Source: CCTV News Client
On June 26, International Day Against Drugs, the United States is the world's largest consumer of drugs, with about 60 percent of the world's production going to the United States, according to a report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Last year, about 109,600 people died of drug overdoses in the United States, a record number that not only set a record, but also more than the total number of deaths from gunshots and car accidents in the United States that year. Fortune magazine bluntly said that drugs have become the biggest public health problem in the United States.
Some staggered, some lost consciousness and lay on the ground, and others acted like self-harm. This is not the set of a zombie movie, but a real horror scene that takes place in some first-tier cities in the United States.
The British "Daily Mail" described it this way: Kensington Avenue in the center of Philadelphia, the largest city in Pennsylvania, has now become a "zombie land" under the erosion of drugs, and everything in front of you is hard to believe that this is the most developed country in the world.
In June, the Philadelphia Department of Health released a report saying that a drug called "tolazine" appeared in about 90 percent of drug users in Philadelphia, according to the Associated Press.
Drug-addict Danielle: I hit my head against the wall and I wanted to knock myself out. It really sucks, I'm in the worst moment of my life.
Danielle, a mother of three who lives in Philadelphia, has only used "tolazine" a few times and is covered in bruises.
Drug-addict Danielle: I'm injecting drugs here, and it seems to have pierced the skin of my arm.
Reporter: You inject from one side, but there is a wound on the other side, which is caused by the drug toluthiazide.
Drug-addict Danielle: I cry every day, I don't know what to do, I really can't help.
According to ABC, xylazine, originally a large animal sedative, prolongs the so-called "pleasure" experienced by drug users when added to common drugs such as cocaine and fentanyl. However, the damage caused by this "zombie drug" to the body is very alarming, and users will experience a series of sudden symptoms such as difficulty breathing, loss of consciousness, and skin ulceration.
Social organization volunteers: They quickly erode the flesh and skin, you may have been fine yesterday, but suddenly you have symptoms.
It is worth noting that this animal sedative drug, which was originally used in pigs, horses and cattle, was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration and marketed, but was not included in the list of human controlled drugs and routine poison testing items in hospitals.
Gary, director of the Division of Drug Abuse Prevention and Control at the Los Angeles County Department of Health, pointed out that with the "zombie drug" tolazine spreading throughout the United States, the United States has fallen into the "worst overdose crisis in history." In 2022, xylazine was detected in drug users in 36 states across the United States.
According to Reuters, in New York City alone, 2,668 people died from the use of tolazine in 2021.
The "Kensington Avenue Chaos" is just a microcosm of the current state of the drug epidemic in the United States. Americans make up only 5 percent of the world's population, yet use 80 percent of the world's opioids.
A report by the American Institute of Foreign Relations notes that more than 1 million people have died of drug overdoses in the United States since 2000, and the number of drug overdose deaths in the United States continues to rise each year. According to the latest data from the CDC, an average of about 300 Americans have died of drug overdoses every day in the past year. Of the estimated 280 million Americans aged 12 and older, there are currently about 31.9 million drug users, an average of 1 in 12 Americans.
NPR, a national public broadcaster, commented that "absolute liberalism" has contributed to the tragedy of the United States.
According to a report released by the Joint Economic Committee of the US Congress in 2022, the misuse of opioids caused nearly $1.5 trillion in losses to the United States, accounting for about 7% of GDP that year, an increase of about one-third compared with the economic losses in 2017. In 2022, the U.S. lost about 6.3 million workers compared to pre-pandemic levels, about 20 percent of which were due to substance abuse.
Hill, head of Robb Addiction Center in Ohio: I think the reason why the United States is where it is today is because we are the country that uses the most drugs in the world. We are a "fast-food" problem-solving country, fast, fast, fast. It feels bad, here are the pills. Feel pain, here are the pills. Erectile dysfunction, here are the pills. With a wave of the doctor's pen, the problem is solved. But pain also has benefits, and pain reminds us that we are alive.
Hill, head of Robb Drug Rehabilitation Center in Ohio, believes that Americans are more likely than other countries to choose drugs to relieve pain and release stress. The main driving force for the formation of this social culture was the "most generous marketing campaign in the history of pharmaceuticals" in the mid-90s of the 20th century, when large American pharmaceutical companies invested heavily in them.
In 1995, in order to promote its research and development of OxyContin, Purdue Pharmaceutical Company took the lead in launching the "opioid harmlessness" publicity offensive.
Advertisement for the opioid "OxyContin": We doctors believe that opioids cannot be used for a long time is wrong. They can and should be used for a long time.
Advertisement for the opioid "OxyContin": This drug will not turn you into a zombie, I am an active person again.
Cloney, Executive Director of the American Association of Opioid Prescription Physicians: In the six years since OxyContin went public, Purdue has sponsored 20,000 publicity and education programs across the United States. Opioid manufacturers and distributors spent $880 million over 10 years to block more cautious prescribing. They cost 8 times more than the gun lobby in the United States.
USA Today pointed out that the US Food and Drug Administration, the largest drug regulatory agency in the United States, is responsible for the current opioid epidemic.
