Prescription Drugs Are Unconstitutional

Posted: 7/10/2016

Trigger

Sometimes patients know better than doctors what is right for them. For several months now, I have a particular need for antibiotics treatment to get rid of something that has become chronic infection of my sinuses for several months.

I went first, about two months ago, to a CVS Minute Clinic, but the friendly nurse send me home with a recommendation for a well known decongestant despite the fact that I had requested my need for antibiotics in my first sentence upon entering the nurse’s office. At least CVS reimbursed me back some of the money.

Yesterday, I walked into a FastMed Urgent Care center to request a prescription for antibiotics. Well, I was told by the manager on duty this would cost me out of pocket about $130 or over $200 (depending on payment option) to see a doctor and no guarantee that I would receive such a prescription. I offered to pay $80 if I left the office without a prescription. In an era where almost daily official warnings about antibiotic resistance and overprescription of antibiotics etc. are issued it has certainly made it unnecessarily more difficult or risky to get a prescription.

Thus, I would have to drive from Phoenix, AZ to Nogales in Mexico to obtain prescription free antibiotics of possibly unknown provenance?

A Bit Of History Of Prescription Drugs In The U.S.

Apparently, in the U.S. concerns about the addictiveness of previously freely available pain killers led to more and more restrictions perhaps beginning with the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, which mandated that all ingredients must be labeled. Soon after the Harrison Narcotic Tax Act of 1914 brought these addictive substances under the control of doctors, requiring a prescription (and payment of a tax) for their distribution. In the age of temperance and ongoing or imminent prohibition of alcohol this was to be expected.

From then on more and more medications came under government regulation and control. The spiral went downward.  E.g. first government handed out amphetamines to soldiers and factory workers for combat effectiveness and later determined it was too addictive and was abused.

1912 - Hague Opium Convention Treaty in China. The United States signs international agreement to limit the spread and use of narcotics.

1914 - Harrison Act uses IRS taxes on the sale and purchasing of narcotics as a way to control use. The Treasury Department assigns the first narcotic agents to enforce the Harrison Act.

1919 - United States v. Doremus court case confirms that the federal government can regulate dispensing of medicines by physicians.

1919 - Webb et al v. United States court case confirms that physicians and pharmacists cannot supply an addict just to maintain his or her addiction.

1938 - Amendments to the Pure Food and Drug Act brings the abuse of non-narcotic medicines under the responsibility of the FDA.

1951 – Durham Humphrey Bill sets up prescription and non-prescription categories for all medicines.

1956 – Narcotics Control Act updates restriction and penalties for smuggling and distribution of marijuana and narcotics. Eliminates the suspension of sentences or probation if convicted.

Apparently, again as so often, the U.S. Supreme Court played a very unfortunate role to allow and uphold this terrible  paternalism (nanny state or statism) to exist, continue, and expand in multiple decisions.

Drug Abuse Is A Pretense

Overprescription or drug abuse by individuals are a red herring propaganda disseminated by government!

Prohibitions or excessive regulations are most often a sign of incompetent politicians. Those measures reek of distrust in We the People! They are antiquated and Barbarian in nature!

We certainly need more education and awareness about drugs and their effects and how to responsibly use them and so on.

We certainly need better treatment options for those who became addicted.

Individual drug abusers may need to be held responsible (including, if necessary, jail time) for their actions and so on.

Some Consequences Of Prescription Drugs

1. The Founders have probably never contemplated such a far reaching government power and control over medical treatments. Would this qualify as a form of sophisticated government tyranny or an encroachment on our liberties in their views?
2. Government allowed and mandated doctors to have way too much power and control over our lives. Doctors are all too human, they are neither gods, geniuses, nor angels to entrust them that much!
3. Government allowed doctors to have a monopoly and to become a special, protected and favored guild
4. Health care has certainly become a lot more expensive because of that
5. Way too many medications are available only by prescription
6. Free trace of medications has been severely impeded
7. Progress and advances in medicine and drugs have been severely stymied

A Brief Remark On Antibiotic Resistance

Since I started this post how difficult and expensive it is in the U.S. for an individual to obtain antibiotics, which should be no problem at all. This subject actually deserves its own blog post.

