Category Archives: War On Drugs

We are at war. So declared Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, three months into the fight against the novel coronavirus. If nothing else, its a sentiment President Donald Trump and the head of the WHO wholeheartedly agree on. And so do many other world leaders.

Especially when it comes to the mobilization of resources, war may be an appropriate analogy for fighting a pandemic such as COVID-19. But its ultimate defeat will be nothing like a military victory and will require the kind of extensive global cooperation that is more associated with keeping peace than fighting wars.

From Lyndon Johnsons War on Poverty and Richard Nixons War on Cancer to Ronald Reagans War on Drugs and George W. Bushs War on Terror, theres a long history of American presidents resorting to the language of war to mobilize action against major challenges and threats.

Trump was late to use the language of war, but once the extent of COVID-19s destruction became too hard to ignore, he fully embraced it. The world is at war with a hidden enemy, Trump tweeted in mid-March. WE WILL WIN, he reassured Americans. He depicted the foreign virus as an Invisible Enemy, and saw America as being on a wartime footing and himself as the wartime president. He called Americans warriors and urged them to defend against an attack that was worse than Pearl Harbor worse than the World Trade Center attack on 9/11.

Among other world leaders whove cast the fight against the virus as a war, President Xi Jinping called on the Chinese people to mobilize for a peoples war. Beijings propaganda machine touted Xi as the Peoples Leader commanding the decisive battle. And those citizens who had fallen to the disease were described as the wars martyrs.

In Europe, too, leaders have resorted to martial language. President Emmanuel Macron declared France was at war against an enemy that is invisible, elusive. In Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson, himself temporarily felled by the disease, has invoked Winston Churchill and the spirit of the Blitz, urging Britons to directly enlist in the fight while reassuring them they would come through it stronger than ever.

The language of war can be used to bring a nation together in common cause, to mobilize resources for the fight, to underscore the need for sacrifice and to force early and effective action. When it comes to dealing with a pandemic, all these efforts are necessary.

But they are not enough. A virus, though deadly, is not like an enemy in war. While it attacks through physical interaction, the attacker is as likely to be a spouse, a child or a parent, as someone unknown to us. It can be countered through physical separation, but it will only be defeated through outside medical intervention.

Finding a treatment or vaccine is nothing like fighting a war. It requires widespread, global cooperation among scientists to research, discover and test possible drugs and then to manufacture, distribute and deliver them all across the globe. And victory comes not from a single battle or even from the viruss defeat in one nation or region. It only comes from its defeat everywhere. When it comes to a pandemic, no one is safe until everyone is safe.

Many understand this need for cooperation. Last week, leaders from around the world connected virtually to pledge their support and more than $8 billion to fund vaccine development and research on diagnosing and treating the disease. The United States was notably absent from the effort, while China, which was represented by its ambassador to the European Union, pledged no funding.

Asked why President Trump did not join his world colleagues and pledge U.S. support for this global effort, a senior State Department official said Washington was doing its part. The United States is riding to the sounds of the gun, boldly heading into the fight to stop this pandemic, Jim Richardson, director of foreign assistance, said in a news briefing. Retreat is simply not an option.

Here lies the deeper danger of seeing the fight against this pandemic as a war. Wars rarely end by vanquishing the enemy. Most often, they end in stalemate, because of exhaustion, or through negotiation. But viruses dont negotiate, and in this pandemic, a stalemate means thousands will continue to die, every single day.

We are in this together, former President George W. Bush said so eloquently a few days back. We are not partisan combatants. We are human beings, equally vulnerable and equally wonderful in the sight of God. We rise or fall together. And we are determined to rise.

Ivo Daalder is president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and a former U.S. ambassador to NATO. He wrote this column for the Chicago Tribune.

Read the original:

Ivo Daalder: No, were not at war. The dangers of how we talk about the COVID-19 pandemic - TwinCities.com-Pioneer Press

By SCOTT MCKIE B.P.

ONE FEATHER STAFF

In an effort to combat the illicit drug issue on the tribal lands of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI), Vice Chief Alan B. Ensley has submitted legislation that would harshen the penalties of those convicted of tribal drug offenses. During a specially-called session of Tribal Council on Tuesday, May 12, Ordinance No. 180 (2020) and Ordinance No. 181 (2020) were both deemed read and tabled.

Vice Chief Ensley told the One Feather, Ive talked to many of our tribal members. They say we need action to fight the war on drugs that we are facing here on our Boundary, and I say we need action now. Our Boundary has been dealing with the drug epidemic for some time. In the past month, the number of overdoses has increased.

He added, We have laws on the books now, but it seems those laws arent strong enough. I have introduced amendments to strengthen the laws in an effort to protect our community and our tribal residents. Mandatory minimum sentences for dealers and those convicted of possession are proposed in the amendments. We, the leaders of the Tribe, have to make every effort to fight the drug epidemic and if that means tougher laws that is a step we need to take.

Michael McConnell, EBCI interim attorney general, said during Tuesdays session, These are attempts to take a tougher stance on some aspects of the drug problem that has very much increased lately.

