Wednesday, July 12, 2017

MEXICAN HEROIN FLOODS AMERICA'S OPEN BORDERS - A GENERATION OF ORPHANS AND THE COST TO AMERICA OF THE LA RAZA OCCUPATION

Opioid Overdoses May Have Been 24% Higher Than First Thought
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Image: Mike, a heroin addict who wants to get help, prepares to inject himself in the Kensington section of Philadelphia which has become a hub for heroin addicts on July 21, 2017 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.© Mike, a heroin addict who wants to get help, prepares to inject himself in the Kensington section of... Image: Mike, a heroin addict who wants to get help, prepares to inject himself in the Kensington section of…

The deadly drug overdose epidemic that has been ravaging the nation may be even worse than we realize.



A new University of Virginia study says the numbers of deaths due to heroin and opioid overdoses have actually been severely underreported.
Dr. Christopher Ruhm revisited thousands of death certificates from 2008 through 2014 and concluded the mortality rates were 24 percent higher for opioids and 22 percent higher for heroin than had been previously reported.
"Opioid mortality rate changes were considerably understated in Pennsylvania, Indiana, New Jersey and Arizona," the study states. "Increases in heroin death rates were understated in most states, and by large amounts in Pennsylvania, Indiana, New Jersey, Louisiana and Alabama."
Ruhm's awful arithmetic emerged just days after the presidential opioid commission, led by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, urged President Donald Trump to "declare a national emergency" to deal with the crisis.
Nearly 35,000 people across America have died of heroin or opioid overdoses in 2015, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
"My message to members of a Presidential commission would be that getting the most accurate statistics possible is a crucial first step towards developing policies aimed at stemming the fatal drug epidemic," Ruhm told NBC News. "This is particularly important when we have scarce funds to allocate and so would want to target them at the hardest hit areas."
Ruhm contends that one of the reasons U.S. officials have been unable to win this war "is the lack of reliable information on the drugs causing fatal overdoses."
"This occurs when no specific drug is identified on the death certificates," he said in the study.
So Ruhm, a professor of public policy and economics, began poring over death certificate data from the federal Centers of Disease Control and Prevention.
He discovered that in 2014, a specific drug was not identified in 19.5 percent of fatal overdoses. And in 2008, that figure was even higher — 25.4 percent.
States like Rhode Island, Connecticut and New Hampshire specified the exact drug on death certificates 99 percent of the time "but only around half the time in Pennsylvania, Indiana, Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama," Ruhm reported in his study.
Armed with that info, Ruhm estimated how many of those deaths could be blamed on heroin and how many on opioids.
His results? The national rate of fatal opioid overdoses jumped in 2014 from 9 per 100,000 people to 11.2 — and rate of fatal heroin overdoses climbed form 3.3 per 100,00 to 4.
Based on Ruhm's research, the drug problem in Pennsylvania is a lot worse than the CDC figures indicate.
The Keystone state was ranked 32nd by the CDC for opioid deaths for 2014, with 8.5 per 100,000. But Ruhm concluded the Keystone State actually has the seventh highest rate of opioid deaths that year with 17.8 per 100,000. And, based on Ruhm's calculations, it went from being the state with the 20th highest fatal heroin overdose rate to fourth.
Susan Shanaman of the Pennsylvania State Coroners Association, in an email to NBC News, said "there are many reasons that a Coroner may not list all the drugs on a death certificate," including federal and state privacy rules.
"The average family gets 20 copies of a death certificate of their loved one," she wrote. "These are used to close out bank accounts, transfer loan accounts, transfer titles to vehicles, claim insurance and the like. Not every family member wants the public to know what drugs were all found in the deceased."
Hard-hit Ohio's opioid death rate went from 18.2 per 100,000 (fifth highest in the country) to 20.5 per 100,000 (fourth highest in the country) in Ruhm's report.
Ohio also has the nation's highest rate of fatal heroin overdoses with 10.4 per 100,000. By Ruhm's reckoning, the rate is 11.2 per 100,000, which is also the highest in the country.
Unchanged in Ruhm's report is West Virginia's woeful ranking as the state with the highest rate of deadly opioid cases. But even there Ruhm concluded the death rate for opioids should have been 30.3 per 100,000 in 2014 instead of 29.9. And the state's fatal heroin overdose rate should have been 9 per 100,000 rather than 8.8.
Ruhm's research also buttresses earlier studies that identified the primary victims of this plague.
"Fatal overdose rates are higher for males than females, for whites than blacks or other non-whites," Ruhm said.
And the overdose death rates are highest for people ages 25 to 64 in the Rust Belt, in Appalachia and some western states.
"There are also pockets with high death rates in many other parts of the country as well," Ruhm said


