Healthcare Spending Now Accounts For Almost One-Fifth Of The Entire US Economy

Authored by Michael Snyder via The American Dream blog,

Everybody agrees that healthcare costs are way too high.  Back in 1960, healthcare spending accounted for approximately 5 percent of GDP, and by 2020 it is being projected that healthcare spending will account for 20 percent of GDP.  And when you break those numbers down into actual dollars, they become even more staggering.  Back in 1960, an average of $146 was spent on healthcare per person for the entire year, but today that number has skyrocketed to $9,990.  On a per capita basis, we spend far more than anyone else in the world on healthcare.

  In fact, we spend almost twice as much as most other industrialized nations on a per capita basis.  Something has gone terribly wrong, and we desperately need to get this fixed.

Just between the years of 1996 and 2013, our spending on healthcare rose by a whopping 900 billion dollars, and it is estimated that healthcare spending now accounts for nearly one-fifth of the entire U.S. economy.  The following comes from the Daily Mail…

US healthcare spending rocketed $900 billion between 1996 and 2013, staggering new data reveal.

 

Americans spend more money on healthcare than any other population, and increasingly so.

 

By 2013, total healthcare spending hit $2.1 trillion, according to the study published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The researchers say that figure has now likely soared to more than $3.2 trillion, which equates to 18 percent of the country’s economy.

So why is healthcare spending going up so much?

Well, the truth is that our population is aging, obesity is certainly on the rise, and medical care has become much more expensive.  In addition, we should acknowledge there are a couple of other major factors that we should acknowledge as well…

First, the United States relies on company-sponsored private health insurance. The government created programs like Medicare and Medicaid to help those without insurance. These programs spurred demand for health care services. That gave providers the ability to raise prices. Other efforts to reform health care and cut costs raised them instead.

 

Second, chronic illnesses, such as diabetes and heart disease, have increased. They are responsible for 85 percent of health care costs. Almost half of all Americans have at least one of them. They are expensive and difficult to treat.

 

As a result, the sickest 5 percent of the population consume 50 percent of total health care costs. The healthiest 50 percent only consume 3 percent of the nation’s health care costs.

Healthcare costs are only expected to rise even more in the years ahead, and so we desperately need to reform our system.

Because as it is, health insurance premiums are becoming completely unaffordable.  According to CNBC, health insurance premiums for plans purchased through an employer will be higher than ever next year…

Next year, employers expect to spend $8,527 per enrolled employee, according to data form the National Business Group on Health. Meanwhile, workers themselves will contribute an average of $2,752 toward their premiums.

And for those that have to purchase their own health insurance, things are even worse.  In fact, it is being projected that the average rate increase for Obamacare plans will be 37 percent in 2018.

When I get elected to Congress, I am going to make repealing Obamacare and fixing our broken healthcare system one of my highest priorities.

We need a system that is focused on the relationship between doctors and patients.  Compared to the rest of the world, we spend way too much on administrative costs, and we desperately need legal reform.  I would like to see Congress legalize the kind of association buying groups that Rand Paul has been proposing, and I would like to see exciting new models such as direct primary care used much more extensively.

There is no way that we should be spending nearly twice as much on healthcare as everyone else in the industrialized world on a per capita basis.  We must streamline the system, and we need to start using some common sense.

Unfortunately, common sense is in short supply in Washington D.C. these days, but hopefully we can start to change that.

*  *  *

Michael Snyder is a Republican candidate for Congress in Idaho’s First Congressional District, and you can learn how you can get involved in the campaign on his official website. His new book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.

The Government Has Created Every Step In The Development Of The Opiod Crisis

Authored by Mark Thornton via The Mises Institute,

The Washington Post and “60 Minutes” have just peeled back another sordid layer in the War on Drugs by exposing Big Pharma’s role in expanding the Opiod Crisis that has resulted in more than 30,000 deaths per year.

All the disgusting details can be found here, but it is really a straight forward case of legal bribery and corruption in the market for legal opiates — the driving force in this crisis as doctors continue to turn untold thousands of innocent people into opiate addicts.

Opiate medicines have been a Godsend to humanity, but it comes also with scourge of addiction, dependence, and overdose deaths. The Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914 made the situation worse thanks to the meddling of federal bureaucrats who turned regulation and oversight into prohibition.

One of the most demaging side effects of federal meddling in drug markets, however, has been the Opiod Crisis. I have detailed here and here the primary cause as Big Pharma bribing the board responsible for setting pain maintenance guidelines and the resulting explosion of prescriptions for Opiod drugs by doctors.

The newest wrinkle uncovered shows that pharmaceutical drug distributors have paid off select members of Congress to rewrite the enforcement guidelines for the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). A good case in point is Representative Tom Marino who withdrew his name from consideration as President Trump’s Drug Czar.