He said there should be substantial discussion on the ordinances prior to passage including receiving input from the Cherokee Tribal Court as to how these changes would roll out.

Tabled Ord. No. 180 states in part, the number of people abusing and trafficking in controlled substances on tribal trust land has increased dramatically, and nearly every Cherokee family and every tribal community has been adversely affected by the increase in drug abuse and trafficking whether its been through the overdose or death of a loved one, the incarceration of a relative or community member, or the increase in thefts from area homes and businesses

The ordinance establishes a new chapter (Chapter 2A) in the Cherokee Code entitled Real Property Forfeitures. Sec. 2A-1(a) states, Real property is subject to civil forfeiture to the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians when the real property is used to facilitate an offense stated in subsection (b). Facilitation shall mean that the property was used to commit, or subsequently conceal, illicit activity.

Sec. 2A-1(b) outlines the offenses that would warrant a forfeiture. All civil forfeitures and interests in real property shall proceed as Tribal Council proceedings upon a Cherokee Code 14-95.6 conviction or any state or federal conviction where such offenses would constitute a 14-95.6 offense under the Cherokee Code. For purposes of this Chapter, real property shall mean the possessory holding and all improvements attached to the possessory interest.

According to the Cherokee Code, a 14-95.6 offense is Manufacture, Sell or Deliver, or Possession with Intent to Manufacture, Sell or Deliver, of a Controlled Substance.

Tabled Ord. No. 181 starts with amending punishment levels in Sec. 14-95.21. Imprisonment times would change for the various classes of penalties including: Class A would raise from one year to 18 months, Class B would raise from six months to one year, Class C would raise from 30 days to six months, and Class D remains the same.

This ordinance also proposes changes to Cherokee Code Sec. 14-10 as follows:

* Sec. 14-10.9 Criminal mischief to property: increases maximum term of imprisonment from six months to one year

* Sec. 14-10.15 First degree trespass: increases maximum fine from $5,000 to $15,000 and increases maximum term of imprisonment from one year to three years

* Sec. 14-10.16 Second degree trespass: increases maximum fine from $1,000 to $5,000 and increases maximum term of imprisonment from 30 days to one year

* Sec. 14-10.41 changed to Breaking or Entering: increases the range of fine from $250 $5,000 to $500 $15,000 and increases maximum term of imprisonment from one year to three years

* Sec. 14-10.60 Larceny: increases maximum term of imprisonment from six months to one year

Follow this link:

Vice Chief submits legislation to harshen penalties for tribal drug offenses - The Cherokee One Feather - Cherokee One Feather

El Mencho, Rubn Oseguera Cervantes, is the leader of Mexico's Crtel Jalisco Nueva Generacin and the most wanted man in the Western Hemisphere. Louisville Courier Journal

A powerfulMexican cartel member with ties to one of America's most wanted narcotics bosses is now in U.S. custody, a law enforcement source tells The Courier Journal.

Gerardo Gonzlez Valencia, a member of the wealthy Mexican cartel Los Cuinis, is in the process of being extraditedfrom South America to America toface federal drug trafficking charges.

In April 2016, afederal grand jury in Washington, D.C., indicted Gonzlez Valencia known as "Lalo" or "Flaco,"Spanish for skinnyand he soon wascapturedin Uruguay.

He is charged with conspiracy to distribute at least 5 kilogramsof cocaineand 500 grams of methamphetamine for importation intotheUnited States, according to the indictment.

Gonzlez Valencia is the brother-in-law to a Mexican billionaire andtop U.S. target, Rubn Oseguera Cervantes. Cervantes, known as "El Mencho,"is the leader of the global drug empire Crtel Jalisco Nueva Generacin, based in Guadalajara.

More: Who is El Mencho? He's the most powerful drug kingpin you've never heard of

The U.S. is offering a $10 million reward to capture El Mencho, whose cartel is blamed with flooding the U.S. with fentanyl, methamphetamine and other deadly drugs.

Los Cuinis cartel member Gerardo Gonzlez Valencia, a brother-in-law to one of America's top targets, the billionaire drug kingpin known as "El Mencho." Gonzlez Valencia was brought from Uruguay to the U.S. this week to face federal methamphetamine and cocaine trafficking charges in D.C.(Photo: Special to the Courier Journal)

Los Cuinis is an affiliate of CJNG and is led by several brothers of El Mencho's wife, Rosalinda. Together, the two powerhouseshave teamedto launder money and traffic drugs.

The U.S. went public with its plan of attack against Los Cuinis and CJNG during a national news conference in October 2018. Then-U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced charges against Gerardo Gonzalez Valencia, then 41, along with several others and emphasized the hunt for El Mencho, doubling hisprevious $5 million bounty.

Sessions announced the "kingpin" designation of El Mencho and Gerardo's older brother, Los Cuinis' leader, Abigael Gonzlez Valencia, then 45.

Mexican officials arrested Abigael, known as "Boss," in 2015 and he has fought extradition to the U.S. Another brother, Jose, was arrested in Brazil in 2017.

El Mencho remains a fugitive. U.S. drug agents believe he remains in hiding in Mexico, protected by an army of heavily armed mercenaries.

