Some Right, Some Wrong...

But still a lack of personal responsibility.  Let me explain.

I recently read an article from Real Clear Investigations, "Night Train to Oblivion:Anatomy of an American OD".  They hit on some good points, and they missed on a few others, but there is an extreme lack of personal responsibility in this story.  

There is a lot of blame to go around in the current Opioid Epidemic.  The blame doesn't rest soley on the back of the Sackler's from Purdue Pharma, or for that matter, on pharmaceutical companies in general.  Of course, Big Pharma has a big share of blame, but so does the FDA, doctors with organizations who pushed "pain as the fifth vital sign", pharmacies who were more interested in making a profit, even when they knew they were seeing suspect prescriptions, and the patients and their families.  (Although some families tried their best to fight the idea that long-term opioid use was perfectly okay.)

I encourage you to read the article, but I'm going to tackle a few things they brought up.

Adam Rashid, the addict who died of a Fentanyl OD, was seen in a San Francisco Hospital, and released in the morning on the day he died.  I believe the doctor who released him was wrong.  According to the article Adam was a schizophrenic, which means, any threat he makes needs to be taken seriously.  He should have been placed on a 72 hour hold and evaluated, regardless of his drug status.  (He was seeking Klonopin, which is a pretty heavy anti-anxiety).  However, that didn't happen.   I agree with the article that this doctor failed in his duty.  However, Adam most likely would have been released in 72 hours, and then, odds are, he eventually ends up the same way. (more explanation on this later.)

The article goes on to say his parents picked him up from the hospital, but on the way to their house he became paranoid, demanded to be let out, and threatened to kidnap (?) his little brother, whom he had done drugs with in the past, and take him to New York.  So the parents let him out of the car just a few blocks from the Tenderloin, and for good measure gave him $30 to get food.  The Tenderloin is a well-known population center for homeless drug addicts, and dad gave him cash.  Dad is wearing really dark rose-colored glasses, is really stupid, or is seriously naive to the world of addicts, even though he's apparently been dealing with one for years.  You don't give an addict cash, especially not when you just dropped him off within easy walking distance of a drug haven.  

Apparently, Adam did what anyone with any knowledge of addiction could have guessed.  He bought Fentanyl, smoked it, and passed out in a GAP store.  An ambulance was called, but the paramedics were able to wake him up.  They had to keep waking him up on the way to the hospital, but at no point was he not breathing, and they could actually wake him up.  At the hospital he was released a couple of hours after arrival. The article makes mention of the fact that paramedics didn't give him narcan.  Okay.  He wasn't in the physical condition to receive narcan.  They could and did wake him up.  Opiods, especially strong ones, have the effect of putting people into a deep sleep.  I promise you if he had actually overdosed they would not have been able to wake him up.  Narcan wasn't called for, and if they had given it to him, it would have sent him into immediate withdrawal. The most likely outcome for that scenario would have been him refusing to go anywhere with the paramedics and ... he probably ends up the same way.

The article goes on to delve into how bad the system is when dealing with addicts, and I agree.  It is bad.  It is even worse when dealing with addicts who have mental health issues.  However, by all rights, everything the article says about Adam doesn't lead me to believe had any interest in getting clean.  He supposedly told a doctor there at the second hospital he visited that day, but nothing he had done up to that point hinted at him being interested in getting clean.  Especially not asking to be let out of the car right near a place he could easly get drugs.  

An addict has to want to get help, and the fact is, most of them don't really want to give up their addiction.  Opioids make a person feel good, and a lot of addicts don't want to go back to reality.  On top of that, once you have true opioid use disorder, your brain is now rewired to require those drugs, and if you don't have them, you will absolutely feel like you are going to die, and depending on your level of disorder, you may actually die.  It's hard for a person who really wants to get better to actually succeed (look up the statistics on relapses for opioid use disorder).  You can't force people into rehab (which this article tiptoes around, but it's there), because they will most likely go back to using the second they leave.  

Does this mean we should give up on addicts?  No, absolutely not.  I have seen people who didn't look like they'd be alive another day, and 6 months later they are clean, working, and getting back to life.  Some people can quit opioids cold turkey and not relapse, but it's not the norm.  Suboxone, and to a lesser extent, methadone, have a better track record.