The new guidelines and their enforcement have effectively neutered any restraint on pharmaceutical producers and distributors. They can sell untold millions of these pills to pharmacies and pain clinics without any constraints. The additional cost of producing these heroin-like pills is virtually zero.

Is Bribery and Corruption a Good Thing?

Normally, bribery and corruption of public officials is a good thing because it allows more producers and more consumers to obtain gains from trade from each other. Such is not the case with prescription opiates in this environment.

The problem here is that there is not a functioning marketplace at all when it comes to distribution of prescription opiates. It is a government-granted monopoly in every respect. The products we are examining have not passed the market test and the producers are effectively protected by the government against torts, liability, and claims of misrepresentation.

In addition, pharmaceutical drugs have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and, essentially, the FDA grants monopolies to drug companies for their patented drugs and gives them an FDA seal of approval that the drugs are safe and effective.

Then another government-created monopoly, the American Medical Association (AMA) and its doctor-members have the monopoly on writing the necessary prescriptions to obtain drugs from yet another monopoly the pharmacists.

A doctor’s prescription is essentially another AMA seal of approval that the vast majority of people do not even question or even concern themselves with what they are taking. All of these monopolies are usually protected when consumers die as long as it happened when all the monopoly rules are followed.

Thus, with these products, like Oxycontin and Vicodin, there is no attempt to pass the "market test" by seeking to primarily please consumers. Instead, consumers end up being an afterthought after producers of the drug have catered to the needs and desires of countless regulatory agencies.  In real free market competition, an entrepreneur of dangerous products has to assure consumers that the products are safe and effective enough to use compared to the alternatives.

Opiates in Unhampered Markets

In other words, pain medications do not have to be perfectly safe and perfectly effective to be the best alternative choice for people who suffer with pain. However, they have to be reasonably safe and effective. The high potential for addiction, harm to health, and even death would be a “competitive disadvantage” in a real free market.

Just the opposite is the case here.

The government has created and overseen the creation of every step in the development of this crisis. The fact that crony capitalists have taken advantage of the situation should not be a surprise, especially when it is the only way to legally participate in the pharmaceuticals "market." 

 

LED Street Lights Could Be Harmful to Your Health

LED street lights are so hazardous to people’s health that the American Medical Association (AMA) has adopted an official policy about them.

Adopted unanimously at the AMA’s annual meeting in Chicago on June 14, 2016, the policy comes in response to the growing number of LED street lights in the country. An association committee issued guidelines on how communities can choose LED streetlights “to minimize potential harmful human health and environmental effects.”

Long-lasting LED lights are quickly replacing existing streetlights because they save municipalities money on energy and maintenance. But the AMA’s stance reflects the importance of properly designing new technologies and the tight link between light and human health.

In the statement, the AMA recommends that outdoor lighting at night, especially street lights, should have a color temperature (CT) no greater than 3,000 Kelvin (K). A light’s CT is a measure of the spectral content of light from a source – how much blue, green, yellow, and red there is in it. A higher CT rating usually means a light contains more blue content, which makes the light appear whiter. [1]

Bright LED street lights have been shown to make people feel safer. They also make it easier for police to distinguish the colors of the cars they are chasing. [2]

This Lights Comes with Risk

But blue light has a dark side. Research suggests that blue light can prevent people from sleeping, or make them sleep poorly, because it throws off the body’s circadian rhythm. This is one of the problems the AMA sites in its statement.

In addition to street lights, blue light also emanates from cell phones, computers, tablets, and other electronic devices. This is why so many doctors and health experts recommend never using these gadgets at bedtime.

According to researchers at Harvard, blue light is useful during the day because it boosts attention, reaction times, and mood. But blue light also suppresses the secretion of melatonin, a hormone secreted by the brain that makes people feel sleepy at night.

Melatonin boosts the immune system, and is known to have anti-aging properties, as well.

Green light also suppresses the secretion of melatonin, but blue light suppresses it for about twice as long and was shown in studies to shift circadian rhythms by twice as much (3 hours versus 1.5 hours).

A white LED light at CT 4,000 K or 5,000 K contains a high level of short-wavelength light blue. Many cities, including Seattle and New York City, have chosen these CT-count lights to retrofit their street lighting.

The CT count of 4,000K or 5,000K in LED lights is significantly higher than the CT count of incandescent bulbs, which may have a CT of 2,400K.

But many people have started complaining about the harshness of these lights, and this is the other problem the AMA refers to in the statement. In Davis, California, for example, residents have demanded a complete replacement of the high color temperature LED street lights.

