The rise in the death rates from drugs among men since 2001 means that 400,000 more male lives have been lost. That’s about the same number of men the U.S. lost in WW II. The neglect of men’s health is now, I’m afraid, a scandal. This and much more with Scott G. here
This is why, my friend, we need to vote Trump. The Democrats and the left live in a gynocentric matriarchy that ignores male problems. Kemala programme mentions women 10 times: It mentions none. Sorry, but we have a good chance now to let Democrats known that they you cannot govern against males. Period.
Really? You seriously are comparing 3 years of war with 23 years and think that's useful comparison? You undercut your point by doing so. I would also like to know if the death rate from drug use is unproportionally impacting men or have those numbers increased for all? Not to minimize the issue with young men, but I like things to be true and rational. That helps in accurately diagnosing the problem and hopefully in coming up with solutions. The disparity between the opportunity previous generations had compared to today's youth's opportunities is pretty huge. The older generations are holding onto weatlh in such a way that it's easy for youth to become discouraged and more apt to abuse drugs....which our own country has allowed. Why are pharmeceutical companies allowed to air TV ads? It's disgusting. Yes, young men are struggling, but this dial it down to get to the actual issue.
The heart of it is a Bad Drugs problem. Most of the overdoses of the last 10 years are due to street fentanyl, mostly in the form of counterfeit opioid pills. Most of the casualties were addicts who had got hooked on Oxy back in the 1990s-2000s when it was easy to find a State with loose regs (some of them, like Florida, were ridiculous), hop State borders with a prescription (or without one), doctor shop, find a pill mill and buy mass quantities for a habit and/or the diversion market to funnel it into the high schools.
The whole thing kicked off in the mid-1990s, when Purdue pharma salespeople were doing all the "drug education" for doctors who hadn't had any in medical school, telling them it was okay to prescribe Oxy for every little back sprain. Typical "time release" dose was 40mg- 8 times as much as 5mg Percodan that was the same drug. All anyone had to do was chew the pill and boom, better than street heroin. Powerful enough that overdoses from Oxy outpaced heroin by the end of the 2000s. So the Feds cracked down on the pill mills, and now most every state is signed up to a central Federal database, which should have been policy 25 years before it happened. But the rapid cutoff of legit macufactured pills without any alternatives available led the addicts to the street heroin market, which rapidly turned into the fentanyl market, because this is the age of designer drugs. And ever since fentanyl, we've had a REAL drug problem. 40 times the annual death toll, compared to heroin in the 1990s. 7 times the annual death toll from Oxycontin and the other pills in the early 2000s.
Nowadays the surveys show that teenagers are scared off of opioids, because almost all of them are aware of the counterfeit problem and the fentanyl contamination problem that affects other drugs. New users of opioids are down by 2/3- but the cartels have started to put it into every drug that passes through their hands, and it's gotten dirt cheap https://kstp.com/kstp-news/top-news/price-of-illicit-fentanyl-drops-to-dangerously-cheap-in-twin-cities-metro/
At a dollar a pill, some suckers will try that shit. It's an introductory offer.
We need a legal opioid option, like opium cough medicine, quantity and ID controlled at each outlet. We have the technology to do it: I've had my ID copied when purchasing a 6-pack of beer, I've bought booze from stores with quantity limits. We can do the same thing for people buying a bottle of liquid suspension of opium. Also, tightly regulated physician prescribed opioid maintenance for the people with the heaviest habits. The rest of the opioids should remain illegal, but the criminal marketplace will shrink drastically, and that's the most important thing. Not a perfect solution, but it would work a lot better than most people think.
Straight talk: I'm tired of hearing the problems of our catastrophic Drug War policy diverted into another issue. Drug and alcohol consumption is a situation where men are just plain more reckless than women: males start underage more often, they experiment more widely, they take more dangerous drugs, they combine them together more, they care less about the source, they take them in greater quantities, they get addicted more often than females. As a result, men die from overdoses 2-3 times as often as women. https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/men-died-overdose-2-3-times-greater-rate-women-us-2020-2021
It isn't Misandry. It's Us, males. XYs. Most of drug addiction is a side effect of Type-R personality, which has a heavily male bias. Drugs are the wrong place to push limits and take risks, because there's no effort involved, and hence none of the natural checks and brakes that are part of most other type-R challenges. The reward comes all at once, bypassing any authentic benefit from testing ones limits. Men like to find an edge to be tested with, but drugs are deceptive like nothing else. It's like testing how deep you can sink in quicksand. And as Stupid Guy Tricks go, playing with drugs that can swallow you whole seems to have an enduring popularity.