A generation of orphans
The impact of US opioid epidemic on foster care and social services
By Genevieve Leigh
12 July 2017
The epidemic of opioid addiction in the US, which has reached never before seen heights in the past two years, has put an immense strain on the already resource-starved US health care system. Among the most devastating consequences of this crisis has been the thousands of children who lose their parents to addiction every day. These children have flooded the foster care system, and their cases have exhausted social services.
According to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, in 2012, 397,000 U.S. children were in foster care. By 2015, that number had risen 8 percent, to 428,000. There is no concrete data yet for 2016; however, experts predict that the past two years—the height of the opioid epidemic so far—has increased that number dramatically.
A recent study published by the Annie E. Casey Foundation found that in 14 states the number of foster kids rose by more than a quarter between 2011 and 2015.
States that are experiencing a massive influx of children into protective custody all face similar problems, with varying degrees of severity. None are equipped with the resources to adequately deal with the crisis. Three of the hardest hit states have been Maine, Florida, and Ohio.
Maine
More than 1,800 children were reported to be in foster care across the state of Maine in 2016—a nearly 45 percent increase in foster children since 2011.
Last year, 376 people died from drug overdoses in Maine. This is the highest number ever recorded for the state and marks a 114 percent increase over a period of just four years, coinciding with the rise of the opioid crisis. Moreover, more than 1,000 children were born addicted to drugs in Maine last year, with the majority of the cases involving some form of opioid.
Bette Hoxie, executive director of Adoptive and Foster Families for Maine, a non-profit organization that works to provide support services for adoptive and foster parents, as well as kinship providers, recently spoke to the WSWS about the immense scope of the opioid epidemic.
“We work with about 3,100 families. Of these, 1,600 are utilizing our resources from more intensive services than just basic services. This means that they need things like clothes, they need help working through the system, they need bedding, they need much more active involvement.”
“The homes where these children are going are just not prepared with everything they need to house a child,” Hoxie noted.
“I would say nearly every single one of those cases is due to drug addiction. Of the kinship calls [when children are placed with extended family members instead of with foster families] that we get, at least 85-90 percent have been due to drug addiction, with the majority being opioids.”
Hoxie explained the effect of the spike in opioid use on the child care services: “Up until about 8 or 10 years ago, when children were coming into protective services, they were placing kids with foster care families until they could reunite them with their families or place them in permanent homes.”
“Over the last few years—in a large way, to deal with the sudden influx of such high numbers of children—there is more and more use of family members. There is definitely a strain on the system. We have 1,900 children in care, and we have 1,200 licensed foster homes.” Hoxie expressed concerns that some of these children end up in homes where the caregivers, often grandparents, are on fixed incomes and struggle to provide for the children.
Speaking on the opioid crisis more generally Hoxie added, “The biggest thing we are struggling with here in Maine is recovery options. ... When a family with addiction problems reaches out for help and they hear ‘Well, it will be three months before we can get you into a place,’ these people lose a lot of hope.”
Ohio
The state of Ohio has one of the nation’s highest overdose rates. In 2016, 4,149 deaths from drug overdose were reported, showing a 36 percent jump from the year before. In 2015, an astounding one in nine heroin deaths nationwide occurred in Ohio, a number that has likely jumped even higher since.
Ohio’s foster population has gone up nearly 10 percent, with more than 60 percent of children in the system because of parental drug abuse. The situation in Ohio is unique, not only because the opioid epidemic is so severe, but also because it is possibly the most resource-starved state in terms of child care services. The state ranks 50th for state share of children services total expenditures. In fact, Ohio state expenditures for child services are so low that if the number doubled, it would still remain 50th in the country.
Scott Britton, who works for Public Children Services Association of Ohio, told the WSWS: “The drug epidemic really has caused a crisis across the board. We have 11 percent increase of children in custody and 19 percent increase in retention rate. We have some 2015 data that showed that 28 percent of the parents of kids who were taken from their homes were using some type of opioid. So that means more than one in four and almost one in three. This is not counting kinship care or other ways a child might come in. We suspect that number has only gone up in 2016, considering that back in 2015 we were not seeing near the same volume of opioid use as we had in 2016 and which continues today.”
“It is affecting just about every facet of the foster care system. Some come into our care because they were born with addiction, others because they have experienced severe neglect. They very often come in with a lot of trauma from their experiences, which complicates things. Sometimes placing them with a typical foster family is not what’s best due to the severity of their issues.”
Another major problem, mentioned by every charity group, nonprofit, and social service worker who spoke to our reporters, is the effect the pressure has had on social workers. Britton explained that Ohio is no different: “These workers are emotionally exhausted. They are often the ones who are left with tasks like telling a child that one of their parents, or sometimes both of their parents, have died from overdose, for example.
“Our caseworkers are really committed to reunifying children with their parents. That is our number-one goal. They work really hard to get parents into treatment. Unfortunately, they are seeing less and less of that, which is really tough on their morale. We did a survey in 2016 and found that one out of every four caseworkers left their positions. I suspect they just become exhausted from taking that emotional stress home.”
Florida
The worst manifestation of the opioid epidemic in Florida is in the state’s 12th Judicial Circuit Court, which includes Sarasota, Manatee and DeSoto counties. One figure that sheds light on the severity of the situation in this area is the number of doses of Narcan (Naloxone), the drug that reverses the effects of an overdose, being administered. In July 2015, emergency responders in this area administered a record 281 doses of the “miracle drug.” By July 2016, that number had more than doubled to 749. Officials in the area remain unable to stem the epidemic.
Kathryn Shea is the president and CEO of the Florida Center for Early Childhood, which is an early childhood mental health provider. Shea works in the heart of the Florida epidemic.
Shea told the WSWS: “The numbers we are seeing in Sarasota of kids in care we have never seen before. There is no question that the biggest cause is substance abuse, and the primary drug is opioids. Our children have been dramatically impacted, as have our babies. To give you an idea of how severe it is, consider that 90 percent of babies in the NICU at Sarasota Memorial Hospital are there from opioid substances.”
When asked about reports that Florida and other states such as Oregon and Texas have been forced to have children sleep in state buildings because there were no foster homes available, Shea responded, “Yes, that has happened here. Not as often, because they are constantly recruiting foster parents. Instead, here they often have to go over their waiver of five kids per parent.”
Shea also commented on the effect this crisis has had on those who work in the field, “Our turnover rate for social workers is just horrible. It’s very hard to keep cases managers and investigators. A lot of these workers are very young and have just gotten out of college or just have high school degrees and don’t have a lot of life experience to help buffer the intense situations that they have to deal with. Let me put it this way—I have been in this industry 37 years and it is still difficult for me. Often they are traumatized by what they go through on the job. They end up with secondary trauma from what they see and do. Honestly, from all my years in the field, I’ve never seen the situation this bad.”
When asked about what sort of impact the Trump health care plan, which would end Medicaid as an entitlement program, might have on the children affected by the opioid epidemic Shea said it would be a disaster. “Most of our families are on Medicaid. This covers over 90 percent of our kids. The services for them would be dropped. What we are talking about is the difference between life and death for children. I am not saying that lightly. I am very serious. We will be hurting the most vulnerable population. I think it’s an absolute crime.”
Asked to explain what she thought was driving the opioid epidemic Shea told the WSWS: “Well, I think the real root cause of this is poverty. Many of these people were raised in poverty and don’t see a way out of it. Many of them have experienced serious trauma and have never been treated properly because they don’t have the money and they use drugs to self-medicate, and to deal with the pain.”


