"Drug demons win battle against Oscar-winning actor after fighting him half of his life"

From The Mirror:

Tenacious Class A drug heroin finally won its battle against Oscar-winning actor Philip Seymour Hoffman after fighting him for more than half of his life.

The century old morphine substitute won its final victory at the weekend, leaving the 46-year-old star dead in his New York apartment. The highly addictive substance had to first overcome his treatment for heroin use and dependency to pills.

Sources close to the illegal opiate said the 'demon drug' had long been struggling to overcome the actor's attempts to stay clean.

But last year it was reported that the popular sedative had managed to pull him back "off the wagon" 23 years after he first quit booze and drugs, having feared that it would fail to kill him.

Short List

Famous heroin addicts who were fat.

I can think of two (one old Nazi and a current pop star. Not that he's ever had any hits or anything, but he's in the papers a lot).

Law of Unintended Consequences

From The Daily Mail:

A national crackdown on prescription drug abuse has led to new wave of heroin users in America.

It used to be easier to forge a prescription than meet with a dealer on a street corner. But since stricter rules on prescription drugs were imposed youngsters are choosing heroin as a drug of choice.

The deadly drug is now being found in areas where previously, it hadn't presented a problem. New York, Pennsylvania, North and South Carolina, Illinois and Missouri have all been affected by the surge in abuse according to 2011 Justice Department statistics.

And so on. Worth reading in full.

It would have been far cheaper just to buy the heroin...

From The Daily Mail:

The West is losing the heroin war in Afghanistan – ten years after Tony Blair pledged that wiping out the drug was one of the main reasons for invading the country. Despite spending £18 billion (1) and a conflict which has so far cost the lives of almost 400 British troops, production of the class-A drug by Afghan farmers rose between 2001 and 2011 from just 185 tons to a staggering 5,800 tons... (2)

Some 15 per cent of Afghanistan’s Gross National Product now comes from drug-related exports – a business worth up to £1.6 billion each year, it was claimed.(3)

1) I can't be bothered looking up how much the USA has spent; the total is probably ten times that, call it £180 billion over ten years or something.

2) The apparent increase is misleading, all that happened is that production has gone back up to its pre-Taliban levels.

3) Wot? All that fuss, all those deaths, not to mention £18 billion quid a year down the toilet, just to get our hands on/prevent other people getting their hands on drugs which we could have bought for £1.6 billion a year (plus a bit more because increased demand increases the price, so what)? Whether we'd re-sell it (to put our domestic drug dealers out of business as well) or just chuck it in the Indian Ocean is a separate debate.

Furthermore, buying up the drugs would have been a splendid way of preventing the Taliban getting into power in the first place - it would have pitted the financial interests of yer average Afghan farmer against them, they'd have preferred to stick with the easy Western cash.

Prescription painkillers cause more deaths than heroin and cocaine

From The LA Times:

Overdose deaths from abuse of prescription painkillers in the U.S. now outnumber deaths involving heroin and cocaine combined, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Tuesday.

In 2008, drug overdoses caused 36,450 deaths in the U.S. One or more prescription drugs were involved in 20,044 of these deaths, CDC researchers wrote in the journal Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Opioid pain relievers, including oxycodone, methadone and hydrocodone, were involved in 14,800...

In 2010, 4.8% of Americans 12 years or older used opioid pain relievers nonmedically -- that is, without a prescription or purely for the feeling the drug causes. The report calculated that by 2010, "enough opioid pain relievers were sold to medicate every American adult with a typical dose of 5 mg of hydrocodone every four hours one month."

That last bit doesn't make sense, why "one month" right at the end, but I think what they mean is a lot of painkillers were sold.

Unfortunately, even though this is a splendid headline, the simple comparison between number of deaths caused by X and by Y is fairly meaningless unless we know the number of people taking X and the number taking Y. It may well be that two hundred million Americans take painkillers every day, but only (say) ten million people use heroin or cocaine, in which case the latter are still more dangerous (on a personal level) than legally available painkillers.

That whole 'legalising drugs' thing

Mummylonglegs stepped up to the oche, and I left a comment as follows (repeated here for posterity):

Completely agreed. And with drugs, there is a sliding scale, and I would suggest legalisation as follows:

1. Magic mushrooms - available from any greengrocer who can tell a poisonous mushroom from an edible one.

2. Mild cannabis - available from normal tobacconist/off-licence, over-18s only.

3. Ecstasy - available only at chemists, max. two tablets per customer Fridays and Saturdays only, over-18s only.

4. Cocaine - same as ecstasy - max. 1 gram per customer.

5. LSD - same as ecstasy, two tabs per customer but with six monthly renewable certificate from psychiatrist to say you are not nuts.