Unfortunately, many people still believe what has been said now for over 30 years that because of overprescription, failure to follow medical regimens, and liberal use of antibiotics for almost any indication in humans and animals that humans have caused a serious crisis. And the best way to deal with it is to use less.

In the year 2016, this is dangerous nonsense! Given the incredible advances in genetics, biology, and medicine, humans, if incentivised, would easily come up with better solutions to beat bacteria. What is lacking here is better priorities and resource commitments in medical research. And certainly less meddling by Big Government!

Previous, Related Blog Posts

I wrote here about why I think that speed limits in the U.S. are unconstitutional.

This blog post is about why smoking bans are unconstitutional.

When A FBI Director Shirks His Responsibilty

Posted: 7/10/2016

A Stunning Press Conference

The world witness how a FBI Director shirked his responsibility. This is exactly what happened when the current FBI Director James Comey in an unusual press conference  on July 5th, 2016 (after the 240th Independence Day) absolved the presumptive presidential candidate and serially scandalous and habitual liar Hillary R. Clinton. Here is the official press release by the FBI.

This will surely go down in history as another dark hour of the FBI.

An Unconscionable Decision

Unfortunately, there comes a time in many people’s life where a person has to accept one’s own conscience, take the full responsibility that comes with the job and carry out his or her job regardless of one’s own fate. This used to be a fixture in American culture for which the world admired Americans.

Not anymore, I am afraid.

Credits

I have to thank Charles Krauthammer for arriving finally to this insight. In his article Comey: A theory describes the possible motivations of the FBI Director quite well, but Krauthammer (usually quite a smart commentator) incredibly gives him a pass. According to Krauthammer, Comey just did not want to be the man responsible for upsetting or reputed for having upset a presidential election.

One may add, that Mr. Comey was perhaps hoping for new assignments in case of Ms. Clinton becoming the next president.

When A U.S. President Incites Racism And Racially Motivated Violence

Posted: 7/9/2016 Update: 7/10/2016

Update Of 7/10/2016

Just read this America’s Worst President? I nominate Barack Obama, the anti-Lincoln., which, I believe, expressed some of my assessment about President Obama much better than I could. The title and subtitle of this otherwise very recommendable article are unfortunate!

Among many other things, the author reminds us that Obama and his wife were following the racist and antisemitic pastor Jeremiah Wright for over a decade. This pastor also officiated the wedding of Barack and Michelle Obama. It did not take long for Obama to get rid of his suddenly controversial pastor.

Pure Coincidence?

On Thursday, President Obama wasted no times to hold a news conference on the latest two shootings of black people by police officers! He did not even wait until more facts were in.

Within hours later, a black man with military training, in what appears to be out of hate for white people, killed, like a sniper, several police officers and severely wounded others in Dallas, TX.

Racism In America Is A Two Way Street

Ideologues and demagogues want us to believe it is a one way street!

It was up to the first black president to acknowledge this fact forcefully and do everything in his power to address it. His was the opportunity to pursue to banish the politics and scourge of racism once and for all. Unfortunately, in his eight years in office this president and his wife actively accomplished the opposite. Both reignited what could perhaps become the third Civil War in America.

President Obama, to my knowledge, never held a press conference when a white person was killed under similar circumstances (you don’t think this happens?) or never really addressed the issue of disparate high black on black homicides and disparate high criminal criminal rates among black people.

Briefly About Obama

This U.S. President is one of the most ideologically and racially biased president in decades. He is also one of the most partisan presidents.

I don’t mind an inexperienced president to be elected to office, but I do mind if the president wastes eight years to learn nothing from his many, severe blunders in domestic, economic, and foreign policies.

His stubbornness is beyond description and perhaps even unique compared to any previous U.S. president. E.g. a U.S. president cannot choose which U.S. Congress he wants to work with or not!

Previous, Related Posts

I have blogged here about President Obama several times. I summed up his back then already terrible and tarnished legacy in November of last year here.

