Fat Loss Pill Effective
and Safe, Study Says: Grossly Fat Americans May Have Another Reason to Live Besides Eating
(Miami, Florida) August 2010
What does a miserably fat person dream of more, other
than shoveling down another heaping plate of greasy, fried food? Researchers think
they found the answer in a pill that fat people can simply pop twice a day to effortlessly
shed those extra pounds without the hassle of moving their grossly bloated bodies around
(aka: exercising.)
Drug company scientists thought that they had this answer figured out in 1997 when they
developed and marketed the quickly popular weight loss drug commonly known as fen-Phen.
The pill didn't work out so well though. It was soon discovered that in addition to
melting away the patient's unwanted fat it unfortunately also melted away their heart
valves too. As a result, the too-good-to-be-true fat loss drug fen-Phen was pulled from
the market by the FDA.
Since then, regardless of the availability of other less promoted diet pills, safe or
otherwise, the problem of obesity in the United States has reached new heights: not only
in the number of Americans who are either morbidly or grossly obese, or in the ever
increasing amount of pounds that people are over weight, but in what is considered to be
the most serious part of this problem: the American public's perception of this national
health crisis.
Once a stigma a few decades ago to be wider around than you are tall, more often it is
becoming the cause of celebration to be morbidly obese. For example, we've heard of
a show called "One Big Happy Family." From commercials for the show that
we have had to endure through, its hard to tell what these big, gross, fat people are so
happy about?
We wonder about the logic behind this show and the participants attitude about themselves.
Has it resulted in some sort of a misguided source of pride to be twice your normal
weight? Are there special bragging rights that accompany a cholesterol count over
300? To our news team the show amounts to nothing more than "One Big Shortened
Life Span."
Who knows if the show will outlive the people in the episodes; it's difficult to tell at
this point which will give out sooner, the ratings or the blood supply to their heart
muscles. TWSEN believes it is completely irresponsible to exploit a dangerous health
condition for the amusement of television audiences. Similarly, being morbidly obese
should not be treated as entertaining as the show openly disregards the issue and even
worse, promotes this life threatening behavior for others to follow.
From experience, I know what its like to be a big fat person. The loss of energy, the
lowered self esteem, and the cost of continually having to buy bigger and bigger clothes
is not fun. Measuring in at 5' 11" tall and 182 pounds during my annual
check-up recently, my doctor said that I'm right on target for my height and age. But it
wasn't always that way; though by looking at me now, few people can believe it, and even
fewer fat people want to believe it.
Years ago I ballooned to over 260 pounds and ended up having to take a variety of high
blood pressure pills, heart medications and anti-cholesterol drugs just to keep my blood
flowing. Eventually one weekend I just got sick of it. It was an unplanned
decision that I made when I tired too quickly after rearranging a few pieces of living
room furniture. It was a long overdue, important pledge to myself to make a serious
commitment to improve my health by getting back to my normal weight.
I didn't make any major life style changes or follow any weight loss programs or enroll in
any popularly advertised diets. Very simply, to identify unnecessary calories, I just kept
a journal of every little thing I ate and I also started walking an hour or so a day.
During this, I regularly visited my doctor so she could monitor my progress and
health.
It took me a year - I will repeat that - it took a full year at a loss rate of just 1,
none, or 2 pounds a week (this fact discourages most people who think they can just
"diet" for 6 weeks and their weight problem will be solved, so they quit too
soon) but the outcome was very good - I dropped 75-80 pounds over 12 months. As
an added bonus, my doctor was also able to safely eliminate 3 of my prescriptions
too. That was 5 years ago, so it was no yo-yo, rapid weight loss using a fad-diet
that 90% of the time the fat returns in less than year of losing the weight. Since I only
used patience and discipline, rather than any expensive diet plans, it also didn't cost me
any money either!
However, if you want to ignore helpful advice from your doctor, and keep eating what ever
you want when ever you want and are not willing to lose weight gradually through moderate
yet permanent changes to your food intake and the amount that you exercise, Arena
Pharmaceuticals claims to have safely removed all of the dangerous side effects from the
toxic part of the fen-Phen molecule in the newest fat loss drug currently called
Lorcaserin. Still, after fen-Phen, we remain a bit skeptical of their brief
field trial studies. However, medical officials seem satisfied, and FDA approval is
expected soon. So the good news is that you'll be able to take a few pills and continue
packing your cake hole with what ever foods, in any quantity, that you want..