I'm recommending liberalizing the laws on a dilute opium formulations because nothing else is going to ensure regulated product safety and starve the money supply of the criminal business, which has been booming for half a century. That's the only reason. I'm advocating it because I throw up my hands. If some people want to get high on opioids, let them have it. I'm tired of seeing Criminal Culture running a controlling interest in the music lyrics, the fashions, the slang, the cynicism, the nihilism, the conspicuous consumption materialism, the alienation, the social divides. The guns, the violence, the climate of lawlessness that's resulted from over-policing peoples personal decisions. We know that some of those decisions are reckless per se, when it comes to drug use.. The lawlessness of criminalization makes the hazards incomparably worse.
Alcohol Prohibition repeal stopped the 14-year process of the gangsterfication of America- for a while. Then it came back worse with Other Prohibited Drugs, 30-odd years later. No conspiracy, just the return of the repressed. And this society has been in denial about it ever since. A time period four times as long as the duration of Alcohol Prohibition, with its 14-year span of the Roaring 20s, Jay Gatsby, the introduction of coed college students to binge drinking. The 1920s was the era that invented the drive-by shooting. How much worse is the decadence and corruption now than it was then- I dunno, 50 times worse, 100 times worse?
But, sure, go on. Blame it on neglected men, not getting our egos stroked enough, dying "deaths of despair." The despair is real. But it's an end stage of addiction, a ride that felt so carefree at the outset. So carefree that few of the addicts even read so much as a single piece of paper outlining the hazards. Especially not the fine print. Most of the illegal drug users I know just jumped in head first, beginning as teenagers. Most of them have been men. Nobody pushed them.
Big Weed will be next. It's not your hippie grandma's grass anymore. These new strains are stronger, more dangerous, make people angry - not happy, and are linked to psychosis and schizophrenia. The healing herb is no longer healing.
Speaking as someone who is hippie grandpa age: I know. That's a line that I had been hearing since the late 1980s. And I scoffed at it--because while California sinsemilla and Maui Wowie were a lot more powerful than bricked Mexican weed (and noticeably fresher, with much less of the drowsy CBN content found in stale cannabis), that just meant that you only needed one or two pulls on a joint to get high.
BUT---in the mid-1990s, something happened: it really wasn't the same substance. The product really WAS different. It was twice as powerful as what had previously been considered really potent weed. The cultivators had overshot the mark. Not only that, the superpotent product was the standard of the underground market. It was a turnoff. So I basically stopped smoking pot 20 years ago. Special occasions only. I still like the effect. Of a little bit. Now and then. (Never had any problem quitting cold, ever, even in my wake-and-bake days.)
If you want to know more, my views on the over-engineering of cannabis in the 1990s to turn it into a THC factory have been on the record for many moons in posts on my Substack page, as well as in various comments and notes found on this platform. https://adwjeditor.substack.com/p/the-benefits-of-naturally-existing
In my opinion, cannabis with a THC content of 20%-30% makes about as much sense as adding five 200mg caffeine pills to a cup of coffee that formerly worked just fine as-is. But, many of my fellow Americans have just plain fallen for the hype about this more-is-better adolescent dope macho.
No surprise, almost all of them are my fellow XYs. Males. That tendency toward unbalanced excess should be seen in the wider context as an unwanted side effect of our male metabolism--which, while indispensable to the inventive advance of our species and mostly awesome in my personally biased male opinion, nonetheless deserves a lot more of a critique than it's gotten. It ain't naturally all good. That much should be obvious, shouldn't it?
(Human drives and desires in general deserve a good long unsparing dicussion- be they male, female, or generated from other levels of our default mode of egocentricity. Understand, I realize that coercive punitive moralism imposed from outside is like Leninism: the cure is worse the disease. That doesn't mean that it isn't imperative to run our drives and desires past a feedback loop of reflective self-awareness, in order to minimize our human tendencies to act like dreadfully thoughtless, heedless, and proudly self-exculpating beings. A much wider discussion than I'm up for in this post, or this reply thread. Although I do have a lot more to say on the subject.)
I don't feel much like repeating my opinions on cannabis here. They can be found by clicking on the link to my page. (Which navigates and reads better with a grownup computer.) I'll simply make the general observation that nearly all mind-altering substances have a range of effects that begin at "barely noticeable threshold effect", and continue on with an increasing dosage level to to achieve what might be termed an "optimal desired effect"--beyond which the additives begin to add more body load and side effects, turning excessive--and, depending on the substance, unrecognizably strong, disorienting, or lethally poisonous.
