They suggest that solutions to the drug overdose epidemic could include better prescription drug monitoring programs, expanding access to substance misuse treatments, establishing supervised injection centers and needle-exchange programs, and increasing the availability of naloxone to counter overdoses.
The researchers also say corrective social policies should address “the underlying social and economic conditions that may underpin drug use.” It is precisely these underlying conditions that have worsened under successive US administrations and through a bipartisan assault on social programs upon which millions of workers and their families depend.
Cash welfare assistance was all but eliminated under Bill Clinton. Cuts to food stamps, intensified under the Obama administration, have continued under Donald Trump. The current president, while declaring the opioid epidemic a “public health emergency,” has allocated no new funding to the states to address the crisis.
It is notable that the first BMJ study found that between 2010 and 2016 life expectancy in the US stagnated and decreased, while other high-income countries saw modest but steady increases. In the wake of the Great Recession, the working class continued to see its living conditions worsen while the two big business parties bailed out the banks and the super-rich continued to pad their bank accounts at the expense of the vast majority.
While new declining US life expectancy rates should sound the alarm bells, no such response has been elicited from the White House or Congress. They remained similarly silent at the recent release of a CDC report that estimated 72,000 people died from drug overdoses in 2017 in the US.
I think it is very likely that life expectancy is tied to social policies. And Bill Clinton, Barack, Donald Trump and Bully Boy Bush have a lot to answer for.
I hope history remembers them as they were, cheap hustlers out to make a buck anyway they could while attacking the poor.
This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot" for Wednesday:
DOD names the soldier killed in Iraq this week as Chief Warrant Officer 3 Taylor J. Galvin, 34, from Spokane, Wash. Says crash occurred in Nineveh province, in Sinjar.
Army pilot killed in Iraq on 9th deployment. 9th deployment.
U.S. soldier killed Sunday in Iraq helicopter crash was on his ninth combat deployment, officials say. abcn.ws/2wcXtZs
DOD: Chief Warrant Officer 3 Taylor J. Galvin, 34, from Spokane, Washington, died Aug. 20, 2018, in Baghdad, Iraq, as a result of injuries sustained when his helicopter crashed in Sinjar, Ninevah Province, Iraq. The incident is under investigation.
Chad Garland (STARS AND STRIPES) explains, "Galvin’s death brings to 11 the total number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq and Syria this year. He is the eighth American killed in a helicopter crash in Iraq; in March, seven servicemembers were killed in the downing of an Air Force HH-60 Pave Hawk in western Anbar province." THE SPOKESMAN REVIEW notes:
Galvin was married and a father of two, according to an article on Military.com.
He graduated from Lakeside High School in Nine Mile Falls in 2002. He was a member of the school’s football and wrestling teams.
Scott Jones, a former wrestling coach at Lakeside High School, said Galvin was one of the favorites of the coaching staff.
Dylan Smith (TUSCON SENTINEL) provides an overview of Galvin's military career and notes:
His awards and decorations include one Air Medal (C device); Air Medal (3OLC); Army Commendation Medal(2OLC); Joint Service Air Medal (OLC); Army Achievement Medal (2OLC); Meritorious Unit Award; Army Good Conduct Medal (3); National Defense Service Medal (2); Afghanistan Campaign Medal; Iraq Campaign Medal; Global War On Terrorism Expeditionary Medal; Global War On Terrorism Service Medal; NATO Medal; Noncommissioned Officer Professional Development Ribbon; Army Service Ribbon; Overseas Service Ribbon (3); Combat Action Badge and Senior Army Aviator Badge.
There are about 5,000 U.S. troops deployed in Iraq, with another 2,000 operating in Syria. About 14,000 U.S. forces are in Afghanistan, 17 years after the first American invasion.
The crash that took Galvin's life also left three US service members so injured that they had to be evacuated.
In other violence, REUTERS notes, "A suicide attack on a former Iraqi lawmaker’s house killed at least six tribal militiamen and wounded seven others in a northern Sunni Muslim village early on Wednesday, police said."
Protests continue in Iraq and over 50 protesters have been killed so far.
#Iraq: Peaceful protests continue after demonstrator killed in Basra
gc4hr.org/news/view/1932
Pictured above is the late Harith al-Salmi. GCHR reports:
On 14 August 2018, a protest tent, erected by demonstrators who live in Ezzedine Salim (formerly Al-Hawair) and neighbouring areas, in front of the West Qurna 2 petrol field in Basra was attacked by the security forces, who burned the tent and beat the demonstrators with batons. Three demonstrators were severely injured. Among the injured was well-known activist Harith Al-Salmi, 33 years old, who was taken to hospital where he died the next day. The medical report obtained by the Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) said his death was caused by a fractured skull.
Matthew Ayton (MEE) observes:
Demonstrations began, and are still ongoing, in oil-rich Basra, home to 70 percent of Iraq’s oil production, yet the majority of jobs in the industry are given to foreign contractors rather than locals. Protesters in the southern city have called for increased employment opportunities and an end to slum-like living conditions and corruption among Baghdad’s political elite.
In response, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi - often coupled with that hackneyed word “moderate” in Western journalese - dispatched the country’s “elite counter-terrorism service” to swiftly crush the protests before momentum could reach truly inconvenient levels. This was the same unit used in the battle to retake Mosul from the Islamic State (IS) group.
Within days, seven people in Basra had been killed and many mercilessly beaten, which led to protests in other parts of the country. Accounts in Arabic media vary, but at least 12 protesters are believed to have been killed by regime forces, while hundreds more languish in their dungeons, with some reportedly tortured.
This unavoidably raises the question: where is that “representative government” and constitutional guarantee of “complete freedom of expression and assembly” that Bremer extolled all those years ago?
2018 has been, so far, another very hot summer in Iraqi politics, thousands of Iraqis have taken the streets to protest | Find all the information to understand why and which could the consequences in the new @EGIC_ #infosheet #Iraq #GCC #Kuwait egic.info/protests-risin… … …
New content at THIRD:
- Truest statement of the week
- Truest statement of the week II
- A note to our readers
- Editorial: The war in Iraq continues
- TV: Yet another bad week for NETFLIX
- Spying and lying Brennan
- From The TESR Test Kitchen
- Aretha
- The Goody Whore
- Read a book?
- This edition's playlist
The following community sites -- plus Cindy Sheehan and DISSIDENT VOICE -- updated:
