Barry McCaffrey on America's Most Wanted

Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey appeared on America's Most Wanted tonight--as a guest, alas. When America's Most Wanted Drug-War Criminals finally airs, a tumbrel with the name McCaffrey engraved on it will be waiting.
As always, he was tossed softball questions--no, beach-ball questions. As usual, he was a wellspring of misinformation and inverted logic. I only heard his last two comments, fortunately, as I currently cannot use medical marijuana to control my nausea. Once upon a time, back when I was using medical marijuana, I could take hours of McCaffrey nattering on on C-SPAN. Now I have a choice: do I get more than five minutes of McCaffrey or do I lose dinner?
As I tuned in, he was saying that even "moderate" use of MDMA (ecstasy) can lead to "permanent brain damage." Hw as referring to a recent study funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (which is to the War on Drugs what Dr. Mengle's Auschwitz Laboratory was to the Third Reich [note] .) It seems some unfortunate monkeys were given MDMA twice a day for four straight days. The doses were also larger than any sane human would ingest. That's eight massive doses in 96 hours. This is what McCaffrey calls "moderate" use. And this is only one of his "moderate" misrepresentations.
People seldom take MDMA twice a day for four days in a row. That's because--as with LSD, peyote, mescaline, magic mushrooms, and other entheogens--after a "trip," taking more does not get you very high again. You must wait a few days, minimum, between sessions. At raves, people may take ecstasy, take a "booster" five or six hours later, but seldom any more after that. As the ecstasy wears off, a delightful exhaustion sets in and the altered-state experience most desired is sleep. 
People who want to continue drug taking around the clock for days on end choose either methamphetamines, or alcohol and coffee, as ther drugs of choice. (Irish coffee contains something from each of the Four Basic Food Groups--alcohol, caffeine, sugar, and fat.) 
But back to the experiment.  They then butchered the control monkeys, butchered the overdosed monkeys, examined their brains, and lo!, they found damage to the brains of the monkeys whose brains they damaged. But they didn't kill all the monkeys they intentionally abused. They kept some alive for six or seven more years (either to prolong the monkey's misery or to milk the government for seven-year grant--probably both). Then they butchered them, plus some more control monkeys. (NIDA press release on the study.)
The astonishing fact is that these "scientists" (I so admire science that when I refer to people who practice vivisection on primates in order to obtain fat government grants--for those who do NIDA-funded animal torture to prove the danger of drugs can get rich and published by doing so--I hate to use the word "scientist" without separating these rogues from true scientists, in the same way that I might say Stalin was a master of "population control") work out of Johns Hopkins University. One of the four founders of Johns Hopkins, John Halsted, M.D., injected himself with morphine daily for the better part of his professional life. 
As for the "discovery" of MDMA-induced serotonin depletion, this has been known for years. Guidebooks on how to more safely take MDMA suggest taking a serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) prescription antidepressant--such as Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, or Effexor--as these help keep serotonin in the brain longer. More organic methods include large doses (600 to 2,400 mg.) of St. John's wort.
For the facts about MDMA, please visit Lycaeum--what NIDA should be--or www.ecstasy.org .
But back to Big Mac. After spewing out this misinformation about MDMA, America's least wanted was asked about the bracelet he wore. Each time he is asked this question (and, as this is one of his stock questions, he is asked it quite a lot), I hope we'll see a glimpse of Barry McFairy, who will extend this wrist and inquire, "Isn't this the most divine little trinket you have ever seen?!" But no. It's always Barry McButchguy displaying his sensitive side, struggling to hold back tears as he fingers the silver ID bracelet that he keeps on the same wrist as his watch. (Why not the other wrist? Because when he wants to be asked about it, he just checks the time every 30 seconds. All the jingle jangling cannot help but raise the question to which Le Czar has a prepared and deeply moving answer.
"This was given to me by a mother whose daughter--just 21; a beautiful girl (I suppose we don't have to mourn over the ugly ones)--went to college and died using crack cocaine and heroin," McCaffrey's voice cracked and his tone becoming even more somber, if that's possible. "It has her daughter's name written on it," and he said her name as America's Most Wanted's director cut to an obviously prearranged shot of the tear-stained bauble. 
"We must prevent this!" McActor said, raising his voice in a crescendo of righteous anger, "We must tell the children the truth about drugs!"
All right, I shall. Here's the truth about accidental heroin overdose deaths:
1. If we tell kids marijuana is a harmful a heroin (both are Schedule I substances) and the kids find out marijuana is not all that harmful (and they will, they will), then why should kids listen to the same people about heroin? No reason. Heroin must be as safe as marijuana. Let's party! 
2. Most heroin overdoses are because the user cannot accurately gauge the proper dose. This is because black-market powder sold as heroin is anywhere from 5 percent to 95 percent pure heroin--and it all looks the same. If heroin were regulated, the strength and recommended dose would be clearly marked. 
3. A simple, inexpensive, injectable drug instantly reverses the effects of heroin (or morphine) overdose. Naloxone is an "opioid antagonist;" that is, it blocks heroin's effect on opiate receptor sites, immediately reversing overdose consequences. Naloxone could be sold in pre-measured ready-to-use hypodermic syringes and retail for about fifty cents. Noloxone not only could prevent overdose death, but road kills as well: no matter how high one is on H, a shot of N returns one to full sobriety in seconds. You can't say that about alcohol and coffee, or alcohol and anything, for that matter.
Noxoxone is available in every hospital emergency room. Unfortunately, harsh Drug-War penalties, which can include execution, apply to those who supply drugs to people who then overdose. Because of this, when someone passes out on heroin, the victim is often not rushed to the hospital, but abandoned. It usually takes a while to die from a heroin overdose. There's plenty of time to reach the hospital if the hospital were not also the gates to prison for the good Samaritan.
It's not the truth McBracelet wants to hear, and it certainly is not the truth Czar Jeuwlry tells himself, but it is the truth nonetheless.
As always, prohibition causes much more harm than whatever is being prohibited, and the prohibitionists distort science and turn logic on its head in a desperate attempt to prove that the very problems the prohibitionist has caused are the fault of the "evil" prohibited substance.
Meanwhile, McCaffrey is killing me, just as surely as if I were a Vietcong, this was 1969, and he was behind his machine gun in a rice paddy.