Stoned Elmo

Although he's made public statements about being a "regular user", I'm not aware of any really solid confirmation of Elon's suspected ketamine addiction. But can we dismiss the probability altogether?

 

     (hard pay wall)

Research has not yet established the side effects of long-term ketamine therapy, but older studies of recreational users offer some insight on heavy, extended dosing.

Celia Morgan, now a psychopharmacology professor at the University of Exeter, in England, led a 2010 study that followed 120 recreational ketamine users for a year. Even infrequent users—those who used, on average, roughly three times a month—scored higher on a delusional-thought scale than ex–ketamine users, people who took other drugs, and people who didn’t use drugs at all. Those who averaged 20 uses a month scored even higher. People believed that they were the sole recipients of secret messages, or that society and people around them were especially attuned to them," writes Shayla Love.

BTW, 90% of ketamine metabolites are passed through your bladder. Maybe we need to be a bit more diligent about drug testing certain people who're making some pretty heavy decisions.

Politician Rips Elon Musk as a ‘Jester High on Ketamine’

A French politician has mocked Elon Musk as a “jester high on ketamine,” and compared Donald Trump to Nero.

Claude Malhuret also called the world’s richest man a “traitor” for abandoning Ukraine, in a speech discussing discussing European support for the nation.

“Washington has become Nero’s court, with an incendiary emperor, submissive courtiers and a jester high on ketamine in charge of purging the civil service,” Malhuret said in a speech

Malhuret, leader of the center-right party, The Independents, called Trump a dictator, and said, “We were at war with a dictator, we are now at war with a dictator backed by a traitor.”

In the past week alone, Trump has cut military aid to Ukraine after berating President Volodymyr Zelensky in the White House and floated lifting sanctions on Russia, even as Ukraine continues to fight off Russian invasion.

The “traitor” referenced in Malhuret’s speech, Musk, was once a vital backer of Ukraine. The billionaire has since flipped, and echoed Trump’s rhetoric after last week’s Oval Office meeting, accusing Zelensky of wanting a “forever war” in a post on X.

Malhuret, wearing a pin showing Ukraine’s national flag, referenced Musk’s ketamine use, which the billionaire has admitted to using every other week to treat what he called a “negative chemical state” in his brain.

The Daily Beast has contacted Musk for comment.

Republicans—the “submissive courtiers” in Malhuret’s image of an unhinged court—have largely taken a backseat in Trump’s second term. As Trump has carried out legally questionable executive actions and orders firing FBI executives and federal prosecutors, Republicans have stayed mum.

Trump set the tone early in his term, making clear that GOP lawmakers who don’t submit to him will be cast aside.

A White House official put it bluntly in January, telling NBC News that Senate Republicans should “advise and consent, not advise and adjust.”

Nero ruled Rome from AD 54 until AD 68, entering myth for purportedly fiddling while the city burned. He committed suicide after being declared a public enemy by the senate.

Oy

If fentanyl is the big bad bugbear, and we're seizing a thousand times more of the stuff at the southern border than we are at the northern border, has anybody stopped to think that maybe the Canadian border is where we need to send the troops?

BTW - if the poundage is correct, then Canada's number is not 1%. It's 0.1%

But let's stick to the theatrics at hand.

I think Scheinbaum threw Trump a bone. She gave him an off ramp. Sending 10,000 Mexican Guardsmen to the border is a fine and dandy gesture, but what exactly is their mission? She may just be sending them a little camping trip.

• What're they trained to do?
• Do they really have 10,000 weekend warriors who know how to do interdiction work?
• How many guys per border mile is that? *
• 10,000 guys to cover 2,000 miles of border, 24/7?

(* Working round-the-clock shifts, that's 1 guy every ⅔ of a mile - assuming all the cooks and mechanics and truck drivers are on the line too)

And let's not ignore the condescension of it all. Big Daddy Trump and Little Caesar Rubio are going to dictate terms?

I'm all for playing hardball whenever and wherever it's necessary, but this is like - we've been living on this block for a really long time, and we were getting along together pretty well, but now we've got this new temporary manager throwing rocks at the neighbors and trying to push everybody around.