Why this cartel matters to Americans: A ruthless Mexican drug lords empire is devastating families with its grip on small-town USA

Cartel boss' daughter arrested in U.S.: Mexican drug cartel leader's fugitive daughter arrested in US while trying to see brother

Cartel boss' son extradited to U.S.: El Menchito, the son of feared Mexican drug lord El Mencho, faces US judge

The Courier Journal profiled El Menchoand CJNG in a special report last year that highlighted how the fast-growing cartel made its way into small-town America, including cities across Kentucky.

The investigation found the cartel operating in at least 35 states and the territory of Puerto Rico.

El Mencho's son, Rubn Oseguera Gonzlez known as "El Menchito" or Lil' Mencho was extradited to the U.S. earlier this year and is awaiting trial in D.C. on drug charges.

In another victory for the U.S. in the war on CJNG, cartel member Jess Contreras Arceo was extradited from Mexicoin December. Known as "Canasto," heis charged with drug trafficking and money laundering in Virginia.

Then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced indictments against top U.S. targets in Mexico -- the CJNG cartel and its affiliate Los Cuinis in October, 2018. This week, another key cartel member has been extradited to the U.S.(Photo: Justin Sullivan, Getty Images)

U.S. agents also were investigating El Mencho's daughter, Jessica Johanna Oseguera Gonzlez. They didn't have to extradite her. She came from her home in Mexico to the U.S. to see her brother in court in February and was arrested on her own charges.

Another U.S. attack on Mexican cartel: US makes nationwide arrests, including 3 in Louisville, of Mexican drug cartel members

Jessica, known as "La Negra," and her brother El Menchitowere born in California, making them dual citizens of the U.S. and Mexico.

That allowed prosecutors to take an unusual approach to arrest her, charging her with associating with businesses linked to her father's criminal organization, CJNG or Los Cuinis. The U.S. Treasury Department had blacklisted the businesses, making it illegal for an American to patronize or associate with them.

Reporter Beth Warren: bwarren@courier-journal.com; 502-582-7164; Twitter @BethWarrenCJ. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: courier-journal.com/bethw.

Read or Share this story: https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/crime/2020/05/14/mexican-cartel-member-tied-billionaire-fugitive-now-u-s/5182472002/

Read the original here:

Key Mexican cartel member with ties to a billionaire fugitive extradited to US - Courier Journal

It may seem odd to want regulations on controlled drugs, such as morphine, to be loosened in the UK, but laws designed to protect people are now causing harm to those with COVID-19.

Opiates, which include morphine, are proven to be effective at relieving pain and relaxing patients who have acute shortness of breath. Whether a patient is in pain or experiencing severe breathing problems, it is critical that doctors intervene quickly. Any delay increases the risk of cardiac arrest, which can be fatal.

Opiates are used to treat patients with COVID-19 in hospices and care homes, as well as in hospital wards. The recent surge in COVID-19 cases has placed significant pressure on the supply and dispensing of these important medicines.

Another example of how limiting the existing rules can be is the strict way that surplus and unused opiates prescribed to a named patient have to be destroyed. The Department of Health introduced new guidance at the end of April for care homes and hospices on how to reuse surplus medication, but this doesnt cover most patients who are in their own homes. Before the pandemic, this seemed wasteful, but it didnt create much of a problem. Now it is more serious.

Having to destroy perfectly good medicine when there is a temporary shortage is nonsensical, and it means some patients suffer longer than they need to.

Home Secretary Priti Patel is responsible for the legislation on controlled drugs and has been aware of problems for some time. On April 1 she asked her scientific advisers for their view on her plans to loosen regulation. They supported the changes that Patel had proposed, which prompted the home secretary to amend the law.

One of these amendments would allow pharmacists to change a prescription for a controlled drug if it would benefit the patient. But there was a caveat: I must be clear that these measures will not come into use with immediate effect. The government, in close liaison with the NHS service and devolved administrations, will carefully consider when to switch on these measures.

Along with fifty clinicians, academics, public health experts and others, we sent an open letter to Patel calling on her to switch on these measures, urgently.

We are not alone in our concern. The Royal College of General Practitioners has also pleaded with the home secretary to relax these regulations to alleviate patients suffering.

We have still not had a response from Patel or the Home Office. We can only speculate why we are in the bizarre position of having the legislation in place to ease the suffering of some patients with COVID-19 but not the political will to implement this change in the law.

It is understandable that ministers might be concerned about the consequences of easing restrictions on these powerful drugs. Given the significant mortality in North America in part due to a loosening of controls on these types of medicines, those fears are logical. However, if managed clinically, in a responsible way, the risk of problems such as dependence can be minimised.

It is possible that Patel is wary of introducing changes that might be used to prematurely end patients lives (drugs such as morphine are believed by some people to have been used in this way, even though this is illegal in the UK). Or it could be due to concern that loosening regulations will lead to misuse of opiates, with some finding their way onto the black market. Although this is possible, diversion of opiates to the black market has always been a risk. Irrespective of how tightly there use is controlled there is little evidence for this happening. Equally, this lack of action could be ideologically driven.

