Cigarette-Vodka Czar Ivanov

published November 18- bacposted to Oct 28

This photo from the October 24, 2012 ‘Russia Today’ advertising supplement - of Russia’s ‘Drug Czar’ Viktor Ivanov - next to photo of man smoking a tobacco cigarette next to a child- frames it succinctly

It's captioned “Ivanov speaks at a forum on fighting drug production in Afghanistan”. 

Ought to captioned – “Ivanov speaks at forum on Protecting Cigarettes and Vodka From the Market Threat of Safer Substances”-  “Protecting cigarette markets by kidnapping-extorting people with Opiates, MJ and “cocaine”.

Pushes the cigarette-pharmacratic mercantilism-inquisition.  Is he part of some conspiracy to make Russia look exceptionally stupid, particularly with its true leading drug problems of alcohol (primarilPeople like to conflate the existence of a monolithic entity of “drugs”.

That disregards the existence of many drugs, including the many that are not illegal- if it were a war on drugs then why only on some, and without regard to actual matters of pharmacology and pharmacokinetics.  You know- comparing by comparable forms.  Such as a plant infusion versus a plant infusion.  A concentrated white powder or sulfate versus another such white powder or sulfate, and particular mode of administration.   Rather than a double standard of a plant infusion of one drug versus an ultra concentrated dosing of another drug.  Say drinking coffee or caffeine containing tea.  Or smoking Tobacco one way or another.  Versus snorting, smoking or injecting concentrated cocaine or morphine or heroin.  But what about drinking coca or smoking opium?  Or drinking or eating opium or coca?   We only have about 25 years of coca cigarettes, denying a longer term study of their health effects – though a sufficient to know they were not crack cocaine- aka not an abuse problem.  Nor were the coca beverages, even those made with isolated cocaine appropriately diluted down.  Nor really were opium products- asides from being physically addictive like coffee or especially Tobacco.  Yet we have this universal deference to a serious double standard established circ. 1906.  Coca-cocaine and Opiates are targeted as extra dangerous requiring all sorts of intrusions and bureaucracy making.  Nevermind that the “laws” from then on equating coca and otherwise dilute cocaine with concentrated cocaine simply shifted markets for the worse.  And they call the war on some drugs a war on drug abuse?  Or a strike for public health?  Really?  When it bans the substances that take no lives in their natural forms and potencies- and for the sake of the market protection of alcohol and cigarettes the latter taking nearly half a million lives annually each in the USA and Russia?!

Yet Tobacco cigarettes in particular are green lighted; in the USA with a 1906 FDA excluding tobacco from its purview while giving the dictatorial power to the US Department of Agriculture!

If one cares about the abuse of concentrated drugs- they are actually promoting such by supporting the status quo.

Take some Blast caffeine concentrate. Or some nicotine.  Adulterate it with some other white powder to ensure one does not know the exact purity.  Jack up the price to encourage its most efficient re direct use.  Watch the differences between taking such drugs that way.  See the health problems cause by say switching to injecting a drug- as that’s the most effective way especially when the drug’s price is jacked up by the prohibition. Watch the drug treatment quacks salivating over the business generated by such modes of drug taking.  We could make tobacco illegal as opiates and coca-cocaine are now, and adopt a methodone model.  Imagine that making people who can now purchase nicotine chewing gum at drug stores instead go to special nicotine maintenance clinics, which restrict take home doses, so one is addicted to the clinic.  Imagine adopting the same model making Tobacco and concentrated nicotine equally illegal by gross weight.  Think about the LSD carrier weight issue.  These “laws” equate an inactive ingredient with the accompanying relatively if not entirely inert co-ingredients, e.g. potentially making an 8 ounce cup of coca tea as ‘illegal’ as ½ pound of cocaine hci or sulfate.  What a waste of money and time.  But what a jobs creator!  Just lie to yourself.  Forget it’s a scam, and instead delude yourselves by calling it a moral crusade- while in reality it's anything but.

For the sake of Russia, it's an invaluable means to subvert human health and human rights for the sake of making it safe for cigarettes and vodka.