The new “white” LED lights come with bothersome glare that can cause discomfort in the eyes. The light concentration and blue light in white LED’s cause pupillary constriction in the eyes. Blue light scatters more in the eye than the longer wavelengths of yellow and red, and sufficient levels can damage the retina. 

The AMA says in the statement:

“The detrimental effects of high-intensity LED lighting are not limited to humans. Excessive outdoor lighting disrupts many species that need a dark environment. For instance, poorly designed LED lighting disorients some bird, insect, turtle and fish species, and U.S. national parks have adopted optimal lighting designs and practices that minimize the effects of light pollution on the environment….

“The AMA recommends an intensity threshold for optimal LED lighting that minimizes blue-rich light. The AMA also recommends all LED lighting should be properly shielded to minimize glare and detrimental human health and environmental effects, and consideration should be given to utilize the ability of LED lighting to be dimmed for off-peak time periods.”

Dr. Maya Babu, an AMA board member, also says in the statement:

“Despite the energy efficiency benefits, some LED lights are harmful when used as street lighting.”

Sources:

[1] The Conversation

[2] Treehugger

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About Julie Fidler:
	Julie Fidler is a freelance writer, legal blogger, and the author of Adventures in Holy Matrimony: For Better or the Absolute Worst. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and two ridiculously spoiled cats. She occasionally pontificates on her blog.

Signs Of Distress

The world is edging closer to the final moments after which everything will be forever changed. Grand delusions, perpetuated over decades, will finally hit the limits of reality and collapse in on themselves.

We’re over-budget and have eaten deeply into the principal balances of all of our main trust accounts. We are ecologically overdrawn, financially insolvent, monetarily out past the Twilight Zone, consuming fossil fuels (as in literally eating them), and adding 80,000,000 net souls to the planet’s surface -- each year! -- without regard to the consequences.

Someday there will be hell to pay financially, economically, and ecologically as there simply isn’t any way to maintain these overdrafts forever. Reality does not renegotiate. Its deal terms aren"t compromisable.

For those who have the neural plasticity to actually see what"s happening around us, the changes are already here, blatant and frightening. Younger folks, with their fresher eyes and fewer ties to the past, can see them a lot easier than their elders.

The prosperity enjoyed by the past few generations -- especially the Baby Boomers -- was stolen from future generations. All the while, they pretended as if their borrowing-heavy standards of living were the result of sheer genius and intelligence; like trust fund babies who mistake being born on third base for hitting a triple.

Young people have sussed this out; and are now pulling back from many of the principal occupations of their forebears -- like marriage, babies and buying homes and cars. This perplexes older folks, who are beginning to find themselves increasingly at odds with the generations following after them.

Humans can be very very smart, but the flip-side of our ingenuity is our capacity for self-delusion. We’ve very consistently preferred to look past our faults. That can work for a while, but eventually an incomplete view will lead to a complete disaster. For example: depleting our topsoils today to grow more eventually leads to a collapse of our food system tomorrow. Similarly, increasing societal complexity ultimately drains the resources out of an empire, until it withers and fails. Such is what we can learn from history. Each of these examples is rooted in the self-delusion that today"s actions don"t have real consequences.

Monetary printing experiments like those currently being run by the world’s central banks are the ultimate form of self-delusion. Money is the most potent form of social communication, underlying all contracts and agreements. Violate those and literally everything falls apart, as we are seeing happen in real-time in Venezuela right now.

Money printing and its other historical debasement equivalents, serve to cover up (barely) critical signals. Derelict ideas that should die a quick death, instead, persist. Mis-priced money leads mal-investment (e.g., Italian junk debt selling with the same yield as ten year US Treasury debt!!). Extremely unfair redistributions of wealth from the bottom to the top result. Every. Single. Time. This time is no different.

If you cannot see this madness in the chart below, I strongly suggest you keep staring at it until you can. It shows the exploding balance sheet of the central bank of "the floating retirement colony" known as Japan:

The Japanese money printers have gone hog-wild over the past decade. And they"ve had company. The other major central banks of the wold have been printing $trillions and $trillions, too, over the same time period. What will the repercussions be? The world is about to find out.

But it’s actually far worse than that. For those who can bear to look, the signs of illness are as startlingly obvious as gangrene on a necrotic limb. Species are going extinct at an unprecedented rate. Glaciers are fast disappearing. Frogs and insect populations are mysteriously collapsing. Massive destruction of the landscape as we chase the last low-EROEI fuels remaining (tar sands, and shale wells). Miles-deep mining efforts. Enormous human migrations away from economically and ecologically ruined areas (see: the MENA region).