The Conservative party supports the war on drugs so the government may feel any action that loosens controls, irrespective of patient need and benefit, risks sending a message of going soft on drugs.

The regulations for all medicines, including more potent varieties, such as morphine, are based on a risk-benefit calculation. Essentially, do the regulations minimise the risks while ensuring the potential for human benefit is maximised?

Many aspects of the COVID-19 crisis have been beyond our control, but this issue is firmly within our ability to intervene and solve a problem. As clinical scientists, we are limited to providing advice. We are reminded that it is politicians who decide. But for every day that the decision to switch on these regulations is delayed, suffering continues, and that is both cruel and unnecessary.

View post:

Coronavirus: why the law on morphine should be loosened - The Conversation UK

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEContact: Shin Inouye,[emailprotected], 202.869.0398

WASHINGTON Allyn Brooks-LaSure, executive vice president for communications of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, issued the following statement on the shooting of Breonna Taylor:

We mourn the appalling loss of Breonna Taylor and are incensed at the circumstances of her killing at the hands of law enforcement. This tragedy occurred when the Louisville Police Department SWAT team forced their way into her apartment, allegedly unannounced, and shot her eight times. Sadly, she is not the first person to lose their life to or be the victim of a high risk, militarized use of a no-knock search warrant to seize drugs none of which were found in the apartment.

The so-called war on drugs is a failure it disproportionately incarcerates people of color and leads to too many casualties. Those responsible for Taylors death must be held accountable. We join the calls from local advocates and Taylors family for an independent investigation into her killing. As an EMT, Taylor worked to save lives those in power must act to honor hers.

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights is a coalition charged by its diverse membership of more than 220 national organizations to promote and protect the rights of all persons in the United States. The Leadership Conference works toward an America as good as its ideals.For more information on The Leadership Conference and its member organizations, visitwww.civilrights.org.

The rest is here:

The Leadership Conference Statement on the Shooting of Breonna Taylor - Civilrights.org

The president of the Philippines has sanctioned the use of lethal force to keep his country of 100 million people in lockdown.

Sadly, it is not a surprising approach from Rodrigo Duterte who has condoned the killing of thousands of people in his war on drugs.

He appears to have adopted the same policy for his countrys fight against Covid-19.

Anyone caught violating quarantine - outside when they shouldnt be or in a community which isnt their own - could face being shot by the police or the soldiers who are now patrolling the streets.

On April 21, Winston Ragos became a victim of the extreme regulations.

He was visiting his relatives and when he left he came out on to a street next to a quarantine checkpoint.

For reasons that remain unclear, soldiers at the checkpoint thought he was armed.

The 33-year-old was an ex-army officer himself and suffered from PTSD.

At gunpoint he became flustered and the soldiers opened fire.

He was killed by two gunshots.

Officers have also been ordered to arrest and jail anyone they deem to be breaching the lockdown rules.

So far, an estimated 30,000 people have been arrested.

Among them was a team of volunteers from the campaign group Gabriela.

They had a permit to distribute food parcels, but a group of police officers still took issue with what they were doing and they were handcuffed and detained overnight.

They were released pending further investigation and have a hearing set for later this month.

Dimples Paz who was one of volunteers arrested, fears next time the consequences could be worse.

Human rights organisations have condemned such abuse of power in the throes of pandemic.

Many of those arrested are being put into already overcrowded jails where the virus is spreading unchecked and claiming dozens of lives - deaths which are going unreported.

In the slums of Manila the housing it too cramped and people are too poor for street life to stop.

Thankfully, the virus hasnt taken hold in these communities; families living there already live in fear of being shot in the president's war on drugs, and now for breaching the lockdown.

The restrictions have made it hard to get food and many families are now relying on rations.

Starvation is a threat - but getting the virus is viewed as a death sentence.

The Philippines General Hospital were the first to receive coronavirus cases.

The Covid-19 ward is still full, but no longer overwhelmed.

A high death rate due to initial equipment and staff shortages has been hard to deal with.

Nurse Kirsten Ty told ITV News she and her team now start every day with a prayer.

The hospital has lost several staff to the virus and nurse Ty admits to being afraid.

Some people celebrate us for being heroes but at the back of our minds we are afraid for ourselves and our families because we are fighting a war against something thats not visible and theres no definite cure, its an uncertain feeling because you want to help, you feel heroic, but at the same time youre scared, nurse Ty told ITV News.

The Philippines is a densely populated and developing nation where there are millions not only vulnerable to the virus, but facing an extreme, and at times, lethal lockdown.

Read more:

Human rights abuses on the rise in the Philippines amid coronavirus lockdown - ITV News

Infectious disease has always been one of the militarys greatest threats. By its own estimates, the U.S. Army lost almost as many soldiers from the 1918 flu as died on the battlefields of the first World War.

Troops are at risk during an outbreak due to the tight quarters in which they live and work. It is therefore not surprising that all branches of the service Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force and Coast Guard have been hit hard by COVID-19. The military has also played an important role in responding to the virus, from evacuating State Department officials from Wuhan in January to its current role building and staffing civilian field hospitals and augmenting civilian research teams.

