Noah & Saman talk about the opioid crisis, and how to deal with it. Plus, a new segment called "Second Lunch" featuring Brian Stelter, and a special guest appearance by Sarah Downey.
00:05:30.000And then there's Third Lunch, and then there's linner, and then there's a two mimosa brunch, but we're talking about that.
00:05:33.000But another thing that I really wanted to talk about is the opioid crisis.
00:05:38.000So first off, A lot of folks don't consider, again, the collateral damage, the unintended consequences of keeping the borders open or allowing more people, of course, to come into this country, record numbers.
00:06:32.000We'll read some of those comments here probably next week.
00:06:35.000I know some people who have been affected by it, not in the ways that you may think, and it's tragic.
00:06:40.000But then my question to you also is, what is your opinion on the prescriptions Of opiates, of actual prescription opiates to people who are, you know, actually suffering from pain or have been through major surgery.
00:06:53.000So we'll be talking about that a little bit because I think the pendulum may have swung too far the other way before we get to any of that.
00:09:36.000Even though the materials are designed to be presented to kids, which again, the whole grooming thing is a conspiracy, so here's just one video from the Amaze.org website.
00:09:46.000Again, if you have kids, they should leave because they'll just see this in their public schools.
00:09:51.000Watching porn doesn't make you a bad person.
00:12:59.000You've all spoken extensively about Fox News being a purveyor of disinformation, but CNN is right up there with them.
00:13:06.000They pushed the Russian collusion hoax, they pushed the Jussie Smollett hoax, they smeared Justice Kavanaugh as a rapist, and they also smeared Nick Salmon as a white supremacist, and yes, they dismissed the Hunter Biden laptop affair as pure Russian disinformation.
00:13:22.000With mainstream corporate journalists becoming little more than apologists and cheerleaders for the regime, is it time to finally declare that the canon of journalistic ethics is dead or no longer operative?
00:13:36.000All the mistakes of the mainstream media, and CNN in particular, seem to magically all go in one direction.
00:13:43.000Are we expected to believe that this is all just some sort of random coincidence, or is there something else behind it?
00:13:56.000But I think my honest answer to you, and I'll come over and talk in more detail after this, is that I think you're describing a different channel than the one that I watch.
00:14:05.000But I understand that that is a popular narrative about CNN.
00:14:08.000I think it's important, when we talk about shared reality and democracy, all these networks, all these outlets have to defend democracy.
00:14:17.000But, when Benjamin Hall, the Fox correspondent, was wounded in Ukraine, the news crews at CNN and the New York Times stopped what they were doing, and they tried to help.
00:14:25.000They tried to help him get out of the country, they tried to find the dead crew members.
00:15:46.000It's a one-way platform where there's no interaction, where they can just go on there and they can spout their information, and they get to ignore all of the actual claims, all of the actual criticisms, and they just act as though they don't exist.
00:15:56.000For example, we saw this at CNN with Cuomo and his brother.
00:15:59.000Only when there were actual legal ramifications did anything happen.
00:16:03.000And it's the same thing with Stelter right here.
00:16:04.000You're just seeing it happen in real time.
00:16:05.000He's so ill-equipped to deal With, not even really accusations, just factual claims about inaccuracies in the media, what does he do?
00:16:14.000He ignores it, he points to the chambermaid saying, your question?
00:16:20.000And then he uses the appeal to emotion fallacy, right?
00:16:22.000He's saying, well, journalists are still good because they don't let fellow American from Fox, they didn't let him, like, bleed out one time.
00:17:11.000When they're calling him for lunch, it's just the Taco Bell gong.
00:17:16.000By the way, I have a bit of an update for you.
00:17:18.000The guy who asked that question actually tweeted out, I just saw it before the show, and he said, I mean it's been out for a little while, but I just saw it, he said that Brian did talk to him afterwards, but failed to answer any of his questions still.
00:17:31.000Yeah, he just asked for his phone number.
00:17:34.000You see him scanning the room for allies.
00:17:36.000Yeah, and by the way This is also why we've been in legal battles to one degree or another with CNN.