….. the American Middle-Class at death’s door and knocking ….

Have you notice Democrat Party politicians always keep their fat mouths closed tight on the topic of the Mexican drug cartels operating across America???

THE DEATH OF AMERICA: MEXICO SERVES UP THE HEROIN.


In West Virginia, 5,182 children were in foster care in 2016, most orphaned by the heroin epidemic.

The death toll translates into an average of one fatal overdose every 12 hours in the state of West Virginia.

THE DEATH of WHITE AMERICA



“Whites had the highest rate of overdose deaths of any ethnicity, more than double the combined death rate for blacks and Latinos.


MEDICAID SLASHED!

TRUMPERNOMICS: IMPLEMENTING SEVERE OBAMA-CLINTONOMICS TO SERVE THE SUPER RICH!



“The Republican proposal builds on the core features of Obamacare, designed to boost the profits of the private insurers and slash health care costs for the government and big business.”

HERITAGE FOUNDATIONAmnesty would add 100 million more illegals and cost Legals trillions!





Plenty of money for ILLEGALS……AMERICA’S OPEN BORDERS

HOMELESS ELDERLY in AMERICA UNDER MEX OCCUPATION
A Nation dies young, poor, addicted and homeless…. It’s the American dream as the rich get super rich!
According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, the number of elderly persons who are homeless in the US will have doubled by 2050.

Starve the Opioids, Build the Wall

By Kenric Ward


ImmigrationReform.com, July 6, 2017
. . .
Mexico is the world’s third largest producer of heroin – an opioid drug — and Mexican heroin now controls over 50 percent of the market share. Additionally, most of the heroin from Colombia and South East Asia comes to the U.S. via Mexican drug cartels.

A border wall would choke that flow.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., points out that the opioid epidemic stems “not only from abuse (of prescription drugs), but from the illicit drug trade.” America, he said, is “consistently a step behind in stopping trafficking of opioids and other illegal drugs.”

The U.S. lags behind, in part, because Washington continues to slow-walk construction of a wall along strategic areas of the 2,000-mile-long, drug-infested border.
. . .
http://immigrationreform.com/2017/07/06/starve-opioids-build-wall/