Today we push for safe injection sites, places to get clean needles, narcan vending machines, and safe drug kits with crack pipes and needles in them.  These things are, most times, paid with taxpayer funds.  What if we took more of those taxpayer funds and invested them in Medication Assisted Treatment for addicts?  That would actually help people stay alive.

I say this, because if we keep giving people the ability to get high "safely" all we are doing is counting the days for that person until they become Adam... riding a subway line back and forth, dead from an overdose.  I think that's just not good enough.

Out of My Cold Dead Hands

 So, I am well aware that I have been absent since before 2022 started.  The short explanation is that going to school and working is hard.  I have set a hard date for my board certification exam (August 15th), and I expect after that things will calm down a little. 

Welcome to the Jungle, we've got fun and games.... (h/t: Guns 'n Roses)

There are six guns in my house.  I have finally reached the place where I have more guns than adults who can fire them.  This was a goal, so score one for me!  Have I offended you with that?  Here's the thing: my guns haven't shot a single person.  Ever.  One of them is over 40 years old.  Color me crazy, but it might be because no one in my house is planning to use said guns in the commission of a crime, like say, murder.  My point is the simple truth:  Guns don't kill people, people kill people.  I suggest we get to work, as a country, to figure out why people thinking walking into a school and blowing away kids is somehow the thing to do (at least it has been since Columbine).  What's changed in the last 30 years, because once upon a time a 12 year old could purchase a rifle in a Sears Catalog, and they weren't blowing up schools.  We could also do ourselves a favor by understanding that criminals don't follow laws, so passing more laws most likely won't stop them.  Last time I looked, murder was still illegal, but that happens every day.  Guns laws exist to restrict the purchase of guns by the people least likely to break the law.  I won't be giving up my guns.  There are 100 million law-abiding citizens who own guns, and I don't think they are keen on giving up their guns, either.  So, come and take them.  Really.  Let's see how that works out. 

But the children, Amy!  It's for the kids!  Let's add a disclaimer to that statement.  It's for the already born children who are wanted.  Most people screaming and yelling about gun control also have no problem, whatsoever, with the death of 63 million children since 1973.  That death toll is worse than Hitler.  It's creeping up on Communism.   Using children as a pawn in a political war is disgusting.  

There are 19 dead children in Uvalde, where the adults in charge had a series of opportunities to stop this before the mentally deranged 18 year old showed up on school property with a gun.  The people in charge, the people gun-control advocates want to control our access to guns, failed on every level.  And then, when they did show up, the police, which everyone wanted defunded two years ago, but which now they want to be in sole possession of all guns, stood outside, for over an hour, while a mentally damaged, barely-adult took pot shots at fourth graders.  

Now, a good portion of the political class in Washington, stands on the bodies of those children, while attempting to undermine my constitutional right to own a gun.  (Side note: I plan on buying an AR-15, and no stupid, fact-missing meme on Facebook is going to guilt me into not owning one.)  

The first 10 amendments to the constitution, better known as the Bill of Rights, guarantees American citizens certain rights.  The government doesn't grant them.  The government is tasked solely with making sure those rights aren't taken away.  The phrase "shall not be infringed" is pretty absolute.  Unlike all the other constitutional rights we've invented by trying to determine the meaning of this word or that word, this one is clear-cut.  And despite our *President yammering on that you couldn't own a cannon when the second amendment was written, the fact is, you could.  You could plant a cannon on your front lawn, legally.  It's the "free" part of the second amendment that seems to be something the left can't understand.  "necessary to the security of a FREE state".  This wasn't about the army, this was about citizens having the option to fight against tyranny, even if that tyranny came from their own government. The English King and government wanted to disarm the colonies.  The newly created Americans were intimately familiar with how vulnerable that made them.  They set out to make sure that never happened again.  The militia was any able bodied male over the age of 16, and they didn't have a locked building full of guns for their use.  They were expected to own a gun that could be used.  Well-regulated merely meant that they knew how to use the guns that they were obligated to buy in order to be a part of the "militia".  In the end, our founding fathers set up a system whereby the government would fail in it's duty to "defend and protect the constitution from enemies, both foreign and domestic" if it "infringed" on the rights of American Citizens to own guns.  

