Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Why The Media Should Stop Using The Word 'Overdose'

I've been pondering this heroin topic and think I see at least one problem that I'd like to bring to the attention of deep thinkers like myself. The problem is the use or misuse of the word 'overdose' when describing a death from drugs. It's sloppy, which is no big deal in modern journalism, but it is sloppy and also and insult and also misleading and also false information. And in this particular topic the use of the word 'overdose' is so misleading and false that it actually contributes in a way to the problem itself. I don't think journalists intend to magnify the problem because that would mean the journalists actually took some time to think about what shit they are writing and what topic they are writing about, but I suspect they merely write their essays paint-by-number style and give no thought outside of interchanging nouns. One week they write about legal prostitution, and the next week they write about heroin use...the same article format is used in both, total bullshit, and they swap some nouns and think they are big heroes. Well, this kind of sloppy writing is infectious because it makes any asshole who reads the paper some sort of half-assed authority on topics that a journalist made no effort to understand from an intelligent perspective. They merely want to sell copy and they are also probably dumb to begin with so what kind of intelligent examination is a CNN hack capable of really? none.

So, let me explain why they are further magnifying the drug problem with their misuse of the word 'overdose'.
Basically, the drug user is found dead. A medical examiner determines the dead person had used heroin. They conclude the dead person used too much heroin. They died of an 'overdose'. Ok. Everyone can nod their heads with arrogant nonchalance at the funeral. The deceased had a beginning, a middle, and an end. Everyone knows the end was caused by 'too much heroin'. These people are grieving so they are forgiven for thinking like idiots, but the journalist and the medical examiner/coroner have no excuse. These people are complete idiots, at best, and maybe part of a conspiracy to keep the public stupid. The reason for this is because the deceased DID NOT take too much heroin. They took exactly the same amount of heroin they always took. Maybe less. Furthermore, there is NO WAY the medical examiner can determine the exact amount the deceased used unless heroin is pouring out the deceased asshole. No, this is pure speculation. Now, heroin users are not the most fastidious folks around, but the ones who want to commit suicide using heroin will make damn sure they overdose. But, this makes no sense since heroin makes them feel good. Maybe they are tired of the hustle, fine, they want to overdose. I'm sure there are cases of intentional overdose. BUT! But there is no way there are hundreds of intentional overdoses a day. There is no way a teenage girl snorts a tiny bit of heroin in her bedroom and then doesn't wake up ON PURPOSE. No. But the media loves to say this girl 'overdosed'. Bullshit. The girl did not overdose any more than if I get a rancid burger and die of botulism that I died from 'over-eating'. Right? The medical examiner looks at me. I died while eating. I died immediately after eating. The eating caused my death. So I over-ate? What? My ghost is screaming from the grave, "Asshole, I had two bites of that burger and then died. What fuckhead would say that I ate too much?" Well, that is what these medical examiners are suggesting and the media is running with this epidemic of drug overdoses. But wait!

The whole problem is that the Media and the medical examiner KNOW that the heroin is not what killed these innocent junkies. No. The problem is the synthetic opioid called Fentanyl that is cut into heroin to strengthen the effects. Well, since these drug labs are in medieval dungeons thanks to the ridiculous drug war, and since the chemists are all concentrating on their escape plan and nervously eyeing the security cameras...they sometimes put too much fucking Fentanyl in the mix. Yeah. Well, I'm not sure if I can believe the hysteria around Fentanyl but I'll take the media's word for it and point out that Fentanyl is much more powerful than heroin, so too much Fentanyl will kill the user. Ok. If a user knowingly bought and snorted pure fentanyl and knew it would kill her then I would allow a medical examiner to conclude this was an 'overdose' but that's not remotely the reality. The reality is that the user bought the same amount from the same dealer for the same cost and got home and snorted the same little line...and then died. So HOW THE FUCK can you claim they overdosed? Is it not obvious they had no intention on taking too much and actually took great pains and precautions to take the 'normal' amount, but died anyway? And is it not obvious that this would all be avoided if the drug, like tobacco and birth control pills and aspirin, were monitored by something other than nervous illegal drug lab chemists? Ok, that's another topic I'll get to in a second. The main point here is that when medical examiners and the local news claim there is another 'overdose' by a teenager then they are spreading the blatant lie that this drug user took too much, binged, piled heroin into their faces like Tony Montoya and died in a freakish drug haze. It's all lies. Rather, they most assuredly expected a pleasant high and then sleep and then school the next morning but then their lungs and heart seized up and they suffocated. THIS DOES NOT MEAN THEY OVERDOSED. THIS MEANS THE DRUG MIXTURE WAS FUCKED UP. By highlighting the 'overdose' the media wrongly shifts the focus onto the dead person, which we all know does tons of good, and away from the sloppy chemist and the agencies that ensure heroin is unregulated, who are the real villains in this scenario.