Ohio politician proposes letting overdose victims die

The policy of “social murder” behind the US health care debate

By Barry Grey
5 July 2017
At a June 20 meeting of the Middletown, Ohio City Council, Dan Picard, a council member, offered a novel proposal to contain surging costs associated with a worsening epidemic of opioid overdoses in the town. Like cities across the United States, this southwestern Ohio town of some 49,000 people is being ravaged by the explosive spread of drug addiction linked to opioid pain killers. This year it has already recorded nearly 600 overdoses, more than in all of 2016.
Picard, who is not planning to run for reelection, proposed that the City Council adopt a “three strikes” policy, under which those who make use of emergency services two times to deal with an overdose will be denied help the third time. As he told the Washington Post, “When we get a call, the [emergency services] dispatcher will ask who is the person who has overdosed. And if it’s someone who has already been provided services twice, we’ll advise them that we’re not going to provide further services—and we will not send out an ambulance.”
Defending his proposal, Picard said, “I want to send a message to the world that you don’t want to come to Middletown to overdose… We need to put a fear about overdosing in Middletown.”
This call for what amounts to state-sanctioned murder evoked an angry response from the public in Middletown and wherever else people became aware of it. Numerous health care organizations and advocacy groups involved in dealing with the drug abuse epidemic denounced Picard and his proposal.
Alexis Pleus, the founder of Truth Pharm, a nonprofit that seeks to raise awareness of the issues surrounding substance abuse, did not mince words in an open letter to Picard: “To suggest that you withhold emergency medical response to overdose patients is manslaughter at best and premeditated murder at worst.”
Most of the American population, however, never learned of the incident. This is because the establishment media, fixated on its campaign against Russia and saber-rattling against North Korea, China, Iran and Syria, along with the political warfare in Washington between the Trump administration and its ruling class opponents, did not widely report the story.
There are other political reasons for the downplaying of the story by the corporate-controlled media. Picard’s brazen suggestion that drug abuse victims be allowed to die comes uncomfortably close to lifting the lid on a basic policy question underlying the current official debate on health care “reform.”
Behind the proposals in the Republicans’ bills to cut costs and boost profits by gutting Medicaid, the government insurance program for the poor, and lifting the current requirement that insurance companies cover certain “essential benefits,” lies a deliberate and calculated effort to reduce life expectancy for working people overall and send many of the old, infirm and mentally or socially disabled to an early grave.
The effort, moreover, is bipartisan. The Democrats are pleading for negotiations on a “compromise” bill to “fix” Obamacare, a euphemism for incorporating the demands of the insurance monopolies for even higher premiums, copays and deductibles and fewer restrictions on their ability to gouge the public. Obamacare itself is a mechanism for cutting costs for corporations and the government, weakening the system of employer-provided health insurance and rationing access to health care on a more openly class basis. The Republican plans build on Obamacare to accelerate the health care counterrevolution it initiated.
The corporations, banks and hedge funds that are pushing health care “reform” and the politicians and policy experts who are doing their bidding are well aware that many thousands will die needlessly as a result of the measures being proposed. Medicaid, slated to be cut under the Republican bills by some $800 billion over ten years and terminated as an open-ended entitlement program with guaranteed benefits, provides about 80 percent of funding to treat drug abuse, which overwhelmingly affects working class and poor people.
In 2015, some 1.35 million low-income Americans had an opioid use disorder. As it is, only 25 percent of those people get treated in a year.
Last year some 60,000 people in the US died from drug overdoses, 60 percent of them from opioids. Drug overdoses are now the leading cause of death for Americans under 50. There is no starker barometer of the failure of the capitalist system and the descent of broad masses of the population into conditions of desperate social crisis.
Of the 22 million people who will lose medical coverage under the Senate health care bill, Medicaid cuts will account for 15 million of them. Moreover, both the House and Senate bills allow insurance companies to drop coverage of care for mental health and substance abuse, among other basic services.
Can there be any doubt that many will die as a result of these cuts? Lynn Cooper, director of the Drug and Alcohol Division at Pennsylvania’s Rehabilitation and Community Providers Association, told National Public Radio last month: “It is a death epidemic all over the country. The loss of Medicaid expansion will be like the bottom dropping out for thousands of Pennsylvania citizens and their families.”
The impact is so self-evident, and public opposition so pervasive, that government officials are obliged to resort to the most brazen lying when defending their proposals. Typical was the performance of Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, a notorious and longstanding opponent of basic social program such as Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security, in an appearance Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” program. Of the Republican plan to dismantle Medicaid, he said, “We want to make certain that Medicaid is a program that can survive.”
While claiming to be committed to addressing the opioid epidemic, he declared, “We don’t need to be throwing money” at the crisis.
Ruling class strategists speak more frankly on specialized think tank web sites meant for corporate and state officials and their academic advisers. In 2013, the World Socialist Web Site drew attention to two policy papers published by the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) on the negative consequences for American imperialism and the national security apparatus of lengthening life spans for ordinary people resulting from advances in medical science and treatment and government health programs.
As the CSIS experts explained, the human and social achievement of better health and longer life for many millions of Americans spells disaster for the American ruling class and the capitalist system. The authors of the studies insisted that action had to be taken to deal with the “crisis,” including increasing the eligibility age for Medicare and Social Security to force the “young elderly,” those aged 60-69, to forgo retirement and keep working.
One of the papers, titled “The Budget Crisis and the Civil-Military Challenge to National Security Spending,” was written by Anthony H. Cordesman, a longtime CSIS strategist who acts as a consultant for the US State and Defense departments. Denouncing the siphoning of money away from the military to pay for medical care for the elderly, Cordesman wrote, “The US does not face any foreign threat as serious as its failure to come to grips with… the rise in the cost of entitlement spending.”
Behind such discussion papers are systematic studies and actuarial tables calculating the likely effectiveness in shortening life expectancy for workers—a process that is already underway—of various proposals to “reform” the health care system.
In his immortal 1845 work The Condition of the Working Class in England, Friedrich Engels accurately characterized as “social murder” the horrific conditions imposed on workers by the capitalist class, which “placed hundreds of proletarians in such as position that they inevitably meet a too early and unnatural death…”
The present crisis-ridden and bankrupt state of American and world capitalism is once again bringing to the fore the incompatibility of the profit system and the rule of a financial aristocracy with the satisfaction of human needs such as health and longevity. The health care counterrevolution in the US is a case of “social murder” at the hands of the capitalist class.


AMERICA THE ADDICTED!

How America surrendered to Mexico’s invasion, occupation and looting.




The Mexican drug cartels now control most of America’s southern borders as LA RAZA “The Race” fascist party expands Mexico’s anchor baby welfare state from border to open border.

More significant still, a former Mexican official, Jorge Castañeda, threatened to unleash Mexican cartels onto the U.S. to retaliate for deportations of illegal immigrants and the construction of a border wall.  