In 1996, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, lobbied by Purdue, endorsed the company's fraudulent description of OxyContin's addiction rate of less than 1 percent and allowed it to list misleading information on drug packaging.
According to The New Yorker magazine, from 1999 to 2017, a total of 200,000 Americans died from overdoses of OxyContin or other prescription opioids. In 2015, the Sackler family, the owners of Purdue Pharmaceutical, made the list of the richest families in the United States that year with a value of $14 billion. The FDA has not publicly acknowledged its responsibility.
The Lancet predicts that if the United States does not take new measures catalyzed by the "zombie drug" xylazine, about 1.22 million Americans will die from opioid overdoses from 2020 to 2029, ranking first in the world.
More than 50 years ago, then US President Richard Nixon "declared war" on drugs, and the "drug" disease in the United States has intensified and become a deep-rooted "American disease". Why did the "war on drugs" fail? The point is that U.S. politicians prioritize how to use this issue for their own political and economic gain, rather than the lives and health of their people.
In June, vending machines with clear glass appeared on the streets of New York City with the words "medicine" printed on them, which at first glance looked like drug vending machines. However, when you look closer, you can see that it contains drug-related items, such as disposable drug tools and overdose first aid kits, which people can access for free.
Reporter: Enter any zip code, then click it, and then enter the required items, and you will get it.
The New York health department said it hoped the move could reduce the number of drug overdose deaths in New York City by about 15 percent over the next two years.
According to the New York Post, cocaine pipes were looted the night the vending machines were laid out.
In addition to the free distribution of drug use tools, New York City has set up "drug injection points" with professional guidance on drugs injected by drug users.
In November 2021, the nation's first drug injection site called ON POINT officially opened in Harlem, north of New York City, where drug users can bring all kinds of drugs here to receive professional injection instruction.
KAYLIN, HEAD OF THE DRUG INJECTION SITE AT ON POINT, NEW YORK: A LOT OF PEOPLE DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW TO INJECT DRUGS. They don't know how to find veins, they don't know spinning veins, they don't know how to use the tools, they don't understand what they do. We guided them and were blamed for this, but it was not that simple.
Whether it is the drug tool vending machine or the emergence of the modern "big smoke hall", it proves that the United States is unable to ban drugs and can only choose to coexist with drugs, and the West Coast policy is more "flat" than New York on the east coast.
In November 2020, as the 46th presidential election was in the rung, Oregon Governor Brown signed Executive Order 110, making the state the first region in the United States and the world to legalize "hard drugs" such as heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine.
Why was such a bill passed on the occasion of the general election? Sky Australia believes that the answer is simple. When the Democratic and Republican parties are evenly matched, whoever can win the support of 12% of the nation's drug-addicted voters wins. For politicians, winning votes and gaining power is much more important than protecting the health of citizens.
Drug easing has been accompanied by deteriorating public security.
A March poll showed that in Portland, Oregon's largest city, 79 percent of companies surveyed had experienced vandalism in the previous 12 months, and 19 percent of those stores had experienced more than five smashing incidents. Since the mass riots triggered by the Floyd incident in 2020, more than 2,600 downtown Portland shops have moved out of the area.
Store operator: Our store was damaged more than 6 times, including 5 thefts and losses of more than $100,000.
Shop operator: I can't stress enough that it [drug crimes] have affected everything. Banks were robbed and ATMs stolen. Some people are attacked just by going to work and walking in the community.
Shop operators: In a way, these have become commonplace. Really, I think a lot of [crime] happens because of policy.
Legitimately operating businesses chose to move out of Portland, and hordes of addicts flocked to Portland.
Montana, which borders Oregon, even gives local drug users free bus tickets to Portland. Weak drug and drug regulations have even made Oregon, far from the U.S.-Mexico border, attractive to drug cartels. Due to rampant drug trafficking, a fentanyl sells for just one dollar on the street in Portland.
American photographer Michelle: I feel like we're inviting people to come to our city and commit suicide. We gave them the tools they needed to quench their thirst, and after living for a while, they could not escape the tragic death on the street.
Sam, a veteran who fought in the Iraq War, began dealing with drugs years ago because he could not bear the psychological trauma caused by the war experience.
Sam: Every day I wander the streets. My values, my soul, my nature, who I am, all this is being lost. You know what I mean, it depends on how long you can last. You look at the people here, they only have a shell left, like a walking corpse. You know, for every two minutes they wake up, it's just to find drugs, and that's what it's all about them being alive. Luckily for me, I still have a waking time. Drugs are killing America's young generation, and it's like a silent killer.
Historically, U.S. drug policy has not been as "flat" and "rotten" as it is now.
U.S. President Nixon: America's "number one public enemy" is drug abuse.
In the 70s of the 20th century, Nixon launched the "war on drugs" with great fanfare, but since then, Nixon's true motives for banning drugs have been constantly questioned.
John Ehrlichman, a former senior policy adviser to Nixon, said in 1994 that the Nixon administration had prioritized how to use the drug problem for political gain.