But the average citizen remains largely blind and/or numb to these. Again, much of this has to do with self-delusion that broken signals enable. People worry less as long as the stock markets are showing higher values, which is precisely why we don’t trust them anymore – they have become the most important signaling devices for The Powers That Be. They are far too important to leave to the vagaries of investors, and must be rescued/controlled/manipulated so that the “right” outcomes can be achieved.

If we’re lucky when these financial delusions finally break, we’ll hopefully avoid a global war. That’s the usual route by which the politicians and bankers seek to avoid having to be held accountable for the colossal mistakes they made in the past. They drag everyone to in a manufactured confrontation, whooping up the populace into a fever pitch by inventing hobgoblins -- exactly as has recently happened in the US with the recent rash of Russia-phobia; a case study in how easily public perception can be manipulated (as well as proof-positive that critical thinking skills are no longer requirements for today"s journalists).

But if we’re unlucky, war may destroy much of what we take for granted and hold dear. Living standards will drop. The veil covering today"s massive financial deception will be yanked off, revealing the shriveled, cold promises of past decades as being wholly incapable of meeting their obligation to fund millions of promised retirements.

And if we’re really unlucky, that war could involve some horrendous new weapons that could cripple our nation"s electrical grid (e.g., EMP, cyber attack). In which case, all of our individual attention and effort in the northern hemisphere will focus down to one simple task: surviving the first winter.

Signs Of Distress

In ways conscious and subconscious, we"re becoming aware of the signs of growing instability around us. Like a flock of sheep catching the scent of an unseen predator, right now we’re collectively becoming increasingly nervous and stressed. People’s tempers are short with each other, criticisms fly easily, and stances are becoming hardened to ludicrous levels.

Many don’t know why they"re unhappy. And because they"re unable to identify the source, they blame themselves. Instead of acting out, they act in.

Heavy drinking is on the rise:

More U.S. adults are drinking, and more heavily

Aug 9, 2017

The United States has a serious drinking problem. Since 2001, heavy drinking and alcohol use disorder have risen dramatically, according to a new study that surveyed tens of thousands of adults.The numbers reveal “a public health crisis,”the authors say.

The increases were especially large among those 65 years and older, minorities and women, researchers report online August 9 in JAMA Psychiatry. Alcohol is a risk factor for many potentially life-threatening injuries and health problems, including cardiovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes and liver cirrhosis.

In 2012?2013, an estimated 29.6 million American adults reported high-risk drinking, up from 20.2 million in 2001?2002.

(Source)

Alcohol is not enough for some people. Their need to numb themselves to the bleak existence of their lives leads them to opioids, both legal and illegal:

Opioid Crisis: The Awful Arithmetic of America’s Overdoses May Have Gotten Worse

Aug 7, 2017

The deadly drug overdose epidemic that has been ravaging the nation may be even worse than we realize.

A new University of Virginia study says the numbers of deaths due to heroin and opioid overdoses have actually been severely underreported.

Dr. Christopher Ruhm revisited thousands of death certificates from 2008 through 2014 and concluded the mortality rates were 24 percent higher for opioids and 22 percent higher for heroin than had been previously reported.

Ruhm’s awful arithmetic emerged just days after the presidential opioid commission, led by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, urged President Donald Trump to “declare a national emergency” to deal with the crisis.

Nearly 35,000 people across America have died of heroin or opioid overdoses in 2015, according to theNational Institute on Drug Abuse.

(Source)

Records are being broken:

Opioid deaths in US break new record

Aug 8, 2017

The first nine months of 2016 saw a sharp increase in opioid drug overdoses in the US compared to the prior year, according to new data by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). The government is struggling to respond to the crisis.

Deaths due to drug overdose peaked in the third quarter of last year – 19.7 cases for every 100,000 people, compared to 16.7 in the same period the year before,according to newly released numbers from the NCHS, which is part of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

(Source)

That is a startling rate of increase. 3/16.7 = 18% An 18% increase in one year is profound. What’s going on? We won’t go into the really dark side of this story which is that certain pharmaceutical companies make a ton of money off of addicted people, and those same companies donate a lot of money to the US political system. Suffice it to say that the worship of money and power is so profound that some activities of late cannot really be distinguished from those of a death cult.

For those who are not into opioids other avenues towards relieving the pain exist,

One in 6 Americans Take Antidepressants, Other Psychiatric Drugs

One in six Americans take some kind of psychiatric drugs — mostly antidepressants, researchers reported Monday.

They also found that twice as many white people take those drugs as do African-Americans or other minorities, and fewer than 5 percent of Asian-Americans do. And most people who take them are taking them long-term, Thomas Moore of the Institute for Safe Medication Practices in Alexandria, Virginia and colleagues found.

"Overall, 16.7 percent of 242 million U.S. adults reported filling one or more prescriptions for psychiatric drugs in 2013,” they wrote in the Journal of the American Medical Association’s JAMA Internal Medicine.