“When we get a call, the [emergency services] dispatcher will ask 

who is the person who has overdosed. And if it’s someone who 

has already been provided services twice, we’ll advise them that 

we’re not going to provide further services—and we will not send 

out an ambulance.”

Picard states openly the widespread sentiment in the American ruling class and among its political flunkeys—that the life of a working class person has a price tag, which is dropping every day.

Ohio councilman proposes “three strike policy” to let opioid overdosers die

By Genevieve Leigh
3 July 2017
A city councilman in Middletown, Ohio, Dan Picard, has proposed a “three strike” policy for people who overdose on opioids, under which those reported to have overdosed on more than two occasions would be denied emergency treatment the third time. He made the proposal at a City Council meeting on June 20.
In what would amount to state-sanctioned murder, emergency responders would not be dispatched and the opioid user would be left to die. As Picard told the Washington Post on Wednesday: “When we get a call, the [emergency services] dispatcher will ask who is the person who has overdosed. And if it’s someone who has already been provided services twice, we’ll advise them that we’re not going to provide further services—and we will not send out an ambulance.”
Like hundreds of cities and towns across the US, Middletown, located in southwestern Ohio, has been wracked by the opioid epidemic. The town, which has a population of 48,791, has already seen nearly 600 overdoses this year, which is more than it saw in all of 2016.
Defending his proposal, Picard told the press, “It’s not a proposal to solve the drug problem. My proposal is in regard to the financial survivability of our city.” He continued, “If we’re spending $2 million this year and $4 million next year and $6 million after that, we’re in trouble. We’re going to have to start laying off. We’re going to have to raise taxes.”
Picard states openly the widespread sentiment in the American ruling class and among its political flunkeys—that the life of a working class person has a price tag, which is dropping every day.
The giant pharmaceutical companies played a central role in creating the opioid epidemic. They made billions of dollars in profits by systematically and knowingly pushing highly addictive opioid medications on the population throughout the 1990’s and early 2000’s.
Now the epidemic has become a concern for the ruling class, not out of any compassion for those who suffer, but because it is creating a financial burden for the state. The proposals currently working their way through Congress to drastically reduce the availability of medical care for the working class, particularly by gutting Medicaid, the primary source of funding for the treatment of drug addiction, are calculated to accomplish on a national scale what Picard is proposing for Middletown.
Meanwhile, the pharmaceutical companies continue to profit from the crisis. Part of the reason emergency care for those who overdose on opioids is so expensive is that the price of the “miracle drug” Naloxone (trade name Narcan), used to revive users from overdoses, has skyrocketed over the past decade. The popular injectable version of the drug has gone from $0.92 a dose to more than $15 since 2007. An auto-injector version is now up to more than $2,000 a dose.
The pharmaceutical companies’ price-gouging, combined with the increase in demand, has caused revenues from the sale of Naloxone to jump from $21.3 million in 2011 to $81.9 million last year, according to data from the prescription-tracking company IMS Health. It is now costing state and local governments much more money to save lives.
Picard pointed to this in a statement defending his proposal, saying, “I want to send a message to the world that you don’t want to come to Middletown to overdose because someone might not come with Narcan and save your life. We need to put a fear about overdosing in Middletown.” He continued, “John Smith obviously doesn’t care much about his life, but he’s expending a lot of resources and we can’t afford it.”
As with all social problems, the opioid epidemic is treated by the political establishment as the result of the personal failings of individuals. In fact, it, and drug abuse more generally, are the result of the increasingly dire social conditions facing broad masses of the people, under conditions of unprecedented and growing levels of social inequality. These conditions are themselves rooted in the rapacious drive of the pharmaceutical corporations and the corporate-financial elite in general for profit, intensified by the worsening crisis of the capitalist system.
Picard’s homicidal proposal has evoked an angry response from the public. Middletown City Manager Douglas Adkins wrote in a blog post Wednesday about the overwhelming backlash. “We’ve received hate mail, national news coverage and overloaded voice mail and email in-boxes,” he said.
Many health care organizations, recovery centers and advocacy groups have spoken out against Picard’s plan. Truth Pharm, a nonprofit organization that seeks to raise awareness of the issues surrounding substance abuse, released an open letter to Picard denouncing his proposal.
Alexis Pleus, the founder of Truth Pharm, wrote in the letter: “In short, our goal is to save lives, so, needless to say, we were more than appalled by your recent proposition to refuse medical treatment to overdose patients. It pains and infuriates us to see how easily you have turned human lives into dollar signs and an impact on your budget… To suggest that you withhold emergency medical response to overdose patients is manslaughter at best and premeditated murder at worst.”
Pleus spoke to the World Socialist Web Site about the issues raised by Picard’s proposal. On the use of Naloxone as a solution, Pleus explained: “At first, Naloxone and Narcan seemed like a pretty fast and cheap solution to save lives. And that was true to a point. It is still a very important tool we have to help people.
“The problem is that they have never dedicated the follow-up... There is no governmental body that has given the proper resources necessary to complement the use of Naloxone. It is not a fix in itself, is not a cure to the epidemic. We set ourselves up for frustration because we keep using this life-saving device but don’t ever get to the root causes of addiction. I think ultimately the fault goes right back to each state government and the federal government as a whole.”
Pleus told reporters she wasn’t surprised that lawmakers would propose a measure not aimed at addressing the epidemic but rather at saving money. “Look at how easy it is to get legislation to pass when there is money to be made,” she said. “But try and get something through that simply helps people--it just won’t happen…this problem does not have a quick cheap fix. But still, all the while, the pharmaceutical companies are profiting, profiting, profiting.”
When asked how President Trump’s new health care plan might affect the opioid problem, Pleus said, “It will be absolutely devastating.” She continued: “At our organization we try and help people find treatment. About 80 percent of those we help have Medicaid. If they repeal it, I cannot even fathom what we will do. The new plan also will not mandate addiction treatment as part of insurance coverage. I can’t imagine turning away eight of ten people and telling them there is nothing we can do.”


