Mr. Marino was one of the 23 sponsors and co-sponsors of the DEA-hampering bill who divvied up $1.5 million in Big Pharma campaign contributions. Of course, drug enforcement isn’t the only thing Republicans want to deregulate, but the others don’t send 40 Americans to the morgue every day. They’ll kill you more slowly.
Related:
“How big pharma’s money – and its politicians – feed the US opioid crisis,” Chris McGreal, The Guardian
Updates:
“Opioid Lobbyist Left a Digital Fingerprint on a Campaign by ‘Patient Advocates,'” Lee Fang, The Intercept
“Opioid Commission Member: We Worry Trump Won’t Act To Address Drug Crisis,” Esme Cribb, TPM Livewire
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The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) recently reported that Russia’s secret service intimidated workers at a drug-testing lab and impersonated lab engineers, and a Russian drug test lab destroyed 1,400 samples, all to cover up positive drug tests by the country’s athletes. Russia’s athletes paid to make doping violations disappear, bribed anti-doping authorities to ensure favorable results, and Russian sports officials submitted bogus urine samples for doping team athletes. This was documented at the London Olympics, at Sochi, and during other athletic competitions. Given this long-term, state-sponsored, systemic culture of corruption, WADA called for banning Russian athletes from international competition, including the 2016 Rio Olympics.
The evidence is so strong that the council of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) suspended Russia from all international track and field competition by a vote of 22 to 1. Even Russian President Vladimir Putin has called for an internal investigation of his nation’s sports teams to identify individual culprits and pledged cooperation with international anti-doping sports bodies.
Bill Cosby’s 1960s stand-up comedy act had a family-friendly reputation, but that overlooks a routine where he described a teenage fantasy about slipping Spanish Fly, a legendary aphrodisiac, into women’s drinks.
In sworn court testimony from 2005 recently obtained by AP, the comedian admitted obtaining seven Quaalude prescriptions in the 1970s:
”When you got the Quaaludes, was it in your mind that you were going to use these Quaaludes for young women that you wanted to have sex with?’ lawyer Dolores M. Troiani asked. ‘Yes,’ Cosby answered ….'”
— “APNewsBreak: Cosby said he got drugs to give women for sex,” Maryclaire Dale, Associated Press.
William Henry Cosby received a Doctorate in Education, but seems to have confused it with Cliff Huxtable’s medical degree.
Used in moderation, caffeine is a harmless eye-opening stimulant. But it’s a drug, and a tablespoon of pure caffeine will kill you. Plants produce the stuff as an insecticide, and it’s most concentrated in coffee beans, kola nuts, pekoe tea, and yerba mate.
So what’s the source of the caffeine in America’s soft drinks? Pharmaceutical factories in China, mostly.
More:
“Wake Up And Smell The Caffeine. It’s A Powerful Drug,” NPR
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The 100th Tour de France began Saturday in Porto-Vecchio, Corsica, the first time the famous bicycle race has started on the french island. It will also be the first time the Tour finishes in France. All the living winners will be there except for disgraced seven-time champion Lance Armstrong, who was stripped of his titles for doping.
That didn’t keep Mr. Armstrong out of the french headlines. He granted interviews to the country’s leading newspaper. “The Tour cannot be won without doping,” he told Le Monde.
More:
“As Tour De France Begins, Interview With A Defiant Lance Armstrong,” Stéphane Mandard, Le Monde via Worldcrunch
“Tour De France: A Fresh Start For 100th Race?” Bill Chappell, NPR News blog
“Lance Armstrong: ‘Le Tour de France ? Impossible de gagner sans dopage,'” Stéphane Mandard, Le Monde
“Marcel Kittel wins a bizarre opening to the 100th Tour de France,” Velo News
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