The Origin of America's Drug Disaster: "Zombie Land" Reflects the Society of "American Drug Disease" | Drugs | America
Some drug addicts stumbled along, while others lost consciousness and lay on the ground. Homeless tents were everywhere, and garbage was scattered on the ground. This is a scene from a recent viral video on the streets of northern Philadelphia in the United States.
The Daily Mail of the UK followed up with a report stating that "Philadelphia has been submerged in drug crimes" and "we have never seen humans in such a state before.". Under the pen of this British media, Kensington Avenue in Philadelphia, known as the "City of Friendship," has become a "zombie land" under drug erosion. Netizens have commented that such a terrifying scene is like a zombie movie, making it hard to believe that this is the most developed country in the world.
More than 50 years ago, then US President Nixon declared war on drugs, but the drug crisis in the United States became increasingly severe, becoming a deep-rooted "American disease". Today, the United States is the country with the most rampant drug use in the world: the number of drug users accounts for about 12% of the world's total, which is three times the proportion of its population in the world. The proliferation of drugs in the United States is related to multiple factors such as economic interests, lobbying groups, and social culture, exacerbating various social problems in the country and reflecting the failure of the US government's social governance.
"Drug addiction has become a public health crisis"
What turned Kensington Avenue in Philadelphia into a "zombie land" was a drug called methylthiazide, also known as "zombie medicine.". It can cause the human body to decay from the inside out, and if left untreated, there is a risk of amputation. This drug is generally used to calm large livestock, but now it has become a popular drug in the United States. Users are often unaware of changes in the surrounding environment and the pain and ulcers on their bodies, walking in a posture similar to a zombie in a movie.
The chaos on Kensington Avenue is a microcosm of the current state of drug abuse in the United States. A report by the American Diplomatic Association states that since 2000, over one million people in the United States have died from drug overdose, and drug addiction has become a chronic epidemic in the country, endangering public health and economic output. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States, 109600 people died from drug overdose in 2022, setting a new record. According to Fortune magazine, the number of deaths from drug use in the United States is now higher than the total number of deaths from gunshots and car accidents.
"Drug addiction has become a public health crisis," according to a report by a public welfare organization in the United States called the "Anti Smash Organization," the crisis is more deadly than ever before. In 2021, the National Center for Drug Abuse Statistics in the United States released survey data showing that among approximately 280 million Americans aged 12 and above, there are currently 31.9 million drug users.
The proliferation of drugs has caused huge economic losses to the United States. The Joint Economic Committee of the United States Congress released a report in 2022, stating that the abuse of opioids caused nearly $1.5 trillion in losses to the United States in 2020, accounting for approximately 7% of the country's gross domestic product that year and an increase of about one-third compared to 2017. By the end of 2022, US researchers estimated that, compared with the pre COVID-19 outbreak, the US lost about 6.3 million workers, of which about 20% were caused by the abuse of opiates.
The proliferation of drugs exacerbates various social problems in the United States. Drug use causes damage to the brain nerves, exacerbates psychological anxiety and cognitive impairment among drug users, easily triggers mental illness, exacerbates emotional arousal, and leads to family crises, violent crimes, psychological trauma. In addition, it also exacerbates intergenerational transmission of poverty and racial discrimination, seriously impacting American society.
The drug problem has caused particularly serious harm to ethnic minorities in the United States. According to data updated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in July 2022, in 2020, the mortality rate of drug overdose among elderly black men in the United States was almost 7 times higher than that of elderly white men. In the same year, the mortality rate of drug overdose among young Native American and Alaska Indigenous women was almost twice that of young white women.
Minority drug users also face more obstacles when seeking treatment. Thomas Gucci, a 53 year old African American who used to use drugs when he was young, is now dedicated to helping drug users fight against drugs. "When we call different places trying to get drug addicts to receive treatment, the other person will ask 'What medication was used?'" Gucci said angrily, "If you say 'crack', suddenly they say they don't have a bed. If you say it's opioids and heroin, they will find a bed."
This is a photo taken on August 23, 2021 at the Food and Drug Administration building in Maryland, USA. Shen Jizhong
"The drug abuse in the United States has no end"
In the past few decades, the phenomenon of drug abuse in the United States has become increasingly severe. On the one hand, the types of drugs are constantly evolving. In the 20th century, the most common illegal opioid drug in the United States was heroin. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States, the number of deaths caused by synthetic opioid drugs, especially fentanyl, has sharply increased in recent years. Recently, "zombie drugs" have become a new favorite among American drug users.
On the other hand, the number of drug users in the United States continues to rise. Since the 1970s, the number of drug overdose deaths in the United States has been increasing almost every year. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States says drug overdose is one of the main causes of death in Americans, leading to a shortened life expectancy. The Lancet magazine in the UK has released a report predicting that if the United States does not take new measures, approximately 1.22 million Americans will die from excessive use of opioids from 2020 to 2029.
