The Silicon Graybeard
In the World of the High Tech Redneck, the Graybeard is the old guy who earned his gray by making all the mistakes, and tries to keep the young 'uns from repeating them. Silicon Graybeard is my term for an old hardware engineer; a circuit designer. The focus of this blog is on doing things, from radio to home machine shops and making all kinds of things, along with comments from a retired radio engineer running from tech or science news to economics; from firearms to the world at large.
Monday, July 2, 2018
New Florida Laws: You're Only Permitted Severe Pain for Three Days
July 1st means new Florida state laws usually go into effect, and we've had a few notable laws. The state passed 105 new laws.
The title is a jab at the legislature; they'd like to pass such a law but clearly can't, so they did the next best thing: they've ruled a doctor can only prescribe three days worth of narcotic pain medication except for unusual circumstances.
Opioids: Physicians will be limited to prescribing a three-day supply for acute pain unless strict conditions are met for a seven-day supply. Physicians and pharmacists will also be required to consult the state's database to review a patient's history. Healthcare professionals also will need to take some courses on responsibly prescribing opioids.
Seems a ridiculous burden on doctors' offices - who seem to be pretty busy all the time, even here in small city USA.
Last July, I wrote a couple of pieces on trying to make sense of it all (first, second). Aesop at Raconteur Report did a similar look in a few articles and came to more or less the same conclusions I did. Short version: I think there's a deliberate attempt to conflate prescription opioid problems with illegal heroin overdose. We don't have prescription drug problem, we have a "junkies shooting adulterated heroin problem". So why the public ruse? The old advise to "follow the money" leads me to the company that makes naloxone, the anti-narcotic drug administered to people in overdose. It was being pushed that virtually everyone should carry it everywhere as a lifesaver; it was even pushed on librarians to have it available for the library junkies who OD while watching internet porn in the library (do you have that where you are?). The price of naloxone had gone up 17x. Going down that rabbit hole led directly to Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration.
But we have to "do something" - right or wrong - "for the children". As I always say, if you don't ask the right question, you'll never get the right answer.
http://thesilicongraybeard.blogspot.com/2018/07/new-florida-laws-youre-only-permitted.html
Part 2
Thursday, July 5, 2018
A Little More on Florida's New Anti-Opioid Law
If you haven't followed it, there has been an active discussion about what might be reasons behind the the post I put up mentioning Florida's new opioid law on Monday.
To sum it up, I don't see any disagreement that the root cause of the so-called opioid crisis is the government at all levels attacking prescription pain pills when the actual problem is people using heroin, which is often cut with fentanyl that the cartels buy because it's cheap, powerful and available by the pound from China. It also happens to have a very small gap between doses that will get buyers high and those that will kill them.
There has been some talk pondering exactly who is behind this and who's benefiting the most. This afternoon, I remembered a story from 2012 that leads me to a group I hadn't thought of: the Fed.gov.
In 2012, the story showed up and then quickly vanished that a high-ranking official from the Sinaloa Cartel, alleged that "Operation Fast and Furious" was not about specifically about running guns to Mexico to get gun control legislation, but that it was to supply the Sinaloa cartel specifically. Jesus Vicente Zambada-Niebla, known as the cartel’s “logistics coordinator”, was in US federal prison in awaiting trial and made the claim.
and more @
http://thesilicongraybeard.blogspot.com/2018/07/a-little-more-on-floridas-new-anti.html