To mitigate any risk, the Department of Defense has enforced rigorous social distancing policies and a military-wide travel ban halting nonessential deployments.

But in addition to measures aimed at keeping people away from sources of infection, the military is also treating active duty personnel who become infected. Because the COVID-19 virus is new, there are as yet no FDA approved treatments. As a result, military physicians are turning to either treatments approved for other conditions or seeking access to newly developed treatments, such as the antiviral Remdesivir, which to date has received FDA emergency use approval only for COVID-19 patients with severe conditions. That presents a significant legal challenge due to existing laws protecting military personnel by recognizing that their obligation to follow orders reduces their ability to provide informed consent.

As an expert in public health law and human subject research, I study the tension between protecting participants of biomedical research and responding quickly to emerging threats. But I have also had personal experience with the events that led to the passing of the law that allows the military to work with the FDA in order to get emergency authorization to respond quickly to emerging threats.

In 1998, I was working for now U.S. Senator, then Connecticut Attorney General, Richard Blumenthal when I met Russ Dingle and Thomas Buzz Rempfer, two remarkable airmen who filed a whistleblower complaint seeking protection from what they described as forced participation in an unlawful research experiment. Specifically, they asserted that the Department of Defense was mandating that all active duty personnel be vaccinated against anthrax using a product, AVA, not yet approved by the FDA for the purpose the Army was now using it.

The vaccine had been in use since the 1970s to protect wool workers and veterinarians at risk from touching naturally occurring anthrax spores, but had not been approved for protection against inhaling them, a method of spread reportedly developed by Iraqi scientists as a bioweapon. But many in the military were reluctant to be vaccinated because of their concern that it might be a cause of Gulf War Syndrome. To this day, there is no agreement about the specific symptoms, let alone cause, of Gulf War Syndrome.

A 2000 report by the well-respected Institute of Medicine found no conclusive link to the vaccine. But the causal connection seemed plausible to many sufferers, especially given the continuing emergence of long-term harm suffered by veterans of the Vietnam War and their children from exposure to Agent Orange.

The whistleblowers primary claim was that the anthrax vaccination program was research and therefore the army was required to abide by two different protections. The first, called the Common Rule, is a law establishing that all research conducted by the federal government require the informed consent of participants. Their second claim was that even if it was being used as a preventative measure, the Department of Defense was constrained by a 1998 law passed in direct response to concerns over possible links between unapproved drugs and Gulf War Syndrome. It prohibited the administration of investigational new drugs, or drugs unapproved for their intended use, to service members without their informed consent unless consent was waived by the president.

Blumenthal wrote to the secretary of defense warning him that administering an unapproved vaccine risked violating both laws and demanding that the research be stopped. That letter became part of a larger debate over whether the militarys need for force protection exceeded the risks to any individual serviceperson.

In 2003, Colonel Rempfer and six other at first unnamed plaintiffs brought suit in federal court which resulted in a preliminary injunction halting the vaccine program. Responding to the lawsuit, the Department of Defense denied that they were conducting research and claimed the authority to waive consent because it was necessary to prevent infection with weaponized anthrax.

But in winning the battle, those seeking to stop the vaccine program lost the war. The Department of Defense appealed to Congress for a workaround. It resulted in the passing of the BioShield Act in 2004, creating the Emergency Use Authorization. This gave the FDA authority to recharacterize the status of a drug or vaccine from investigational to approved for emergency use. In December of 2005 it issued a final order concluding that [the Anthrax Vaccine] was the best available medical countermeasure to the potential military emergency. Although Col. Rempfer filed a lawsuit to protest the FDAs decision, it was to no avail and shortly afterwards the Department of Defense resumed the vaccine program. Col. Dingle died of cancer in 2008, but Col. Rempfer remained critical of the anthrax vaccine program and still actively advocates on behalf of past and future military personnel.

Since the passage of the BioShield Act, Congress has continued to support the FDAs authority to make unapproved drugs available in response to new threats. In 2017, the Department of Defense sought power to unilaterally authorize use of unapproved drugs in battlefield situations. In the face of FDA objections to this level of autonomy, Congress created a compromise measure memorialized in a Memorandum of Understanding that allows the Department of Defense broad authority to declare the need for emergency use permission and request that the FDA take actions to expedite the development of a medical product. But final authority to issue an emergency use order rests with the president.

It is because of the servicemen committed to the preservation of informed consent that troops today have early access to potential COVID-19 drugs and vaccines while still respecting their vulnerability as patients without the complete ability to give informed consent.

Read more:

Why the military can use emergency powers to treat service members with trial COVID-19 drugs - The Conversation US

In 2004, 60 Minutes aired a segment on what it called virus hunters, scientists searching for bugs that can leap from animals to humans and cause pandemics. What worries me the most is that we are going to miss the next emerging disease, said a scientist named Peter Daszak, describing his fear of a coronavirus that moves from one part of the planet to another, wiping out people as it moves along.

