The Prohibition Amendment, known as the Eighteenth Amendment, was ratified on January 16, 1919, and prohibited the manufacture, sale, and transportation of intoxicating liquors in the United States.
It was later repealed by the Twenty-first Amendment on December 5, 1933.
16th Amendment and the Establishment of Modern Income Tax (1913)
Congress had established our income system in 1913, and from what I have read, since states had to ratify an amendment, Congress and the states were covering all the financial bases because they knew that there would be a loss of alcohol tax revenues due to alcohol prohibition. What they didn’t foresee was all the alcohol being smuggled in from Canada, and that everyone and their Brother had built stills to make Moonshine.
They had raised income taxes to compensate for the loss of Alcohol taxes, but apparently they just couldn’t stand all the alcohol that was still being sold and consumed, and the Feds & the States not getting any tax revenue off of it. So they repealed the 18th Amendment with the 21st Amendment 14 yrs later.
Then we have the Controlled Substances Act that was signed into law in abt 1970. The CSA created the BNDD ( Bureau of Narcotics & Dangerous Drugs), as I remember, the BNDD really did not do much, but in 1973, Congress created the DEA with 1200 employees, and they appeared to take their job seriously. They had numerous campaigns with slogans. “Just Say NO” was the most infamous slogan back then.
In abt 2000, Congress passed a bill, “The Decade of Pain Law,” that strongly encouraged prescribers to properly treat a pt’s chronic pain. The Joint Commission (JC) labeled this law as the “Fifth Vital Sign” and made it a major standard for hospitals to meet to maintain their JC accreditation.
When the law expired ten years later, the political party in the majority of Congress had FLIPPED, and the law was not renewed. Opioid Rxs peaked in the 2010-2012 time frame. Florida did not have an active PDMP when the Decade Pain Law was in force. Early in the 2010 decade Rick Scott became Florida’s Governor, and Pam Bondi became attorney general. They got the FL legislature to get a PDMP up and running in FL.
When Bondi ran for a second term, her TV ads stated that she ran over “200 oxy docs” out of Florida.
It would seem that the Tobacco lawsuit settlement that was settled in ~ 1999 gave a lot of bureaucrats and law firms the idea to start suing anyone and everyone who is involved in the opioid distribution system.
Purdue Pharma, whose Rx opioids were only 4% of all opioids, got sued into bankruptcy. From all the fines that were imposed on them by our judicial system. The advertising agency for Purdue Pharma got sued and ended up owing 350 million for helping Purdue Pharma promote the opioid products.
The pharmacy chains have had “rapid fire” lawsuits over the last 10-15 yrs. Rite Aid, which once had 5,000 stores, is now in bankruptcy and having a fire sale on the last 1,000 stores. Those stores will be bought up, and most will be closed, and those stores will be closed and the Rx files will be transferred to the buyer of those Rite Aid stores.
Walgreens, which once promoted that they were “the Pharmacy where America Shopped,” has been shedding a few hundred stores annually for a long time. A company that was once valued at 100 billion dollars is being sold off to an “investor group” for 10 billion.
The DOJ/DEA is so brazen that they are suing major companies with just ALLEGATIONS, which appear to be gathered from some “data mining” of filled opioid Rxs databases. Sort of a GUILTY UNTIL PROVEN INNOCENT.
Over the last 10-15 years, the DOJ/DEA has extracted 100 of billions of dollars out of all the companies and some practitioners that are involved with providing controlled medications to patients who have a valid medical necessity for these FDA-approved medications.
Is this an example of where prohibition has proved to be an easy source of money from entities that are providing a legal product?
Does this suggest that there is going to be a huge number of corporate corpses in the wake of this new wave of extortion of various entities that are selling a legal product to pts who have seen a prescriber who provides them a legal prescription for controlled substances?
We have seen the Feds reverse alcohol prohibition because they were failing to generate some tax revenue. Who believes that the Feds are going to ease up on the extortion and prosecution of all entities that are selling the legal product of FDA-approved controlled substances?
What other chronic health issues is “Uncle Sam” going to decide are “too expensive” for our society to manage and/or treat? Over the last 16 yrs we have seen our national debt increase FOUR FOLD ( from 9 trillion to abt 37 trillion).
U.S. Debt Credit Rating Downgraded, Only Second Time In Nation’s History
Death with Dignity laws – 11 states have laws, and 4 have it under consideration to make it the law. Have we come to the point where if you are not a “maker”, you should do what is best for our society, as a whole, to “check out”?
Oregon was the first state to pass such a law in 1989 https://deathwithdignity.org/history/
Filed under: General Problems
Prohibition is always bad. It is the basis of the black market, the gang activity, the poisonous and stronger substances, the overdoses, the failure to treat pain, the suicides, the border crisis, the incarceration of minorities, and now the attacks on compassionate doctors. Glad to see you are thinking now about what I’ve been saying for 9 years. We must get the CSA repealed. Join me on doctorsofcourage.org. We can do it if people would just understand what prohibition has and is doing.