"Drug abuse in the United States has no end," lamented Theodore Cicero, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Washington School of Medicine.
The problem is so serious, but some of the "operations" of American politicians cannot help but question whether they want to curb the spread of drugs or add fuel to the fire. For example, marijuana is addictive and is a controlled drug under the United Nations Convention against Drugs, while some American politicians are promoting the legalization of marijuana. Currently, the use of marijuana for entertainment purposes has been approved in 23 states in the United States and Washington D.C. In April of this year, Hakim Jeffries, a minority leader in the United States House of Representatives and a Democratic congressman, and Dave Joyce, a Republican congressman, jointly proposed a bill aimed at legalizing adult marijuana use at the federal level.
In November 2021, with the support of then Mayor of New York City, White House, the first "drug overdose prevention center" in the United States opened in New York City, with the aim of providing clean syringes and monitoring services for drug users to reduce deaths caused by drug overdoses. Subsequently, places such as New Mexico and Nevada are also considering establishing similar institutions. But in the eyes of some experts, this approach is a disguised encouragement of drug use, which is equivalent to fighting fires with fuel.
Michael Botticelli, former director of the National Office of Drug Control Policy in the United States, stated that during his tenure, he discovered that the US government's policies to curb drugs and drug abuse were "neither based on science nor evidence," which had serious consequences.
This is a photo of the White House taken on January 20th in the US capital, Washington. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Liu Jie
"Reflecting the failure of the US government's social governance"
According to research from the University of Pennsylvania, since 1971, the United States has spent over $1 trillion to curb the spread of drugs. But Cassandra Frederick, executive director of the American non-profit organization Drug Policy Alliance, believes that "the war on drugs is a failed policy.". She said that everything promised by the US government, including stopping people from using drugs, bringing communities back together, and making drugs disappear, has not happened.
Why did the Anti Drug War fail? The key is that American politicians prioritize how to use this issue to gain political and economic benefits for themselves.
On June 17, 1971, Nixon delivered a speech declaring drugs as the "number one public enemy" and launched a "war against drugs" with great fanfare. But thereafter, people constantly questioned his true motivation for drug prohibition. John Erichman, who had previously served as Nixon's senior policy advisor, said in a media interview in 1994 that Nixon faced two types of enemies within the United States: left-wing opponents of the Vietnam War and African American groups. If left-wing hippies are linked to marijuana, and African Americans are linked to heroin, it can strike at these two groups of people. Subsequently, more and more voices believe that in the "drug war" in the United States, some politicians used social biases against African Americans and other groups to subtly express their racist positions, in order to attract white conservative voters and gain political benefits for themselves.
From an economic perspective, the legalization of marijuana provides the US government with substantial tax revenue. In 2012, Colorado legalized marijuana. Since then, the cumulative sales revenue of marijuana in the state has exceeded $1 billion, but at the same time, the number of deaths from various types of drugs has also reached new highs. There are also a large number of criminal organizations growing marijuana in Colorado and smuggling it to other states for sale.
Some large pharmaceutical companies in the United States have also played a key role in promoting drug proliferation. On the one hand, these companies have invested a large amount of funds to support relevant experts and institutions, with the aim of promoting the "harmless theory of opioid drugs", encouraging physicians to prescribe excessively and pharmacies to vigorously sell them. On the other hand, these companies spend a lot of money on political lobbying to encourage the government to relax regulation of related drugs.
The opioid prescription drug Osconazole, developed by Purdue Pharmaceuticals in the United States, began to be sold in the 1990s during the "most generous marketing campaign in pharmaceutical history". An article in The New Yorker magazine pointed out that in the past, doctors were reluctant to prescribe potent opioid drugs to patients due to concerns about addiction. However, Purdue Pharmaceuticals "convinced" doctors to change this habit and actively promoted Osconazole as an opioid drug that can be used for a long time. As a result, from 1999 to 2017, a total of 200000 Americans died from overdose related to Osconazole and other prescription opioid drugs. In the end, Purdue Pharmaceutical was sued.
"Pharmaceutical companies are all being sued, and they should be sued. We need to remember that these companies are exploiting the weaknesses that still exist in the healthcare regulatory system," said Keith Humphries, a professor at Stanford University School of Medicine in the United States. For example, the Food and Drug Administration has acknowledged fraudulent claims that Osconazole is "less addictive" than other opioid drugs.
Where does this contradictory description come from? Nature cannot do without the efforts and lobbying of pharmaceutical companies. According to data from the "Open Secrets" website in the United States, from 2018 to 2022, some companies, industry associations, and others related to cannabis products in the United States spent over $22.4 million on political lobbying, with an average annual expenditure of more than 10 times that of 2016 and about 100 times that of 2012.
The Manhattan Policy Institute, a US think tank, pointed out that in the national drug control strategy released by the US government, there is almost no significant role that the government should have played. Allowing drugs and drug abuse to escalate reflects the failure of the US government's social governance.