So, if I died of botulism then you would not mislead the public by claiming I 'over-ate'. No. You would want the public to be aware of the specific place I bought that shitty-ass hamburger that killed me. Right? Specifically, how did Oggy die? You would not lie to the public and conclude "Oggy Bleacher died because of his hamburger addiction. He ate and ate and stuffed his face until he could not eat any more and then still continued to stuff his mouth and then he died. He killed himself with food because he is a degenerate burger addict." Right? This media would be privy to the actual details that I died of botulism from a specific restaurant and that the source of the problem should be isolated and corrected. For the love of fucking God! They have a public service to isolate and identify the problem and THE MEDIA IS LYING TO US. They continue to flap their worthless jowls around this generic word 'overdose' but that word DOES NOT accurately identify the problem. And that word also dramatically avoids identifying the actual problem. THE PROBLEM IS THE DRUG CHEMISTRY. THE PROBLEM IS THE ACTUAL DRUG LAB CHEMIST with shitty synthetic fentanyl or adding too much of the good stuff. The fucking mixture is wrong and it is killing people and he may not have any idea his mixture is wrong because THERE IS NO WAY TO TRACE a specific bag of heroin back to the lab. WHY NOT? BECAUSE THE FUCKING DRUG WAR PREVENTS ANY KIND OF intelligent monitoring of the drug lab. Otherwise I can claim the DEA is intentionally using teenage clarinet students to identify toxic heroin batches.

So we have the modern insanity of a widespread drug culture...WIDESPREAD...and all of them are ingesting drugs that come from ILLEGAL unmonitored/unregulated drug labs so there is no accountability when Prince or your local clarinet student dies from a bad concoction of Fentanyl and heroin. NO ACCOUNTABILITY. The only path to accountability, which is the only path to non-lethal drug concoctions...is LEGALIZING DRUGS. I don't see how there can be monitored labs if the labs are producing a drug that is illegal. I don't know, maybe America is fucked up enough to have legal labs that produce illegal drugs. Why not? But sensibly I can only see labs being monitored and batches being tested BY SOMEONE OTHER THAN PROSTITUTES OR DRUG MULES...so that the general public can at least know they are not buying some kind of Russian Roulette form of drug...maybe this batch will kill them, maybe not.

BUT, the absolute most evil part of this insane scenario is the fucking fuckwad media and medical examiners and their idiotic conclusions and bullshit whaleshit bloated and fucked use of the word 'overdose' which masquerades the WHOLE SOURCE OF THE PROBLEM and puts the whole blame on the unsuspecting drug user. See, we want to blame the teenager for biting the forbidden apple and dying. WE WARNED THEM! Yeah, pat yourselves on the back for warning a bunch of teenagers like that ever did any good. Go print some more brochures and t-shirts, while you're feeling so good about yourself! Any teenager can watch ten minutes of television and know adults are fucked up to their ears. Heroin is the only thing that makes sense, but they are young and they have a reliable dealer so they think they are safe. But they are only safe if the chemical mixture of the heroin they are buying is exactly identical to the mixture they used last time. Can they determine the mixture themselves with a testing solution? No, probably not. So, they take their chances. And when they die the media will say the 'overdosed' and the medical will conclude they 'overdosed' but that is a generic conclusion and the problem is very specific and it doesn't take a genius to isolate the problem...the drug lab and the chemist and the synthetics used. What exactly is the mixture ratio? What exactly are the conditions in the lab? Let's look at the ingredients...let's examine the process like intelligent people and not a pack of fuckwads. 

We will never reach that point if medical examiners repeatedly conclude it was on 'over-use' of drugs when any asshole can see it was simply a bad chemical combination caused by sloppy chemists in illegal labs. Instead of 'Heroin Overdose Epidemic' headlines I want to see "Sloppy Heroin Chemist Kills Again' kind of headlines. The issue is QUALITY CONTROL...not over-dosage. Make quality control the target of your articles and maybe the public opinion will turn against an idiotic, Nixonian Prohibition that prevents intelligently addressing quality of products, including heroin and crystal meth. Quality Control is the problem. QC. That is what we should focus on.

