There was a recent article in the Hartford Advocate http://www.hartfordadvocate.com/featured-news/connecticuts-drug-war-is-a-bust-6    lamenting “the drug war” and how it has failed.  The advocates for legalizing all drugs continue to use the 1970’s term “drug war” crafted by Richard Nixon.  Nobody but disingenuous individuals use that term anymore.  The reality is the phrase “drug war” was dropped many years ago by the government and the incarceration rates started to increase after the democrats pushed stronger legislation for incarceration in 1986.  The terminology "drug war" started to fade from our government. 

In summary, the drug mavens and advocates for creating more availability of drugs to every man, woman and child in our country use the statistics of incarceration rates, law enforcement expenses, tax payer costs, probation and  parole costs and the loss of revenue from possible taxation of drugs.

When a law enforcement officer is told by a family member, “thank God my loved one is in jail where I know they are safe” should tell volumes on the lunacy for legalization.  When minimal public costs for treatment for a loved one is $1500 to $2000 a month how can legalization be considered?  Who is going to pay for the additional treatment individuals will need from legalization?   Private treatment approaches $30,000 a month! 

 The argument of taxation makes no sense when alcohol brings in a minimal amount of revenue in comparison to the costs of alcohol to our society.  To believe that “taxing drugs” will balance the damage and destruction drugs create has no basis of fact. To make drugs legal because the challenge to prevent the damage and destruction to people is an inconvenience to society and is measured in pure economic costs has to be challenged.  The families who have loved one hopelessly addicted need to be heard on the logic of legalization.  I have no problem keeping someone in jail so they can’t introduce children to drugs.

The legalization advocates need to be challenged concerning their true agenda.  The cost for legalization of marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine needs to be revealed.  The radio show delves into the human factor more than the legalization advocates can answer to.  The mass distribution and growing damage the legal prescription narcotics and amphetamines are creating is evidence that it is time for the advocates for legalization to be challenged. 

Sunday night’s show was both a milestone show and symbolic of where the radio show is going.   While the silent epidemic continues to grow the radio show remains the only vehicle in America that consistently discusses what almost every person in America sees but remains blind to.  The growing acceptance of the destruction drugs are doing to this country needs to stop.  I await for  business and industry to step forward to realize the economic destruction that the legal distribution of narcotics, amphetamines and mind altering psychotropic drugs are doing too far too many of our loved ones and acquaintances.  What starts as an original office call to a doctor for much needed help ends as a monthly visit that is necessary to make sure withdrawal and depression do not set in.  Too many monthly visits are putting too many drugs out onto our streets!

Sunday night was a milestone because in studio were two high school students who helped display that the adults  do not understand the epidemic in our community.  When a student lays their head down on a desk because of drug use and not because of being tired from working too late the night before should scream volumes to this community.  When a good student can “score” an Adderal without looking very far it is time for the legal  drug dealers in this community to account for it. 

Sunday’s show should bring outrage from the community.  The drug mavens sanctioned by our FDA and government have infiltrated our schools and children.  Are the adults going to continue to sit idle or are they going to listen to what the reality in our schools are today?  I hope Sunday’s show is the primer that starts America to listen to the high school students in our communities.   

Sunday’s show was a reminder to  me that the adults are failing our children.  We will never have “drug free schools” if  the adults don’t get it.

The radio show recently reminded it’s listeners of FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg’s foibles and shortcomings concerning the growing legal narcotics fiasco in this country (7/25).  As the epidemic of dependency, addiction and death continues under the silence and tacit approval of the FDA, Margaret Hamburg will also have Joshua M. Scharfstein as her companion in the  ongoing debacle. 

Sharfstein apparently has impressed all as “young, energetic, and capable”.   After graduating from Harvard Medical School in 1996 he soon became head of the Baltimore Health Department.   The FDA web site states Scharfstein’s accomplishments in part:  “and expand access to effective treatment for opioid addiction.”    http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/CommissionersPage/ucm162062.htmnd  Scharfstein gained enough attention to be appointed as the interim Commissioner of the FDA for about two months in 2009 prior to Hamburg’s appointment. 