Lastly - we keep seeing every problem from on the supply side. If we could our heads out of our asses for a minute, we might see that the demand for drugs here in USAmerica Inc is what keeps the supply coming in.

Lower demand = lower price

Lower price = lower reward for the same risk

Higher risk aversion = even lower price

Low enough price = very little supply

The same can be applied to our "immigrant problem". We're running around arresting the undocumented workers, but we let their employers slide.

Put a few white-boy business owners in prison for just a few months, and watch this shit practically disappear - as the pay for regular workin' folks goes up.

Trump pauses Mexico tariffs for one month after agreement on border troops

Key Points

• President Donald Trump paused for a month new 25% tariffs on goods entering the United States from Mexico.
• Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum agreed to immediately send 10,000 soldiers to her country’s border to prevent the trafficking of fentanyl and other drugs.
• The announcement came two days after Trump slapped 25% tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada, as well as a 10% tariff on goods imported from China.
• Trump said there will be Mexican officials, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent, and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick will negotiate on tariffs.

President Donald Trump on Monday said he is pausing for one month his new 25% tariffs on goods imported from Mexico after that country’s president agreed to immediately send 10,000 soldiers to the U.S. border to prevent drug trafficking from Mexico.

Trump in a social media post said that during the pause “we will have negotiations” on the tariffs “headed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent, and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, and high-level Representatives of Mexico.”

He also said “I look forward to participating in those negotiations” with Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum “as we attempt to achieve a ‘deal’ between our two Countries.”

The announcement came two days after Trump slapped 25% tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada, and 10% tariffs on goods imported from China.

Sheinbaum over the weekend threatened retaliatory tariffs on goods imported from the United States, and non-tariff measures, but had not disclosed the rate for the tariffs.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Saturday night that his country would implement a 25% tariff against $155 billion in U.S. goods in retaliation for Trump’s tariffs, which had been announced hours earlier.

China has said it will challenge the tariffs at the World Trade Organization.

U.S. stocks, which had opened trading lower Monday, regained most of those losses on news of the pause of the tariffs on goods from Mexico.

Trump and Sheinbaum spoke Monday morning ahead of the announcement of the pause.

Both he and Sheinbaum said that the Mexican National Guard troops that she is sending to the border with the U.S. will have the mission of halting drug trafficking from Mexico, particularly that of the deadly opioid fentanyl.

Trump also wrote that the Mexican troops will aim to stop the flow “of migrants into our Country.”

Sheinbaum first disclosed the pause on the tariffs on Mexico in a post on the X social media site.

“We had a good conversation with President Trump with great respect for our relationship and sovereignty; we reached a series of agreements,” Sheinbaum wrote in the tweet, according to a translation from Spanish.

She also wrote, “The United States is committed to working to prevent the trafficking of high-powered weapons to Mexico.”

Trump had not mentioned a commitment to stem the flow of weapons in his Truth Social post about his conversation with Sheinbaum.

At a news conference Monday morning, Sheinbaum was asked whether the issue of migrants and deportations from the U.S. was addressed during her call with Trump.

“We will always support and defend them. Always,” Sheinbaum answered.

She also said Mexican officials in discussions with the U.S. State Department are “working hard to defend our Mexican brothers and sisters.”

Meet Your Pusher

What the fuck is wrong

with these fucking cops?

San Jose police union executive charged with distributing opioids

The executive director of the San Jose Police Officers Association was charged with distributing opioids, according to federal officials. The Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday said the U.S. Attorneys Office has charged a civilian, Joanne Segovia, 64, with ordering thousands of opioid and other pills to her home between October 2015 and January of this year.

SAN JOSE, Calif. - The executive director of the San Jose Police Officer's Association was charged with distributing opioids, according to federal officials.

The Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday said the U.S. Attorney's Office has charged, Joanne Segovia, 64, with ordering thousands of opioid and other pills to her home between October 2015 and January of this year.

Investigators believe she used both personal and work computers to then distribute them across the U.S.

