{"id":345824,"date":"2018-01-29T01:20:31","date_gmt":"2018-01-29T00:20:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/can-we-finally-have-an-honest-discussion\/"},"modified":"2018-01-29T01:20:31","modified_gmt":"2018-01-29T00:20:31","slug":"can-we-finally-have-an-honest-discussion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/can-we-finally-have-an-honest-discussion\/","title":{"rendered":"Can We Finally Have an Honest Discussion"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"post-671468\">\n<div class=\"clearfix post-info\">\n<p class=\"authors\"> By <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lewrockwell.com\/author\/charles-hugh-smith\/?ptype=article\" title=\"Posts by Charles Hugh Smith\" rel=\"author\">Charles Hugh Smith<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"attribution\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.oftwominds.com\">OfTwoMinds.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"date\">January 27, 2018<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"social-sharing\">\n\t\t\t<span class=\"custom-buttons custom-buttons-merged\">&#13;<br \/>\n\t\t\t\t<a class=\"a2a_button_email\" href=\"https:\/\/www.addtoany.com\/add_to\/email?linkurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.lewrockwell.com%2F2018%2F01%2Fcharles-hugh-smith%2Fcan-we-finally-have-an-honest-discussion-about-the-opioid-crisis%2F&amp;type=page&amp;linkname=Can+We+Finally+Have+an+Honest+Discussion+about+the+Opioid+Crisis%3F&amp;linknote=\" title=\"Email\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\"><!--img src=\"https:\/\/www.lewrockwell.com\/\/wp-content\/themes\/lrc\/images\/icons\/email.png\" width=\"16\" height=\"16\" alt=\"Email\"--><\/a>&#13;<br \/>\n\t\t\t\t<a href=\"#\" title=\"Print\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"print-page\"><!--img src=\"https:\/\/www.lewrockwell.com\/\/wp-content\/themes\/lrc\/images\/icons\/print.png\" width=\"16\" height=\"16\" alt=\"Print\"--><\/a>&#13;<br \/>\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_16 addtoany_list\" data-a2a-url=\"https:\/\/www.lewrockwell.com\/2018\/01\/charles-hugh-smith\/can-we-finally-have-an-honest-discussion-about-the-opioid-crisis\/\" data-a2a-title=\"Can We Finally Have an Honest Discussion\"><a class=\"a2a_button_facebook\" href=\"https:\/\/www.addtoany.com\/add_to\/facebook?linkurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.lewrockwell.com%2F2018%2F01%2Fcharles-hugh-smith%2Fcan-we-finally-have-an-honest-discussion-about-the-opioid-crisis%2F&amp;linkname=Can%20We%20Finally%20Have%20an%20Honest%20Discussion\" title=\"Facebook\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"\/><a class=\"a2a_button_twitter\" href=\"https:\/\/www.addtoany.com\/add_to\/twitter?linkurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.lewrockwell.com%2F2018%2F01%2Fcharles-hugh-smith%2Fcan-we-finally-have-an-honest-discussion-about-the-opioid-crisis%2F&amp;linkname=Can%20We%20Finally%20Have%20an%20Honest%20Discussion\" title=\"Twitter\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"\/><a class=\"a2a_button_twitter_tweet addtoany_special_service\" data-url=\"https:\/\/www.lewrockwell.com\/2018\/01\/charles-hugh-smith\/can-we-finally-have-an-honest-discussion-about-the-opioid-crisis\/\" data-text=\"Can We Finally Have an Honest Discussion\"\/><a class=\"a2a_button_facebook_like addtoany_special_service\" data-href=\"https:\/\/www.lewrockwell.com\/2018\/01\/charles-hugh-smith\/can-we-finally-have-an-honest-discussion-about-the-opioid-crisis\/\"\/><a class=\"a2a_button_google_plusone addtoany_special_service\" data-annotation=\"none\" data-href=\"https:\/\/www.lewrockwell.com\/2018\/01\/charles-hugh-smith\/can-we-finally-have-an-honest-discussion-about-the-opioid-crisis\/\"\/><a class=\"a2a_dd addtoany_share_save addtoany_share\" href=\"https:\/\/www.addtoany.com\/share\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.addtoany.com\/buttons\/share_save_120_16.png\" alt=\"Share\"\/><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"blog-content clearfix\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t                            \t<!-- S3 Cache --><!-- S3:S3:Non-Original -->\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p><i>The economy no longer generates secure, purposeful jobs for the working class, and so millions of people live in a state of insecure despair.<\/i><\/p>\n<p><b>The opioid epidemic is generating a lot of media coverage and hand-wringing, but few if any solutions, and this is predictable: if you don\u2019t face up to the causes, then you can\u2019t solve the problem.<\/b>\u00a0America is steadfastly avoiding looking at the causes of the opioid crisis, which is soberly reflected in these charts of soaring opioid-caused deaths:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.oftwominds.com\/photos2017\/opioid-deaths2.jpg\" width=\"649\" height=\"347\"\/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.oftwominds.com\/photos2017\/opioid-deaths.jpg\" width=\"650\" height=\"359\"\/><\/p>\n<p><b>If we are going to have an honest conversation about the opioid epidemic, then we need to recognize the real causes of the epidemic:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><b>1. The Pharmaceutical industry falsely claimed synthetic opioids were non-addictive<\/b>, and a complicit, toothless regulatory system did nothing, egged on by politicians who were bought off by mega-bucks campaign contributions from Big Pharma.<\/p>\n<p><b>2. Our sickcare system is very good at over-prescribing painkillers as a substitute for treating the source of the pain, which is often complex.<\/b>\u00a0Our \u201chealthcare\u201d system, much of which consists of endless TV adverts promoting one costly medication after another, is basically a conduit from Big Pharma to poorly informed \u201cconsumers\u201d (quaintly referred to as \u201cpatients\u201d to mask the actual dynamic).<\/p>\n<p>This system has trained \u201cconsumers\u201d to expect a magic pill for every ailment or pain, and any doctor who refuses to over-prescribe is risking blowback from the \u201cpatients\u201d and the rest of the system. Americans have been trained to avoid treatments that require effort and changing their lifestyle; they demand a magic pill&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lewrockwell.com\/2018\/01\/charles-hugh-smith\/can-we-finally-have-an-honest-discussion-about-the-opioid-crisis\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Charles Hugh Smith OfTwoMinds.com January 27, 2018 &#13; &#13; &#13; The economy no longer generates secure, purposeful jobs for the working class, and so millions of people live in a state of insecure despair. The opioid epidemic is generating a lot of media coverage and hand-wringing, but few if any solutions, and this is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-345824","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345824\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}