If I died of botulism the restaurant would be isolated within hours and the problem would be solved in a day or two. I would not be blamed for 'eating too much'. No, that's insane. But we continuously blame casual drug users for 'overdosing'. It's bullshit. First of all, FIRST OF ALL...What is the correct dose of heroin? CAN YOU TELL ME THAT YOU FUCKING BIG BALLS MEDICAL EXAMINER? Huh, DOCTOR? What is the correct dose of heroin in the opinion of the Surgeon General? Well, they can't very well give an opinion on an illegal drug, can they? They can't prescribe an illegal drug dose. So, WHO CAN SAY IF THE TEENAGER TOOK A DOSE THAT WAS TOO BIG? If the dose itself is a mystery then the teenager was guessing to begin with, using what other people used, more or less. It's a bullshit/careless way to put shit in your body but that's the insanity of the drug war. So, they can't say what the correct dose is but they can say the teenager overdosed? What? How can a person 'overdose' when you don't know what the dose is? If they knew the correct dose and took more than that, then you can conclude they overdosed. Yes. But if there is NO FUCKING PRESCRIPTION BOTTLE FOR HEROIN saying "TWO LINES A DAY, BEFORE BED." Right? Then, if the teenager snorted THREE lines then you can conclude they overdose. But if there is no official 'dose', then there is no 'overdose'. If I crash a car on a road with no speed limit then you can't say I died from going in excess of the speed limit. No, I died because I was a bad driver. And if the car accelerated randomly and then exploded due to manufacturing defects you would not conclude I died because I was going too fast. No, I WAS KILLED BY BAD ENGINEERING. So, why do teenagers get labeled drug addicted degenerates when they are killed by a shitty ratio of Fentanyl/Heroin which is impossible to determine prior to snorting it because it's illegal and not remotely regulated or tested by real chemists? Why? Because the media thrives on misinformation and minimizing a topic and simplifying an issue and people swallow all that crap. Ponderous.

Then, since the public relies on the idiots in the Media to give them information they are being gravely mislead when the Media suggests there is anything other than a chemical mixture problem with heroin. Potency and chemical ratio...THAT IS ALL THAT MATTERS. What is the chemical mixture/quality and what is the correct dose? Mixture and dosage. That is the source of the problem and this continued harping on the word 'overdose' is exactly the kind of stupid, dumb, foolish, misleading tactic that the drug war generals are famous for. These people are IDIOTS. They simply criminalized drugs to target non-conformists and now their idiotic strategy is failing them and killing their own teenagers. Yes, they managed to keep America an utterly brain-dead drone factory for flaccid cocks and ignorant cunts but the idiocy is contagious and now fatal. Teenagers are dying from blatantly sloppy drug chemists mixing shitty ratios of unregulated chemicals...and the media ends the conversation with 'OVERDOSE.' HA! Overdose?? You think the user would want to waste the drug they just bought by using more than necessary? Hell, you want to make money then develop a test solution that will glow bright red when it identifies a toxic amount of Fentanyl. Only problem is the kids will not want to waste a tiny amount of heroin to find out if it is toxic. Jesus, just tell them the correct dosage and they'll happily take that much and no more. Overdose? That's the last word I would use to describe these deaths and it's the one word that simplifies this problem into something parents can mourn over, but they are mourning for the wrong reasons and remaining dangerously ignorant by design. Target the sloppy chemists and unregulated ingredients by decriminalizing these harmless plant derivatives you ignorant motherfuckers. How many more ways can your stupidity be pointed out? A century of failed drug prohibition? Generations growing up in prison on possession charges? Villified drug rehab programs? How many more people will die because of this insane prohibition of plant derivatives prevents any sensible monitoring of the drug itself?

It really sickens me enough that teenagers are so depressed by the insanity of the modern world that they are snorting heroin, but when they die because a sloppy chemist in Chihuahau dusted too much Fentanyl in the mixture and there is no way to monitor that ration...and then the Media calls that an "overdose" then I get even more sick. And when the medical examiner, who knows there is no doctor prescribing heroin in the United States with a recommended 'dose' then concludes the teenager 'overdosed'...without any idea what a 'dose' is...then I give up. I fucking give up. Do medical degrees require critical thinking these days? You can't 'overdose' on something that has no recommended dose. And you can't recommend a dose of a drug that is not monitored and examined and tested to the chemical level and you can't monitor and test a chemical unless the labs are ALL FUCKING LEGAL.

No, let's just let Mexican drug labs in the mountains outside Chihuahua continue to mix our heroin and crystal meth and test it on prostitutes to make sure it meets the high quality standards of teenager clarinet students. As long as we can arrest a few street dealers in the process and pat ourselves on the back that the war on drugs is working while we bury thousands more unsuspecting drug users. And when they die, let's say they 'overdosed'. THAT MAKES MORE SENSE.
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Man in the Van by Oggy Bleacher is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.