The gig is up for Scharfstein.  If he wants to continue his “meteoric path” to public recognition on being a leader on health care he can no longer hide out within the FDA incompetence.  The radio show is asking if Scharfstein has succumbed to the “corrupt” complicity of the entrenched FDA brass along with Hamburg?   Scharfstein is well aware of the  continuing hoax and destruction being wrought by the legal prescriptions within this country and the radio show asks the question:   If Scharfstein is sincere in helping America on bringing about “better health care”, why  his sudden silence on the opioid epidemic?  

The radio show was impressed by Scharfstein’s accomplishments prior to joining the FDA and now asks publicly why Scharfstein is taking the path of becoming part of the most inept FDA leadership in history.  Historians will be writing about the opioid debacle in much the same way that heroin was legalized over 100 years ago and Scharfstein has to make a decision on where his name will be placed in the ongoing historical medical fiasco created by the introduction and marketing of OxyContin.

The radio show asked why people who have lost loved ones from the disease of addiction or the misuse of a prescription narcotic continue to support the company that was instrumental in helping create the growing epidemic of dependency, addiction, death and family turmoil.   The statistics support the fact that Purdue Pharma, with the introduction of OxyContin in late 1995, promulgated the distribution of a substitute for heroin that most in the country were not aware of.  The phony marketing of the “under treatment of pain” helped hydrocodone (Vicodin), fentanyl (Duragesic), alprazolam (Xanax), carisoprodal (Soma) and methadone increase in distribution as well.  As a result, millions of people in this country have been affected by the masterful hoax of needing addictive narcotics for chronic pain that used to be treated with an aspirin tablet. 

On July  23 the FDA held a public meeting concerning the “extended release” (aka – OxyContin) products under the guise of creating new “safety guidelines”.  The guidelines were presented under the auspices of REMS – Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy.  REMS was initiated in 2007 to bring greater information to the public if a “DRUG’S BENEFITS OUTWEIGH ITS RISKS”.

The radio show revealed the hypocrisy and  continuing disingenuous efforts by the FDA.  Thousands dying, tens of thousands addicted and millions dependent and the FDA continues to allow the unencumbered marketing of the long term opioids for “moderate to severe pain”.  The lunacy of the public meeting was missed by all in the media.  The psychological, emotional and brain altering results from the opioids should have been the first order of discussion at the meeting.  The inept and insincere efforts of the “corrupted” FDA officials leading the proposals and meeting should have been revealed.  The quote by John Jenkins, the director of the  FDA’s office of  new drugs, said “the agency’s plan was designed to address legitimate use of the drugs, not deliberate abuse”.   Volumes can be written on Jenkin’s misunderstanding of “legitimate” use, but to publicly state that abuse is not under the auspices of the FDA’s concerns should immediately create the dismissal of Jenkins.

Margaret Hamburg, the Commissioner of the FDA, is allowing the ineptness of Woodcock, Throckmorton, Rappaport, Jenkins and Hirsh to be remembered as  the most ineffective FDA Commissioner in History.  Millions of individuals and families continue to be affected by  the inaction of the FDA and the clock is ticking on revealing Hamburg’s ineffectiveness in representing the safety of the American people.  The fiasco of the July 23^rd meeting was a glaring reminder of Hamburg being out  of touch.  Hamburg should become familiar with Napoleon at Waterloo.

On Sunday, The St. Pete Times ran a story about a man who overdosed.  Aside from quoting a bereaved parent who said "but I think he was weak" in reference to his son, The Times didn't stop there from furthering the agenda of the pain management industry. 

A list of 21 prescriptions was published that the deceased man received from a pharmacist.  The final prescriptions were sold to the man after his father asked the pharmacist to stop dispensing the dangerous narcotics to his son.