HEROIN: are you addicted yet?

1 in 7 Legals are!

HEROIN!  Mexico’s Gift to Occupied Aztlan America!


The LA RAZA drug cartels haul back $100 BILLION from heroin sales.

More significant still, a former Mexican official, Jorge Castañeda, threatened to unleash Mexican cartels onto the U.S. to retaliate for deportations of illegal immigrants and the construction of a border wall.  

AMERICA THE ADDICTED: 1 in 7 are addicted
CAUTION: GRAPHIC IMAGES!
MEXICO’S BIGGEST EXPORTS TO U.S.: Heroin, Criminals, Anchor baby breeders for 18 years of gringo-paid welfare.


AMERICA’S BLUDGEONED YOUTH: Homeless, Hopeless and Addicted…. Will they start the revolution?


"Public education as a whole came under brutal attack as part of the Obama administration’s effort to shift the burden of the financial crisis onto the backs of the working class."

AMERICA THE ADDICTED: 1 in 7 are addicted
CAUTION: GRAPHIC IMAGES!
MEXICO’S BIGGEST EXPORTS TO U.S.: Heroin, Criminals, Anchor baby breeders for 18 years of gringo-paid welfare.

Congress Wades Into Sanctuary Cities, Again

By Kenric Ward

ImmigrationReform.com, July 5, 2017
. . .
Washington’s latest foray against sanctuary cities raises the stakes by threatening to withhold federal funding from non-compliant cities and states. One analysis estimates that the sanctuary jurisdictions of New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Chicago and Seattle could lose a combined $4.448 billion under HR 3003.

But any fiscal hit presupposes: 1) the Senate will pass the House bill and, 2) the law survives inevitable court challenges. With judges blocking President Donald Trump’s earlier effort to withhold federal funds from sanctuary cities, does HR 3003 provide enough legal ammunition? Though Congress has clear constitutional authority over appropriation of funds, such facts have not always deterred activist judges.

Unwilling to wait around, Texas enacted Senate Bill 4 to strip sanctuary cities of state law-enforcement funds and hold local officials liable for non-compliance. SB 4 does not recognize localities’ right to flout state law.
. . .
http://immigrationreform.com/2017/07/05/congress-wades-sanctuary-cities/


'Largest medical fraud takedown in American history': More than 400 doctors, nurses and pharmacists are arrested for heathcare and opioid scams worth $1.3bn in false billing


  • US attorneys announce they will prosecute over 400 in medical fraud case
  • Attorney General Jeff Sessions calls the action the 'largest medical fraud takedown in American history' 

  • More than 52,000 Americans died of overdoses in 2015

  • Nearly 300 health care providers are being suspended or banned from participating in federal health care programs 









Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Thursday that federal prosecutors have charged more than 400 people in taking part in medical fraud and opioid scams that totaled $1.3 billion in fraudulent billing. 
Sessions said that 412 individuals will be prosecuted by his office in what he called the 'largest health care fraud takedown operation in American history' during a press conference in Washington.
Sessions noted that the case involves doctors, nurses and pharmacists that 'have chosen to violate their oaths and put greed ahead of their patients.'

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Among those charged are six Michigan doctors accused of a scheme to prescribe unnecessary opioids. A Florida rehab facility is alleged to have recruited addicts with gift cards and visits to strip clubs, leading to $58 million in false treatments and tests. 
Officials said those charged in the schemes include more than 120 people involved in illegally prescribing and distributing narcotic painkillers. 
Such prescription opioids are behind the deadliest drug overdose epidemic in US history. 
More than 52,000 Americans died of overdoses in 2015 - a record - and experts believe the numbers have continued to rise.
'In some cases, we had addicts packed into standing-room-only waiting rooms waiting for these prescriptions,' acting FBI director Andrew McCabe said. 'They are a death sentence, plain and simple.'
More than 52,000 Americans died of overdoses in 2015 (stock photo of prescription painkillers)
More than 52,000 Americans died of overdoses in 2015 (stock photo of prescription painkillers)
Nearly 300 health care providers are being suspended or banned from participating in federal health care programs, Sessions said.
'They seem oblivious to the disastrous consequences of their greed. Their actions not only enrich themselves, often at the expense of taxpayers, but also feed addictions and cause addictions to start,' Sessions said.
Health care fraud sweeps like Thursday's happen each year across the country, but law enforcement officials continue to grapple over the best way to fight the problem.
The people charged were illegally billing Medicare, Medicaid and the health insurance program that serves members of the armed forces, retired service members and their families, the Justice Department said. 
The allegations include claims that those charged billed the programs for unnecessary drugs that were never purchased or given to the patients. 
EXCLUSIVE: Cartel Violence 

Spills into Texas as Gunmen 

Storm Past U.S. Border Security


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PIEDRAS NEGRAS, Coahuila — Two cartel gunmen fleeing from a raging gun battle with Mexican authorities ran through U.S. border security measures twice as they crossed into Texas and back; using their vehicle to ram barriers. 

