http://usuncut.com/news/sackler-family-oxycontin-clan-overdose-epidemic/

The OxyContin clan has destroyed more lives than Martin Shkreli, but they prefer you not know their name.



News
Meet the Secretive Family Making Billions From America’s Painkiller Overdose Epidemic
Lacey McLaughlin and C. Robert Gibson | December 30, 2015

The OxyContin clan has destroyed more lives than Martin Shkreli, but they prefer you not know their name.
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If you’re looking for the root cause of the prescription painkiller addiction crisis sweeping the nation, you’ll have to look at one of the wealthiest families in the world you’ve probably never heard of. This year Forbes named the the Sackler family, the owners of Purdue Pharma (maker of OxyContin), on its list of America’s Richest Families, with an estimated net worth of $14 billion.

Prescription painkillers like OxyContin are so powerful that the state of Kentucky sued Purdue Pharma in 2014, seeking $1 billion in damages due to a widespread addiction epidemic that created a residual wave of crime as addicts willing to do anything to afford their next fix committed robberies, theft, and violent crimes. According to the Bowling Green Daily News, Kentucky ranks in the top 5 states with the most painkiller prescriptions. In Kentucky, there are 128 painkiller prescriptions for every 100 adults.

The Sacklers are behind a nationwide effort to stop any and all legislation aimed at slowing down the prescription of highly-addictive painkillers like OxyContin, one of the strong painkillers which killed 16,000 Americans in 2013. In fact, 4 times as many Americans died from prescription painkiller overdose in 2013 than in 1999, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Additionally, the CDC discovered that in 2012, doctors wrote 259 million prescriptions for opioid-based pain relievers. That’s enough for every American adult to have a bottle of painkillers at their disposal.

*******************


Lots of links in the original, from Dec. 2015.

I've had a herniated disc, low back degenerative disease, and stenosis for about 15 years. I've had a script for oxycodone for about 10. I hate the damned things, they make me sick as a dog, but they're the only thing that stops the pain. Especially when the sciatica kicks in. I take them only when absolutely necessary, and then just call it a day. Don't leave the house. Don't even think about driving. I get 60 pills either every 6 months or sometimes a year, depending on how often I need them.

How people can abuse them is beyond me. I can't stand the things. But they work.

I've been there short term, thankfully recovering, as do others. However, I don't know how/why some people crossover from maintaining a dose for relief, to having an addictive increasingly destructive habit. Some then go on to heroin, or combo of heroin + fentanyl. Ohio has a huge epidemic of overdoses resulting in deaths. So sad.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn27529-7-easy-ways-to-reduce-the-pain-youre-feeling/

Feeling sore? A new study suggests holding your breath can ease the pain of an injury. But this trick only works if you were expecting pain in the first place, so here are seven other easy – and scientifically sound – ways to relieve your suffering the next time you have an unfortunate encounter with a hammer, drawer or door.

1. Reach for the perfume
The sweet scent of roses is enough to cheer anyone up, but pleasant smells also seem to reduce the intensity of a painful stimulus – for women, at least. In a 2002 study, female volunteers had their hands submerged in painfully hot water, and reported less pain when exposed to pleasant aromas, such as flowers or almonds. When asked to sniff vinegar, however, the women’s pain got worse. The effect didn’t seem to work in male volunteers.

2. Curse like a sailor (this was a good Mythbusters episode)
If your first response to a stubbed toe is to swear loudly, that’s no bad thing, according to research by a team at Keele University, UK. They found that people were better able to deal with the pain of having their hand submerged in icy water when they swore, perhaps because the bad language triggers a hormonal response that lessens pain. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to work so well in people who already swear a lot.

3. Pick a pretty picture
Penchant for Picasso? Boticelli’s biggest fan? A team of researchers at the University of Bari in Italy found that showing people pictures they found beautiful reduced the pain they felt when a laser burned their hands, and seemed to reduce activity in the brain regions that normally process pain.

more

Meds sometimes work and sometimes don't for me.

For back spasms pain meds hardly touched them. TENS However was and is a miracle worker. For me, its the greatest thing ever invented. And now you can get them for as little as $30 at the drugstore.

Working on mindfulness and meditation now. Lots of new research says it works. Here's hoping.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2424-sweet-smells-banish-pain/

The sweet scent of roses or almonds could take some of the pain out of your stay in hospital. But only if you’re a woman.

Serge Marchand and Pierre Arsenault at the University of Québec in Abitibi-Témiscamingue asked 20 men and 20 women to keep their hand immersed in painfully hot water for as long as they could while smelling various odours. When given pleasant aromas such as almond extract to sniff, the women experienced significantly less pain. Foul smells such as vinegar seemed to slightly intensify their pain. However, the pain felt by the men was not affected by the smells.
...
Women are typically more sensitive to odours than men. But this also can’t explain why only women feel the pain-relief benefits, because the women in the study didn’t rate the intensity of smells differently from the men.

