Withdrawal Pains

On Tuesday, Rep. Tom Marino (R, PA-10) withdrew his name from consideration as America’s drug czar, tweeted President Trump, who nominated him. This followed a devastating 60 Minutes/Washington Post report on Mr. Marino’s role in sponsoring a bill that prevented the DEA from pursuing the crooked drug wholesalers, pharmacies and doctors responsible for illegal distribution of opioids, highly-addictive prescription drugs. Last year, opioid overdoses killed more Americans than died in the entire Vietnam Conflict.

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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Sugar: Threat or Menace?

Is a sugar a drug? A PBS Digital video by Joe Hanson.

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Digital Distraction Drug

 

” … the Web is also an enormous global timesink, sucking up massive amounts of time that might have gone into more productive, thoughtful, and fulfilling activities. It’s difficult to measure the cost of this wasted time, because it’s impossible to know what people might have done if they weren’t surfing and tweeting and youtubing and huluing and foursquaring and emailing and IMing and googling and etc. The Web often gives us the illusion of having an incredibly diverse set of pursuits when it’s really narrowing the scope of our thoughts and activities.”

— Nicholas Carr, at Rough Type.

 “The Unplug and Recharge Challenge: Breaking Our Always-Connected Addiction,” Arianna Huffington and Ellen Kunes, Huffington Post.

 

Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

Social Media Addiction

  
Flash: digitally deprived college students go daffy. The youngsters are social media addicts and feel disconnected when not online.

200 University of Maryland undergrads spent an entire “Day Without Media.”  No Blackberry, laptop, television, iPod, texting, Twitter, phone calls, IM-ing, email or Facebook. OMG!

Participants were students in Professor Susan D. Moeller’s JOUR 175 “Media Literacy” course at the U of Maryland J-school. After 24 hours of “cold turkey,” they each wrote around 550 words about their mental states and experiences. Could students TXT this in? BTHOM (beats the hell outa me).