00:18:49.000Do you have any idea, sir, how pathetic it must be to be you?
00:18:53.000These people wanted to come out and have a good time, hear a few jokes, some thoughtful discussion, but your head pops off the pillow in the morning with, oh, how can I be a professional victim today?
00:19:03.000Let me go in and screw with their act just because, oh my God, your parents didn't tell you that your opinion wasn't worth that much.
00:20:02.000But a remarkable, striking similarity to Brian Stelter.
00:20:06.000Hey, before we move on too, it's birthday time for a super straight, white, cis, hetero male, who's, well, not necessarily white, Token Owen's birthday!
00:21:08.000So here's another story before we get to the opioid crisis and the epidemic right now.
00:21:12.000Really, the problem is what's happening at the border with fentanyl.
00:21:15.000And I don't know if you know this, the cartels, not really looking out for your best interest in the cartels, big fans of the Biden open, not open border, but you know, more open border policy, super open border.
00:21:25.000But before that, this is important, last week, a man was arrested, uh... I'm trying to think of how to... A man was arrested for servicing himself...
00:21:36.000on a Southwest flight from Seattle to Phoenix four times.
00:22:23.000Everything is connected, just so you know.
00:22:25.000You can't have men beating women in NCAA swimming competitions, and videos like you just saw being a part of a school curriculum, and not expect serial masturbators on your JetBlue flights.
00:22:39.000He just has flying anxiety, and this is the only way.
00:22:49.000Now, here's the thing, of course, that guy should have been punched immediately.
00:22:54.000Just like, remember the Detroit fire crotch bomber?
00:22:56.000I don't know if you remember, right when Barack Obama became president, there was a terrorist who tried to blow up Detroit, which is hysterical by the way, and he had a bomb in his pants.
00:24:26.000I actually just boarded another flight, so I'm sorry for the noise, but I'm happy to share my story and maybe just, like, be a source of courage for other ladies out there who have also been seated next to masturbators.
00:24:44.000So, I was flying from Seattle to Phoenix, and maybe, like, I don't know, like two minutes into the flight, I start hearing this really weird, like, sound, and I...
00:27:19.000Also, smash the like button if you're watching on YouTube because that helps with the algorithm.
00:27:23.000Especially, you know what, if you want more Change My Minds like yesterday, if we don't get 50,000 likes, I'll never do another Change My Mind as long as I live.
00:27:40.000Let's talk about the opioid crisis. And this is something that I've wanted to discuss for a while,
00:27:44.000and I know that I'm going to get crap for it. So let me be very clear in separating
00:27:50.000the issue that we do have that we need to address that a huge portion of those in the swamp don't
00:27:56.000want to address because they want to conflate these issues and have more control over medical
00:28:01.000practitioners. And it goes back to the DEA. And this is important because a lot of people who
00:28:06.000are against the drug war, and I understand that, I agree, a lot of people who are pro-medical
00:28:11.000legalizing all of marijuana and I certainly think that it should be
00:28:14.000removed from the scheduled substance list and states should be able to do
00:28:16.000what they want with it but a lot of these same people are then advocating
00:28:20.000for another drug war only it's on prescription painkillers that are being
00:28:24.000given by physicians and I think that that is a problem. I think it's a problem
00:28:28.000if you now give the government the authority to pressure physicians and
00:28:32.000pharmacies into not being able to provide care to people.
00:28:36.000And in some instances, opiates are appropriate.
00:28:39.000In some instances, I just want to be clear.
00:28:42.000That being said, we do have a serious problem right now going on.
00:28:46.000As discussed, I think we discussed it briefly last week, you know, the Biden administration.
00:28:51.000They're ending the enforcement of Title 42, which is during a health crisis, they're able to actually deport people.
00:28:58.000There are certain parameters that if they meet, it gives them more control over handling immigration at the border and being more stringent.
00:29:07.000He decided, no, we're not going to do that.
00:29:09.000So the daily arrivals at the border have tripled up to 18,000 per day.
00:29:15.000Now, keep in mind, this comes at a time when seizure of fentanyl is already at record highs.