The Scandal Of About 80 To 110 Suicides A Day In The U.S.

Posted: 7/4/2016

Trigger

Just read Against suicide, a century of little progress  Federal report reinforces need for more research, Nock says. The

Some quotes from the above article (emphasis added):

1. “Between 1986 and 1999 suicide rates were in decline, but the trend reversed from 1999 through 2014. In 1999, 29,199 Americans ended their own lives. In 2014, the toll was 42,773, the highest since 1986, with an average of 117 suicides per day. The increase affected every age group.”
2. “In 2014, the suicide rate was 13 per 100,000 people. In 1914, the rate was 16 per 100,000. So the suicide rate now is about the same as it was 100 years ago. … For the past 100 years, despite treatments and research efforts, the suicide rate remains extremely high.”
3. “We have seen mortality rates for other problems or diseases decrease over time; the rates of death due to influenza or pneumonia have dropped enormously over the past 100 years, whereas for suicide, it has been pretty flat. ”
4. “... suicide is the 10th leading cause of death. If we take the long view, it hasn’t been increasing, it is where it was 100 years ago”
5. “We spend, as a country, disproportionately less money for suicide research than we do for other leading causes of death. Although suicide is a leading cause of death, the federal government spends more money on researching lupus, headaches, and Lyme disease than it does on suicide prevention, which is not to say they aren’t important problems, but they aren’t nearly as concerning as suicide is.”
6. “Around the world, more people die by suicide than by wars, homicide, and violence combined. We are each more likely to die by our own hands than by someone else’s.”
7. “Being female increases your risks of thinking about suicide and attempting suicide whereas being male greatly increases your risks of suicide death. So women think about suicide more and engage in suicidal behaviors more than do men, but men die from suicide by a ratio of 4 to 1 relative to women. We do know that mental disorders are important risk factors; depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and impulse-control problems all significantly increase the risk of suicidal behavior. … Take depression, for instance. It’s a strong risk factor, but most people with depression will never be suicidal, so we need to improve our ways to identify which people, given the risks factors, will commit suicide. We’re making some improvements.”
8. “Researchers in the past two years have started to create risk scores or algorithms that are increasingly able to identify which people are at higher risk.”
9. “Two-thirds of people who die by suicide, studies show, told other people they were thinking about death or wanted to be dead before they actually have been suicides. Often people would give signals that they’re thinking about suicide. On the other hand, 80 percent of people who die by suicide exclusively deny they were suicidal before dying.”

Some Additional Context

1. The deadliest, islamist terrorist attack in on U.S. soil in Orlando since 9/11 took only about 50 lives on a single day.
2. By contrast the homicide rate in the U.S. is only around 5 per 100,000 in recent years.
3. Annual car fatalities in the U.S. are about 10-11 per 100,000 in recent years and it has dropped from about 15 in the 1990s

Why Is So Little Done To Help?

1. Is it shame?
2. Is it a taboo?
3. Or is it just a family tragedy and not our business?
4. Is it too private an affair?
5. Just let it be the way it is?
6. Are we resigned that nothing can be done or should be done about individuals seeking to commit suicide?
7. Is it a part of individual freedom?
8. Are we hopeless to help anyone who intends suicide or self injury?
9. Why do we know so little about suicide and or its motivations and causes?

Shame On Gun Control Activists

It is appalling that so often gun control activists who exploit suicides or confound suicides committed with guns and homicides etc.

The Scandal

A civil society that values each human life, born or unborn, as precious, it is not acceptable that so little is done about humans contemplating to commit suicide and their families and friends.

Taddeusz Kosciuszko - An Early Abolitionist

Posted:

Trigger

Just read Smallest national park? Kosciuszko, forgotten son of liberty. I was sad to read that this tiniest of national parks is rather infrequently visited nowadays compared to other sites in Philadelphia. This article also mentions the controversy about the last will (or multiple wills) of this man of which I do not remember ever having heard of before.

Jefferson wrote of Kosciuszko, "He is as pure a son of liberty as I have ever known."

