Same Gov’t That’s Now Banning Flavored E-Cigs, Approved Candy-Flavored Amphetamines for Kids
By Matt Agorist
In case you’ve been under a rock lately, you’ve likely seen that the US government and mainstream media alike have taken a hard-nosed stance on flavored e-cigarettes or vaping. Last week, the Trump administration announced a sweeping ban of flavored e-cigarettes under the ostensible caring notion of stopping children from vaping.
Childhood smoking is certainly a concern, but the idea of a government ban on flavored cigarettes is outright laughable considering the things this government has already approved for children to put in their bodies. What’s more, banning these e-cigarettes will be a huge boon to the regular cigarette industry which kills hundreds of thousands every year.
“A lot of ex-smokers will go back to smoking,” said Dr. Michael Siegel, a professor and tobacco control expert at Boston University.
Widget not in any sidebars
“They’re addicted to nicotine. If their products are taken off the shelf, most won’t be able to quit cold turkey. There will be no way for them to get their products, so they’ll go back to smoking,” he added.
According to reports, six deaths have been attributed to vaping. Six deaths. And the direct attribution to vaping is still unclear. Meanwhile, 1,500 people die every single day in America from cigarette smoking related illness and this is just fine and dandy.
The idea that the government cares about the citizens when it moves to ban things is as insulting as it is asinine. As TFTP has shown on multiple occasions, banning does nothing to curb demand. It only makes the product come out on the black market—often times more dangerous and sold in shady markets which causes an increase in crime.
What’s more, a ban does nothing to figure out the problem. If this were lettuce or beef, there would be an investigation to find the source of the tainted product, but because it is an e-cig the utterly ignorant and brash reactionary state simply says “BAN IT!”
The bottom line is that these people are doing this for public approval points and they do not care about you. All of these crocodile tears shed by politicians are fake and are little more than campaign strategies meant to make it look like these elite fat cats in marble buildings who send off our children to die in wars for profit, somehow care about your child vaping.
One need only look at the long list of government-approved “medications” for children to realize this government has no interest in protecting you. As we reported in 2015, the FDA approved the use of oxycontin — yes, the drug behind the epidemic which is killing tens of thousands annually — for use in children. But that’s not all. If we look closer into the government’s ostensible concern with flavored tobacco attracting children, we can see how big of a scam it is when we look at the drug Adzenys XR-ODT.
For those who are unaware, Adzenys XR-ODT is a drug similar to Adderall and Ritalin. But what sets Adzenys XR-ODT apart is its similarity to flavored vapes as it literally comes in fruity candy flavor—and is chewable. This candied amphetamine has been approved in the United States since 2016. If the government was so concerned with children vaping because of the candy flavors, why are they silent on candy flavored amphetamines?
Presenting amphetamines in a tasty, convenient package is “a recipe for people to request it and then sell it,” said Dr. Mukund Gnanadesikan, a child and adolescent psychiatrist in Napa, Calif.
“I’m not a big fan of controlled substances that come in forms that can be easily abused — and certainly a chewable drug falls into that category,” Gnanadesikan said.
What’s more is the fact that these ADHD drugs are almost identical to meth.
Anyone who’s ever been given one of their friend’s Adderall knows the powerful effects brought on by this tiny unintimidating pink pill. Increased energy, enhanced ability to focus and concentrate, and a euphoric sense of being are the most common effects of this drug.
Coincidentally, increased energy, enhanced ability to focus and concentrate, and a euphoric sense of being — are also the most common effects of crystal meth.
So, why are these effects so similar? Because the drugs are nearly identical in their chemical structure.
Dr. Carl Hart is a professor of psychology and psychiatry at Columbia University. Hart is known for his research into drug abuse and drug addiction. Hart was also the first tenured African American professor of sciences at Columbia University. He received a bachelor of science and a master of science from the University of Maryland and he received his Ph.D. in neuroscience from the University of Wyoming. By all accounts, he is the expert in the field of drug use.
In an article on his website theinfluence.org, Hart explains that the only major difference between crystal meth and ADHD drugs is public perception.
