Paula on RFK

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24k22aL2fl8 

Meet Carl Hart: parent, Columbia professor – and heroin user

In a startling new book, Drug Use for Grown-Ups, the Ivy League professor argues that the dangers of recreational drug use have been wildly overstated...

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/feb/06/meet-carl-hart-parent-columbia-professor-and-heroin-user

Historian creeped out by Trump's 'fascist' story about cop adopting addict’s baby — here’s why -- Raw Story

President Donald Trump praised a New Mexico police officer in his State of the Union address for adopting a heroin addict's baby -- but a historian noticed some disturbing parallels in the anecdote.  ....
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/01/historian-creeped-trumps-fascist-story-cop-adopting-addicts-baby-heres/

In Portugal, Drug Use Is Treated As A Medical Issue, Not A Crime

Gandelina Damião, 78, is permanently hunched, carrying her sorrow. She lost three children to heroin in the 1990s. A quarter century ago, her cobblestone lane, up a grassy hill from Lisbon's Tagus River, was littered with syringes. She recalls having to search for her teenagers in graffitied stone buildings nearby, where they would shoot up....
http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2017/04/18/524380027/in-portugal-drug-use-is-treated-as-a-medical-issue-not-a-crime?ft=nprml&f=1001

Sean Spicer linked legal marijuana to the opioid crisis. He couldn't have been more wrong. (Mic)

The White House press secretary is peddling dangerous disinformation about these very different drugs....
https://mic.com/articles/169599/sean-spicer-legal-marijuana-opioid-crisis-science-facts-prove-him-wrong#.RBjPlnKLn

Light Years Ahead of the US on Drug Reform, Canada Will Allow Prescription Heroin

Health Canada announced Friday that it is proposing new regulations to allow access to prescription heroin under its Special Access Program (SAP). That program allows for emergency access to drugs for serious or life-threatening conditions when conventional treatments have failed or are unsuitable. 

"A significant body of scientific evidence supports the medical use of diacetylmorphine, also known as pharmaceutical-grade heroin, for the treatment of chronic, relapsing opioid dependence. Diacetylmorphine is permitted in a number of other jurisdictions, such as Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Switzerland, to support a small percentage of patients who have not responded to other treatment options, such as methadone and buprenorphine," the statement said....
http://www.alternet.org/drugs/canada-will-allow-prescription-heroin

Why Are Heroin, Cocaine and Other Drugs Really Illegal? We Must Never Forget the Answers

...Heroin was created by German chemists during the late 1890s and marketed through Bayer, the company best known for selling aspirin. For decades, suburban housewives could peruse pages of flashy advertisements for Bayer Heroin, the cure for sore throats, coughs, headaches, diarrhea, stress and menopause. In fact, until recently the percentage of Americans using opium-derived medicine was higher at the turn of the 20th century than at any other time in history....
http://www.alternet.org/drugs/answer-why-heroin-cocaine-drugs-are-crimes