I've already mentioned caffeine; the same is true for alcohol, THC, MDMA, psilocybin, amphetamine, benzodiazepines, opioids...the dose makes the poison. Increased frequency of use nearly always leads to tolerance--which should not be taken as widening the margin of safety; it should be taken as a warning. Tolerance indicates reckless overuse, practically always.
Tolerance also gives the drug-tolerant unrealistic ideas about the strength of the substances they use in terms of their effects on newbies and occasional users. I think one of the unrecognized consequences of ultrastrong high THC cannabis is that it has a way of turning people off of the experience entirely. >10% THC weed isn't fun for most of us. Many of us prefer more like 3%-5%. We have no interest in taking up the continuous use required to turn the strong stuff into a more ordinary baseline. Illegality and adolescent initiation--nearly always in male-centered social circles--always included a component of social pressure to use as much as possible. As a status competition. Same with binge drinking, no? It's juvenile. It's bad, wrong, unnecessary, and was largely initially powered by "forbidden fruit" illegality. (Binge alcohol drinking didn't really take off with college-age youth until Prohibition either, for that matter--particularly for women.) In the states where it's legal--and everywhere else, for that matter--cannabis culture needs to step back from the edge and grow up. Overdoing weed is senseless. Understand, I was that chump. With binge drinking, too, even before pot, that was my 1960s. I don't think I stopped after only one beer and put the brakes on until I was in my 20s. Lo and behold, I actually realized that alcohol had some effect short of being staggering drunk and numb in the face. Nowadays I don't drink at all until after I exercise, which basically means that I don't drink. I've never felt better. The endocannabinoids of a runner's high really do feel like a good optimal dose of THC, for what it's worth.. Although I freely admit that unlike alcohol, I can handle a little bit of THC just fine when I work out or hike. Emphasis on "a little bit." Cannabis is catalytic. Take enough to flip the switch, and quit while you're ahead.
Same with coffee. Granted, I'm much more ah "habituated" to coffee. Fortunately, it's a pretty safe substance. I have a tolerance to caffeine. But it isn't as if anyone elevates to some transcendent euphoria zone from drinking 12 cups of coffee. There would probably be a lot more nonsensical mythology and folklore claims on that score if coffee was prohibited and criminalized.
Finally, it has to be said that even given the legality, too much caffeine can lead to psychosis. Same with tobacco. Same with alcohol. If you don't believe me, do a keyword search (preferably on a grownup computer, okay?) Mind alteration of any sort can precipitate a first psychotic experience, in psychically vulnerable people. Consider all of the mental problems that the Internet and social media has caused, particularly when ingested through the medium of the cellphone. Some of those problems are very serious.
I think if we really want to examine opiate use and deaths of despair we should use a wider lens before we broaden opiate use-I suspect many of these deaths are for people that were first prescribed opiates. If a man works in a position where he can temporarily (or permanently) become disabled, there are financial gains. Federal tax, payroll taxes, many state's taxes are not removed from a disability check, health insurance is provided and often opiates are prescribed. With this smaller payment, the family keeps much more money, qualifies for scholarships at parochial grade and high schools, YMCA memberships, federal Pell grants at college, reduced price/free lunch at school and has a parent at home to mind the children. Now, the disabled man would lose so much financially if he went back to work and he becomes an addict. So many rehabs, social workers, pharmacists and doctors are making money, this will never stop. It will not take long before the addiction destroys what remains of the family.
I had children in the Intensive Care Nursery. They eventually graduated to the "angry baby room". These are the babies born addicted to opiates because an entire system supports Mom's drug use throughout pregnancy (with methadone). Sometimes these newborns cannot be fed, they are so distraught and screaming with the withdrawal discomfort. An army of supports are in place making sure mom never feels any discomfort for her opiate use and can dine at restaurants with special coupons and sleep in a comfortable bed while her newborn goes through withdrawals. No person should suggest allowing opiate use until they have heard these babies and watched the vultures making a living off of allowing this or worse, promoting it. Opiates should be available by IV ONLY, in a hospital or for the terminally ill. People are earning a living off destroying the lives of others.
