Because It’s Done Such A Great Job Policing Illegal Drugs, The DEA Decides It’s Time To Start Engaging In Legal Drug Hysteria

Overhype

from the drug-warriors-extend-losing-streak dept

While there’s no doubt illegal fentanyl use is one of the leading causes of death in this nation, the DEA’s persistent hysteria hasn’t done anything to make anyone safer. Faced with the fact it can’t make a dent in the fentanyl trade, the DEA has opted to drum up panic, pretending — despite all evidence to the contrary — that drug cartels are using social media services and multi-colored pills to literally kill the same children the DEA claims cartels are trying to turn into lifelong addicts.

Even the most obtuse person can suss out the internal contradiction in these claims. Either cartels want to kill children or they want to create a lifelong addiction. They can’t have it both ways. Kill off kids and you kill off a lifetime of profit. It’s that simple.

It’s so simple you’d think even the DEA could understand it. But it can’t. Regular cops, however, aren’t quite as stupid, at least when it comes to colorful pills. The point here is branding, which allows purchasers to easily recognize what they’re buying, as well as its potency. (Regular cops, however, are also just as stupid, often pretending being within a few feet of possible fentanyl is enough to hospitalize them, if not outright kill them.)

It’s dumb all over and it’s getting dumber. Having failed to do anything but make the general public (and their elected representatives!) more stupid, the DEA is now moving on to stoking the fear fire over (checks article) completely legal drugs designed to help sufferers of certain mental health conditions. (h/t Boing Boing)

The fast rise of prescriptions for Adderall and other stimulants, along with rampant online treatment and advertising, suggest the start of another drug crisis like the opioid epidemic, a senior Drug Enforcement Administration official said Thursday.

The warning is the most urgent public message yet on these types of drugs by the agency.

“I’m not trying to be a doomsday-er here,” said Matthew Strait, deputy assistant administrator in the diversion control division said in an online seminar. But he compared the current situation with stimulants to the beginning of the opioid crisis and said “it makes me feel like we’re at the precipice of our next drug crisis in the United States.”

Let’s tackle that last paragraph first. Come on, Mr. Strait. You are absolutely trying to be a “doomsday-er.” That is how the DEA has handled anything related to drug use since its inception — an origin that is as steeped in racism as the formation of police departments across the United States. The DEA can only remain relevant by stoking fears and inducing panic because it has utterly failed to in its original directive: to stymie the flow of illegal drugs into this country. Thanks to the DEA, most street drugs have become cheaper and more potent since the beginning of the so-called “War on Drugs.”

So, all that’s left is for the DEA to start declaring this drug or that drug the next “doomsday” substance. And, like it has in the past, the DEA’s newest source of hysteria is going to result in enforcement activities that will make it much more difficult for people who rely on (legal!) drugs to manage illnesses to obtain them.

And, sure, we’ve all consumed enough pop culture to equate Adderall with “cramming for finals.” There’s enough off-label use that it’s become a cliché. But, unlike fentanyl, the infrequent abuse of stimulants by people desiring just a bit more focus for whatever reason is hardly the same thing as Adderall and its analogs being poised on the precipice of becoming the next fentanyl.

It’s not enough to disrupt the supply chain with the side effect (intended or otherwise) of preventing people who need these drugs from obtaining them. The DEA also has to pretend drug dealers are selling one drug as another drug because fucking up paying customers is somehow the most profitable way to run an illegal drug operation.

Strait urged people looking for stimulants not to buy drugs on the internet.

“We see fake pills that look like Adderall that are being sold on the open net and the dark net,” he said. But they may not be Adderall at all, but rather fentanyl, or methamphetamine.

My guess is that any “fake pills” being sold on the internet don’t contain any drugs at all, least of all the illegal ones. Why spend money on real drugs just to see your customer base move on to other sources because you’ve failed to deliver the product they’re seeking? While I understand no drug dealer is staffing complaint lines to better understand their user base, they’re also generally smart enough to know that screwing paying customers tends to result in fewer customers, rather than extremely profitable revenue streams that ensure the viability of the operation for months or years to come.

Remember, this is coming from officials in an agency that specializes in investigating and dismantling large drug operations. And this is how they portray that business — as something run by opportunistic idiots who are somehow both going to cause a drug crisis by providing large amounts of drugs while simultaneously creating a drug crisis by providing a large amount of drugs that aren’t even the drugs the DEA now claims are being abused regularly.

On top of that, there’s cognitive dissonance of agitating for more direct control of legal drug manufacturing and delivery by pharmaceutical companies and health care providers while simultaneously claiming the major danger is dark web drug dealers providing bags full of random drugs to people seeking actual Adderall.

But this is the sort of stupidity you get from people whose continued employment relies on them making the people paying their salaries even stupider than they are. The more legislators and members of the public they can dupe, the bigger the budget they can expect to control during the next fiscal year.

Filed Under: adderall, dea, drugs, matthew strait, moral panic