The cartel gunmen were able to cross into Eagle Pass through International Bridge #2 by running the security checkpoints. Shortly after they crossed back through a second bridge that was closed at the time. The gunmen used their vehicle to ram security barriers and later ditched it escape on foot. 
The violence began overnight near the rural community of Nava, Coahuila, when authorities received information about two gunmen riding in a late model white Toyota Tundra, information provided to Breitbart Texas by Coahuila law enforcement revealed. 
State police officers with a special investigative unit spotted the vehicle along Boulevard Carranza near the intersection with Airport Boulevard in the border city of Piedras Negras. Officers tried to pull over the gunmen but were met with gunfire as they sped off–setting off a high-speed chase. 
The gunmen were able to reach the main plaza in Piedras Negras, Plaza de Las Culturas, where they once again engaged law enforcement in a short firefight. As they made their way to the International Bridge #2, gunmen rammed their way through other vehicles and barriers as they used the inbound lanes through Mexican Customs to reach the U.S. side of the bridge.
Coahuila state police officers contacted their counterparts in Texas. Before American authorities were able to apprehend the shooters, they made their way to another international bridge, locally known as Bridge 1. While the crossing was closed at the time, the gunmen were able to ram through the security barriers and make their way back into Mexico. 
The Mexican Army, Fuerza Coahuila, and local police officers had been combing the area however, they were able to make their way to a nearby neighborhood called Mundo Nuevo where they abonded the vehicle and fled on foot.  Authorities were able to locate the white SUV that had multiple bullet holes and extensive body damage. 
During the initial gun battle and chase, two Coahuila police officers from the investigative unit and six officers with Fuerza Coahuila were injured. The six officers with Fuerza Coahuila appear to have been injured in a crash during the high-speed chase. Authorities have not revealed how the two other officers were injured. 
Breitbart Texas reached out to CBP for comment and the agency did not respond in any manner.
Editor’s Note: Breitbart Texas traveled to the Mexican States of Tamaulipas, Coahuila, and Nuevo León to recruit citizen journalists willing to risk their lives and expose the cartels silencing their communities.  The writers would face certain death at the hands of the various cartels that operate in those areas including the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas if a pseudonym were not used. Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles are published in both English and in their original Spanish. This article was written by Coahuila’s “J.M. Martinez” and Breitbart Texas’ Ildefonso Ortiz.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4694236/US-attorneys-412-health-fraud-case.html#ixzz4mkqzAJEv



............. you really want the borders wide open?



Barrio 18: Meet the terrifying gang with 50,000 foot-soldiers across the US and so unashamedly violent it rivals MS-13

  • US has vowed to crack down on ultra-violent transnational gang MS-13

  • But MS-13's arch-rival gang Barrio 18 has a sickening reputation 

  • Founded in Los Angeles and spread throughout Mexico and Central America
  • Believed to have 30,000 to 50,000 members across 20 US states

  • Allied with the Mexican Mafia gang but sworn rivals to MS-13 
MS-13 isn't the only gang sowing violence and terror from Central America to the US: meet Barrio 18.
Arch-rivals to MS-13, Barrio 18 has an estimated 30,000 to 50,000 members across 20 US states and is linked to drugs, murder, kidnappings and other violent crime from Central America to Canada.
'With thousands of members across hundreds of kilometers, and interests in a number of different illicit activities, Barrio 18 is one of the more significant emerging criminal threats in the region,' write analysts for the think-tank InSight Crime.
Last week, US Attorney General Jeff Sessions visited his counterpart in El Salvador to discuss ways to crack down on transnational gangs - MS-13 and Barrio 18 chief among them.
But if history is any guide, eradicating Barrio 18 will be easier said than done. 
Barrio 18 is a terrifying gang that spreads from the US to Central America, rivals to MS-13
Barrio 18 is a terrifying gang that spreads from the US to Central America, rivals to MS-13
A Barrio 18 member displays his tattoos, including 'Brown Pride' and XVIII, on the gang's turf in Los Angeles. The gang has a reported presence in 20 US states
A Barrio 18 member displays his tattoos, including 'Brown Pride' and XVIII, on the gang's turf in Los Angeles. The gang has a reported presence in 20 US states
The gang is also known as the 18th Street Gang. Pictured: Members  in the Quezaltepeque jail outside of San Salvador in El Salvador
The gang is also known as the 18th Street Gang. Pictured: Members in the Quezaltepeque jail outside of San Salvador in El Salvador
Also known as 18th Street, the gang has its roots in Los Angeles of the 1960s, where it was originally composed of Mexican immigrants.

WHAT IS BARRIO 18?