00:30:38.000On a slow news day, who would have thought that discussing something everything is on board with, fentanyl being bad on the street, is what gets us banned.
00:31:53.000We've had a dramatic increase in seizures just in Texas in the last few months.
00:31:56.000There have been major busts all across the southern border.
00:32:00.000The DEA has actually been working in Arizona, in this area of Arizona, for the past couple of months, addressing a surge in fentanyl drugs that have been found in this area.
00:32:10.000They say that all the drugs found in recent months could have saved, all the drugs that were found that we mentioned here earlier this week, could have saved 700,000 lives.
00:32:32.000These drugs, in this form, and fentanyl, which is... Smaller than a bread basket.
00:32:37.000It's what is driving our opioid crisis, not just in Arizona, not just in this region, but across the country.
00:32:45.000So, fentanyl related, they're getting so bad that the DEA actually sent a letter out to law enforcement agencies warning of mass overdose events.
00:32:53.000So you don't even need to join a cult anymore, just have mass overdose events.
00:32:56.000Fentanyl is killing Americans at an unprecedented rate.
00:32:58.000Tragically, many overdose victims have no idea that they are ingesting deadly fentanyl until it's too late.
00:33:32.000So 2021 uh there's a record number what was it a hundred and um see I'm almost as unprofessional sir I'm looking down at my this is my prompter as I look down at my iPad to make sure I have the numbers right she's sitting there she's like and there have been Ten!
00:34:17.000And last year, this shouldn't be surprising, but this is just for, you know, if you're watching and you're a liberal, you're a leftist, and you still think that COVID is the...
00:36:06.000All right, so you understand that now, and that's a real problem.
00:36:08.000And yes, they're lacing a lot of things with fentanyl because it's cheap, it increases the high, it's something that you can't really monitor because it is so, so potent, and you don't know what street drugs are incorporating fentanyl.
00:36:33.000The drugs coming over the Mexican border are a crisis.
00:36:35.000I just want to be clear about all of this.
00:36:38.000But what you think is the opioid crisis, for example, how it was presented in the show Dope Sick, and it made me sick to watch just the dishonesty that was taking place.
00:36:48.000What you probably believe to be the opioid is not the actual opioid crisis.
00:36:51.000So we've heard about this everywhere in the media and even from politicians, the opioid crisis ad nauseum.
00:36:57.000I'm an emergency physician and I'm going to talk to you today about the opioid epidemic Last night we told you how the risk of dying from an opioid overdose is now greater than dying in a car crash.
00:37:07.000But in 2016, there were 42,000 opioid-related overdose deaths.
00:37:15.000That is 115 overdose deaths every day.
00:37:18.000But also important for the country to see that the opioid crisis affects everyone, even Michael Keaton, even one of the biggest stars in the world.
00:37:27.000Okay, so, Let me present this to you in a way that maybe is...
00:37:34.000Let me be as reductive as possible, and then I'll substantiate it with some other facts and some clips.
00:37:38.000Many of you believe that the opioid crisis, and this is how politicians have presented it on both the left and the right in the media, is little Johnny went in for a toothache, he got some Vicodin, and then he got hooked on opioids, and then it leads to an overdose.
00:37:51.000And doctors were just prescribing opioids left and right, and people are now dying in record numbers of opioids.
00:37:57.000I'm going to give you three key facts that tell you the opposite is true.
00:38:01.000I just want you to think about this for a second.
00:38:08.000Opioid deaths have skyrocketed since prescribing has gone down dramatically.
00:38:13.000Nearly all opioid deaths that are taking place are from illegal drugs like fentanyl, like heroin, and the vast majority of people who even did abuse prescription opioids were people who already had long storied histories of drug abuse.
00:38:27.000Does that present a little bit of a different picture?
00:38:30.000And especially to people out there who are against the drug war.
00:38:34.000Is there an appropriate place for opiates, for opioids?
00:38:37.000And just so you know, the difference is basically opiate means this sort of naturally occurring, and opioid is a synthesized version, but I'm going to use them relatively interchangeably because the media has irresponsibly.