(Source)

If one in six Americans is being medicated for depression and/or anxiety, and another significant chunk are checking out via opioid numbing, perhaps we need to consider an alternative explanation for these facts: There’s something wrong with the world these people are inhabiting -- not with the people themselves.

Charles Eisenstein really caught my mind’s attention with a piece he wrote long ago entitled The Mutiny of the Soul. In it he argues that perhaps those most in need of medicinal help are actually those who are most attuned to the actual state of the world. He explains the rise in depression and anxiety like this:

The answer is staring us in the face. When our soul-body is saying No to life, through fatigue or depression, the first thing to ask is, "Is life as I am living it the right life for me right now?" When the soul-body is saying No to participation in the world, the first thing to ask is, "Does the world as it is presented me merit my full participation?"

What if there is something so fundamentally wrong with the world, the lives, and the way of being offered us, that withdrawal is the only sane response?

I have met countless people of great compassion and sensitivity, people who would describe themselves as "conscious" or "spiritual", who have battled with CFS, depression, thyroid deficiency, and so on. These are people who have come to a transition point in their lives where they become physically incapable of living the old life in the old world.

That is because, in fact, the world presented to us as normal and acceptable is anything but. It is a monstrosity. Ours is a planet in pain. If you need me to convince you of that, if you are unaware of the destruction of forests, oceans, wetlands, cultures, soil, health, beauty, dignity, and spirit that underlies the System we live in, then I have nothing to say to you. I only am speaking to you if you do believe that there is something deeply wrong with the way we are living on this planet.

So if you suffer from anxiety, maybe you don"t have a "disorder" at all — maybe the house is on fire. Anxiety is simply the emotion corresponding to "Something is dangerously wrong and I don"t know what it is." That is only a disorder if there is in fact nothing dangerously wrong. "Nothing is wrong, just you" is the message that any therapy gives when it tries to fix you.

I disagree with that message. The problem is not with you. You have very good reason to be anxious. Anxiety keeps part of your attention away from your tasks of polishing the silverware as the house burns down, of playing the violin as the Titanic sinks.

Unfortunately, the wrongness you are tapping into might be beyond the cognizance of the psychiatrists who treat you, who then conclude that the problem must be your brain.

(Source)

Does that all ring a bell of truth for you as it does for me? 

Perhaps the sanest response to being in a world that does not merit your full participation is to check out. Drinking, drugs, video games and Netflix binges (while not advised or endorsed) are much more understandable when viewed through this lens.

(Full disclosure, these past few years have not been easy on me, either. I prefer action and constructive motion, so the past few years have been like one of those dreams where you"re desperate to move but your body remains frozen in place. I’ve wanted things to finally come to a head so we can at least begin the process of acknowledging our predicaments and facing them head on. Beneath it all is my dread at the prospect that all these years of delaying and denying will amount to a larger and more painful correction when it comes.)

It really begs the question: What if there’s nothing wrong with the people who are anxious or depressed, but the exact opposite is true; those who are cheerful and chipper are missing the plot?

If you were an astronaut and your one-and-only spaceship was leaking oxygen into the infinite void of Space, would you medicate those expressing concern while rewarding those with positive attitudes and power drills who continue to punch more holes in the hull? Of course not. Why should we think any differently in the case of spaceship Earth?

The truth is that the lifestyle we"re living today is vastly distant from the one humans evolved to value. Sebastian Junger explained to us in a podcast that returning veterans commit suicide at the rate of 22 per day largely because they experience such "emptiness" upon reintegrating into civilian life. Unit cohesion in the military was so much more fulfilling and enriching that the prospect of a permanent return to what we call “US culture” leads many of them to conclude that suicide is the better option. If there"s a more damning indictment of the current culture in the US, I don’t know of it.

The data is clear: in the US, people are as unhappy, overmedicated and overweight than ever before.

Our society"s current plan is just not working. So why not square up to that reality, take charge and fix things while we still can? Why would we agree to persist in this dangerously broken state of affairs?

We, each of us and all of us, have the power to pursue a different path. A better path. We can and we should change everything that needs changing. We must rebel against this state of affairs, and withdraw our consent from a toxic system rather than let that system break us down.

The time for a quiet revolution has arrived. One that begins with, and within, you.

In Part 2: Joining The Quiet Revolution, we explain how the signs of distress detailed above can be used to add urgency in making investments in your life that will make you happier, healthier, more engaged, and prosperous -- both today and tomorrow. The data is telling us that from here, the extreme changes the world is experiencing will only accelerate.

Those who can see this and adapt will fare far better than those who cannot, will not, or won’t.

Some will thrive, some will survive, many will do neither.

