<p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 21px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">So, why, then, has a killer of tens of thousands each year still on the loose inside those putatively impermeable borders? How could this executioner, unmasked and identified, roam main streets of small towns as comfortably as a seedy alley in some decrepit corner of an urban metroplex — unhindered by the threat of detention or arrest?</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 21px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">How could this nefarious reaper sever the lives of ninety-one Americans each and every day, yet — rather than earn a notorious status as Enemy of the Public Number One — this killer is encouraged to thrive, intentionally or not, by those supposedly the most trusted to guard us from bodily harm?</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 21px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Since the attacks of 9/11, the United States has waged the pernicious War on Terror — combating a concept most of its citizenry will never encounter firsthand — nearly everywhere on the planet, even toppling ostensively brutal but sovereign regimes in its name.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 21px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Yet, Terror — its tactics used most often by disciples fighting in the name of religion — has not been as efficacious in destroying American lives as the opioid </span><a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6450a3.htm" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(128, 128, 128); text-decoration-line: none;">medications</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> prescribed, without irony, to kill their pain.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 21px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Since 1995, terrorists of varied stripe have </span><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/18/us/u-s-terrorist-attacks-fast-facts/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(128, 128, 128); text-decoration-line: none;">killed</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> 3,181 people in the U.S. — nearly 3,000 of them in the September 11 attacks, which sparked the nation’s unending war, alone.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 21px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">That’s a startling figure, indeed — particularly in a country known for Orwellian surveillance and tracking of visitors and citizens, alike — but terror’s death toll cannot be examined separately from known killers more easily stopped.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 21px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">In 2014, the span of a single year, an astounding </span><a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6450a3.htm" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(128, 128, 128); text-decoration-line: none;">29,467 Americans died</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> by overdose of opioid-related drugs, including prescriptions — and the following year saw more than 15,000 lose their lives to overdose on opioid medications legally prescribed by medical personnel.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 21px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Unintentional drug overdose is now the </span><a href="http://real-leaders.com/this-should-scare-you-more-than-terrorism-the-opioid-epidemic/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(128, 128, 128); text-decoration-line: none;">primary cause of accidental death</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">’ in the U.S. — and prescription opioid industry bears a significant bulk of culpability in the problem.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 21px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Many opiate addicts never sought the escape of a substance recreationally — but were given prescriptions for medications like Vicodin (hydrocodone) or even OxyContin (oxycodone) following surgery, a serious injury, or as treatment for the chronic pain of another illness.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 21px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">What might seem innocuous when written by a physician can quickly turn malevolent — a single month of prescribed medication might not be sufficient to fight the pain of a complex fracture or chronic ailment. If the prescriber then refuses an extension of that opioid — all-too frequently, under the benign premise of preventing dependence — that patient might seek other means to procure the same relief.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 21px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Many turn to heroin — highly illegal, but readily available from the black market — and without the rigorous federal restrictions guarding its legal opioid brethren. In fact, a large percentage of heroin addicts began using after prescriptions for strong opioids like OxyContin ran their course, leaving the patients suffering without recourse.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 21px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Every day, </span><a href="https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/data/overdose.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(128, 128, 128); text-decoration-line: none;">around 1,000 people are treated in hospital emergency rooms for misuse of prescription opioids</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> — and in 2014, alone, roughly 2,000,000 abused or were dependent on those opioid medications. One-quarter, given such a prescription on a long but terminal basis, struggles with dependency.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 21px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Fifteen-thousand people perished by overdosing on prescription opioid painkillers in 2015 — and the </span><a href="https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/data/overdose.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(128, 128, 128); text-decoration-line: none;">figures</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> compiled by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention grow exponentially by the year. Even as the War on Terror rages on around the globe.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 21px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Indeed, veteran American troops have stumbled on that war’s undiscussed elephant in the room while fighting the supposed terrorists we’re made to believe threaten our security, overseas in Afghanistan — the origin, by most reports, of the majority of the world’s opium supply.