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The Other Drug War
Earlier this month, the Food and Drug Administration rejected the application of Biomarin Pharmaceutical to market its drug Kyndrisa™ (drisapersen) for use in the treatment of Duchenne muscular dystrophy. The FDA, as is often the case when it rejects a drug application, listed all sorts of technical reasons why the data presented was not sufficient to establish by respectable scientific means that the drug in question was safe and effective in its intended use. Without question, much evidence from the clinical trials revealed serious complications from the drug’s use, including blood-platelet shortages that were potentially fatal, kidney damage, and severe injection-site reactions. But the no-treatment alternative could prove far worse.
Duchenne is a rare but fatal genetic disorder that attacks only young boys, roughly 1 in 3,500 to 5,000. Typically, it first manifests itself between two and five years of age. With time, it relentlessly weakens the skeletal muscles that control movement in the arms, legs, and trunk. Most of its victims are wheelchair-bound between the ages of seven and 13. By 20, many have died.
Remember Martin Shkreli, the pharmaceutical executive who jacked up the prices of an off-patent drug used by some AIDS patients last year and who was recently perp-walked for securities fraud? The Left treated his arrest as a victory for the common man, but it hasn’t made pyrimethamine, the active ingredient in Daraprim, any more available to those who need it.
Here in New England, it’s hard to get through a news cycle without at least one mention of the region’s opioid epidemic. Every media outlet covers it; governors are creating task forces faster than you can count; and the presidential candidates expect daily questions on the matter, often from parents who lost a child to an overdose. (Notably, Jeb Bush’s daughter has struggled with addiction for years, and Carly Fiorina’s stepdaughter died of an overdose.)
Despite all the pushback Pope Francis has been getting from free-marketeers, two important stipulations are in order: markets are not equally good at solving all problems, and many of their best features can be undermined by the greedy or immoral. They can work miracles like nothing else, but they’re also somewhat dependent on flawed human beings
This may instantly mark me as a hopelessly out-of-it person, but it’s something I didn’t know. From 
As Ricochet member ShellGamer 
Yesterday, Fred Cole 
Let me be very upfront here: I’m one of those radicals who thinks we should legalize all drugs. I’m not just in favor of marijuana legalization, but also the “hard stuff”: heroin, cocaine, LSD, and just about anything else you can think of. If you’re one of those weirdos who wants to put 
hristie’s aggressive stance against the legalization of marijuana in Thursday’s edition of The Daily Shot, I thought I’d share my experience with both illegal and legal drugs from the “backstage at the rock concert” perspective, based on two recent experiences. Mind you, I don’t take drugs, so my experience as an observer will have to do.
Continuing on today’s theme of prohibition, a common and very reasonable argument made by prohibitionists is to point to all the dangers, criminality, and immorality associated with proscribed activities and ask whether society should invite more of them. The implication is that these problems are intrinsic to the activity itself and should further tip the scales toward prohibition.
As marijuana legalization and decriminalization gains traction nationwide — 
My father was a cocaine addict who died of an overdose. He began using when I was about eight, and died when I was 24. He tried to quit a couple of times — twice he went into treatment centers — but he was not successful.
In his post “
When Washington State and Colorado voters legalized marijuana in 2012, many worried that the decision would lead to mayhem on the Evergreen and Centennial states’ roadways.
I lost an argument the other day. It wasn’t one of those arguments that you lose because you didn’t care or because you didn’t try. It wasn’t an argument that you lose for a lack of articulation or for an inability to make others see what you see. It was the sort of argument that you lose simply because the law wasn’t on your side. That’s a difficult loss to take, and trying to sleep that night, exhausted and alert, as if shouting as loud as I could in an attempt to locate silence, I knew it was a problem for which I would find a solution only years after the opportunity had passed. Immediately after the argument, I stepped out and took a little walk with my client, a 14 year old girl, just to get her away from all the commotion of the courtroom. We talked about a lot of things, and anticipating conflict ahead, I told her of the principle of charity, to interpret every word spoken in the best possible light, to grant what good she could find, and to always argue tactics over intentions; she smiled and thanked me for helping her to get away from everyone.