The gang was founded in Los Angeles decades ago, and has spread across the US and Central America.
Members: Estimated 30,000 to 50,000 in the US
Colors: Blue and black
Allied with: Mexican Mafia
Enemies of: MS-13
Activities: Drug dealing, burglary, assault, extortion, prostitution, human trafficking, homicide 
Over the decades, though, Barrio 18 threw open its recruitment to members from Central America as well, often targeting the elementary and middle-school children of immigrants.
As the gang's ranks grew, it became the target of FBI and police crackdowns, sending many of its veteran members to prison.
But time behind bars just gave Barrio 18's shot-callers a fertile new recruiting ground, and it quickly swelled its ranks in federal prisons.
Stepped up deportations also had an unintended effect, spreading the gang's reach to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras as hardened members were shipped back to their native countries, where they have battled brutally with MS-13.
A Barrio 18 member is seen in the 'gang cage' in El Salvador. His tattoos include BEST (for 'Barrio Eighteenth Street'), 666 (for 6+6+6=18) and X8, which stands for absolute gang loyalty
A Barrio 18 member is seen in the 'gang cage' in El Salvador. His tattoos include BEST (for 'Barrio Eighteenth Street'), 666 (for 6+6+6=18) and X8, which stands for absolute gang loyalty
The Barrio 18 gang was founded in Los Angeles and was initially ethnically Mexican, but has grown enormously in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatamala. Pictured: Members in El Salvador
The Barrio 18 gang was founded in Los Angeles and was initially ethnically Mexican, but has grown enormously in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatamala. Pictured: Members in El Salvador
The gang is  notorious for enforcing strict rules and absolute obedience among its ranks
The gang is notorious for enforcing strict rules and absolute obedience among its ranks
Barrio 18 members are seen in a transfer to the San Francisco Gotera penitentiary in 2015. The El Salvadoran government transferred 1,177 members to the US in an effort to curb the gang
Barrio 18 members are seen in a transfer to the San Francisco Gotera penitentiary in 2015. The El Salvadoran government transferred 1,177 members to the US in an effort to curb the gang
Loosely coordinated between cells or 'cliques' even at the local level, Barrio 18 isn't believed to have a 'godfather'-style leader
Loosely coordinated between cells or 'cliques' even at the local level, Barrio 18 isn't believed to have a 'godfather'-style leader
Loosely coordinated between cells or 'cliques' even at the local level, Barrio 18 isn't believed to have a 'godfather'-style leader.
That's made it difficult to target under racketeering laws, the tactic that brought down many Mafia families. 

BARRIO 18 TATTOOS 

18, XVIII or XV3
666 or 99 (for 6+6+6=18 or 9+9=18)
BEST (for 'Barrio Eighteenth Street')
8P (for having killed a police officer)
X8 (total loyalty to the gang) 
The gang is nevertheless notorious for enforcing strict rules and absolute obedience among its ranks, and failure to show proper respect can bring severe punishment, including execution.
Barrio 18 cliques have been linked to the international drug trade, and the gang is closely allied with the Mexican Mafia, another Hispanic organized crime ring with its origins in US prisons. 
Their colors, blue and black, even pay tribute to the Mexican Mafia: blue for the allied gang, and black for Barrio 18's original color.
Barrio 18 tattoos can include: 18, XVIII, XV3, BEST (for 'Barrio Eighteenth Street) and 8P (stands for killing a police officer).
Another tattoo, X8, stands for absolute loyalty to the gang. 
Members of the Barrio 18 gang are presented to the media after a police raid in San Salvador
Members of the Barrio 18 gang are presented to the media after a police raid in San Salvador
The gang has sown terror from its origin in Los Angeles throughout Central America. Pictured: A grandmother and her grandson walk past Barrio 18 graffiti in San Salvador
The gang has sown terror from its origin in Los Angeles throughout Central America. Pictured: A grandmother and her grandson walk past Barrio 18 graffiti in San Salvador
Barrio 18 and MS-13 have waged a bloody gang war with each other spanning several countries
Barrio 18 and MS-13 have waged a bloody gang war with each other spanning several countries
Barrio 18 members are the sworn enemies of MS-13, another gang with its origins in California that has since spread in Central American countries with weakened governments.
'These two gangs have turned the Central American northern triangle into the area with the highest homicide rate in the world,' the US Justice Department wrote in a 2013 report. 
Like MS-13, the decentralized structure of Barrio 18 has made it incredibly resistant to decades of efforts to eradicate it.
'They're worse than a cancer,' gang expert Gabriel Kovnator told the Los Angeles Times all the way back in 1996.
'A cancer you can kill. These guys keep growing.'

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BARRIO 18 GANG RULES 

For its members, Barrio 18 enforces absolute obedience to the following rules:
Respect and attend meetings 
Speak the truth at the meetings
Respect the 'palabreros' (veteran members at the top of the gang hierarchy)
Be a good example to the recently initiated members
Don't walk around drunk or sleep in the streets
Respect relatives of the gang members, including their girlfriends
No crack, including the type coated in paint thinner
Fight with the enemy, not amongst yourselves
Don't mention 'the letters' (rival gang MS-13)
Don't use a red bandanna or red hat (rival gang colors)
Search out weapons for the gang
Take revenge for the members who have died for the cause
Don't leave any members behind
Don't graffiti in red
Don't talk about gang business around outsiders
Ask permission before tattooing your face 
You must carry out a 'mission' before getting initiated (getting beaten up for 18 seconds by four members while another counts)
No women in the gang 
No rape
No snitching
Source: InSight Crime 


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4764744/Barrio-18-Meet-terrifying-gang-rivals-MS-13.html#ixzz4ozPMp7Ln 


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