Click here to read the report (free executive summary, enrollment required for full access)

It's Been Exactly 80 Years Since The US Declared War On Weed - And Weed Is Still Winning

Authored by Carey Wedler via TheAntiMedia.org,

The government fought cannabis - and cannabis won.

This Wednesday is the eightieth anniversary of the first major action the federal government took against cannabis in the United States, and eight decades later, that same federal government has still failed to reduce Americans’ consumption of the plant. In fact, it’s on the rise.

Long before the era of prohibition, druggists used cannabis as a medicine. According to Origins, a joint publication by the Ohio State University and Miami University history departments:

“Cannabis, like opiates and cocaine, was freely available at drug stores in liquid form and as a refined product, hashish. Cannabis was also a common ingredient in turn-of-the-century patent medicines, over-the-counter concoctions brewed to proprietary formulas.”

Then, like today, it helped people relax:

“The hashish candy advertised in an 1862 issue of Vanity Fair as a treatment for nervousness and melancholy, for example, was also ‘a pleasurable and harmless stimulant.’ ‘Under its influence all classes seem to gather new inspiration and energy,’ the advertisement explained.”

Though in 1906 the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act required patent medicine companies to list cannabis as an ingredient in products where it was present – and between 1914 and 1925 26 states passed laws prohibiting it — it wasn’t until 1937 federal authorities took substantial action.

On August 2, 1937, Congress passed the “Marihuana Tax Act,” which was largely the result of anti-narcotic crusader Henry Anslinger’s mission to ban the plant. As Time has explained, creating a “tax” on the substance effectively outlawed it:

“As with the Harrison Narcotic Act in 1914, Congress deemed an act taxing and regulating drugs, rather than prohibiting them, less susceptible to legal challenge. As a result, the 1937 legislation was ostensibly a revenue measure. Just as the Harrison Act used taxation and regulation to, in effect, prohibit morphine, heroin and other drugs, the Marijuana Tax Act essentially outlawed the possession or sale of marijuana.”

There are a variety of documented reasons for this ban. For one, Henry Anslinger was hysterically opposed to drugs. According to Origins, Anslinger,  a “former assistant commissioner of the Prohibition Bureau who headed the U.S. Treasury Department’s Narcotics Bureau from 1930 to 1962,” had previously advocated against a ban on cannabis because he believed it would be difficult to enforce (you don’t say!).

Origins explained:

“However, Anslinger began to capitalize on fears about marijuana while pressing a public relations campaign to encourage the passage of uniform anti-narcotics legislation in all 48 states. He later lobbied in favor of the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937.”

Many of these fears were the result of calculated campaigns in the 1920s by prohibition activists, who were inspired by their “success” in banning alcohol. Further, William Randolph Hearst, the infamous publishing magnate, launched a campaign to associate cannabis with violence and the degradation of society.

“The association of murder, torture, and mindless violence with marijuana was not borne out by evidence or actual events but blossomed thanks to the vivid imaginations of the journalists charged with sensationalizing the tired story of drug use and addiction,” Origins noted.

Similarly, Anslinger sounded the alarm on the alleged murders and rapes people committed while under the influence of the devil’s lettuce. In 1936, the film Reefer Madness, which now plays like a comedy, warned of the psychosis, violence, and dangers cannabis could bring about. The film warned of “marijuana, the burning weed with its roots in hell.” Much of the testimony advocating the 1937 tax act focused on these unfounded fears, and Anslinger led the way.

“How many murders, suicides, robberies, criminal assaults, holdups, burglaries and deeds of maniacal insanity it causes each year can only be conjectured,” he wrote in a 1937 article titled “Marijuana, Assassin of Youth.” (Today, some research suggests cannabis is not linked to increases in violent crime).

The only witness who testified against the proposed ban was a representative from the American Medical Association, who congressmen dismissed (Anslinger also made an effort throughout his career to discredit research suggesting cannabis was not dangerous). The bill easily passed, undermining legal cannabis and also outlawed the production of hemp. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed it into law.

Another related driver behind the ban stemmed from racism within American society. Though cannabis had been used in medicines and hemp was used in industry to produce materials like rope (in the 1600s, colonists were actually required to grow it), Mexican immigrants introduced the practice of smoking the plant, which, “in turn, generated a reaction in the U.S., tinged perhaps with anti-Mexican xenophobia.” This fear spurred the 1906 regulation in the Pure Food and Drug Act and persisted into the 1930s.

As Rolling Stone noted, there had been conversations in the United States not just about cannabis use, but other drugs, since the late 19th century.

“But in the next 50 years, concerns about inebriation only translated into law if the substance wasn’t already controlled by a powerful industry, and if there was a perception, accurate or not, that a given drug was being used by poor people, immigrants, and people of color.”

