MONOLOGUE WRITTEN BY CLYDE LEWIS

Back when we first brought up the health issues of Hillary Clinton and faced the onslaught of hate mail that was sent to me by Hillary supporters, I had already brought up how everything dealing with health and the use of drugs to help with health problems were becoming a little bit too political. Government overreach of course is so pervasive that the idea of trying to help yourself with your own method of healing will not be tolerated by the DEA, CDC, FDA, or any other alphabet agency which has its hands on the medical surveillance state, a byproduct of Obama’s health care plan.

The disclosure by Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton that she is being treated for pneumonia has once again raised the question of what candidates should tell voters about their health. Meanwhile, Donald Trump discussed his “personal health regimen” on The Dr. Oz Show on yesterday and discussed the results of a recent physical.

Both of the top candidates in 2016 have provoked repeated calls for them to release more complete medical records, a step that has in recent years become so expected during campaign season that its omission is noteworthy.

Looking at American history as a whole, however, the act of releasing any such records at all is rare.

A survey of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) found that nearly 71% of physicians thought concerns about Hillary Clinton’s health care “serious and could be disqualifying for the position of President.”

Now since Hillary has said that questioning her health is all some conspiracy theory concocted by the Russian’s in an effort to bring down her campaign, this would mean that the over 70% of US doctors and surgeons who say she is sick are right-wing tin-foil hat-wearing conspiracy theorists that are employed by the Kremlin.

She says the allegations are absurd, but her attempt at spinning a conspiracy theory yarn is equally absurd. But the media has done an excellent job at keeping those who question her health in the conspiracy theory camp.

A poll of 833 randomly selected registered voters by Gravis Marketing showed that nearly half (49%) were not aware of the “well documented major health issues that Hillary Clinton has.” Nearly three-fourths (74%) were unaware of Bill Clinton’s statement that Hillary suffered a “terrible” concussion requiring “six months of very serious work to get over.” The majority (57%) thought that candidates should release their medical records.

It’s no wonder I received hate mail. Health concerns of both the candidates and the American people have been a political football ever since affordable health care reared its ugly head. The medical surveillance state breeds this kind of atmosphere as medical records make for some good fodder to label someone unfit to own a gun, treat their health problems themselves and of course run for office.

Now that the alphabet agencies and the court of public opinion wants to snoop into the politician’s health problems, we are beginning to see these agencies starting to believe that what is good for the goose is good for the gander.

The health of the candidates is on display, and your pain and suffering are also under the microscope as the Feds mad obsession with health is now becoming a liability to our well-being.

I know that this is becoming a chronic event – or a chronic topic but again the DEA never ceases to amaze me with regard to what they are doing to the millions of pain sufferers in the United States. I recently received a notice from my doctor that stated to me that The Federal government will require my doctor’s office to either conduct a pill count and or a urine test to see if I am using the drugs they prescribe for pain or if I am using an alternative like Marijuana or Kratom.

This is the first time in a long while I have been warned by a doctor’s office that I am being watched or monitored by the federal government; namely, the DEA about my usage of any and all scheduled medications to alleviate pain from my cancer surgeries.

I always get annoyed when I have to jump through hoops to get not only pain medications but some of my life sustaining medications at the local pharmacy. I know that my pharmacy cares about me. I know my doctor does to. I just know that to the Feds I am just another statistic, another strain on a system that quite simply is not quite sure on how to cure pain.

When I whined about the situation to my pharmacist, she told me that all of these clamp downs are happening because Oregon is #1 in the nation for non-medical abuse of prescription painkillers.

Once again, I feel this is similar to how we were treated in grade school when the class joker would disrupt the class and the teacher would punish us all with study time instead of recess.

Drug abuse, namely methamphetamine abuse, is the reason why during allergy season, I have to suffer because remedies that contain pseudoephedrine are either illegal or are in need of prescription. I have to endure sinus headaches and a stuffy nose because some tweaker uses my allergy remedy to make bathtub meth.