5. Heroin for injection - available with monthly repeat prescription from doctor at pharmacists.

6. Crack, still illegal, obviously.

And so on, I'm sure I've missed a few, but you just slot them in. All of these to be taxed like booze or fags, to be handed out with tedious leaflets with helpful advice for safe use and an admonishing glare.

I meant in relative and not in absolute terms

Part 2 of this week's Fun Online Poll asks: "Which groups benefit most from the existence of 'the state'? a) Land owners, home owners and pensioners, or b) Entrepreneurs, workers and investors."

Pogo left the following comment: Bearing in mind that in order to have a consistent and enforceable "rule of law" - which is applicable to either of your groups - it's necessary to have a "state" of some form, however minimal, I'd venture to suggest that the answer should be "both".

I answered as follows: P, yes of course, having a stable political environment helps businesses, but a large part of those gains feeds straight into higher rents and land values (and generate the tax to pay the pensions). But you can have free trade even in a war zone*.

Conversely, in the absence of 'a state', land values would simply not exist - you cannot have land ownership or even exclusive possession without the existence of 'a state' to guarantee it. And in the absence of 'a state' there cannot be a State Pension, by definition.

* To illustrate this, let's look at a recent story ("HEROIN has become more available in Australia due an increase in production in Afghanistan and South-East Asia"). The supply of heroin starts in a war zone and ends in a country in which it is illegal. That's entrepreneurship - which generates some income for Afghanis (or the best income they can get from their fields) and requires capital investment by drugs barons (boats, bribes, weapons etc).

On a philosphical point, you could argue that these profits accrue to the drugs barons precisely because Afgh is a war zone and because sale of heroin for recreational use is strictly forbidden in Australia; but that supports my argument - if heroin were legalised in Australia, i.e. became a state-protected activity (just like any other business), it would be splendid news for landowners in Tasmania (who grow about half the world's 'legal' opium) and terrible news for the drugs barons (the entrepreneurs).

Deliberately misleading statistic of the day

The BBC says:

Afghanistan produces 92% of the world's opium.

Having scratted around the back of the internet, it would appear to be true that it produces 92% of the world's illegal opium (i.e. as good as all of it), but what I wonder is, what percent of all poppies (whether for 'legal' or 'ilegal' purposes) are grown in Afgh?

It appears that in Afgh, about 200,000 hectares (that's about half a million acres, in old money) are used to grow poppies, whereas: "Tasmania supplies about 50 percent of the world's raw material for morphine and related opiates. About 500 farmers grow the crop on 49,420 acres of land."

Ho hum. So, across the globe, that's 100,000 acres used for 'legal' poppies and 500,000 used for 'illegal' poppies (which means that five-sixths of all land used for poppy cultivation is in Afgh), but is this the final answer (in which case the BBC's statistic wasn't far off)? Or is there perhaps a difference in yield/acre? If, for example, Tasmanian/Indian yields are five times Afgh yields (ignoring this year's blight), then (mathematically), Afgh is only responsible for half of global poppy production. i.e. the 'illegal' half.

Answers on a postcard.

Meryl Gravell OBE, we salute you!

From the BBC:

The leader of Carmarthenshire council has called for drugs to be legalised. Meryl Gravell OBE said she despaired of the number of deaths in Llanelli - the largest town in the county - attributed to heroin. She said she wanted a debate over future drugs policy, although said she did not have 'all the answers'...

She said she wanted to people to gain more knowledge about drugs and to "get the debate rolling". Mrs Gravell said the prohibition of drugs was not working in Llanelli.

"If they are made legal, then there is no case of people wanting what they can't have, and the drug dealers can't make any money out of it," she said, "All I know is that when my children were growing up they wanted to go out and drink - so I let them try a little bit of alcohol in the house. They didn't like the taste, and the curiosity disappeared. If something is forbidden, it's exciting to young people. Maybe we could tax drugs rather than banning them, and make money to put back into services weaning people off substances. Or maybe we could control the strength available. I know I could be setting myself up for a lot of backlash here... simply banning them isn't working... it's time for a change."

Oh noes! Cocaine use up yet again!

