During the George W. Bush Administration current Press Secretary Sean Spicer was employed as the assistant U.S. trade representative for media and public affairs. The Trade Representative is a Cabinet level position and the office is responsible for developing international trade and foreign investment policy and its mission statement says that its objective is to improve the lives of farmers and families in the developing world. I hope they are in fact doing this, it is a high ideal and one that I hope is nonpartisan. To those who much is given, much is expected.
On at least one occasion during the Bush Presidency, Mr. Spicer was afforded the high honor of donning the highly coveted Easter Bunny regalia for the annual White House Easter Egg Roll. The identity of the honoree is typically a state secret so I have no idea how this photo was leaked and in subsequent interviews all Mr. Spicer would say about the experience was that it was hot in there.
On Easter Sunday this year I had the pleasure of attending an Easter Egg Hunt at my niece’s house. She’s a big shot in the music business and knows how to throw a party. I parked myself near the “candy bar” (I did not know that was a thing) and gorged on a wide selection of flavored sugars. While sampling a huge variety of flavored jellybeans, I spotted a large Easter Bunny. There were two regular live rabbits at the party and I offered to braise them but she said they were rented rabbits and had to be returned at the end of the day. Such a shame, love some braised rabbit, goes great with jellybeans.
Anyway, I sought out the tall rabbit, thinking to myself it was not out of the question that my niece could get Sean Spicer to come to her party. She’s a big shot in the music business. What former assistant US trade representative doesn’t like music?
I wanted to talk to him about German weapon selection during World War II. I saw Mr. Spicer on TV last week talking about this very topic and assumed it must be a hobby of his. I fancy myself a reasonable student of history and am always looking for folks with a shared interest, hoping to learn new things and have interesting conversation. But alas, it was not to be. Try as I might I could not get a single word out of this rabbit. This merely served to raise my suspicion that was in fact Mr. Spicer. I gave up and returned to the candy bar.
I will tell you why I think Sean Spicer was in the rabbit suit. After my last post on addiction, I wrote to several of our country’s leaders asking them about their position on the scientific versus moral cause of addiction. I wrote to Senator Lamar Alexander, Senator Bob Corker, Representative Jim Cooper and Governor Chris Christie. I wrote to Christie because 45 has appointed him as a special advisor on the opioid crisis. I could not locate any way to contact him in this capacity so I wrote to him at the New Jersey Governor’s office.
The silence has been deafening! Just like that dang rabbit! No body home in Washington?
Only Alexander responded. Corker and Cooper replied that a full response would be coming soon. Still waiting on soon to get here. Not a word from Christie, I guess he doesn’t feel the need to respond to the citizens of Tennessee no matter what his role in the Administration is. I will give him credit though, he seems to have a good handle on the latest science and New Jersey has passed one of the best, most progressive bills attacking the opioid crisis problem in the country. Senator Alexander patted himself on the back for his support of the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act that was signed into law on July 22, 2016 by President Obama.
I read this bill prior to writing all these politicians who seem on their web sites to be eager to interact with the citizenry. This bill is if nothing else, well named, it is very comprehensive. It provides money for recovery treatment in the form of grants; it provides money to treat pregnant women for opioid addiction; it provides states the ability to reduce the number pills that can be prescribed and it provides money for medicinal treatment of addiction by allowing office-based opioid addiction treatment with buprenorphine most commonly sold as Suboxone. This is a slow release opioid combined with naloxone that reduces the physical effects of opioid addiction withdrawal. It carries the risk of dependence. Suboxone is made by the British conglomerate Reckitt Benckiser, maker of Lysol, Clearasil and French’s Mustard.
Is it just me or does this seem a little weird? Using one additive drug to replace another? Gotta love those drug companies! Hey, Doc I got balls! Yes you do!
The Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act is certainly a good start but what caught my attention and motivated me to send messages to speechless politicians was the fact that I could not find anywhere in the bill any mention of reducing the supply or manufacture of these drugs or of holding so-called doctors accountable for irresponsible prescribing practices.
The drug makers get to keep cranking them out at a breakneck pace! It’s a free market extravaganza. A Purdue Pharma Jubilee. No demand, no supply. But the latest science tells us that addicts lose the ability to make a choice, their addiction becomes a need, one that Trumps everything else. Not exactly a true free market transaction.
One of my goals was to ask these men to educate themselves and help educate their fellow politicians on addiction. Here’s why this is important.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions:
“Good people don’t smoke marijuana.”
“We need grown-ups in charge in Washington to say marijuana is not the kind of thing that ought to be legalized, it ought not to be minimized, that it’s in fact a very real danger.”
“I am astonished to hear people suggest that we can solve our heroin crisis by legalizing marijuana—so people can trade one life-wrecking dependency for another that’s only slightly less awful,” Sessions said. “Our nation needs to say clearly once again that using drugs will destroy your life.”
Business Insider reported this about a speech Mr. Sessions gave on March 17:
“Sessions outlined three main ways to fight the “scourge” of drugs: criminal enforcement, treatment, and prevention. He highlighted prevention campaigns — including Nancy Reagan’s “Just say No” efforts — as effective tools for bringing down rates of drug use.”
People do choose to take that first drink, they choose to smoke that first joint; they choose to snort that first line of cocaine. “Just Say No may keep some people from using that first time, but by and large the Just Say No program as a whole is considered to be ineffective. The truth is nobody chooses to become an addict!
But Mr. Sessions do you really think that when people are in pain either from injury or disease and their doctor prescribes an opioid that they should Just Say No. I wonder if you would?
It sounds to me like Mr. Sessions is more interested in protecting the for profit prison industry than he is in the health of Americans. He clearly either does not understand addiction or he doesn’t want to give up his antiquated notion that addicts are morally defective. Either way the work of good Americans fighting this battle just got harder with Mr. Sessions being put in charge of the Justice Department.
I will continue to encourage our leaders, especially Mr. Christie, to assist the rest of us as we try educate people like Mr. Sessions and I hope you will do the same. It is my hope that Mr. Sessions and others like him will join us in the 21st century and embrace policies that will actually address this issue regardless of its impact on drug company profits.
This is the link to Governor Chris Christie’s office.
http://nj.gov/governor/contact/
The war on drugs has been a dramatic failure and now that white people are becoming addicted to opioids in numbers that resemble rabbits reproducing, politicians are beginning to realize that there must be a different approach to this issue. With Mr. Sessions and other dinosaurs like him still espousing the view that addicts should be incarcerated, the drug companies and for profit prison industries must be salivating at their future prospects. It is against Federal law to manufacture marijuana, I guess because “good people don’t smoke marijuana” and thus those that do must be bad people and deserve to be locked up until they straighten out their moral compass. But it is perfectly legal to manufacture opioids and issue more prescriptions than there people in Tennessee. Politics is weird!
Addiction is an incredibly complex human condition. There are many, many factors that come into play; genetics, environmental factors, brain chemistry and social interactions can all contribute to a good person becoming addicted. One thing it should not be is a political issue.
Perhaps it is time for Mr. Sessions to be more like the Easter Bunny and just stop talking. When he expresses his 19th century views he only serves to muddy the waters and makes it more difficult for those with a legitimate and hopefully effective strategy to combat this problem.
You can contact Mr. Sessions here and ask him to please educate himself on addiction and to please emulate the Easter Bunny and remain silent on this issue until he does. Remind him that it is hot in there!
https://www.justice.gov/contact-us
Thanks and Love to All
Geeze, we need to sit down and catch up – we might actually be dangerous getting together and talking about this subject, it’s one of my hot buttons. Will explain when I see you next. Call me – I’m ‘re-tired’ too.