So, in conclusion, I own guns.  Legally.  I don't plan on giving them up, because that would be a clear violation of my constitutional rights, which my government is supposed to protect.  I own them because I believe they are the best defense against those who wish to do me harm, up to and including my own government.  You can try to take them, but you'll have to pry them out of my cold dead hands, and since many of you don't believe in owning guns, I have a feeling, I'll win.

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." ~U.S. Constitution, Bill of Rights, Second Amendment

When Feelings (and apparently Justices) Don't Need Facts

I have a few questions about the vaccine mandate that no one seems to be able to answer.  The mandate makes little sense to me, because of these questions.

If those who want to be vaccinated, are vaccinated, and the vaccines effectively protect against serious illness and death in most cases, then what is the compelling interest in forcing the vaccine on people who don't want it?  

We now know (despite previous statements to the contrary) that the COVID-19 vaccine does not prevent a person from catching and spreading the virus.  If you need proof of that, look to major sports in the US.  Despite the vast majority of players being vaccinated, COVID has spread like wildfire through the ranks of the NBA, NFL and NHL.  It got so bad in the NFL that they changed their policies. So, if a vaccinated person can spread and catch the virus, how exactly does the mandate protect anyone?  

Does the mandate violate equal protection under the law by requiring vaccine mandates for business with 100 employees, but not those with 97?  Are employees of smaller businesses less important than those of larger businesses?  As far as I know, most OSHA safety regulations for a certain type of business apply whether the business has 10 employees or 1,000.  Except for this one.  If the compelling interest is that it's OSHA's job to protect employees from unsafe conditions, they appear to only want to help the employees of big business. 

I think those questions need to be answered.

I like to follow cases in the Supreme Court.  I had a compelling interest to follow the challenge to the vaccine mandate.  I was taken aback by the falsehoods promoted by men and women who are supposed to be smarter than the average person.  I am the average person, and I know:

1) Hospitals are not crowded with seriously ill COVID patients.  The are crowded with seriously scared patients.  People who need a test because they were exposed, even though they show no symptoms.  People with mild cold symptoms.  People who are positive but show no symptoms.  People who are suffering mental health issues, either brought on or made worse by two years of COVID panic and isolation.  People with other medical issues who put off treatment out of fear of catching COVID.

2) Justice Breyer said that there were 750 million new cases the day before arguments.  Now, he never said that was in the US alone, which would be impossible, since there aren't 750 million people in the US.  However, the worldwide total on January 6, the day before the hearing, the total of new positive cases was at 2.5 million.  Breyer over counted the new cases by a magnitude of over 20.  

3) Justice Sotomayor said we had 100,000 children seriously ill with COVID, many of them on ventilators.  We haven't had 100,000 children seriously ill with COVID in the almost 2 years of the pandemic.  Currently we have about 5,000 hospitalized with COVID, but not necessarily because of COVID.  They are often hospitalized for another reason and because most hospitals test all inpatients, they may be positive, but that's not the reason they are in the hospital.  5,000 and 100,000 are different numbers..by a lot.

4) Justice Sotomayor said Omicron is as deadly as Delta, and I'm pretty sure, outside of Allhapundit of HotAir fame, she is the only person saying this.  

It's hard to argue a case before Justices with such a woeful lack of knowledge about the subject they are arguing. 

The fact is, if you didn't know by now, everyone is going to get some variant of COVID.  The vaccines do no prevent a person from getting COVID, although if you look at certain populations, they seem really surprised they caught COVID despite getting vaccinated and boosted and wearing masks and not gathering and.... A virus has one job, to replicate and infect as many people as possible.  It doesn't care if you wear a mask, if you stay six feet away from everyone, if you live in your basement, and if you get the needle every four months.  It's going to mutate to do it's job if it has to, and that means the formula for the vaccine was outdated the day they released it to the public.  By the time they formulate a booster that protects against Omicron, the virus will have mutated to whatever Greek letter comes next.  

It's time we get on with the business of living our life, and it's more than time that we stop shaming people who don't follow the ever changing government edicts, because frankly they haven't done much to instill confidence.  

As Andy Dufresne says in Shawshank Redemptiong 

"Get busy living or get busy dying."

I, for one, want to live.