A Tale of Two Opioid Epidemics

Continuing with my assertion that America and China have a few things to learn from each other — and that this is the only sensible relationship for these two empires to have with each other, rather than moving towards a global war — America should look to none other than Chairman Mao Zedong for inspiration to deal with its current opioid epidemic.

There is a strong parallel between America’s opioid crisis today and China’s opioid problem of the 19^th century. In both cases, the drugs were pushed on a weakened populace by foreign elites who enjoyed legal protection. Tim Kelly has an interview with Fr. Matthew Raphael Johnson on the Opium Wars, detailing how the Sassoon family monopolized the drug trade in China, and paid off the British empire to act as its mercenary army and force the Chinese to open their gates to an unimpeded flow of opium.

In the case of America, it was the Sackler family and Purdue Pharma that developed Oxycontin and lied about its addictive qualities, the same way Bayer lied about heroin being a supposedly non-addictive alternative to morphine a hundred years before. (What does the Sassoon family share in common with the Sackler family? You guessed it — both names start with the letter S!)

Newt Gingrich, who is quite smart, making it a shame that he’s completely unprincipled and untrustworthy, once said in regards to the drug problem that America should either legalize drugs or adopt “very draconian measures” to eradicate them. He points to Singapore as a country that has successfully combated drug use in its society, but a better example would be Communist China.

When Mao Zedong came to power, he dealt with the problem of opium addiction in exactly this way: strict prohibition, and death sentences for anyone involved in the drug trade. And it worked. One of the reasons that the Chinese people still revere Mao to this day, despite his many errors and crimes leading to millions and millions of deaths, is because he is the one that set the Chinese (really the Han) nation on the path to independence after centuries of subjection, first to the northern Manchu during the Qing dynasty, and then to various foreign powers during the “century of humiliation” before 1949. 

The biggest obstacle to stopping the drug problem in America, though, is that no one in power wants to stop it. It’s a trillion dollar business, both legal and illegal, and it has been a part of how elites control the masses for most of human history. In the 1970s, the American military and intelligence agencies were in Southeast Asia, where heroin is made, and America experienced a heroin epidemic. In the 1980s, the same guys were in Latin America, where cocaine is made, and the country experienced a cocaine epidemic. Fast forward to the 2000s: America has been in Afghanistan for twenty years, during which time opium production has gone from an all-time low under the Taliban to an all-time high right now. And meanwhile, back home we have an opioid epidemic. What an amazing set of coincidences.

It needs to be said too that China now plays a part in this problem by producing fentanyl and other synthetic opioids, both in China and in North Korea, which find their way into the American drug supply. I’m quite sure the Chinese see this as revenge for their own mistreatment by the Sassoons, the British, and some Americans such as the Delano family, ancestors of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It’s also a way for them to exploit the weakness of their competitor empire and create additional problems for them, the same way America exploits the unrest in Hong Kong to create additional problems for China. But China is not the main player in America’s opioid crisis, any more than the Americans or even the British as such were the main players in China’s opium crisis of the 19^th century. As usual, elites — often of foreign extraction — engage in criminality, and then others are made to suffer the consequences. However, as the cold war between China and the U.S. heats up, and as the Sacklers and Purdue Pharma come under increased scrutiny for their role in the crisis, I am quite sure that many voices will emerge attempting to shift the blame onto China. There are two reasons for this: to deflect responsibility from the Sacklers and other corporate drug dealers, and to promote war between America and China, which means profits for the military industrial complex.

The reasons for America’s opioid crisis are several, and one reason is certainly the cultural, economic, and spiritual decay of American society, creating widespread malaise and depression, which people then seek to escape with painkilling drugs. Beyond this, the medical establishment, which largely acts as a pimp for the pharmaceutical companies, bears a great deal of responsibility. Opioid addiction is created by doctors recklessly over-prescribing painkillers for just about anything, ignoring safer and often more effective, non-addictive methods of treatment such as exercise and lifestyle adjustment. Then, when the person has become an addict, the medical establishment shuns him as a drug-seeking junky, pushing him out onto the streets, where the illegal dealers take over from the legal dealers at Big Pharma. Sooner or later the addict gets arrested and winds up in prison, where he becomes slave labor for the Prison Industrial Complex. Inside, he remains an addict, because drugs are even easier to get in prison than on the street. 

The problem with fighting drugs with “very draconian measures” is that what people like Newt Gingrich often mean by this is simply increasing the punishments for addicts, which is very convenient for Wackenhut, Corrections Corporation of America, the DEA, and other slavers and criminals. If America were serious about a War on Drugs, they would have to start at the top, which means the drug companies, which have not only poisoned and killed people by engaging in exactly the same business as illegal drug dealers — knowingly selling and promoting harmful and addictive drugs for profit — but have also corrupted science and the medical establishment. It also means, of course, going after the cartels. And not only the cartel leaders but also the banks that launder their money, and also the politicians that they bribe, and also the intelligence agencies that work with them and turn a blind eye to their dealings because the intel guys are in for a piece to fund their black budgets.

But this will never happen, because, as BAP repeatedly points out, this is simply the way geopolitics works, and has always worked. As much as I would like to believe that President Trump really is the anointed one who is going to dismantle the Deep State and eradicate “the Cabal” once and for all, inaugurating an era of peace and truth and justice, I’m a little too old for such fairy tales. However, the examples of China and Singapore show that, while it is probably not possible to entirely root out corruption in a society, the drug problem can be effectively eradicated with the right kind of government and the right kind of approach. What stopped the drug problem in China was not communism, with or without “Chinese characteristics” — it was authoritarian nationalism manifesting a will to a cultural renaissance. Only the same will stop the drug epidemic in America.

-By Bodhi Bronson