Colombia, who is now an adviser at Harvard’s Kennedy School of
> Government. “The United States was worried about shipments of cocaine and
> heroin for years, but whether those policies worked or not doesn’t matter
> because they are now worried about Americans using prescription drugs.” **
> **
>
> The same sense that there is a need for a new approach was expressed last
> week by Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, a former federal prosecutor, who
> declared the war on drugs “a failure” that imprisons people who really need
> treatment. ****
>
> While a major change in policy is not imminent — “It’s all aircraft
> carriers, none of it moves on a dime,” as one senior Obama administration
> official put it — the election of a new president<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/07/world/americas/enrique-pena-nieto-confirmed-as-mexico-vote-winner.html>in Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto, is very likely to have an immediate impact
> on the debate. Mr. Peña Nieto has promised to focus not on drugs but rather
> on reducing the violent crimes that most affect Mexicans. ****
>
> Mexico and other countries nearby, especially Honduras, El Salvador and
> Guatemala, are withering under a metastasizing threat: violence caused by
> drug traffickers battling for power, to move drugs, extort businesses, and
> kidnap and kill for ransom. The American response so far has mostly
> involved a familiar escalation of force, characterized by the addition of
> law enforcement and military equipment and personnel to help governments
> too weak to combat trafficking on their own. ****
>
> But in Mexico, a focus of American antidrug efforts in recent years, a
> shift in priorities is already apparent. Since 2010, programs for building
> the rule of law and stronger communities have become the largest items in
> the State Department’s antidrug budget, with the bulk of the money assigned
> to Mexico. That amounts to a reversal from 2008 and 2009, when 70 percent
> was allocated to border security and heavy equipment like helicopters. ***
> *
>
> Even some officials with the Drug Enforcement Administration and Justice
> Department say they now recognize that arresting kingpins and seizing large
> drug shipments have failed to make Mexico more stable, largely because of
> corruption and other flaws in the Mexican justice system. ****
>
> American officials say they are now focused on training Mexican prison
> guards, prosecutors and judges, while supporting Mexican programs aimed at
> keeping at-risk youths from joining gangs. ****
>
> “We see crime as the leading threat in some countries to economic growth
> and the leading threat to democracy,” said Mark Feierstein<http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/president-obama-announces-more-key-administration-posts-5122010>,
> the United States Agency for International Development assistant
> administrator for Latin American and the Caribbean. ****
>
> Still, law enforcement remains a major element of the government’s
> strategy, as the deployment of a commando-style squad of D.E.A. agents in
> Honduras has demonstrated. And the Obama administration has ruled out drug
> legalization, despite expanding support for the idea in Latin America,
> while designating about 60 percent of the federal antidrug budget of
> roughly $25 billion a year to supply-side efforts, with 40 percent to
> demand, as the government has for decades. ****
>
> Eric L. Olson <http://www.wilsoncenter.org/staff/eric-l-olson>, a
> security analyst with the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars,
> said the growing debate had, so far, mostly led to confusion. “Some U.S.
> officials favor building institutions; others think it’s hopeless,” he
> said. ****
>
> Other experts are more critical of the Obama administration, pointing to
> the continued focus on cocaine interdiction, especially in Honduras, where
> the D.E.A. squad has been involved in a series of recent raids. One left
> four people dead, including two pregnant women, and in another one, last
> week, two people who were said to be smugglers were killed. ****
>
> “It just hasn’t worked,” said Mark L. Schneider<http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/about/staff/advocacy/washington/mark-schneider.aspx>,
> a special adviser on Latin America at the International Crisis Group. “All
> interdiction and law enforcement did was shift cultivation from Colombia to
> Peru, and the increase in interdiction in the Caribbean drove trafficking
> to Mexico, and now with the increase in violence there it has driven
> trafficking to Central America as the first stop. So it is all virtually
> unchanged.” ****
>
> What has changed is Americans’ use of cocaine. ****
>
> The most recent National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that an
> estimated 1.5 million people had used cocaine in the previous month, down
> from 2 million in 2002 and, according to an earlier government survey, 5.8
> million in the mid-1980s. (Methamphetamine use has also fallen in recent
> years, while heroin use was up somewhat, to 239,000 users in 2010 from
> 213,000 in 2008.) ****
>
> Some officials argue the cocaine decline shows that supply-side efforts
> have worked, but experts note that prices in the United States have held
> mostly steady since the late 1980s, suggesting the prominent role of a
> decrease in demand. Mark A. R. Kleiman<http://publicaffairs.ucla.edu/mark-ar-kleiman>,
> a professor of public policy at the University of California, Los Angeles,
> said that in the United States, cocaine had simply run its course among
> aging addicts. “What you’re recording,” he said, “is the rate at which they
> are dying or quitting.” ****
>
> Now the drugs most likely to land Americans in emergency rooms cannot be
> interdicted. Studies show that prescription painkillers, and stimulants to
> a lesser extent, are the nation’s biggest drug problem. The same survey
> that identified 1.5 million cocaine users in 2010 found 7 million users of
> “psychotherapeutics.” Of the 36,450 overdose deaths in the United States in
> 2008, 20,044 involved a prescription drug, more than all illicit drugs
> combined. ****
>
> And whereas cocaine and heroin have been concentrated in big cities,
> prescription drug abuse has spread nearly everywhere. “Today there is drug
> use in every county in Ohio, and the problem is worse in rural areas,” said Mike
> DeWine <http://www.ohioattorneygeneral.gov/>, the attorney general of
> Ohio. ****
>
> “This is an urgent, urgent issue that needs to be addressed promptly,”
> said Dr. Nora D. Volkow<http://www.drugabuse.gov/about-nida/directors-page>,
> director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. So far, she said, the
> response from government and the health care industry has been inadequate.
> ****
>
> But momentum for a broader change in domestic drug policy — as in foreign
> policy — appears to be building. D.E.A. officials say they have recently
> created 37 “tactical diversion squads” focusing on prescription drug
> investigations, with 26 more to be added over the next few years. ****
>
> “Unfortunately,” said Representative Mary Bono Mack<http://bono.house.gov/>,
> a Republican from California who is co-chairwoman of the Congressional
> Caucus on Prescription Drug Abuse, “it’s because more and more members are
> hearing from back home in their district that people are dying.” ****
>
> Damien Cave reported from Mexico City, and Michael S. Schmidt from
> Washington.****
>
> ** **
>
>
> ****
>
>
>
> --
> Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
> <art.deco.studios at gmail.com> <art.deco.studios at gmail.com><art.deco.studios at gmail.com><art.deco.studios at gmail.com><art.deco.studios at gmail.com>
> art.deco.studios at gmail.com
>
> ****
>
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-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
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