From The Metro 3 December 2009:

The number of men under 35 seeking treatment [for cocaine addiction] jumped from 3,024 in 2005-06 to 5,264 in 2008-09. And the rise among young women is almost as steep – from 790 to 1,261

Meanwhile, the number of young people seeking treatment for heroin addiction has dropped dramatically. In 2005-06, almost 20,000 men needed treatment for the drug but that figure is now under 15,000.

From The Metro 5 October 2009:

The number of 18 to 24-year-olds seeking treatment for heroin or crack fell by 22 per cent to 9,632 between 2005-6 and 2007-8, official figures show

But the numbers of young adults presenting for treatment for cocaine dependency rose by more than two-thirds to 2,692 over the same period.

If they deny it, it must be true

Anybody who knows anything about anything, i.e. bloggers, knows that the war in Afghanistan is over drugs and money. A few days ago, it was reported that "The Obama administration is considering outbidding the Taliban to persuade Afghan villagers to lay down arms as it struggles to find a new approach to a war that is fast losing public and congressional support..." Ross thought this was a good idea, as did Obo.

It appears that the peace-loving Italians actually did this:

When ten French soldiers were killed last year in an ambush by Afghan insurgents in what had seemed a relatively peaceful area, the French public were horrified... The French had been in charge of the Sarobi area, east of Kabul, for only a month, taking over from the Italians; it was one of the biggest single losses of life by Nato forces in Afghanistan.

What the grieving nation did not know was that in the months before the French soldiers arrived in mid-2008, the Italian secret service had been paying tens of thousands of dollars to Taleban commanders and local warlords to keep the area quiet, The Times has learnt. The clandestine payments, whose existence was hidden from the incoming French forces, were disclosed by Western military officials.

Italy has promptly denied it of course, but they would, wouldn't they?

Of course, if you take a step back, you'll realise that the whole war is the conflagration of American prudishness (they want heroin to be illegal); Australian/Tasmanian commercial self-interest (they want to control the market for legal opiates) and British stupidity (we do what the Americans do), so could fix it by sourcing legal opiates from Afghanistan instead.

Even better than that we could legalise heroin and source heroin from there as well, and it would become just an agricultural economy like any other. With oppression of women and gays and limb-amputations just to add a bit of local colour, of course.

Twisted statistics of the day

From The Metro:

Fewer young adults with a drug problem are using heroin and crack - but the number of young people needing treatment for cocaine abuse is rising.

Here we go ...

The number of 18 to 24-year-olds seeking treatment for heroin or crack fell by 22 per cent to 9,632 between 2005-6 and 2007-8, official figures show. But the numbers of young adults presenting for treatment for cocaine dependency rose by more than two-thirds to 2,692 over the same period.

Or, as I would put it, "The number of young adults seeking treatment for heroin, crack or cocaine dependency fell by an eighth, or by 1,608* between 2005-06 and 2007-08."

* Maths point - I assumed that "more than two-thirds" means a seventy per cent increase, so I calculated the 2005-06 comparatives as 9,632 ÷ 78% = 12,349; 2,962 ÷ 170% = 1,583; 12,349 + 1,583 = 13,932. The total for 2007-08 is 9,632 + 2,692 = 12,324.

Now, there's a surprise!

From The Metro:

Heroin trial cuts crime and drug use

A heroin supply scheme for addicts has substantially cut crime and the use of street drugs, according to analysis. The pilot scheme consists of supervised clinics in London, Brighton and Darlington where addicts were given heroin or substitute methadone. Around 100 people are involved. Those given heroin did best with 75 per cent "substantially" reducing their use of drugs.

The Randomised Injecting Opioid Treatment Trial programme began three years ago. Addicts were given psychological support. Addicts were split into three different groups: those injecting methodone, those taking methodone orally and those injecting heroin. More than half of the heroin injectors were "largely abstinent" from street drugs and their average spend dropped from £300 to £50 a week. There was also a big drop in crimes committed. The 60-odd heroin injectors had been committing 1,731 crimes a month in total, which dropped to 547 when on the scheme.

Woman On A Raft nails it

WOAR, in the comments to my previous post: "Given that the world needs a certain amount of opium for legitimate purposes, never mind the disputed ones, and Afghanis are very good at producing it, I simply can't see why the world doesn't treat it like any other crop as part of a mixed economy in Afghanistan and set about regulating it and securing the Afghani farmers' markets to bring at least some economic stability to their lives".