KTVU has learned Segovia is on paid leave in her executive position with the police officer's union.

She is alleged to have smuggled the opioids from foreign locations including; Hong Kong, Hungary, India, and Singapore. According to a criminal complaint she smuggled them in as wedding party favors, makeup, chocolate and sweets.

Officials began intercepting these packages as early as 2019 and found the contents were illicit substances including Tramadol and Tapentadol. Officials said certain parcels were worth thousands of dollars.

The complaint alleges Segovia used the encrypted communications app, WhatsApp, to arrange shipments with someone from a phone that used an India country code.

Segovia is alleged to have used her office at the police union as a means to distribute the substances.

The complaint alleges she continued to order controlled substances even after being interviewed by federal officials in February 2023.

Segovia had no lawyer on record listed in her court file.

She is supposed to appear in U.S. District Court in San Jose before Magistrate Judge Virginia K. DeMarchi on Friday.

The police officers union in a statement said no one at the union had prior knowledge of Segovia's alleged acts.

"The Board of Directors is saddened and disappointed at hearing this news and we have pledged to provide our full support to the investigative authorities," Tom Saggau an San Jose Police Officers Association spokesperson said.

We spoke to one of Segovia's neighbors who said, "I would equal that to you know, your neighbor Mr. Rogers is a serial killer. You know? Totally stunned," said Chris Noller. Other neighbors said they were totally shocked. Neighbors said they never would have suspected her of any illegal activity.

"I did get a call from my wife that, um…there were 10 or 11 people outside that looked like police officers. When you think of drug activity coming and going, but if this is going across the country it sounds like drug Amazon. Pretty wild," Noller said.

Modern Miracles

I've only done Ketamine twice. And I can say without fear of contradiction that they remain among my most pleasant memories of drug-induced euphoria - or they would be if I hadn't been blissfully asleep both times.

🎶 Deep and restful, sleep...sleep...sleep 🎶

PsyPost:

Ketamine may ease depression by restoring the brain’s sensitivity to prediction error, study suggests

New research suggests that electrophysiological brain signals associated with neural plasticity could help explain the rapid, antidepressant effects of the drug ketamine. The findings, European Neuropsychopharmacology, indicate that ketamine could reverse insensitivity to prediction error in depression.

In other words, the drug may help to alleviate depression by making it easier for patients to update their model of reality.

“Ketamine is exciting because of its potential to both treat, and better understand depression. This is largely because ketamine doesn’t work the way ordinary antidepressants do – its primary mechanism isn’t to increase monoamines in the brain like serotonin, and so ketamine gives us new insight into other potential mechanisms underlying depression,” said lead researcher Rachael Sumner, a postdoctoral research fellow at The University of Auckland School of Pharmacy.

“One of the major candidates for the mechanisms underlying ketamine’s antidepressant properties is how it increases neural plasticity. Neural plasticity is the brain’s ability to form new connections between neurons and ultimately underlies learning and memory in the brain.”

“Rodent studies have consistently shown that ketamine increases neural plasticity within 24 hours,” Sumner said. “However, there are major challenges when attempting to translate what we know occurs in rodents to determine if it occurs in humans. Sensory processing mechanisms of plasticity, like the auditory process we examined in this study, provide an important means to meet this challenge of translation.”

The double-blind, placebo-controlled study included 30 participants with major depressive disorder who had not responded to at least 2 recognized treatments for depression. Seven in 10 participants demonstrated a 50% or greater decrease in their depression symptoms one day after receiving ketamine.

“In this case we used what’s called an ‘auditory mismatch negativity’ task to assess short-term plasticity and predictive coding, or the brains adaptability and tendency to try to predict what’s coming next,” Sumner said.

The researchers used electroencephalogram (EEG) technology to measure brain activity as the participants listened to a sequence of auditory tones that occasionally included an unexpected noise. The brain automatically generates a particular pattern of electrical brain activity called mismatch negativity (MMN) upon hearing an unexpected noise.

Sumner and her colleagues found that ketamine increased the amplitude of the MMN several hours post-infusion, suggesting that the drug increased sensitivity to prediction error.

