The secret diary of a microdoser # 6
Covid is not the only epidemic that ravages our populations. Particularly in America, but also in the UK, doctors dispense prescription medication, most commonly opioids, to alleviate our pain. Chemically, there isn’ t much difference between heroin and other opioids, including Co-Codamol, with higher-strength brands like Zapain, that try and prevent abuse by combining 30mg of Codeine with 500mg of Paracetamol. This is done so that you will overdose on the Paracetamol if you try to get high on the Codeine. An odd logic, I’ ve always thought. Several friends have admitted to me about their addiction to Zapain( other brands are available). They last a couple of weeks but then the cold turkey kicks in and they fold. Nevertheless, there’ s far less of a stigma to prescription pills than to heroin.
Heroin is mainly produced in Hellmand Province after the King of Afghanistan procured a disastrous hydroelectric project from the Americans in the‘ 50s. The Kajaki Dam unexpectedly destabilised the salt table of this prime agricultural zone, drawing the salt up to the surface, killing all the crops in the process. However, farmers found one plant that particularly liked the new salty soil, and the opium poppy spread across the plains.
As is inevitable when western governments pursue a futile strategy of Prohibition, the money tends to flow back to darkness: villains and psychopaths. Our media describes the South American cocaine producers as“ Cartels”. The English use of this term originated as a legal“ Letter of Defiance”. It later labelled the process for exchanging prisoners between warring nations. So, the Mexicans and Columbians are, albeit subliminally, portrayed as antagonistic and calculating dealers in human misery. In Afghanistan’ s case, the poppy farmers of Hellmand are depicted as“ Warlords”, mad berserkers who have come out of the desert wielding their pulwars. They are not. They are smack dealers, protecting their businesses or expanding into other territories before their competitors do it to them. By using these descriptions, our media blinds us to the truth.
In the confusion, our armies get sucked in. The American government’ s obsession with fixing the inefficiencies of the Kajaki Dam, by installing a third turbine in 2008, led a NATO force, spearheaded by the British, to carry 210 tonnes of plant through the most dangerous parts of Hellmand. Laced with corruption, the U. S. Agency for International Development awarded the $ 266 million contract without open tender, and operation“ Eagle Summit” was borne. Thousands of
NATO troops and hundreds of vehicles did surprisingly well until they were virtually in sight of the dam. Unfortunately, the local tribe’ s hands were tied by the Taliban who forced them to refuse the British Army’ s bribe and ordered them to fight instead. Around 200 combatants died as a result. Ignoring the death toll, British commanders described it as one of the most complex logistical feats in its history. But perhaps nobody ticked the“ Leave in a Safe Place” box, as the turbine, transported at such a massive financial and human cost, still sits in broken and rusting containers, weeds gradually prying them open and exposing their parts to the salty air. Why? Because they forgot the concrete to make the turbine’ s plinth …
But sometimes the Dreamers outweigh the Pointless People. The Dutch have been offering government-sponsored heroin to addicts for over 7 years. The Brits have rebranded their“ Injection Centres” as“ Consumption Rooms”, a dark nod towards the Victorian term for TB( where the body was being“ consumed” or wasted away). Even more poetic, the first of these legal injection houses, which was launched in Glasgow in January this year, is called“ The Thistle”. Historically-astute and loaded with cultural reference, without lacking the cutting humour so associated with the Scots. I wonder if it has a bar called“ The Sharp Scratch”… The achievements of such wellgrounded initiatives, which will likely lead to a drop in crime as well as deaths from drug overdoses, will probably be brushed under the carpet or attributed to improvements in policing, as the political elite simply can’ t accept the reality of the streets. According to data from the United Nations, America’ s fatal overdose rate is around 20 times that of the Netherlands. And, by a long shot, the class of drug that tops their list? Opioids.
America’ s addiction to prescription opioids can largely be attributed to one family, the Sacklers, who owned Purdue Pharma that so aggressively marketed the highly-addictive“ OxyContin” and was approved for children as young as 11. Historical donors to both the Republican and Democratic parties( why choose a side after all), they form part of, what I call, the“ All-American Cartel”. They are vampires, a pharma family who feasted on the flesh of millions, stealing souls from coast to coast. They settled the OxyContin litigation case for a mere $ 6bn in 2021, as part of Purdue Pharma negotiating filing for bankruptcy, and they slipped back into their cave.
But Big Pharma is now the prime target for Robert Kennedy Junior’ s planned onslaught of the medical industrial complex. Whether you believe in Trump or not, I think Kennedy, who is himself a recovering opioid addict( the reason why his voicebox is so damaged), will produce a particularly interesting story, unless, of course, he meets the same fate as both his uncle and his father, a risk of which he is all too aware. Stay safe, Ray, Brighton, 2025
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