Pleasant sensations of touch are known to activate an area of the brain’s frontal cortex used for taste and smell. So it’s possible that smells could be altering the sensory processing of touch, pain and temperature by affecting this part of the brain in women.

I highly recommend his book "High Price"

http://www.drcarlhart.com/addiction-not-brain-disease/

Pseudoscience Alert!

On 60 Minutes, President Obama’s Drug Czar, Michael Botticelli, referred to drug addiction as a “brain disease.”

I was invited on “John Fugelsang’s Tell Me Everything’ to talk about why he is wrong.

See link for audio interview

http://www.drcarlhart.com/about-carl-hart/

Dr. Carl Hart is a neuropsychopharamacologist at Columbia University,
where he conducts research and teaches undergraduate and graduate
courses in neuroscience, psychology, and pharmacology.

MY PLEDGE

I am committed to the people who are sick and tired of seeing their tax dollars being used to fund unethical people and corporations, which ultimately perpetuates social inequality and does not lead to effective drug policy. A key element of my approach is the use of empirical evidence to guide public policy, even if it makes us uncomfortable. If we do this, we could have more humane and effective criminal justice policy, and a healthier and more productive society overall. This website was created to ensure that the global public has 24-hour access to some of the best scientific information related to drugs.

You have my word that I will continue to fight for justice.

full bio at link

http://www.drcarlhart.com/chris-hayes-the-journey-from-inner-city-miami-to-columbia/

http://www.drcarlhart.com/8-things-everyone-should-know-about-drugs-and-science/

be sure to sign up for his newsletter that may contain events or information that he may or may not post on the website

http://www.drcarlhart.com/bain-capital-wants-to-make-money-off-of-heroin-use/

http://www.drcarlhart.com/drugs-arent-the-problem/

http://www.drcarlhart.com/vast-majority-people-use-heroin-dont-need-treatment/

http://www.drcarlhart.com/ted-talk-everything-you-think-you-know-about-drugs-is-wrong/

In my talk, I clearly show that the real problems faced by society are not drugs but are poverty, unemployment, ignorance and the dismissal of science that surrounds drugs.

My TED Talk shows that drug-related harms have been exaggerated, and that this has helped to create an environment where unjustified police killings are more likely to occur.

http://www.drcarlhart.com/ted-talk-everything-you-think-you-know-about-drugs-is-wrong/

Please help me spread this empirical evidence, while discouraging the dissemination of hysteria and hype.

http://www.drcarlhart.com/

Despair is not an option. Democracy begins with you, get active, get involved. Tag! You're it!
-Thom Hartmann

http://www.drcarlhart.com/deal-with-the-pain-that-leads-to-the-problem/

How did rural drug problems come to inspire compassion rather than contempt?

Gov. Peter Shumlin of Vermont, in a State of the State address devoted to what he called a “heroin crisis,” urged the state to address addiction “as a public health crisis, providing treatment and support, rather than simply doling out punishment, claiming victory and moving onto our next conviction.” Public officials throughout rural America, even law-and-order types, have echoed these sentiments.

But how did rural drug problems come to inspire compassion rather than contempt? Mind you, I support this enlightened approached. But, let’s be clear, “rural” means we’re talking about white folks. Can you imagine Gov. George Wallace of Alabama, at the height of the so-called crack epidemic, urging Alabamians to try crack as a health crisis? Even northern liberals, back then, were calling for life sentences for anyone caught selling crack cocaine. The disdain expressed toward those who used or sold crack was intense and the racialization of the issue was lost on no one. An astonishing 85 percent of those sentenced for crack cocaine offenses at federal level were black, even though the majority of users of the drug were white.

In light of our approach to past urban drug problems, forgive my tempered enthusiasm for the epiphanies of rural public officials. “To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious,” James Baldwin once said, “is to be in a rage almost all the time.”

Nonetheless, we need to move the focus from the drug that is used to the person who is using it. No drug is inherently more evil than the other and the overwhelming majority of drug users do not become addicted. This shows that the drugs themselves are not the problem.

more

http://www.drcarlhart.com/nancy-reagans-just-say-no-campaign-pushed-drug-war/

http://www.drcarlhart.com/bill-oreilly-attempts-to-debate-carl-hart/

Media Matters calls my appearance one of the five best instances of a Fox News guest having to correct a Fox News host for misleading the audience.

http://www.wired.com/2015/05/genetically-modified-yeast-will-make-possible-home-brew-opiates/

Yeast has long been a friend to human substance abusers. These masterful microbes, among the first fungi domesticated by humans, can take simple sugar from any number of sources and, like magic, ferment it into ethanol. Soon, though, yeast could be used to generate other, more illicit substances, bringing us one step closer to the possibility of homebrewed smack.