“We found that just 3 hours after receiving ketamine the brains of people with moderate to severe depression became more sensitive to detecting errors in its predictions of incoming sensory information,” she told PsyPost.

“To provide context, the brain creates models or predictions about the world around it and what is most likely to come next. This is largely thought to be because it is an efficient way to deal with the massive amount of information hitting our senses every moment of the day. When something is constant and stable in the world these models can become very rigid. It has been suggested that these models can become too rigid and unchanging, underlying negative ruminations and self-belief that people with depression often report.”

“As an example of how this might look in depression — it is often easy for friends and family to point out to their loved one errors or the harm in their thought patterns,” Sumner explained. “A counsellor will often work with a person to change their harmful ruminations or beliefs, such as with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). However, the person experiencing depression may find this difficult to see, or to take on because of how rigid their models (belief about themselves, the world around them, their future) have become.”

The participants also completed a visual task to measure long-term potentiation (LTP), the ability of neurons to increase communication efficiency with other neurons. An analysis of that data, published in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, found evidence that the antidepressant effects of ketamine were associated with enhanced LTP.

“Ketamine may be working by increasing plasticity (the ability to adapt and learn new things), as well as increasing the brain’s sensitivity to unexpected external input that is signaling errors in its own rigid expectations,” Sumner said.

The main limitations of the new research are the lack of a control group and relatively small sample size. But Sumner and her colleagues hope that their future research will shed more light on whether ketamine can help to defeat harmful cognitions.

“The task we used involves presenting beeps through some headphones, and while it provides a highly controlled way to measure plasticity and sensitivity to unexpected input, it is pretty far removed from the complexity of the experience of depression itself. The next study should replicate our finding, and aim target and relate the change in the mismatch response and connectivity to higher level brain functions,” Sumner told PsyPost.

“Building on this finding may help provide evidence for the use of ketamine to facilitate or enhance people’s ability to engage with and benefit from therapies like CBT, by putting the brain into a more plastic state, ready to update its models.”

The study, “Ketamine improves short-term plasticity in depression by enhancing sensitivity to prediction errors“, was authored by Rachael L. Sumner, Rebecca McMillan, Meg J. Spriggs, Doug Campbell, Gemma Malpas, Elizabeth Maxwell, Carolyn Deng, John Hay, Rhys Ponton, Frederick Sundram, and Suresh D. Muthukumaraswamy.

Maybe we should try putting this stuff in the public water supply - might could go a long way to fixing what's gone wrong with the MAGA QAnon bozos. Can you thinking of a more apt description of their moronic beliefs than "inaccurate models and predictions"?

I think it's worth a shot.

They Knew

Drug makers and drug sellers and drug prescribers and drug insurance providers all knew what was going on.

This doesn't happen outside the consciousness of those involved.

WaPo:

For the first time, a database maintained by the Drug Enforcement Administration that tracks the path of every single pain pill sold in the United States — by manufacturers and distributors to pharmacies in every town and city — has been made public.

The Washington Post sifted through nearly 380 million transactions from 2006 through 2012 that are detailed in the DEA’s database and analyzed shipments of oxycodone and hydrocodone pills, which account for three-quarters of the total opioid pill shipments to pharmacies. The Post is making this data available at the county and state levels in order to help the public understand the impact of years of prescription pill shipments on their communities.

My home county

In the heart of the heartland 

- and -

Just six companies distributed 75 percent of the pills — oxycodone and hydrocodone — during this period: McKesson Corp., Walgreens, Cardinal Health, AmerisourceBergen, CVS and Walmart, according to an analysis of the database by The Washington Post.

Top pill distributors, 2006 through 2012

(go to the article to see the rest of the top 100 suppliers)

The long slide into Coin-Operated Government has produced some incredibly shitty results.

Plutocratic Regulatory Capture and the failure of the Free Market to "self-regulate" has to be obvious now.

This approach - remedial vs preventive - isn't just costing us way more than good government would cost us. It's killing us.