 BW Schulz - Editor in Chief
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Cocaine is Cocaine is Cocaine
(Washington DC) August 2010
The US took another step in the right direction towards
balancing out the fairness of our dysfunctional national drug policies and laws when
Congress last week voted in favor of a bill mandating that prison sentences should not
vary so dramatically for possession of cocaine by the form the drug is in when a person is
arrested with it. The Senate had already agreed on the proposal to correct the wide
disparity in cocaine sentencing laws.
The disparity in sentencing laws began 25 years ago, when Americans were being told to
"Just say No!" but in reality millions were in fact saying "Yes" as
fast as they could to the latest drug sweeping the nation, cocaine.
The surge in supply and the dramatic drop in prices can be accredited almost exclusively
to the late Pablo Escobar, who saw that his father's one plane smuggling operation that
exported tons of marijuana to the US didn't have anywhere near the profit margins that a
plane full of cocaine could offer. As a pragmatic businessman, Pablo killed everyone else
involved in cocaine trafficking in Columbia, and then started shipping hundreds of tons of
cocaine to the US himself, at first almost all of it through Florida.
The city of Miami would become symbolic of the wave of addiction and violence that cocaine
would eventually spread all across the country. Once the glamorous, expensive drug of the
elite, cocaine prices dropped three fold to around $100 a gram and put it within the reach
of millions of American middle-class drug users. However, it wasn't until someone
discovered a simple recipe to make powdered cocaine into a combustible form, that this
drug, and bigger trouble than anyone could ever have imagined, was about to slam into
America's lower-class like a police sledge hammer against a steel security door.
Making powdered cocaine into a smokable form, commonly known as crack, produced immediate
negative effects on US illegal drug users. The most pronounced was that inhaling cocaine
into the lungs proved to be wildly more addictive than snorting the drug into the nasal
passages, so people found themselves as severely addicted within minutes after smoking it
than people who had been snorting it for months or even for years.
That fast and strong of an addiction led to fears that crack users were more likely to
commit violent crimes to feed this new habit, although TWSEN wasn't able to independently
verify this in measurable crime rates for users. True or not, the perception of the
public, politicians and police was that crack fueled violence.
Crack was marketed using a very clever pricing campaign. Hell, dealers even gave out
"free" samples, they were so confident that they had a product people would come
back for. Unlike powdered cocaine in the suburbs, which was sold at amounts of around $100
per gram, small pieces of crack were sold in the inner-cities at deceptively affordable
rates of $5, $10 and $20 amounts, commonly called rocks.
The result of this "cheap" smokable cocaine was that lower-class Americans who
couldn't get the money together for a gram of powdered cocaine, could now scrape together
enough for a $5 rock. The problem was that fifteen minutes later, they wanted another $5
rock. Though seemingly priced cheaper, crack smokers would end spending more a day than
users who buy powdered cocaine.
The dealers, controlled by organized street gangs, immediately capitalized on this
opportunity. They had the cash to buy large amounts of powdered cocaine wholesale and the
resources to cook it up and package it into smaller units of retail crack rocks. With
these incredible profits came a fast rising wave of violence, particularly murders, as
competing gangs fought wars over control of urban territories where they could sell their
product.
Politicians in the mid-1980's, during the Reagan era of a no tolerance/ tough on drugs
atmosphere, reacted to the violence with overly harsh penalties for people caught
possessing even small amounts crack. Though probably originally intended for the dealers,
its been obvious that for over twenty years as we packed our prisons past their brink with
non-violent first time offenders that the laws have unfairly punished people addicted to
cocaine, not the ones trafficking it.
The measures taken by Congress back in 1986 issued the same mandatory first time offense
sentences (five years in prison) to anyone arrested with 5 grams of crack cocaine as
someone caught with half a kilo (500 grams) of powdered cocaine! The logic behind this law
still astounds us. Crack was marketed in poorer urban neighborhoods and the result
was that 80% of people slammed under first offense mandatory 5-year sentencing laws for
possession of cocaine were black defendants.
President Obama said he will sign the bill and supports ending how powdered cocaine is
dealt with less harshly in court than cocaine that has been baked into a smokable form.
Either way, its a highly toxic and destructive substance and no one should go anywhere
near it in any form. However, the inconsistencies in the laws for possession of
cocaine, originally motivated by fears of gang violence, only ended up leading to long
prison sentences for black defendants caught with small amounts of the drug and in the US,
justice is supposed to be blind, especially color blind..
 The Dan Ryan - Crime & Law
Correspondent
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