Michele Weizer, Chairperson of the Florida Board of Pharmacy was quoted, "We are required to fill the prescription unless there is a really good reason not to fill it".  "This is health care.  It's a patient safety reason more than anything else".

As a pharmacist, I am both outraged and embarrassed by the quotes.  The Florida Pharmacy Statute is clear.  Sec 64B16-27.831- 4.    An order purporting to be a prescription issued not in the usual course of professional treatment nor in legitimate and authorized research is not a prescription and the pharmacist knowingly filling such a purported prescription shall be subject to penalties for violations of the law.  The following criteria should cause a pharmacist to question whether a prescription was issued for legitimate medical purpose".

As of this writing, I am assuming the Chairperson was misquoted.  To insinuate that there was a good reason to fill all 21 prescriptions for the deceased man should call for the immediate removal of Ms. Weizer from her position.  Is it possible that Ms. Weizer was placed in the Chairperson position by affiliates of the pain management organizations?

If Ms. Weizer reaffirms the quotes, then I would encourage her to review the Florida Supreme Court ruling that entrusts pharmacists with the duty to warn.   

NOTE:  Shortly after this posting, Leonora Anton LaPeter, the author of the article responded: 

Why would you take a quote and not give it it's context? This is what she said:

 >>>But they are in a delicate position. Pharmacists have an obligation to help the people who walk in their door.

"We are required to fill the prescription unless there is a really good reason not to fill it," said Michele Weizer, chairperson of the Florida Board of Pharmacy and a pharmacist from Palm Beach County. "This is health care. It's a patient safety reason more than anything else."

Some time ago the Pinellas County Sheriff's department arrested a number of people for "doctor shopping" and passing "fraudulent" prescriptions.  Last night I reported on the recent story from Hernando County on the arrests of 23 people who were part of "an organized prescription drug ring".  It was reported that many fake prescriptions were created to acquire thousands of narcotics. 

Again, many people with the disease of addiction were arrested and not a single pharmacist or drug wholesaler who was complicit in putting thousands of drugs onto our streets shared the same cell.  The phoniness of reporting on phony prescriptions needs to come to an end.  The pharmacists who fill prescriptions for people who are unknown to the pharmacist for hundreds of pills should immediately lose their pharmacy license.  The Florida Pharmacy Board has been negligent and egregiously complicit in allowing the tools for addiction and death to be so readily available via the middle man for the drug deals.  Pharmacists who fill prescriptions for large quantities to people who are young and their physical characteristics are "glassy eyes" should both lose their pharmacy license and be prosecuted for drug dealing.  The privilege for having a pharmacy license should not be allowed to be abused.  

The DEA should be prosecuting the drug wholesalers who ship to the few pharmacies who put the drugs out onto our streets.  We have a system in place that has created "legal" narcotic drug distribution and most of our public officials, police officials, business and media pretend to remain "dumbfounded". 

It is my hope that the police departments around the country stop protecting the legal drug cartels.  The fact is that the "fraudulent prescriptions" are not fooling anyone.  They are a continued excuse to turn a blind eye to the tens of thousands of individuals and families who have suffered from the "less than forthcoming" information from the police reporting.  

The Goat and the Goatherd 

A GOATHERD had sought to bring back a stray goat to his flock.He whistled and sounded his horn in vain; the straggler paid noattention to the summons.  At last the Goatherd threw a stone,and breaking its horn, begged the Goat not to tell his master.The Goat replied, "Why, you silly fellow, the horn will speak though I be silent."

The radio show has been critical of the present state of Florida's  response to the growing drug problem in our state.    The epicenter and glaring distribution point for the drugs entering our streets  are the "Pain Clinics".   With the new drug monitoring bill soon to be implemented, over 900 clinics have mandatorily been registered as legal narcotic distribution points in Florida.   There is plenty of blame to go around for the dismal response Florida officials and law makers have had over past years.  However, it has become time for solutions.