John Oliver

The addiction treatment industry is dangerously unregulated. John Oliver explains why many rehab programs should incorporate more evidence-based care and carefully reconsider their doctor-to-horse ratio.

Makes me wonder if there are dots in need of connecting - something that would give us a clearer picture of a legalized system of Drug Cartels right here in USAmerica Inc.

• Pharma
• Prescribers
• Insurance
• Healthcare
• Law Enforcement
• Prisons
• Lobbyists
• Congress

I'm a capitalist because god's a capitalist.

I have to take in more calories than I need right this minute because I need a surplus of  energy in order to do the work required to get my next meal. I have to make some profit.

And I insist on appropriate regulation because god insists on appropriate regulation.

Without a properly functioning pancreas, my blood sugar goes wacky and I die.

Without a properly functioning brain stem, my heart rate goes wacky and I die.

...my body temperature

...etc etc etc

"Government Interference in the Free Market System" is what freed the slaves, dummy.

Every once in a while, we have to step up and save capitalism from the capitalists.

Biden Brief

Adm James Winnefeld, USN (Ret'd) talks about oipioids and addiction.

As published at The Atlantic, via Biden's Brief:

(I'm struggling a little with make this thing work)

Today's Knuckleheadedness

Political Theater of the Absurd

About 26 million Americans addicted to meth and/or opioids are costing us well over $100 billion a year.

There are 800,000 Dreamers pumping $40 billion in.

So, of course, let's be sure we stay good-n-focused on kicking those DACA moochers out.

When there's such an obvious choice, why do we always have to go with Stoopid?

Today's Podcast

No, not The Professional Left. We'll get to that one a little later.

This one is You Are Not So Smart - Episode 108: Pandora's Lab:



20,000 dead Americans every year - because of Opioids.

And the idiocy of smart people.

So also too - be cautious about being cautious.

Fresh Info

From an interview with Annie Lowrey at The Atlantic:

Angus Deaton studies the grand questions not just of economics but of life. What makes people happy? How should we measure well-being? Should countries give foreign aid? What can and should experiments do? Is inequality increasing or decreasing? Is the world getting better or worse?

Better, he believes, truly better. But not everywhere or for everyone. This week, in a speech at a conference held by the National Association for Business Economics, Deaton, the Nobel laureate and emeritus Princeton economist, pointed out that inequality among countries is decreasing, while inequality within countries is increasing. China and India are making dramatic economic improvements, while parts of sub-Saharan Africa are seeing much more modest gains. In developed countries, the rich have gotten much richer while the middle class has shriveled. A study he coauthored with the famed Princeton economist Anne Case highlights one particularly dire outcome: Mortality is actually increasing for middle-aged white Americans, due in no small part to overdoses and suicides—so-called “deaths of despair.” (Case also happens to be Deaton’s wife. More on that later.)

(This is what Blue Gal refers to in The Professional Left podcast this week - click that link or scroll down a little to listen)

Lowrey: You have made the argument that OxyContin deaths are deaths caused by rent-seeking. Talk me through it.

Deaton: I don’t know if you read Sam Quinones’ book, which is terrific, called Dreamland. It’s a wonderful book and he spent a lot of time in some obscure part of Mexico where a bunch of people had not been selling drugs before and took to selling drugs and had a much better delivery system. Sort of like Walmart of drugs! They’d deliver to your house and give you discounts, and they wouldn’t use guns. At the same time, he’s contrasting this with OxyContin and the pharmaceutical companies. The parallel is that here are two sorts of drug dealers. And one of them is doing it under the license of the United States government.

A lot of the drugs that were pushed in the early phase were being prescribed to people who were poor enough to be on Medicaid. A lot of these people were addicted to OxyContin—Sam actually describes a town in Indiana where the currency is OxyContin units. They’ve stopped using money and they’re using grams of OxyContin!

Lowrey: It’s not a bad currency, right? Easy to carry around. Stable price. Fluid market.

Deaton: There’s enough of this being prescribed for every American to have a supply for a month! So it’s not like it’s scarce. Nicholas Eberstadt makes this very cute remark about how this gave a whole new meaning to “dependence on government.” It’s a very nice essay. Eberstadt tries to be the nicest of the AEI guys.