After I received the notice from my doctor, I discussed this problem with Doctor Joel Wallach who since I became partners with the Youngevity organization, has been a big help in my recovery from weight gain and cancer pain. He told me the United States is 4.6% of the world’s population, yet we consume 80% of opioid painkillers and the truth is that most people are still in pain – even with all of the taking of opiate pain killers.

That is because doctors are still studying chronic pain.

Med schools generally teach that pain is a fairly straightforward response to injury. Abnormal amounts of pressure, heat, ice and certain chemicals in injured tissue trigger a response in the surrounding nerves that are expressly designed to handle so-called “pain signals.”

Chronic pain, however, is different.

Before the brain receives these messages, a type of “gating” mechanism in a specific region of the spinal cord controls the duration and intensity of “pain signals” ultimately passed on to special parts of the brain. This gate is itself thought to be controlled by nerve impulses from all of the body’s five senses. Whatever “pain messages” the gate passes on become the raw material the brain uses to create the sensation of pain. Under the right circumstances, the gate can completely shut off all signals, resulting in no pain.

Unlike everyday scrapes, bumps and bruises that an aspirin can take care of, by its clinical definition chronic pain lasts at least six months and often has no obvious cause. But what clinicians and scientists call “acute” pain from traumatic injuries or common maladies can trigger chronic anguish long after an injury has healed or a painful disease has been cured.

The challenge is trying to find a way to close the gate on chronic pain and not prescribe addictive medications to patients.

It is also important to understand the difference between drug dependence and drug addiction.

Propaganda will have you thinking you are an addict when in reality you are dependent on a medication.

Physical dependence can happen with the chronic use of many drugs, including many prescription drugs, even if taken as instructed. Physical dependence in and of itself does not constitute addiction, but it often accompanies addiction.

This distinction can be difficult to discern, particularly with prescribed pain medications, for which the need for increasing dosages represents tolerance or a worsening underlying problem, as opposed to the beginning of abuse or addiction.

I have always learned that as a general rule if you are taking a pill to kill pain you are dependent, if you are taking it even after the pain is gone, you are addicted.

Simple rule, however it isn’t always that black and white and that is why if you are using opioid medications you should find ways of weaning yourself from them.

Addiction is marked by a change in behavior caused by the biochemical changes in the brain after continued substance abuse. Substance use becomes the main priority of the addict, regardless of the harm they may cause to themselves or others. An addiction causes people to act irrationally when they don’t have the substance they are addicted to in their system.

The main characteristic that distinguishes addiction from dependence is the combination of mental and physical dependence with uncontrollable behavior in obtaining and using a substance.

There are many people who have made the decision to drop the use of opioids by replacing them with other harmless natural remedies like Marijuana and Kratom.

However, as we all know Marijuana has now been made a schedule one drug by the DEA making it illegal on a federal level despite state laws that have been changed to allow recreational and medical use of it legally and now an even more harmless herb called Kratom will also be classified as a Schedule 1 drug making it illegal as well.

I brought up the Kratom issue recently in a show that we did called Dr. D.E.A. and the Kratom Bomb. The program was one of the most downloaded shows in our 21 year history.

I find it ironic that 10 days later I received a notice warning me about the use of Marijuana and Kratom and that I would lose my ability to be treated for pain if I decided to use any of these herbal remedies.

People most frequently use Kratom as a treatment for chronic pain and a variety of other symptoms, including anxiety, depression and opioid addiction.

Many Kratom advocates suffer from debilitating disorders, like fibromyalgia, or severe joint pain stemming from past injuries or surgeries. Others carry only psychological pain. Most users have spent years searching for a way to effectively treat their conditions, a quest that more often than not involves a variety of prescription drugs. Some say the pills didn’t work at all. Others say they did, but at an extreme cost, including acute side effects, crippling dependency or addiction. Kratom is different, they claim, and provides many of the same benefits without the downsides. Thousands of Kratom users now gather online to share their experiences and coordinate bulk purchasing of raw Kratom powder from farmers in Asia.