A paper published today in Nature Chemical Biology details a novel process for replicating poppy’s opiate-producing chemical pathways by genetically modifying good ol’ Saccharomyces cerevisiae. That technology could lay the foundation for low-cost drug discovery, potentially producing anti-cancer therapeutics, antibiotics, and other narcotics. The only hitch: With the right opioid-producing yeast strains, it would also be easier to create morphine, heroin and other drugs at home—no Walter White-level smarts required. Just call it Breaking Bread. No, wait, Brewing Bad.

“Right now, you would need a background in synthetic biology and genetics to overcome the challenges to produce the right kind of yeast,” says John Dueber, a bioengineer at UC Berkeley and lead author on the study. “It is not an imminent threat. But if a strain made for licit purposes got out, then all that would be required is knowledge of brewing beer to ferment it into morphine.”

Though a relatively young industry, synthetic biology has made huge leaps in recent years. With some genetic tweaks, yeast and algae can now make fuel, flavoring, and scent. But the rapid pace of synbio development has led some researchers to tap the brakes and discuss the implications of their work.

More

http://www.nature.com/news/drugs-regulate-home-brew-opiates-1.17563

Every year, thousands of students from across the world compete to build biological systems from pre-existing parts in a competition organized by the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) Foundation. Last November, to spark discussion on security and health risks raised by synthetic biology, FBI Special Agent Edward You presented an example: the production of opiates from sugar by yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) that has been genetically modified.

You's hypothetical scenario is becoming a reality. One week after the iGEM competition, two developers of opiate-producing yeast strains approached us, specialists in biotechnology policy. They had results in advance of publication, and requested advice on how they might maximize the benefits of their research while mitigating the risks. Now, published papers by these researchers — John Dueber at the University of California, Berkeley, and his colleagues1, and Vincent Martin of Concordia University in Montreal, Canada, and his colleagues2 — describe all but one step of an engineered yeast pathway that converts glucose to morphine (see 'Brewing bad'). Meanwhile, researchers at the University of Calgary have put in place the final piece3.

Currently, morphine is produced from the opium poppy (Papaver somniferum). By providing a simpler — and more manipulable — means of producing opiates, the yeast research could ultimately lead to cheaper, less addictive, safer and more-effective analgesics. And in generating a drug source that is self-replicating and easy to grow, conceal and distribute, the work could also transform the illicit opiate marketplace to decentralized, localized production. In so doing, it could dramatically increase people's access to opiates.

In recent years, synthetic biologists have produced numerous benign products — antimalarials, scents, flavours, industrial chemicals and fuels — by modifying yeast, bacteria and eukaryotic plants. Opiate synthesis is the first example of synthetic biology facilitating the production of a controlled narcotic; other new production systems for potentially problematic compounds will almost certainly follow.

much more at link

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/08/14/432192398/engineers-make-narcotics-with-yeast-is-home-brewed-heroin-next

When bioengineer Christina Smolke started her own research lab, she was only 29-years-old. But that didn't stop her from setting colossal goals.

Smolke immediately began to work on what many considered to be a holy grail in bioengineering: yeast that can literally brew narcotic drugs. Achieving that, she knew, could open the door to the quick development of better medications of all sorts.

"When we started this work, you know, there were people and experts in the field who said this was impossible, that it would never be done" Smolke says.

Now, just a decade later, she has officially done it.

more

https://panamapapers.icij.org/

This story is also tending in LBN. As I mention over in LBN I find it hard to believe that no one from the U.S. is not on the list.

The U.S. might be the 0.1% of the 1%. They know how to stay off the list?

2 theories, both might be true.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-04/mossack-fonseca-has-441-us-clients-who-are-they

One hint may have emerged when observing at the funding supporters of the project, among which we find George Soros' heavily financially connected Open Society:

Recent ICIJ funders include: Adessium Foundation, Open Society Foundations, The Sigrid Rausing Trust, the Fritt Ord Foundation, the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, The Ford Foundation, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Pew Charitable Trusts and Waterloo Foundation.

Clearly, this would imply editorial intervention by the funding sources due to a potential "conflict of interest", although hopefully not as that would undermine the objective nature of this massive journalistic undertaking.

AND/OR

Clearly, this would imply editorial intervention by the funding sources due to a potential "conflict of interest", although hopefully not as that would undermine the objective nature of this massive journalistic undertaking.

There may be a simpler explanation: as Eoin Higgins points out, the 2010 United States—Panama Trade Promotion Agreement included a taxation clause that effectively shut down any chance of the rich in the US using Panama as a shelter.