There's also a piece of the puzzle that fits well, and reinforces part of the argument of "The Forgotten American" as a driver in the election.

Myth Busting

The point to remember is that you help people by helping them, which sounds like the big "Duh", but it can be really hard to figure that one out.

What should be the easy part is understanding that you're not helping anybody if you kick 'em when they're down. (aka: First, do no harm)

VICE:

Chances are, if you have been affected by drug addiction or just watched enough reality TV, you've heard something about the concept of "codependency." It's the idea that partners and relatives of addicted people basically have a disease just like their loved ones—leading them to "enable" the problem by preventing addicts from "hitting bottom." After gaining currency in the 1980s, the concept is now infiltrating America's latest national conversation about heroin addiction.

The only problem is that it is inaccurate, unscientific, and harmful.

Even so, the classic text on the subject—the 1986 self-help book Codependent No More—remains on the Amazon best seller list for addictions. A new reality show focused on intervening in so-called codependent relationships premiered this year. And this crazy election season has seen seemingly endless talk of how Hillary Clinton "enabled" her husband Bill's alleged sexual addiction. (Trump's wives somehow get a pass.)

The good news is that the addictions field is slowly coming around to the idea that treatment should be based on evidence, not anecdote. Even so, care for families and the rhetoric around it remains stubbornly trapped in the past.

Evidence, not Anecdote. 

Catchy.

Maybe somebody could propose it as a replacement for the national motto.

Today's Depressing Realization

It's becoming more probable that the seeming rise in over-aggressive police response needs to be understood in the context of Roid Rage.

David Krajicek, committing deliberate acts of Journalism over at AlterNet:

Many police agencies now focus on testing individual officers identified as possible juicers under “reasonable suspicion” or “for cause” guidelines.

I asked James Pasco, director of legislative advocacy for the 325,000-member Fraternal Order of Police, how many of the nation’s 18,000 agencies currently test officers for steroids.

“I have no idea,” he replied.

It seems nobody does. Since there is no systematic national data collection on testing and results, the number of officers disciplined each year for steroids is unknowable—a potentially important criminal justice data point that is lost down an information black hole.

--and--

“I keep seeing all of these cases where the level of anger and violence shown by officers makes no sense," Gilbertson says. "And when things don’t make sense, they don’t make sense for a reason…Maybe steroid rage is a reason so many police officers seem so angry and aggressive.”

"Suddenly" it's a not a matter of perception - it doesn't just seem like the cops are goin' a little nutty.  There's a real explanation available, and we need to start looking at these things in this new light.

And also too - lotsa cops are coming out of the US Military, where the use of Roids and HGH (et al) is one of the worst-kept secrets ever.

Sometimes, they're just random dots, but sometimes they connect up quite elegantly.

Need any more reasons we should try a little harder to stay the fuck outa the war bidness?

Drug It Up

By now we all know it, but it's good to keep it in mind - It's not really a war on drugs.  It's more of a war on the drugs that aren't controlled by Bayer and Glaxo and Pfizer - or any of the other big houses.

It's also good to remember that Coin-Operated Politicians have been put in place by the Big Bux Donors to ensure the flow of money out of our pockets, into theirs.

Mother's Little Helper(s)

James Lee Stanley (on the right) and John Batdorf.




And a short bit from Bryant Gumbel on drug use in USAmerica:

Gumbel Commentary: America's Drug Problem

We're 5% of the world's population, but we consume 80% of the world's pain meds (including 99% of the world's Vicodin).

Ritalin = 4 million kids (mostly)

Anti-Depressants = 22 million women

Sleeping pills = 30 million adults

Statins (to lower cholesterol) = 32 million of any age or gender

We spent over $325,800,000,000 on prescription drugs last year - that's close to $1000 for every American.

Americans who took at least one prescription medication last month = 150 million

Americans who took 3 or more prescription medications last month = 67 million

Americans who took 5 or more prescription medications last month = 31 million