In the intervening years, Daszak became president of the EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit research organization focused on emerging pandemics. EcoHealth worked with Chinas Wuhan Institute of Virology to study coronaviruses in bats that could infect humans, and, as Science magazine put it, to develop tools that could help researchers create diagnostics, treatments and vaccines for human outbreaks. Since 2014, the EcoHealth Alliance has received a grant from the National Institutes of Health, until its funding was abruptly cut two weeks ago.

The reason, as 60 Minutes reported on Sunday evening, was a conspiracy theory spread by Representative Matt Gaetz, the Florida Republican who in March wore a gas mask on the House floor to mock concern about the new coronavirus. On April 14, Gaetz appeared on Tucker Carlsons Fox News show and claimed that the N.I.H. grant went to the Wuhan Institute, which Gaetz intimated might have been the source of the virus the institute may have birthed a monster, in his words.

The first of Gaetzs claims was flatly false, and the second unlikely; the C.I.A. has reportedly found no evidence of a link between the virus and the Wuhan lab. But at a White House briefing a few days later, a reporter from the right-wing website Newsmax told President Trump that under Barack Obama, the N.I.H. gave the Wuhan lab a $3.7 million grant. Why would the U.S. give a grant like that to China? she asked.

In fact, Trumps administration had recently renewed EcoHealths grant, but Trump didnt appear to know that. The Obama administration gave them a grant of $3.7 million? he asked. Then he said, We will end that grant very quickly.

And they did. But ending the grant dealt a blow to efforts to find treatments and a vaccine for the coronavirus. Remdesivir, the antiviral drug thats shown some promise in Covid-19 patients, was earlier tested against bat viruses EcoHealth discovered. Now the nonprofit is facing layoffs.

This political hit on Daszaks work is far from the only way that the Trump administrations contempt for science has undermined Americas coronavirus response. Conservative antipathy to science is nothing new; Republicans have long denied and denigrated the scientific consensus on issues from evolution to stem cell research to climate change. This hostility has several causes, including populist distrust of experts, religious rejection of information that undermines biblical literalism and efforts by giant corporations to evade regulation.

But its grown worse under Trump, with his authoritarian impulse to quash any facts, from inauguration crowd sizes to hurricane paths, that might reflect poorly on him.

Until recently, it seemed as if Trumps sabotage of efforts to combat climate change would be the most destructive legacy of his disregard for science. But the coronavirus has presented the country with an emergency that only sound science can solve. That means that the Trump administrations disdain for expertise, its elevation of slavish loyalty over technical competence, has become a more immediate threat.

Months before this pandemic began, Reuters reported, the Trump administration axed the job of an epidemiologist working for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in China to help detect emerging disease outbreaks. As the pandemic raged, the administration removed Rick Bright, one of Americas premier experts on vaccine development, from an agency overseeing efforts to develop a coronavirus vaccine. Last week Bright filed a whistle-blower complaint claiming hed suffered retaliation because he resisted funding potentially dangerous drugs promoted by those with political connections and by the administration itself. (A federal watchdog agency has called for him to be reinstated pending its investigation.)

Another whistle-blower complaint, filed by a former volunteer on the coronavirus team assembled by Trumps son-in-law, Jared Kushner, claims the effort has been beset by inexperience and incompetence. The Associated Press reported on how the White House buried guidance from the C.D.C. on how communities could safely reopen. Now the president is urging Americans to return to work even as the White House itself has proved unable to keep the coronavirus at bay.

According to Axios, Trump has even privately started expressing skepticism of the coronaviruss death toll, suggesting its lower than official statistics say. (Most experts believe the opposite.) A senior administration official said he expects the president to begin publicly questioning the death toll as it closes in on his predictions for the final death count and damages him politically, reported Axios. The Trump administrations approach to the coronavirus began with denialism, and thats likely how it will end.

Any progress America makes in fighting Covid-19 will be in spite of its federal government, not because of it. I am speaking out because to combat this deadly virus, science not politics or cronyism has to lead the way, Dr. Bright said when he went public with his complaint in April. Trump wont let that happen. Hed rather essentially give up on combating it at all.

See the original post here:

Were All Casualties of Trumps War on Coronavirus Science - The New York Times

As Toby Muse was conducting interviews in Colombia for his new book about the cocaine trade, he found himself in an uncomfortable position. He didnt want his subjects telling him too much about their business.

This was particularly true when talking to a narco-trafficker named Alex, who is central to the book until he gets murdered.

I didnt want him to say anything that he might regret later on, Muse recalls of those encounters. My fear was always that he would go home, look up at the ceiling and say, Hey, I wish I hadnt said that. I should tie up that loose end.

Muse, a journalist who lived in Colombia for 15 years, recently published Kilo: Inside the Deadliest Cocaine Cartels from the Jungles to the Streets.

The book follows the cocaine trail from the fields of eastern Colombia where Venezuelan coca pickers, or raspachines, live under the thumb of armed groups, to the shores of the worlds largest consumer: the United States.

In the process, Muse provides an unprecedented look at the army of gangs, assassins, pimps, fixers and smugglers who are needed to put a line of white coke up a nose in a South Beach bar.

