“People think its cool cause it’s our law. Think they rebel without a cause. We gotta help the sick and the addicted, but were killin’ ourselves with the new prohibition. Our government’s try to tell you what to do; decide for yourself what’s right for you. If ya go too far and ya get outta hand, then ya take a little trip down to prison land!” From “Legalize it” written by Mojo Nixon.
We’ve been spending the past several weeks talking about comic books, so I thought this week I’d lighten the tone a bit and talk about heroin addiction.
To be fair, heroin use has been a significant part of our popular culture. Aside from state and local laws, including those that only tangentially affected heroin users, the federal Anti-Heroin Act prohibiting the possession of opium wasn’t passed until 1924. Opium, organic and synthetic, is the alluring ingredient in heroin as well as such substances as methadone, codeine, oxycodone and naloxone. This act amended the Smoking Opium Exclusion Act of 1909 which authorized the importation of the opium-producing poppy plant for medicinal use.
Back in the 19th century, the civilized world was held in thrall by opium and its relations — to the point where Bayer Pharmaceuticals created a safer form of opium in 1898 they named “heroin.” They sold it as a cure for opium addition, alcoholism and for coughs, and they claimed it was more effective than morphine and free from abuse potential. Turns out they were mistaken about that last point.
Yup. That’s the same Bayer Pharmaceuticals that also developed aspirin the following year. Fun fact: Bayer neglected to trademark both heroin and aspirin in the United States. If you visit a drug store in Canada you will only find aspirin marketed under Bayer’s name. Nonetheless, it appears Bayer has been out of the smack game for a while now, well before they adopted Speedy Alka-Seltzer.
RFK the Nepojunkie was addicted to heroin for fourteen years. Heroin is a powerful appetite suppressor, so when he “cleaned up” he might have developed a voracious appetite for fresh road kill: bear, dog, whale (is whale road kill?)… He did say he’d never eat a monkey or a human, which might be the only thing he and I have in common.
“I’ve been picking up roadkill my whole life. I have a freezer full of it,” the Nepojunkie said.
And due to his years of service as one of America’s most visible weirdos, the Nepojunkie is now United States Secretary of Health and Human Services. He has murdered our vaccine program, and he is the major reason that the United States presently is seeing its first measles epidemic in over a generation. According to Johns Hopkins University, since July 23 “there have been 2,318 confirmed measles cases, surpassing the total for all of 2025 and marking the highest number of cases since 1991. The majority of these cases are among individuals who are unvaccinated or have unknown vaccination status, highlighting a significant public health concern.”
Perhaps Secretary Nepojunkie does not understand the purpose of his job. If he’s simply accepting what his boss states as fact, that would be unbelievably stupid but vaguely understandable. Kissing that Coppertone ass is in the job description.
The polio vaccine, a mandatory injection for school children since the Korean War ended, all but eliminated this crippling, murderous disease… until Secretary Nepojunkie came around. Dust off those iron lungs, folks. I understand the Right’s hatred of FDR, but that is no reason to bring polio back.
I do not condemn junkies for their addition. I have known a lot of reformed addicts — of all sorts, including journalists, doctors, lawyers (a whole lotta lawyers), musicians (mostly folk singers), comedians, beatniks and Trustafarians like Secretary Nepojunkie. The one thing most of these people have in common is that they come from wealth and/or have well-paying jobs, a human support system and the ability to pay for trips to Betty Ford. They don’t have to worry about being shot while robbing a house or losing sleep about the purity of their substances.
The junkies you see and hear and read about are not so privileged. Everybody makes wrong choices and some of us — many of us — make choices that are breathtakingly wrong. However, most of us are not holding veto power over health procedures that have been proven to save lives.
You think you have a right to foster whatever communicable diseases abound? Fine. Hey, I happen to be opposed to toilet paper. Can I come over to your house for dinner?
The above-named party of the first part thanks Anna Rose for the meme that inspired my rant and to Mindy Newell for her political inspiration.