00:38:47.000The vast majority of deaths right now, the opioid crisis, are fentanyl and street drugs.
00:38:51.000It's only increased as prescribing has gone down, and the people who abuse the prescriptions were not just people who walked in and happened to get painkillers, these were people who were seeking out painkillers because they had a drug addiction problem to begin with.
00:39:01.000Now, if you know those three facts, does that mean we need to stop all opioid prescriptions?
00:39:06.000Because I also know many people who, for example, I know someone who's been in a car wreck, who will never be without pain for the rest of their life.
00:39:13.000And now they've been turned into What would be, they actually have a good doctor who's like, well I don't care what the DA wants to do, but they would be turned into a street drug addict.
00:39:23.000So, if you're against the drug war because you're saying then people will get it on the street, we don't want to falsely present what the opioid crisis is.
00:39:30.000So let's go first through those key kind of claims, and I'll explain to you why they're incorrect.
00:39:35.000The first claim you hear a lot is the opioid crisis is a result of what?
00:41:34.000You're taking it away from them It's not going to take it away from the criminals that are on the streets in San Francisco.
00:41:39.000Or it turns people into criminals because they're like, well, I've got a shattered hip and I have a broken face.
00:41:46.000You know, a chimpanzee ripped off my face on a red wine and Xanax bender and my doctor is afraid of the DEA so they go to the street to get some kind of a pain relief.
00:41:53.000By the way, these same people are often pro-legalization of marijuana.
00:41:57.000They are the same states that want to ban kratom, which is a tea that has naturally occurring opiate agonists.
00:42:03.000So, and again, I'm not encouraging people out there to go use any type of supplement or medication.
00:42:24.000Most of the time, the people who were abusing a prescribed drug, they were doctor shopping.
00:42:29.000Now, let me give some credence to the fact that late 1990s, early aughts, there was an overprescription problem, specifically of a drug, OxyContin.
00:42:40.000And this was, people just like to blame Purdue Pharma.
00:42:49.000Far from me to trust, you know, Big Pharma, Carte Blanche.
00:42:52.000But Purdue, what they did was they actually got the FDA to create a label based on inaccurate or incomplete research that said oxycontin, which is just a time-released form of oxycodone, which is very common, right?
00:43:06.000You can get oxycodone in a multitude of ways.
00:43:08.000Oxycontin said, since ours is time-released, it's less addictive than other Opiates.
00:43:14.000Doctors before that all knew that there was addictive potential to opiates, and so they were very careful in prescribing them, and they would taper people down.
00:43:21.000What happened is one company, in bed with the FDA, got an inaccurate label, and so there was.
00:43:58.000Yeah, well, it's because it's supposed to be time-released.
00:44:00.000So if it's 80, that's supposed to be 20 milligrams and it's released slowly.
00:44:03.000The problem is they didn't really take into account that people would crush it, snort it.
00:44:06.000Again, that's the problem with the pill.
00:44:07.000People were crushing it, snorting it, getting rid of the time-release.
00:44:10.000Again, you can't, you can blame the company and you can blame the FDA for creating a label saying there's, you know, little to no addictive potential.
00:44:18.000And if you've watched Dope Sick, you know this story, but they just sort of skim over the fact that the FDA did it.
00:44:21.000They're like, Oh, it was just Purdue lied to them.
00:44:24.000Wasn't that the job of the FDA to make sure they're not lied to?
00:44:27.000Their only legitimate purpose should be to tell you, should be to inform you of the risk.
00:44:33.000If you believe in complete drug legalization, meaning you don't believe in the drug war at all, right?
00:45:22.000This is just the general procedure that I went through, where they actually, you know, they went in, they had to turn my ribcage around and put in three titanium rods.
00:45:31.000That last part where they turn it upside down.
00:45:34.000I might be able to get the actual footage of my surgery at some point.
00:46:14.000I think this is something you guys can actually... And I warn you, if you're squeamish, maybe... I don't know when a needle becomes a pipe.
00:46:20.000This is going through the back of my ribs.