Muse talked to the Miami Herald about the cocaine trade, the drug war, and the U.S. policy failures that no one is talking about.

The questions and answers have been edited for brevity and clarity.

There are so many scenes in this book where I, as a reader, fear for your life. Looking back now, how much risk were you taking to get this story?

Its not so much that people were putting a gun to my head or a knife to my throat. It was more like just constantly treading on thin ice. There was one danger out in the countryside dealing with narco-militias. ... But in terms of dealing with the cartels, there was this generalized sense of dread around these men and women, it was just constant. When I finished writing this book and got out of that world, it felt like a tremendous weight had been lifted off my shoulders. These are men that kill at the drop of a hat. My constant fear was that, as long as I was in the city (Medellin) and something happened to them, like a bad coincidence, they would blame me. They trusted me up to a point, but does anyone get far in the world of cocaine being 100% trusting? No.

The level of access you had to the underworld is remarkable. How did it come about?

Essentially, all of this started through a person I met about 10 years ago. I was going into a famous fashion event in Colombia and there was a man with two women standing behind me, and he was also trying to get in. He was trying to get past the (public relations) woman with the clipboard ... for some reason the people with the clipboards always kind of annoy me, and I just said, Hes with me. And he said, Thanks a lot, I owe you a favor now.

It turns out he works in the social world of the narcos. He gets women for these narcos. So hes tremendously important in that social world. ... When these men are thinking about the job the fast cars and the money they are also thinking about the women. You cannot separate sex from the cocaine trade. And over the years, I got to know more and more people through him.

You mentioned that one of your motivations to write this book was to have an outlet to discuss what people told you for years but were unwilling to say on the record.

How many times have we had these interviews with police officers or people carrying out the drug war and everything is on the official line, but then we end the interview the recorder goes off and then they say, Of course we know we cant win this.

Theres the official story and then theres the unofficial story thats closer to the truth. A lot of people know the drug war is unwinnable. What does victory even look like? I dont have the solution. But what I can tell you is that the most critical, brutal part of the drug war is not working. That I can assert 100%. Where do we go from here? I dont know.

At one point in your book, a drug trafficker tells you that he sees the U.S. movement to legalize marijuana as a real threat to his business.

They very clearly understand that the high level of risk entitles them to massive amounts of reward. They dont want to lower the risk to lower the reward.

The underworld, the black market, takes these essentially unremarkable men and makes them millionaires. Go back to Prohibition in America. I dont think theres anything particularly remarkable about Al Capone. He was vicious, he was violent he was ruthless all the qualities that made him thrive in the black market. I dont think El Chapo or Pablo Escobar were particularly remarkable men, but they had those qualities in spades: violence, ruthlessness, mercilessness, ambition. We take these unremarkable men, set them loose in the black market and they become multimillionaires if not billionaires. Its our policies that have created these men.

Do you think legalization is part of the solution?

Look at how many decades it took the marijuana movement to achieve its goal. That was decades of grassroots activism, celebrity endorsements and theyre finally getting it. I dont see the legalization movement even beginning around cocaine and heroin. ... Theres no active political organizing. Even if they started next week, theyre still 30 years away from getting what they want. ... And in the next 30 years I dont know what we do to stop men and women dying in this drug war that we already know is lost.

What responsibility do U.S. and European consumers have in the war on drugs?

On one hand, the consumer has 100% responsibility for this, and I think its important for them to know where that line of cocaine comes from all of the misery, greed, violence that had to come together to produce that gram of cocaine. On the other hand, when we go back to looking at Prohibition, I dont think we look back and think that the villain of that whole period were the working men and women who went and got himself or herself a beer at the end of the week. ... Yes, the consumer is absolutely 100% responsible for the demand, and cocaine is capitalism without the veneer of any respect its pure supply and demand. But its the policies that create the chaos, I think.

As the worlds top producer of cocaine, Colombia gets much of the attention and the blame. Is it merited?

When you look at Colombia as the largest producer of this historically large cocaine crop ... you can say that Colombia failed the world, but you would be wrong. The world failed Colombia. Who across the world is doing a major demand-reduction for cocaine? Im not aware of a major initiative in the U.S. or the U.K. to cut down on cocaine use. Just like we demand of Colombia to go into these zones and rip out the coca, what is the U.S. doing to lower its demand for coca?

I think the Colombians can be just as ready to stand up and wag their finger at these other countries, just as these other countries have done with Colombia. I think Colombia can ask of Europe and the U.S., What have you done to cut demand? Its your demand that makes our country bleed.

As were talking, the U.S. has launched a massive narcotics interdiction campaign in the Caribbean aimed at stopping the drug flow out of Venezuela. What are your thoughts?

Its a very strange thing when people claim that Venezuela is a narco-state even though it doesnt produce a single gram of cocaine. I understand that cocaine is moved through Venezuela and there is obviously something there to continue to investigate and to continue to police.