As fears surrounding substance use grew, Rolling Stone observed, they dovetailed with racist stereotypes about the poor and minorities that assumed these groups were more likely to commit crimes, be lazy, and lack self-control when it came to “sex, violence, and intoxication.”

By 1952, Congress had passed the Boggs Act, which imposed strict mandatory sentences for various drugs, including cannabis. In the 1970s, the Controlled Substances Act was passed, placing drugs into “schedules” as we know them today.

Though Nixon touted the war on drugs as an effort to save society, one of his advisers, John Ehrlichman, reportedly claimed in the 1990s that they pursued cannabis as an effort to criminalize black and anti-war activist. Other former advisers then claimed Ehrlichman was either joking or mistaken, but a cursory examination of arrests for cannabis shows the war on weed has disproportionately affected African-Americans though they use the substance at roughly the same rate as white Americans.

Overall, according to the ACLU, cannabis arrests accounted for over half of all drug arrests between 2000 and 2010, and 88% of those were for possession.

Though states across the country have begun to legalize cannabis both for medicinal and recreational use, the federal government continues to dig its heels in. The DEA recently insisted that even cannabidiol, a non-psychoactive cannabinoid, falls into the ominous Schedule I category, which also includes MDMA, LSD, and mushrooms but fails to cover highly dangerous and toxic legal drugs like alcohol and opioids.

Many industries also continue to oppose cannabis legalization. The alcohol industry, the private prison industry, and prison guard and police unions all lobby against legalization.  Most notably, pharmaceutical companies fight to keep cannabis illegal, all while at least one opioid producer concocts its own synthetic cannabis with the approval of the same FDA and DEA that opted to keep cannabis a Schedule I drug.

But against all these odds, cannabis continues to beat the government and establishment’s decades-long fight against it.

Many Americans have outgrown the fears instilled in them through films like Reefer Madness and are beginning to accept a live-and-let-live mentality. Though more research on the plant is undoubtedly needed (and limited due to federal restrictions), preliminary scientific studies and anecdotal evidence suggest the plant has the potential to treat a variety of ailments, from epilepsy to nausea to Parkinson’s disease. Veterans are increasingly using it to treat PTSD.

The United States’ relationship with cannabis is coming full circle, returning to times when it was a common ingredient in everyday medications. Many Americans are opting to substitute opioids with cannabis for pain, and opioid overdose deaths are lower in states with legal medical cannabis. Cannabis also poses a threat to profits from other pharmaceuticals.

Beer company profits have fallen in states where cannabis is legal, and some states are even moving to legalize hemp.

Meanwhile, cannabis industry is expected to generate $20 billion annually by 2020, and police are frequently trolled for attempting to enforce cannabis laws that Americans increasingly perceive as petty and unproductive.

All the while, federal bureaucracies continue to lag behind, clinging to outdated myths and prohibitions that — over the course of the better half of a century — have been debunked and proven ineffective, which is unsurprising considering humans have been consuming the plant for well over 2,000 years.

Trump Prepares Executive Orders To Begin Obamacare Repeal On "Day One"

With the Senate already having launched the process of repealing Obamacare when, as reported yesterday, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Mike Enzi released a 2017 budget resolution setting up the process to partially repeal Obamacare early in Donald Trump’s administration, on Wednesday vice president-elect Mike Pence met with Republican congressional leaders to plot the strategy of how to repeal Obama"s signature healthcare law.

Speaking to House republicans, Pence said Trump plans to take executive actions to start unwinding ObamaCare on day one: "Our first order of business will be to repeal and replace ObamaCare," Pence told reporters, adding the process would begin "day one."

"The speaker of the house used the word ‘stable,’ and we will do that," Pence said at a news conference after a private meeting Wednesday with House Republicans. There’s a "broad range of idea on how to do this," he said, without giving details of what a replacement might look like.

The VP-elect added that “it will be an orderly transition to something better...using executive authority to ensure it’s an orderly transition. We’re working now on a series of executive orders that will enable that orderly transition to take place even as Congress appropriately debates alternatives to and replacements for ObamaCare.”

Rep. Chris Collins added that, "The president in his first day in office is going to do some level of executive orders related to ObamaCare," however he added that there were "no details whatsoever" on the orders discussed in the meeting. Rep. Mark Amodei of Nevada said Pence had told Republican lawmakers that "we are mindful of disrupting the markets."

Incoming White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters Tuesday that Trump considers Inauguration Day as "Day One" of his presidency: "He is prepared and ready to go. As he"s said before, he wants to enact real change on day one. That will mean within hours of being sworn in," Spicer said. "He put his team on notice that he expects nothing less than everyone getting right to work for the American people."