Hart explains that this perception of illicit meth is largely due to misinformation put out by public service messages.
Perhaps it has something to do with public “educational” campaigns aimed at discouraging methamphetamine use. These campaigns usually show, in graphically horrifying detail, some poor young person who uses the drug for the first time and then ends up engaging in uncharacteristic acts such as prostitution, stealing from parents, or assaulting strangers for money to buy the drug. At the end of advertisement, emblazoned on the screen, is: “Meth—not even once.” We’ve also seen those infamous “meth mouth” images (extreme tooth decay), wrongly presented as a direct consequence of methamphetamine use.
These types of media campaigns neither prevent nor decrease the use of the drug; nor do they provide any real facts about the effects of meth. They succeed only in perpetuating false assumptions.
Swayed by this messaging, the public remains almost entirely ignorant of the fact that methamphetamine produces nearly identical effects to those produced by the popular ADHD medication d-amphetamine (dextroamphetamine). You probably know it as Adderall®: a combination of amphetamine and d-amphetamine mixed salts.
Hart admitted that he too believed that methamphetamine was far more dangerous than d-amphetamine, despite the fact that the chemical structure of the two drugs is nearly identical. However, after thoroughly researching the evidence, Hart shattered this belief.
To back up his claims, Hart and his team conducted a study of 13 men who regularly use methamphetamine. During the double-blind study, the men were given a hit of methamphetamine, of d-amphetamine, or of placebo. According to the study:
Like d-amphetamine, methamphetamine increased our subjects’ energy and enhanced their ability to focus and concentrate; it also reduced subjective feelings of tiredness and the cognitive disruptions typically brought about by fatigue and/or sleep deprivation. Both drugs increased blood pressure and the rate at which the heart beat. No doubt these are the effects that justify the continued use of d-amphetamine by several nations’ militaries, including our own.
And when offered an opportunity to choose either the drugs or varying amounts of money, our subjects chose to take d-amphetamine on a similar number of occasions as they chose to take methamphetamine. These regular methamphetamine users could not distinguish between the two. (It is possible that the methyl group enhances methamphetamine’s lipid-solubility, but this effect appears to be imperceptible to human consumers.)
It is also true that the effects of smoking methamphetamine are more intense than those of swallowing a pill containing d-amphetamine. But that increased intensity is due to the route of administration, not the drug itself. Smoking d-amphetamine produces nearly identical intense effects as smoking methamphetamine. The same would be true if the drugs were snorted intranasally.
The significance of Hart’s study has a paradigm-shattering effect. On one hand, it shows that a drug, which is legally taken by millions of children in the US, is identical to an illegal substance associated with a slew of negative traits. On the other hand, it shows that meth users are not much different from the millions of Americans who take its legal form.
The use of methamphetamine in the United States is actually on the decline according to U.S. National Drug Control Policy Director R. Gil Kerlikowske. However, there are over 3.5 million American children currently take an ADHD drug, a nearly 500% increase since 1990—and these numbers are several years old. If we look at the percentage increase over time, the number of children currently taking one of these drugs is likely far higher. Indeed, the ADHD drug industry is set to be a whopping $17.5 Billion by next year.
The pharmaceutical industry has figured out a way to market ADHD to the masses in an attempt to sell them their legal version of meth and they are doing so with candy flavors. And herein lies the irony of the entire situation. The government who is parading itself around as the saviors of our children by banning some flavored e-cigarette products is the same government saying nothing as millions of children are hooked on candy-flavored amphetamines. In fact, not only are they saying nothing about it, they are essentially promoting it.
Matt Agorist is an honorably discharged veteran of the USMC and former intelligence operator directly tasked by the NSA. This prior experience gives him unique insight into the world of government corruption and the American police state. Agorist has been an independent journalist for over a decade and has been featured on mainstream networks around the world. Agorist is also the Editor at Large at the Free Thought Project, where this article first appeared. Follow @MattAgorist on Twitter, Steemit, and now on Minds.
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