The Tax Information Exchange Agreement includes a clause, Article 5, that specifies the terms of information sharing between the two countries on tax related matters:



The competent authority of the requested Party shall provide upon request by the competent authority of the requesting Party information for the purposes referred to in Article 1 of this Agreement. Such information shall be exchanged without regard to whether the requested Party needs such information for its own tax purposes or the conduct being investigated would constitute a crime under the laws of the requested Party if it had occurred in the territory of the requested Party.



The Article goes on to make clear that Mossack Fonseca’s type of services would particularly be included in the information request.

According to Higgins, "if Panama had ever been an attractive destination for American offshore storage of funds, this agreement shut the door on that possibility."

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-03/presenting-mossack-fonseca-web-secret-companies-and-all-available-source-files

Even though, as we said in our previous post, the starting role in today's record document leak should be that of Mossack Fonseca (and its heir apparent, Rothschild, operating out of Reno, NV) the general population is far more curious to learn which names will emerge as a result of this historic crackdown involving 11 million documents and 2,600 gigabytes of data.

And while the full disclosure effort will take months, if not years, here courtesy of Fusion, is a data map of the intersection between clients, shareholders, companies and agents who have used Mossack Fonseca's services.

From Fusion: "the map represents just over a third of all the data we have access to through the leak. We’ve chosen to show you 115,373 of the most connected entities so you can see how, in many case, individuals are actually related in some way.

See link for map

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-03/mossack-fonseca-nazi-cia-and-nevada-connections-and-why-its-now-rothschilds-turn

For all the media excitement about the disclosed names in the "Panama Papers" leak, in this case represented by the extensive list of Mossack Fonseca clients, this is not a story about which super wealthy individuals did everything in their power, both legal and illegal, to avoid taxes, preserve their financial anonymity, and generally preserve their wealth. After all, that's what they do, and it should not come as a surprise that they will always do that, especially following last year's disclosure by the same ICIJ which revealed a list of 100,000 HSBC clients who had been dutifully avoiding the payment of taxes.

What the story is about is the nebulous world of offshore tax evasion and tax havens, which based on data from the World Bank, IMF, UN, and central banks, hide between $21 and $32 trillion, where registered incorporation agents and law firms in small Caribbean countries (and not so small US states) make the laundering of money and the "disappearance" of the super wealthy, into untracable numbers hidden behind shell companies, possible.

So, in order to learn some more about the real star of this story, the Panamanian lawfirm of Mossack Fonseca, we went to Fusion which has compiled a fascinating story of the company's history, founders, and key milestone events in its life.
...
These include the Nazis, the CIA, Mexican drug lords, and of course, the U.S.

First, here is the Nazi and CIA connection:

Jurgen Mossack’s family landed here in the 1960s. During World War II, his father had served in the Nazi Party’s Waffen-SS, according to U.S. Army intelligence files obtained by the ICIJ. Once in Panama, the elder Mossack offered to spy on communists in Cuba for the CIA. (Mossack Fonseca said the firm “will not answer any questions related to private information regarding our company founding partners.”)

Here is the connection to Mexican drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero, and perhaps to the DEA:

Much, much more at link

I find it interesting that USAID is funding ICIJ. Their logo appears in the image at the ZH link.

From:
"Unprecedented Leak" Exposes The Criminal Financial Dealings Of Some Of The World's Wealthiest People
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-03/unprecedented-leak-exposes-criminal-financial-dealings-some-worlds-wealthiest-people

Finally, for those curious why not a single prominent US name features in the list above, the reason may be found within the snapshot of the non-profit ICIJ's "funding supporters":

Recent ICIJ funders include: Adessium Foundation, Open Society Foundations, The Sigrid Rausing Trust, the Fritt Ord Foundation, the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, The Ford Foundation, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Pew Charitable Trusts and Waterloo Foundation.

And then, at the bottom of the Panama Papers disclosure site we again find Open Society which, as everyone knows, is another name for George Soros.

See link for image

Finally, let's recall that as Bloomberg reported earlier this year, the world's biggest and "favorite" new tax haven as of this moment, is... the United States itself.

PT 1:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/03/hsbcs-money-laundering-nightmare-1-mossack-fonseca.html

PT 2:
HSBC’s Money Laundering Nightmare (2): Mossack Fonseca, a Year in Words and Pictures, March 2015-March 2016
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/03/hsbcs-money-laundering-nightmare-2-mossack-fonseca-a-year-in-words-and-pictures-march-2015-march-2016.html

I did not do my homework. (The dog ate my homework. This is a story with lots of growth. And as I said before a juicy read.
Thanks again for your input. So much to read and digest.

I notice the DOJ is doing some foot dragging about grabbing paperwork there.