Pence"s call for an "orderly" transition comes as healthcare experts warn that the Republican strategy of repealing ObamaCare on a delay without an immediate replacement would cause chaos, leading to insurers dropping out of the market and people having few or no options for coverage.

At the same time, in a series of posts on Twitter, Trump urged fellow Republicans to assign blame to Obama"s Democrats: "Republicans must be careful in that the Dems own the failed ObamaCare disaster, with its poor coverage and massive premium increases," Trump tweeted. "Don"t let the Schumer clowns out of this web."

“Massive increases of ObamaCare will take place this year and Dems are to blame for the mess,” he added. ”It will fall of its own weight -- be careful!”

Despite Trump"s eagerness to unwind Obamacare, Republicans will have obstacles to overcome. For one, they have not decided how long to delay the repeal of ObamaCare. Options floated range from two years to four years. Some Senate Republicans, meanwhile, are uneasy with the idea of repealing ObamaCare without a replacement immediately available. Roughly twenty million people stand to lose coverage if ObamaCare is repealed and no replacement materializes.

As The Hill notes, Senator Rand Paul this week became the latest Republican to call for simultaneous repeal and replace.

And while Republicans from Pence on down are clearly eager to get rid of ObamaCare, there is much more cautious enthusiasm among the GOP about crafting a healthcare policy to replace it. Lawmakers close to the pending overhaul described it as a lengthy and deliberative process, aimed to minimizing disruptions for Americans as the nation’s healthcare system changes.

“We have to make sure there’s a very effective transition going forward,” said Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas), who chairs the House Ways and Means Committee. “I’m hopeful that we can continue to lay out those pieces on a step-by-step basis through this year.”

“The devil is always in the details. What does repeal include, and what is the pace of replacement so that we can do it responsibly,” said Rep. Patrick Meehan (R-Pa.). “It’s not going to be any kind of one-and-done process. It’ll be work that will go on for a period of time.”

GOP lawmakers emerging from the meeting with Trump’s inner circle said no details for a replacement were discussed. Rep. Walter Jones equated the powwow to a “pep rally” aimed at boosting enthusiasm among Republicans for the job ahead.

Still, GOP conservatives in the caucus are clearly eager to get moving on repeal, even as a replacement continues to remain unclear. “Healthcare will be better and less expensive when ObamaCare is repealed,” said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), head of the conservative Freedom Caucus. “I believe that.”

* * *

Meanwhile, in a bid to salvage a major piece of his political legacy, Obama is meeting on Wednesday with congressional Democrats, including U.S. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, to discuss ways to counter Republican-led efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Obama met with House and Senate Democrats at the Capitol in the morning to talk about ways that Democrats can keep in place at least some parts of the divisive health-care law, the signature legislative accomplishment of Democrats during Mr. Obama’s eight years in office. Obama told Democrats that he takes responsibility for not having fully communicated the potential benefits of the health-care law, according to a Democratic aide.

“Despite the negativity you have a big chunk of the country that wants this thing to succeed,” the president said, according to the aide. “There are real lives at stake in this thing.”

Representative Louise Slaughter, a New York Democrat, told reporters Obama’s speech was "nostalgic" and that he spoke of the 20 million people who rely on Obamacare. He spoke of letters received from people who said they would have died without it, she said. She scoffed at the GOP’s repeal strategy, saying, "You wouldn’t think of tearing down a house before you have a new one." Asked whether she intends to work with Republicans on a replacement, she said no. 

"We don’t even think of repealing the law. Our job is to save the one we’ve got," Slaughter said.

Democratic Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio said the ball is in Republicans’ court on a replacement. "They’ve got to come up with a lot of answers if they repeal it," he said.

* * *

Obama might have some success in preserving at least parts of Obamacare: Trump has vowed to protect some popular parts of the Obamacare law, such as barring insurance companies from denying coverage to people with pre-existing medical conditions. But he wants to replace it with a system that is "much better and much less expensive," as he told Reuters on Oct. 25 after premium increases emerged in some healthcare markets.

A House Republican leadership aide said there are lots of Republican “ideas” but it was too early to know what will end up in replacement legislation.

Cited by Reuters, the American Medical Association doctors" group urged caution in making changes to Obamacare, which the organization supported. "In considering opportunities to make coverage more affordable and accessible to all Americans, it is essential that gains in the number of Americans with health insurance coverage be maintained," the AMA said in a letter to congressional leaders.

The AMA said before any action is taken on Obamacare policymakers should lay out for the American people "in reasonable detail what will replace current policies."

That, however, does not appear realistic if, indeed, Trump plans to issue an executive order in just 16 days beginning the process of undoing Obamacare.