From the Ramparts
Junious Ricardo Stanton
America, Steeped in Addiction
“Addiction brings financial and legal problems (property and violent crimes) and increases domestic violence, child abuse, unplanned pregnancies and motor vehicle accidents. Addiction is also highly prevalent among jail and prison inmates and in many instances, played a role in their incarceration. Yet and perhaps this is the most important- if not troubling- finding of all. Only one in ten people with addiction to alcohol and/or drugs report receiving any treatment at all. Compare this to the fact that about 70 percent of people with hypertension or diabetes do receive treatment.” A Blind Eye to Addiction, Lloyd Sederer https://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/policy-dose/2015/06/01/america-is-neglecting-its-addiction-problem
America is imploding and unraveling by quantum leaps and bounds. By all accounts we are a society in precipitous decline: morally, socially and economically and all these facets are interrelated and interconnected. One of the most telling examples of this decline is the rising rate of addiction among all ethnic, socio-economic and age demographics.
Addiction is not just relegated to alcohol and illegal drugs. Americans are addicted to a plethora of substances. For example, 61 million Americans are hooked on cigarettes, 16-20 million are addicted to alcohol or abuse it regularly, 15 million smoke marijuana, 2.4 million use cocaine, 600,000 use crack, hundreds of thousands are hooked on heroin, more than 750,000 are methamphetamine users, 1 million use ecstasy and hallucinogens, almost 2 million of our children have used steroids, 4.5 million teens abuse controlled prescription dugs like OxyContin, Ritalin, and Adderall to get high. https://www.centeronaddiction.org/newsroom/op-eds/high-society-how-substance-abuse-ravages-america-and-what-do-about-it
Addiction takes a devastating toll on the social and economic fabric of the country. It is similar to moths and worms eating away at the fibers and weaving of your clothing, eventually the garment falls apart and is no good. For insight into how addiction and substance abuse negatively impacts US culture go to https://www.addictioncenter.com/addiction/addiction-statistics/, and http://www.investmentwatchblog.com/were-losing-the-war-on-drugs-its-a-symptom-of-worse-ills/ .
Addictions of all types are destroying this country but this is neither new nor unique to this generation. History reveals addictions; moral rot, hubris and overreach bring empires to their knees not external foes! When Europeans arrived on theses shores, they found millions of indigenous people who introduced them to tobacco. Over the centuries the nicotine in tobacco became addictive to generations of humanity. But the Europeans also brought their addiction to imported sugar, raised it here and exported it back to Europe.
The British brought their addiction to tea (and caffeine) with them when they invaded this hemisphere. Tea was originally cultivated in China in ancient times and first introduced to Britain in the 1600’s by the East India Trading Company (aka English East India Company and later Governor and Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East Indies) a monopoly trading company that in addition to trading in tea, spices, silk and cotton, also enslaved Africans mostly from East Africa and Madagascar and they traded in opium from India.
The East India Company was a forerunner of today corporations. They attempted to force the Chinese to accept trade in opium but the Emperor refused. The Europeans set up smuggling rings that the Chinese attempted to bring to an end. This brought on the Opium Wars (1839-1842 and 1856-1860) that totally defeated the Chinese (the Europeans has superior weapons and ships) and busted down the barriers to European “trade” in China. The Chinese never forgot their humiliating defeat at the hands of the Westerners.
The Colonists in the US British colonies became addicted to the sugar and tobacco grown here, the trading companies exported overseas as well as the tea the British imported into the colonies (remember the Boston Tea Party, the false flag operation against England by the colonists?). Later the British elites made huge profits selling opium around the world.
Today what we are seeing and experiencing in the US is KARMA. Just as the East India Company smuggled opium and traded addictive tea, coffee, tobacco and humans around the world (as did other European trading companies), today the US CIA is a global trafficker in illicit drugs and a major money laundering partner with the giant banks. This nexus of drugs and money is driving much of the US implosion and debilitating addictions. https://www.corbettreport.com/the-cia-and-the-drug-trade/ , https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-spoils-of-war-afghanistan-s-multibillion-dollar-heroin-trade/91
Its ironic most of the Fentanyl that is killing more and more US citizens comes from China (is this payback for the Opium Wars)! https://www.axios.com/china-fentanyl-opioids-opioid-crisis-drug-dealers-1c30566e-20aa-41e4-bea0-1563e7fcc5c8.html This is merely the tip of the iceberg; addiction and drug overdoses in the US are increasing. http://time.com/5220372/drug-overdose-deaths-cdc/ https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/opioid-overdose-deaths-by-raceethnicity/?currentTimeframe=0&sortModel=%7B"colId":"Location","sort":"asc"%7D
Now that white people are suffering addiction at increasing rates, it no longer has social stigma. Addiction is no longer propagated as a moral failing or character flaw requiring incarceration; now it is seen as a sickness needing medical and therapeutic treatment, empathy and community support! They didn’t say that when drugs were being dumped in communities of color, while the police looked the other way and their most vulnerable residents were being arrested and incarcerated in the bogus War on Drugs started by Richard Nixon!
Alas even treating addiction (as opposed to locking people up) which in most cases is merely a symptom, is not a comprehensive cure. Until the underlying issues and causative factors are addressed, dealt with and healed, the US addiction crisis will continue to exist and escalate.
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