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 21px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Standing <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNqIrDKnNE8" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(128, 128, 128); text-decoration-line: none;">guard over fields of opium poppies</a> isn’t expressly stated in U.S. military recruitment brochures, yet troops returning stateside report that media images showing them doing so are entirely accurate.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 21px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Immediately prior to the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan some sixteen years ago — in an irony of tragic shame to warhawk politicians and the pharmaceutical industry — the Taliban had all-but eradicated the opium poppy from the fertile lands under its control, evidenced by a record-smashing low, </span><a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/afghanistan-the-making-of-a-narco-state-20141204" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(128, 128, 128); text-decoration-line: none;">185-ton</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">, harvest.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 21px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Reversing that became paramount priority — even before dust kicked up by the boots of incoming soldiers had time to settle.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 21px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">“Within six months of the U.S. invasion,”</i> <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/afghanistan-the-making-of-a-narco-state-20141204" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(128, 128, 128); text-decoration-line: none;">wrote</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> Matthieu Aikins for the December 4, 2014, </span><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">Rolling Stone</i><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">, </span><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">“the warlords we backed were running the opium trade, and the spring of 2002 saw a bumper harvest of 3,400 tons.”</i></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 21px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">To call the revival a success would severely undercut the facts. Production of Afghani opium </span><a href="http://www.mintpressnews.com/global-war-terror-created-heroin-epidemic-us-afghanistan/218662/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(128, 128, 128); text-decoration-line: none;">doubled</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> by 2014, and Afghanistan’s potent poppies — rumored to be rivaled in quantity only by </span><a href="http://thefreethoughtproject.com/norht-korea-opium-trade-afghanistan/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(128, 128, 128); text-decoration-line: none;">secreted fields of the North Korean government</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> — soon dominated markets, comprising </span><a href="http://www.mintpressnews.com/global-war-terror-created-heroin-epidemic-us-afghanistan/218662/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(128, 128, 128); text-decoration-line: none;">90 percent</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> of the entire planet’s supply.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 21px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Opiates fuel a crisis of dependence and addiction that — in tandem with a dearth of treatment programs attainable by those with low incomes or lacking insurance — has mushroomed into an epidemic, without indication of diminishing soon.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 21px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Correlation might not equal causation, but that span and gravity of that epidemic run in lockstep with the astronomical rise in production of Afghanistan’s opium — and both share a birthdate roughly coinciding with the U.S. invasion.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 21px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Opiates are profitable. Opioid prescription painkillers — doled out to Americans for temporary relief of pain, </span><a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6450a3.htm" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(128, 128, 128); text-decoration-line: none;">four times more often</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> than in 1999 — are Big Pharma’s bread and butter. Even when the health of the millions stands in peril — an epidemic reaching across class, gender, race, and income lines to perfect a stranglehold — prescription opioids profit their manufacturers and distributors so many billions, ethics can’t take priority.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 21px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Sadly, and with tragic irony, the opioid crisis rekindled the flames of another highly ineffective war — the war on drugs. This most violent, futile, and rights-violating attack on Americans does nothing to stop the problem and only serves to bolster the bottom line of the prison industrial complex.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 21px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">In fact, the war on drugs has served its purpose in creating the very crisis it ostensibly fights — a result known by all those who’ve ever taken the time to study <a href="http://thefreethoughtproject.com/prohibition-blame-deadly-fentanyl-laced-heroin-spike-deaths/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(128, 128, 128); text-decoration-line: none;">the horrid effects of prohibition. </a></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 21px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">It must be understood, black-clad terrorists shouting, ‘Death to America!’ might offer a captivating tidbit for nightly national news. However, in actuality, these militants do not present so much as a distant threat to anyone living in the confines of the United States.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 21px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Rather, the unscrupulous players in the pharmaceutical industry, motivated by profit more than individuals’ long-term health — and their lackeys in government, specialists in lax legislation tough in language, only — whose decisions, given the chain of responsibility in crises, can ultimately destroy countless families.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 21px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Our government will wage this War on Terror, assumedly until the ‘threat’ of ‘terrorism’ decreases substantially. In the meantime, the opium overseas, guarded by U.S. troops and tended by local farmers both incentivized by and hawkishly watched by Taliban warlords, will be to blame for the epidemic killing scores the terrorists otherwise couldn’t.</span></p>
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