But the federal government seems to think Kratom is too good to be true. The Drug Enforcement Administration announced that it was moving to place Kratom in Schedule 1 alongside heroin and LSD as soon as September 30. Drugs in this category are considered to have no known medical benefit and a high potential for abuse. They also carry harsh legal penalties for possession and distribution.

The DEA argues this move is necessary because Kratom hasn’t been approved as a medical treatment by any federal regulatory agency. Isolated data provide by the media and the DEA also suggests that a small though growing number of Americans are doing harm to themselves by abusing the herb.

In the six years from January 2010 to December 2015, U.S. poison centers report that handled 49 cases associated with Kratom that involved “life-threatening signs or symptoms, with some residual disability.” However, what the poison control centers do not report is how significant a role, if any, the Kratom itself played in these episodes, as many incidents involved people who missed multiple substances.

Abusing anything including alcohol and mixing the substances of multiple drugs with anything is dangerous and stupid.

But the DEA used the finding as a basis to conclude that the herb poses an “imminent hazard to public safety.”

Kratom advocates are now crying foul at the federal government’s rush to make them criminals without ever having sought their input or any sort of public comment.

They accuse the DEA of cherry-picking data and misrepresenting Kratom’s potential for harm, while failing to differentiate between natural forms of the herb and the so-called “gas station” Kratom products, which may be mislabeled or contain unknown adulterants.

Users also say the DEA ignored emerging science that could support anecdotal evidence of the herb’s therapeutic benefits. One doctor has even suggested that the alkaloids in Kratom could help lead to the development of safer alternatives to the narcotic painkillers that have helped fuel the opioid epidemic.

Although the DEA does not have to demonstrate that Kratom meets the criteria for Schedule I to put it there temporarily, it goes to great lengths to show that Kratom has “a high potential for abuse,” mainly by classifying everything people do with it as abuse.

Those who are uninformed will shout from the rafters that Marijuana and Kratom are dangerous drugs because of their Schedule 1 status. However, the DEA doesn’t see it that way but they expect the ignorant to play along and ridicule and in some cases report those who use these substances.

That is the sickening part.

If “high potential for abuse” does not refer to addictiveness or to danger, what does it signify? It’s really nothing more than the DEA’s or Congress’s arbitrary preferences. “High potential for abuse” is a political concept, not a medical or scientific assessment. If the DEA or Congress does not like a particular kind of drug use, that use is abuse by definition.

Since the DEA does not recognize any legitimate medical or recreational use for Marijuana, LSD, or Kratom, the abuse potential of these drugs is demonstrated by the fact that humans consume them.

In addition to applying a highly elastic definition of drug abuse, the DEA says a controlled substance must be placed in Schedule I, regardless of its abuse potential, unless it has “a currently accepted medical use.” So even though marijuana is less dangerous and less addictive than drugs in lower schedules, it has to stay in Schedule I until the DEA decides there is enough evidence to demonstrate its medical utility. Likewise, with Kratom.

However, no matter what I am telling you, Kratom will be made illegal on Septmeber 30th unless someone intervenes, like the attorney general. Until then, if your state does not allow you to smoke Marijuana and Kratom becomes illegal what can you do to avoid up to ten years in prison for possessing it?

The answer according to Doc Wallach is proper nutrition and replacement of some of the nutrients and amino acids that reduce inflammation. He recommends that reducing inflammation can also reduce pain and there are many simple things you can take to help in the fight against it.

Kratom of course, has been very effective in taking pain away, but so do herbs like Turmeric, Aloe Vera, Ginger, Cinnamon, Boswellia commonly found in Frankincense, Chamomile, and Neem, which is an herb that relaxes sore muscles. Other powerful nutrients Glucosamine, Chondroitin Sulfate, CMO and MSM help in managing pain as well. Other nutrient co-factors such as vitamin B6, niacin, evening primrose oil and zinc have also been shown to have specific value in bringing down inflammatory pain in the joints and muscles.

Almost every disease is preceded by inflammation.

So if you can prevent that, you can go a long way toward preventing disease and managing the pain that comes with it.

https://soundcloud.com/groundzeromedia/a2016-9-16

Written by Ron Patton