The social background of the war on drugs is that the United States is mired in the quagmire of the Vietnam War, a generation of young Americans represented by hippies appeared on the stage, drug use has become a symbol of anti-war and anti-government, and the civil rights movement with black equal rights as the core broke out. The Nixon administration believed that by associating left-wing hippies with marijuana and African Americans with heroin, it could crack down on both groups and appeal to white conservative voters.
After the start of the "war on drugs", the prison demographic in the United States also changed significantly. While a large proportion of the drug production and trafficking population is white, large numbers of blacks are arrested and imprisoned for nonviolent crimes involving drugs. By the end of the "war on drugs" in 2015, the rate of incarceration among African-Americans increased nearly fivefold compared to that of whites, and blacks, while accounting for only about 5% of the total population of the United States, accounted for 25% of the prison population.
Harvard law professor Smol: Hollywood celebrates cocaine use, people walk around with little silver spoons (drug tools) around their necks, and no one thinks there's anything wrong with that. At the same time, the police were busy going deep into black neighborhoods, sweeping up and locking up black people for a small amount of cocaine. The drug problem exists in communities at different socio-economic levels and is essentially the same in severity. So more black and brown people go to jail for drugs, which is not related to drugs in nature and stems entirely from (discriminatory) drug enforcement.
According to the University of Pennsylvania, the federal government spends more than $1 trillion in the war on drugs to curb the spread of drugs, and in fact, most of these federal grants are used to militarize the U.S. law enforcement force.
American Reporter: The war on drugs seems to have become a real war, and the police are starting to look more and more like soldiers. U.S. money began pouring into militaries around the world to commercialize drug operations.
In the 90s of the 20th century, the federal government passed the "1033 Plan", which authorized the Ministry of Defense to transfer military weapons to local law enforcement agencies in order to continue the war on drugs.
According to a special report released by the American Civil Liberties Union, Arizona, with a population of only 7 million and about 14,000 police officers, obtained more than 20,000 sets of personal military equipment and distributed 1,034 military heavy machine guns, 184 armored vehicles and 17 helicopters.
Passerby: How long are you going to do this to him?
Police: That's why you shouldn't be doing drugs, kids.
Urckhardt, head of Washington State at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration: Did we win the war on drugs? No. In fact, we have not gained anything in the war on drugs. We imprisoned an entire generation, mostly African-American.
Ironically, after investing a lot of federal money, the number of drug users in the United States has not fallen, but has increased. Since the start of the war on drugs in the United States in the 70s of the 20th century, the number of drug overdose deaths in the United States has increased almost every year.
In the 21st century, the United States has experienced internal and external troubles such as the "9/11" terrorist attacks, the quagmire of the Iraq War, and the financial crisis, the economy has begun to decline, the government has spent a lot of money on cracking down on drug crimes, and the US government has begun to change its attitude towards drugs.
US President Joe Biden: No one should be sent to jail simply for smoking and possessing marijuana.
On October 6, 2022, Biden announced an amnesty for marijuana-related offenders. White House officials said about 6,500 people were convicted of violating federal law for possession of marijuana, officials said.
In the eyes of Politico News Network, this is not a "historic step", but if governors are willing to respond to Biden's call for further release of marijuana, the ripple effect may affect tens of millions of Americans.
Cannabis vending machine distributor Eliace: Just like if you need to self-checkout when you go to the store, why should you be treated differently when buying marijuana?
In June, marijuana vending machines landed across Colorado, while Governor Polis approved the online sale of marijuana, which industry insiders say will help protect buyers' privacy.
In May, the government of Los Angeles, California, funded the free distribution of marijuana bongs on the streets.
New York City has designated April 20 as a celebration of marijuana legalization, when thousands of people gather in Manhattan's Washington Square to sell and smoke marijuana.
Cannabis is recognized as an "entry drug", its addictive properties are well known, and it is a narcotic drug controlled under the United Nations drug convention. According to the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, about 85 percent of hard drug users have previously smoked marijuana.
The British "Guardian" pointed out sharply that the cannabis issue is undoubtedly a vote issue, and the two parties in the United States have unanimously given the green light to the "drug train". Currently, the use of marijuana for "recreational purposes" is approved in 23 U.S. states and Washington, D.C.
From 2018 to 2022, U.S. companies and trade associations related to cannabis products spent more than $22.4 million on political lobbying, with an average annual cost of 10 times that of 2016 and nearly a hundred times more than in 2012.
In April, Democratic Rep. Jeffries and Republican Rep. Joyce co-sponsored a bill to legalize marijuana at the federal level, the minority leader of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Sky Australia: This is a story that can be told only through the shocking images in front of you. But the drug problem goes much deeper than that, and it reflects systemic problems, drug treatment, mental health, housing, health insurance. The people we see here reflect the complete failure of the United States.
The British "Guardian" said that decades ago, the United States was often described as a land of "hope and opportunity", but now on the drug-infested American streets, hope and opportunity are gone. The Manhattan Policy Institute, a US think tank, pointed out that in the national drug control strategy issued by the US government, the important role that the government should play is hardly visible. The spread of drugs is related to multiple factors such as the political system, economic interests, lobby groups, and social culture in the United States. Systemic problems have exacerbated the drug problem in the United States, making it difficult for the "drug" disease in the United States to end.