Christmas Night

The story of Alexander Neville

Alexander Neville was only 14 years old, when he sat his parents down at the kitchen table at home in Aliso Viejo in California. He told them he was throwing away Oxycontin pills he bought on Snapchat. Oxycontin is an opiate analgesic, a medication used to relieve acute pain. Purdue Pharmaceutical developed that painkiller in the nineties. They claimed it was a non-addictive drug, even though they knew that wasn't true at all. Many people became addicted to it, and thus began the opiate crisis in the United States. The crisis worsened year after year, and in 2016, 42,000 people died from an opiate overdose, of which an estimated 40% were prescription drugs.

"The drug has a hold on me, and I don't know why," Alexander told his parents.

Alexander's mother immediately contacted a drug rehabilitation program and was waiting to hear back from them. The next morning, when his mother went to Alexander's bedroom to wake him up, he wasn't breathing and his skin was purple. His parents called the emergency medical services and he was taken to hospital. At ten o'clock on June 23, 2020, he was pronounced dead. 

Later in the day, a drug task force came to the house, and they said that Alexander's death was not caused by Oxycontin, but by a synthetic drug called Fentanyl. Alexander's parents were completely confused then, because Alexander took an Oxycontin pill, and there is no Fentanyl in that pill. What was going on?

Fake pills

His parents discovered that there are many counterfeit pills on sale, which contain Fentanyl. The drug dealers put Fentanyl - a very strong, and inexpensive drug – in the pills. But often enough, they overdose on Fentanyl and that's not a good thing. Fentanyl is twice as strong as morphine and it only takes 2 mg of Fentanyl to kill someone. It is estimated that the pills that are sold illegally contain at least that amount of Fentanyl. 107 thousand people died of drug overdose in 2021 in the United States, and 70 thousand of them died of Fentanyl overdose. That's an incredible number - for comparison, 43 thousand people died on the roads, and 47 thousand people died by suicide the same year. 

Poison

Ní amháin i bpiollairí a bhfaightear é, ach an oiread – faightear Feantanil in ionad cócaon, hearóin, methamfataimín, agus drugaí mídhleathacha eile freisin.  Mar sin, tá an ghéarchéim Fentanyl i bhfad níos measa ná aon ghéarchéim drugaí eile riamh.  Seo mar a dúirt John Tavolacci, leasuachtarán feidhmiúcháin in ionad athshlánúcháin ó dhrugaí i Nua-Eabhrac: “Ní drugaí sráide iad seo a thuilleadh.  Is nimh é seo.”

There is no doubt about that, but where does this terrible substance come from?

Where does it come from?

Fentanyl is made in laboratories. The ingredients (and especially NPP, 4-ANPP) are sent from China to the drug cartels in Mexico, which is quite easy to do. The cartels then extract Fentanyl from the ingredients, and use their distribution system to smuggle and distribute the drug throughout the United States. It is almost impossible to keep it out of the United States, because the Mexican cartels already have a lot of experience with smuggling. It's not difficult for them to distribute the drug, either - the drug dealers like Fentanyl, because it's a very strong drug and it's not expensive compared to other illegal drugs. Fentanyl is a very complex problem, for these reasons.

The solution to the problem?

There is no easy solution to the Fentanyl crisis. It is necessary to fight the war on several fronts at the same time. Here are a few suggestions: 

1. 1. Antidotes (Naloxone) are available for opiates, including Fentanyl. Make sure that the authorities have enough Naloxone in each region, and that it is also easily available to ordinary people.
2. 2. Run a campaign to draw attention to opiate drugs, and especially Fentanyl, and to educate people on how to use Naloxone when someone overdoses.
3. 3. A vaccine against opiate drugs is being tested, and is likely to be available before long. The government should devise plans to use the vaccine, which would protect people in the emergency services from harm, and provide treatment for the worst addicts.

"Get rid of the strict lockdown," screamed protesters in cities across China. In Shanghai and Beijing, people raised blank pages in the air. Xiao Qiang, a researcher on internet freedom at the University of California, Berkeley, explained what that means: "People know what they want to express, and so do the authorities, so people don't need to say anything. If you have a blank page, everyone will know what you mean.”

Some demonstrators called on the Communist Party and its leader, Xi Jinpeng, to resign! It is clear that people are tired of his brutal approach to COVID-19, while still using the strict lockdown anywhere people contract COVID.

Outside of China, the rest of the world has moved on to a new stage, where everything is open and there are no barriers to people moving from place to place. That approach depends on effective vaccines, like those offered by Pfizer and Moderna, being available to people. Thousands of people from all over the world have come together in Qatar supporting their national soccer teams, in full stadiums – with no masks and no problems!

China's approach was praised at the start of the pandemic, and there is no doubt that it saved lives. But almost three years later, there are more contagious versions of COVID, which spread much more easily than before. The once effective approach is now outdated and ineffective. People are demanding more freedom again, but the Communist Party is not listening to them. Usually, Chinese people are reluctant to say or do anything, because they are afraid of what might happen to them there. But now, demonstrations are happening frequently. What is going on in China?

Lockdown after lockdown

The strict lockdown policy regarding the virus has been in place since the beginning of the pandemic. No other country has such a difficult policy in place anymore, and it is clear that the benefit is not worth the trouble. Often, people have to stay at home for three or four months, and when there is a strict lockdown in a big city, there are many problems. We saw that when the government put 25 million people under strict lockdown in Shanghai last summer. The local economy was badly damaged, and there was a shortage of food and services in the city. As a result, there was a confrontation between the residents and the authorities - something that rarely happens in China.

An Economy in Trouble

China's economy is suffering badly due to the government's policy regarding COVID. That affects businesses, big and small, from the local shops and restaurants up to the manufacturing companies of the iPhone, like Foxconn. The production of the iPhone was reduced, when many Foxconn employees had to stay at home. Therefore, Apple had to warn that sales of the iPhone would fall.

According to the latest data, China's economy recently grew by 3.9 percent and some economists are predicting that rate will fall even more before the end of the year. Growth was on track for around 5.5 percent this year in China!

The Last Straw!

On November 24, ten people were burned to death at home in an apartment block in Urumqi in China's Xinjiang province. This is a region of 25 million people that was under strict lockdown for more than three months. (The region has previously been in the news for the harsh treatment of the Uighur Muslims who live there.)

Many Chinese think that the ten died as a result of the lockdown in place in Urumqi. At the beginning of the lockdown, barriers were erected to keep people at home. During the fire, people were unable to escape from the block of flats, and the emergency forces were greatly delayed, due to the same barriers being in the way.

That was the fatal blow, and then the protests really started, and they quickly spread all over the country. I hope that the government will listen to the demonstrators, and then change their approach to the virus.

Unfortunately, if history is any indication, there is little hope that the right thing will be done!

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