There were additional useful statistics in the print version of this article, which suggest that worldwide production of "illegal" opium outweighs the production of "legal" opium (used in hospitals etc) by three-to-two, so if you juggle the figures and make a few fair guesses, it appears that Afghanistan's total production is roughly equal to world demand for "legal" opium. So farmers in Tasmania, Turkey and France will just have to find something else to do. The demand for "illegal" opium (i.e. heroin) could be reduced significantly if we went back to the policies that we had until about 1970, of course.

That's that fixed. Next.

"Sharp drop in Afghan opium crop"

It's no longer clear what their angle is over at the BBC or what line they are pushing:

The UN Office on Drugs and Crime says opium cultivation has dropped by 22% in a year and production by 10%. The biggest falls have been in Helmand province, but levels remain higher than three years ago, when British troops began fighting Taliban militants there...

This year there were 69,833 hectares devoted to poppy growing in Helmand, a sharp fall from 103,590 hectares in 2008, the report found. However, this year's figure was also more than double the 26,500 hectares used for poppy growing in the province in 2005, the year before British troops deployed in the area.

Maybe they don't know themselves any more.

[Modest] Outbreak of commonsense in Mexico

From The Metro:

Mexico has relaxed its drug laws, allowing people to possess small amounts of cannabis, cocaine or heroin for personal use.

Free government treatment for drug addicts is also promised under new regulations that come into force today. The law sets out maximum "personal use" amounts for drugs, also including LSD and methamphetamine. People found with no more than the limits allow will no longer face criminal prosecution - but if caught for a third time will be forced into treatment.

Under previous law, possessing any amount of drugs was punishable by stiff jail sentences, but there was some leeway for addicts caught with smaller amounts.

But Bernardo Espino del Castillo, from the attorney general's office, said in practice no one was prosecuted and sentenced to jail for small-time possession. "We couldn't charge somebody who was in possession of a dose of a drug, there was no way, because the person would claim they were an addict," he added, "This person obviously couldn't be charged, not yesterday, not the day before, not a year ago, but the bad thing was that it was left up to the discretion of the detective, and it could open the door to corruption or extortion."

Officers sometimes hauled suspects to police stations and demanded bribes, threatening long jail sentences if people did not pay.

"This is not legalisation, this is regulating the issue and giving citizens greater legal certainty for a practice that was already in place," Espino del Castillo added.

The maximum amount of marijuana considered to be for "personal use" under the new law is 5g - the equivalent of about four joints. The limit is half a gram for cocaine, enough for about four lines, while the other restrictions are 50mg of heroin, 40mg of methamphetamine and 0.015mg of LSD.

Drug driving

They showed the ad on Channel 4 just now, see e.g. here. According to the voiceover, the police can see whether a driver has been taking drugs, because taking opiates constricts your pupils and smoking cannabis dilates your pupils.

To cut a long story, a good way to avoid detection might be to take equal measures of opiates and cannabis.

What can possibly go wrong?

Welcome home!

Fun Online Poll results: Afghanistan

Thanks to everybody who cast a vote in this week's FOP. Your/our views on the 'war' in Afghanistan were as follows:

It's pointless. Let's get our troops out ASAP. - 75%
Let's give it another year or two. - 5%
We can civilise Afghanistan by force, even if takes a decade. - 4%
We should occupy the country for ever, if that's what it takes. - 16%

I think that's pretty conclusive and accords with my own view.

Neil Craig commented thusly: "A clarification to my vote for #4. What it takes is killing bin Laden. I think he is dead already and we should say so get out but if he isn't we must stay."

Maybe he is, maybe he isn't, but I guess that offering a bounty of $x million for conclusive evidence as to his whereabouts/last resting place is a damn' sight cheaper (whether in terms of cash cost, lives or loss of national reputation). A sort of X-prize, if you will.
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This week's Fun Online Poll: Have you ever forgotten your wife's birthday?

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

Conspiracy Theory Of The Week

The BBC ran a nice fluffy article yesterday titled Stoned wallabies make crop circles. The comments beneath it are delightfully funny, but it's this that caught my eye:

Australia supplies about 50% of the world's legally-grown opium used to make morphine and other painkillers.

Hmmm. We also know that one of the reasons/excuses given for NATO troops hanging around in Afghanisatan, years after achieving the perfectly legitimate aim of overthrowing the Taliban, was to reduce the amount of poppy cultivation (which has backfired most spectacularly, of course).

Now, is it possible, just possible, that the reason why Australia is willing to deploy a disproportionate number of troops is to preserve its own quasi-monopoly? Wouldn't it be cheaper and better all round for drug companies to source their opiates from Afghanistan?

Just askin', is all.