I wonder, whether Kosciuszko is also being forgotten in his homeland Poland?

When I lived and worked in Philadelphia in the mid 1990s, I visited Kosciuszko's home and I was very impressed about this Polish man. The man who among other achievements contributed to the first, modern, although short-lived constitution of 1791 in Europe patterned after the U.S. Constitution.  I do not remember whether this national park site discusses the wills of Kosciuszko.

An Early Abolitionist And Controversy Over The Wills

Sources:

1. Wills of Tadeusz Kościuszko
2. U.S. Supreme Court: Armstrong v. Lear  25 U.S. 169 (1827)
3. Encyclopedia Britannica: Tadeusz Kościuszko, Polish general and statesman

Apparently, and unfortunately there were several, conflicting wills written by Kosciuszko. I do not have the time to learn more about it or go into this.

However, to me it is truly amazing that this Polish man, who did not intend to stay in America and who returned to Poland, resolved to dedicate his U.S. estate/assets to freeing and educating negro slaves and asked nobody less than his friend Thomas Jefferson to execute his will.

Here is the salient quote from his will of 5/5/1798 (emphasis added):

“I, Thaddeus Kosciuszko, being just on my departure from America, do hereby declare and

direct that should I make no other testamentary disposition of my property in the United States, I hereby authorize my friend Thomas Jefferson to employ the whole thereof in purchasing negroes from among his own or any others and giving them liberty in my name, in giving them an education in trade or otherwise, and in having them instructed for their new condition in the duties of morality which may make them good neighbors, good fathers or mothers, husbands or wives, in their duty as citizens, teaching them to be defenders of their liberty and country, and of the good order of society, and in whatsoever may make them happy and useful. And I make the said Thomas Jefferson my executor of this.”

I tend to agree that Thomas Jefferson, at an old age at the time of Kosciuszko’s death, refused to execute the will of his friend for good reasons. However, Thomas Jefferson made the effort to refer this will to another friend of him (i.e. John Hartwell Cocke) for execution, but this friend refused as well.

Upon his return to Poland in 1784, “[f]or five years he lived in poverty on a small country estate, in debt, moreover, because of his exceptional deed of freeing his serfs from part of their villein service.”

Importance Of Government For Economic Growth Nonsense

Posted: 6/30/2016

Trigger

Just read this Great inventions are important for growth. So is policy. I pick this article, because I believe their are a lot more economists or intellectuals out there who would argue along similar lines. That such laughable articles are published by the American Enterprise Institute is a bit shocking.

A Critique

The article opens with this paragraph:

“In both research papers and his excellent book “The Rise and Fall of American Growth,” economist Robert Gordon writes about the huge economic impact of some “could only happen once” inventions: the internal combustion engine, running water and indoor toilets, electrification. Newer inventions — the IT revolution today, robotics and AI tomorrow — won’t provide the same transformational oomph to productivity going forward, he argues.” (emphasis added)

This is already highly arguable whether contemporary inventions/innovations are having lesser an impact than the older ones.

Then the article goes on to argue that:

1. “we present a more optimistic historical narrative in which government policy and institutional design have the power to support technological progress. … And the researchers illustrate this point by comparing the rise of patenting (a measure of innovation) to the establishment of post offices (a measure of government “infrastructural” capacity). The theory here is that having a post office around made it easier to patent because mail service made it easier to obtain new knowledge and information, made it easier to submit patent application, suggested a functioning government ”
   [What a baloney! A measure of innovation, what a joke! Without government there still would have been some kind of private postal service, if customers had found it useful. Patents, or government enforced, temporary monopolies, are actually a considerable impediment to growth and innovation.]
2. “... We find a significant correlation between a history of state presence–using the number of post offices as a proxy–and patenting in US counties. … This relationship is not only statistically significant, but also economically meaningful. … Taken together–while we do not establish unambiguously that the post office and greater state capacity caused an increase in patenting-–our results highlight an intriguing correlation and suggest that the infrastructural capacity of the US state played an important role in sustaining 19th century innovation and technological change. ”
   [What a baloney again! The typical confusion of correlation and causation!]