00:46:22.000What you're seeing is it has to go through the back of my rib all the way to the front of the lung area to drain my thoracic cavity.
00:46:47.000But you see me trying to fight off the choke at the same time trying to pop it off.
00:46:52.000Yeah for oh, that's right that was the last day of fluid three days
00:46:59.000And the reason why was because there was so much fluid that built up that after the first day they removed too much and I was like, I was like a noodle because it creates this pressure in your body cavity that you get used to.
00:48:21.000Nowhere throughout the history of mankind, going back to the Shootist days with John Wayne and Gregory Peck, would they give you tincture of opium for just seven days.
00:48:31.000It typically would be a couple of months because, you know, I wasn't even able to prop myself up on my bed.
00:48:37.000And just for reference, you can actually see here hair follicle testing that I did within 90 days of having been in the ICU, and it came back mormon, as you can see.
00:48:48.000Uh, because I wasn't able to take anything.
00:48:51.000And what ended up happening is, do I think that was more productive?
00:48:53.000I was just in excruciating pain for a very long time.
00:48:56.000Well, you had to travel too, and that was one of the reasons.
00:48:58.000And then people are so scared to prescribe this because of all the information that's out there and all of the focus from the DEA that they are like, no, no, no, you have to come in.
00:49:16.000Mayo did go, and then doctors were like, well we're just afraid because if we didn't pour him the surgery, you know, the DEA will be on our ass.
00:49:21.000And I'm like, can you, can you see I'm not faking it?
00:51:11.000My grandfather, he had chronic severe back pain for basically his whole life.
00:51:16.000And they were giving him so much Yeah.
00:51:19.000narcotics and opioids to deal with it and then whenever this kind of came
00:51:24.000around whenever everybody started turning around and saying no we're not
00:51:27.000gonna give you this anymore they started treating him like a crackhead yeah it's
00:51:32.000like what you put him in this situation and let me guess saying hey take all
00:51:35.000these pills for a long time and not take Yeah, your body gets used to it.
00:51:39.000And then whenever you decide, oh, well, you know, we're not going to give it to you because you're a crackhead and all you want is opioids.
00:51:44.000It's like, well, he's 88 and he has a severe back problem and you've been doing this to him for 20 years.
00:52:29.000Someone can be physically dependent on something and that doesn't necessarily mean that they're an addict.
00:52:33.000For example, if someone has a shattered spine and they have a choice of lifelong pain or pain management, I think that pain management should be an option.
00:52:42.000And you obviously should too if you think, by the way, marijuana is not going to work for that.
00:52:46.000Marijuana will work for neuropathic pain.
00:52:48.000It doesn't work for that kind of pain.
00:53:18.000You believe that there's an opioid crisis.
00:53:20.000Now there is a problem right now with drug overdose deaths.
00:53:23.000And the reason that the left certainly wants to make you think that it's the doctor problem is because they don't want to acknowledge what's happening in the border.
00:53:28.000And the reason people on the right don't want to actually address the problem is because this does affect a lot of red states.
00:53:36.000For example, a lot of red states where people are in rural areas and they do have drug problems.
00:53:58.000They're coming over the border from Mexico, largely made in China.
00:54:02.000As prescribing has gone down, like you just discussed, and like I experienced, because doctors are afraid to, deaths have gone up dramatically, and the people who actually did abuse prescription painkillers were drug abusers, by and large.
00:54:16.000They had a long history of abusing substances when they were doctor shopping.
00:54:20.000So understanding all of that, do we think it's responsible to just throw out the term opioid crisis and crack down on doctors and pharmacies so that they can't provide this medication when appropriate to people who need it?
00:54:32.000I actually think that it's cruelty, I think that it's medical malpractice, and I think if we're going to say end the drug war, we need to take a balanced approach to all of it and we've gone too far the other way.
00:54:41.000But that's just my opinion, I know a lot of people are going to be pissed off.
00:54:43.000You let me know what you think, smash the like button, share it with me.
00:54:46.000Nerd Roddick, thank you so much Quarterback Garrett for being here.