CIA vows to better manage the opium epidemic

Have no fear!
Bloody Gina, fresh off her successful management of the CIA torture program, has vowed to better manage the flood of opium pouring across our borders.

CIA Director Gina Haspel pledged Monday that the spy agency would step up its efforts to stem the flow of opioids into the U.S., saying illegal drugs have killed more Americans than terrorists.
...Reporters attending the event were kept far away from Haspel and were not granted an opportunity to ask questions.

Well I feel reassured. After all the CIA has such a long and distinguished record regarding the management of opium.

The CIA has a role in collecting intelligence on the drug trade, running operations targeting Mexican cartels and other transnational groups. The agency has also been regularly accused of looking the other way in its relationships with reputed drug traffickers, including the late Ahmed Wali Karzai, brother of the former Afghan president. He was reported to be a CIA asset even as he was alleged to have been involved in Afghanistan's opium trade, one of the largest sources of heroin.

I know that looks bad, but it's not like the CIA has ever knowingly assisted drug lords before, and then lied to the public about it.
Also, it's not like the U.S. government has knowingly lied to the American public about the conditions on the ground in Afghanistan.
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I can say for a fact that we only send the best of the best to fight in Afghanistan.

A civilian contractor working with the U.S. armed forces in Afghanistan has been fired after video footage posted online this week showed him wearing a white nationalist “Kekistan” flag patch on his helmet.

So fear not! The CIA is on the job, and they will have this Afghanistan opium problem better managed in no time at all.

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Pricknick's picture

Anybody with the time can find that synthetic opioids (pharmaceuticals) kill far more people than opium derived drugs.
But let's not talk about the elephant in the room.

https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-deat...

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Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.

gulfgal98's picture

@Pricknick Prescription opiods are a big cause of the opiod epidemic in this country.

However, a goodly amount of the illegal drug traffic in this country can be attributed to the CIA. It is no secret that the CIA has long been involved in the trafficking of drugs, weapons, and human beings. I doubt that Gina Haspel is going to end that program. Maybe she is talking about ending any competition to the CIA's drug running.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

lotlizard's picture

@gulfgal98  
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/12/massachusetts-opioid-law...

https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/09/after-illegally-pushing-oxyconti...

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Thanks, Obama, for deciding that anyone who supposed lied on a legal opinion, even an opinion rendered after the fact, should not be mentioned publicly, let alone prosecuted.

For example, word is that Bybee asked Gonzo for a position on a federal bench and Gonzo replied along the lines, "Come work for me for a while and we'll see." Yadda, yadda, say hello to Judge Bybee in a plum position, on the bench of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Not shabby for a guy who was only 40 when nominated for that lofty slot in a much-desired Circuit.

Say....Maybe Republicans can get him on the SCOTUS bench instead of, or in addition to, Kavanaugh.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torture_Memos

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The drug trade definitely needs better management and the CIA is just the agency to do it. The delivery and wait times are atrocious, and the prices! This has to be good news for the consumer. Maybe they'll use drones, like Amazon.

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There are a lot of legitimate comparisons to be made (in the 90's, for over a year, I actually worked in the same office complex that is now home to Purdue Pharma) between how our government handled the 2008 financial crash versus how it's handling the opioid crisis. Long story short, in both instances, the white collar criminals get away with it; everyone else, not so much. And, it's the white collar criminals that are causing the most suffering.

(A couple of caveats here: 1.) The price of heroin has dropped quite significantly over the past couple of decades; 2.) There are a lot of ways to twist the statistics on this information.)

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"Freedom is something that dies unless it's used." --Hunter S. Thompson

gulfgal98's picture

@bobswern

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

@gulfgal98 Always a pleasure to see you (and everyone else at C99P), as well GG !!!

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"Freedom is something that dies unless it's used." --Hunter S. Thompson

gulfgal98's picture

@bobswern I hope we will see more comments and maybe an essay or two from you in the near future. Thanks again. Smile

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

Unabashed Liberal's picture

@bobswern @bobswern

about price of heroin dropping in the past several years.

I'm under severe time constraints this evening, but hope to come back and complete my thoughts on this topic, probably Sunday.

Full disclosure, I wrote about this (partly) Dem Party instigated 'heroin crisis' at DKos, a year or two before I could no longer tolerate the place.

Wink

Below is the portion of an article that you linked to, that I'd emphasize [based on hours of Congressional hearings that I've watched, and several studies that I've read over the years].

A number of studies have suggested that people transitioning from abuse of prescription opioids to heroin cite that heroin is cheaper, more available, and provides a better high.

Notably, the street price of heroin has been much lower in recent years than in past decades (Unick et al., 2014).

[Note: Dems called for rescheduling of opioids--resulting in skyrocketing opioid prescription costs--on the heels of passing the ACA. Again, Manchin and Rockefeller were alarmed at the costs of these RX drugs to West Virginia, especially, after the ACA-related Medicaid expansion.]

In addition to these market forces, some have reported that the transition from opioid pills to heroin was eased by sniffing or smoking heroin before transitioning to injection (Mars et al., 2014).

In a recent survey of people in treatment for opioid addiction, almost all--94 percent--said they chose to use heroin because prescription opioids were "far more expensive and harder to obtain."

Bottom line, Senate Dems--in particular, West Virginia Senator Manchin and (retired) Senator Rockefeller--can be thanked for helping trigger this crisis by legislating overly restrictive opioid dispensing guidelines (and, the rescheduling of many opioid prescription drugs) in order to save West Virginia's Medicaid program a few bucks.

Oh, one more thing - WJC signed the Public Law that outlawed eligibility for Social Security Disability (and Medicare) and SSI for folks who qualified due to addictions--drug or alcohol.

And, the kicker--the entitlement/eligibility for 'addicts' was nixed as a "pay-for" in one of WJC's infamous balanced budgets.

BTW, he was given a major assist by two members of the majority Party at the time--Repubs Gingrich and Kasich.

Blue Onyx

"Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong."
~~W. R. Purche

“At the end of the day, people won't rememhttps://canineconnexion.wordpress.com/wp-login.phpber what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel.”
~~Maya Angelou

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Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.

dervish's picture

keep reporters away and prevent them from asking questions?

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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

well researched and reported in the book The Devil's Chessboard. But here is another of many stories on this...
https://www.collective-evolution.com/2017/06/22/how-the-cia-operated-a-d...

Haspel has been well protected by the media. No doubt we will discover more world wide mischief being done by our criminal CIA down the road.

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"Without the right to offend, freedom of speech does not exist." Taslima Nasrin

lotlizard's picture

@Fishtroller 02  
mentioned in the linked article is a must-see, if only as a useful pop-culture vehicle for spreading CIA-related background knowledge.

As the author says, Air America the film “arguably contained more fact than fiction.”

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