But when you are talking about the cocaine that arrives to the U.S. ... the biggest cocaine corridor on the planet is the Eastern Pacific. Thats the cocaine that leaves from the west coast of South America the coast of Colombia and coast of Ecuador. The major part of it is going up to this lawless zone between Mexico and Guatemala. ... I was out with the U.S. Coast Guard for three weeks and they were stopping all of these boats carrying three, four, five tons of cocaine. So many of those vessels were heading to the border of Mexico and Guatemala where they would be received by the Mexican cartels who did the final step of getting it across the border into the U.S., which again, is the biggest consumer of the drug on the planet.

In the almost two decades you were in Colombia, did you see the drug war made a difference?

When I arrived in Colombia we had Plan Colombia a $7.5 billion dollar effort by Bill Clinton. The aim was to militarily take down the cocaine industry. The goal for Plan Colombia was to cut coca crops by 50% by 2005. Twenty years later we have more cocaine than ever before. People think Pablo Escobar was the golden age of the cartels. Nonsense. There is more cocaine right now than ever before. Now the Colombian government has announced a new policy goal: By 2023 it wants to cut coca production by 50%. We just move in circles and every time people say we need to reevaluate the drug war too many people say, All that is needed is a little more drug war and then we can win this. I dont know what victory looks like in this war.

If you believe in the drug war go, go forth and argue that. There can be an argument there to be made. But so much of the drug war is not even questioned. Its possibly the largest public-policy failure and I rarely see anything about it in the media.

See the original post:

15 years in the making, new book takes terrifying dive into the cocaine underworld - Greensboro News & Record

It may seem odd to want regulations on controlled drugs, such as morphine, to be loosened in the UK, but laws designed to protect people are now causing harm to those with COVID-19.

Opiates, which include morphine, are proven to be effective at relieving pain and relaxing patients who have acute shortness of breath. Whether a patient is in pain or experiencing severe breathing problems, it is critical that doctors intervene quickly. Any delay increases the risk of cardiac arrest, which can be fatal.

Opiates are used to treat patients with COVID-19 in hospices and care homes, as well as in hospital wards. The recent surge in COVID-19 cases has placed significant pressure on the supply and dispensing of these important medicines.

Another example of how limiting the existing rules can be is the strict way that surplus and unused opiates prescribed to a named patient have to be destroyed. The Department of Health introduced new guidance at the end of April for care homes and hospices on how to reuse surplus medication, but this doesnt cover most patients who are in their own homes. Before the pandemic, this seemed wasteful, but it didnt create much of a problem. Now it is more serious.

Having to destroy perfectly good medicine when there is a temporary shortage is nonsensical, and it means some patients suffer longer than they need to.

Home Secretary Priti Patel is responsible for the legislation on controlled drugs and has been aware of problems for some time. On April 1 she asked her scientific advisers for their view on her plans to loosen regulation. They supported the changes that Patel had proposed, which prompted the home secretary to amend the law.

One of these amendments would allow pharmacists to change a prescription for a controlled drug if it would benefit the patient. But there was a caveat: I must be clear that these measures will not come into use with immediate effect. The government, in close liaison with the NHS service and devolved administrations, will carefully consider when to switch on these measures.

Along with fifty clinicians, academics, public health experts and others, we sent an open letter to Patel calling on her to switch on these measures, urgently, as reported by TalkingDrugs.

We are not alone in our concern. The Royal College of General Practitioners has also pleaded with the home secretary to relax these regulations to alleviate patients suffering.

We have still not had a response from Patel or the Home Office. We can only speculate why we are in the bizarre position of having the legislation in place to ease the suffering of some patients with COVID-19 but not the political will to implement this change in the law.

It is understandable that ministers might be concerned about the consequences of easing restrictions on these powerful drugs. Given the significant mortality in North America in part due to a loosening of controls on these types of medicines, those fears are logical. However, if managed clinically, in a responsible way, the risk of problems such as dependence can be minimised.

It is possible that Patel is wary of introducing changes that might be used to prematurely end patients lives (drugs such as morphine are believed by some people to have been used in this way, even though this is illegal in the UK). Or it could be due to concern that loosening regulations will lead to misuse of opiates, with some finding their way onto the black market. Although this is possible, diversion of opiates to the black market has always been a risk. Irrespective of how tightly there use is controlled there is little evidence for this happening. Equally, this lack of action could be ideologically driven.

The Conservative party supports the war on drugs so the government may feel any action that loosens controls, irrespective of patient need and benefit, risks sending a message of going soft on drugs.

The regulations for all medicines, including more potent varieties, such as morphine, are based on a risk-benefit calculation. Essentially, do the regulations minimise the risks while ensuring the potential for human benefit is maximised?

Many aspects of the COVID-19 crisis have been beyond our control, but this issue is firmly within our ability to intervene and solve a problem. As clinical scientists, we are limited to providing advice. We are reminded that it is politicians who decide. But for every day that the decision to switch on these regulations is delayed, suffering continues, and that is both cruel and unnecessary.

This article is republished fromThe Conversationunder a Creative Commons license. Read theoriginal article.

*Ian Hamilton, Associate Professor, Addiction and Mental Health, University of York and David Nutt, Professor of Neuropsychopharmacology, Imperial College London

Read more here:

COVID-19: Why The Law On Morphine Should Be Loosened - TalkingDrugs