"I had children in the Intensive Care Nursery. They eventually graduated to the "angry baby room". These are the babies born addicted to opiates because an entire system supports Mom's drug use throughout pregnancy (with methadone). Sometimes these newborns cannot be fed, they are so distraught and screaming with the withdrawal discomfort. An army of supports are in place making sure mom never feels any discomfort for her opiate use and can dine at restaurants with special coupons and sleep in a comfortable bed while her newborn goes through withdrawals. No person should suggest allowing opiate use until they have heard these babies and watched the vultures making a living off of allowing this or worse, promoting it."
I realize that the babies of drug-addicted mothers go into withdrawal. Of all of the drug-addicted pregnant women giving birth every year, how many do you suppose were addicted to opioids legally prescribed by their physician? Does keeping all opioids illegal and prohibited help with the situation of addicted women getting pregnant? Might it not actually be making that situation worse? Does criminalization and prohibition really interfere with the easy access to impure, illicit, and possibly lethal fentanyl counterfeit pills all over the country, at cut-rate prices?
"Opiates should be available by IV ONLY, in a hospital or for the terminally ill. People are earning a living off destroying the lives of others.""
Maybe some percentage of those millions of people are malingering, I don't know. There were probably malingering opioid addicts in the 19th century, too. And the 18th century, before that. And so on, all the centuries when it was legal. Civilization can survive a small percentage of habitual opioid users. What's caused the breakdown of society is handing the market over to a criminal monopoly.
I know exactly what you're saying about OSHA related disability and SSDI eligibility, and that it exists as a potential problem--that there's a temptation for people working low-paid jobs to turn disability into a long-term welfare benefit that sometimes has included being addicted. More of a problem in some places than others, and not as easy to get in the case of SSDI.
But I'd bet that it's a lot harder to get prescribed opioids from most occupational health doctors any more. The Feds began cracking down around 2014. The first thing they did was shut the quantity window. And doctors--everywhere--are stingy with opioids any more, sometimes very stingy.
That's the sort of overcompensation rebound that happens when the legal prescription trade in a DEA Schedule II substance--supposedly Federally regulated--is left to the separate states to do the oversight for 20 years, with no connection to a centralized Federal database. Well, there is one now, and almost all of the states have signed on to it--but in the 1990s, there was no Federal oversight of accountability for physician prescriptions. And states with loose regs and low enforcement like Florida and Ohio were just full of script docs and pill mills.
But that's over now. And many of the addicts who started out on legally manufactured product have been forced into the street market, which is run by a different breed of career criminal than scrip docs. That why all the fentanyl deaths, read the linked chart. Reproduced with other charts in the expanded comment that I turned into a post on my Substack https://adwjeditor.substack.com/p/the-real-dangerous-drug-problem
"Lesson 1: Flooding the health care system with prescription opioids is not needed for population pain management."
and especially
"Lesson 3: The rules under which opioids are prescribed matter."
"Germany’s high per capita opioid consumption rate is driven by extensive use of opioids in institutional settings (e.g., fentanyl during inpatient surgery). But unlike in Canada and the United States, in Germany prescriptions for chronic non-cancer pain are uncommon for people living outside of medical facilities. Only 4.5% of Germans living in the community receive an opioid prescription each year, versus 20% of Canadians. "
Are people in the US regularly prescribed fentanyl? I doubt it. Do MANY people make money on opioid use/abuse here in the US? Way too many.
Can I know how the mothers became addicted? No. Did I overhear many conversations? Yes. Heroin was different when I was young, now people can just grab granny's pills. The mothers on methadone are given a host of government and charitable resources making other people wealthy while they don't go through withdrawals and their baby does. Greed is the problem. Long term opiates actually increase the perception of pain.
Don't prescribe it outside of hospitals and don't subsidize drug use-the solution is known and it is NOT cheaper, more available drugs that ruin lives.
--- And now there's "medical marijuana". This isn't the stuff grandma smoked at Woodstock. It's stronger, more dangerous, makes people angry (instead of high) and is linked to psychosis and schizophrenia.
"Don't prescribe it outside of hospitals and don't subsidize drug use-the solution is known and it is NOT cheaper, more available drugs that ruin lives."
Oh, yeah? What is that solution? You have a solution better than this one?
Along with all of the other positive indicators--lower crime rate, lower incarceration, lower overdose casualty toll, etc.--the Switzerland program, which has been in place since 1994, 20 years, is showing an aging out of the addict population, with no one replacing them.
In fact, since most of the problems of the 1990s surge in opioid addiction were due to Purdue Pharma actually Pushing increased opioid use to doctors by misleading them, I favor nationalizing the pharmaceutical companies. The covid vaccine deals only reinforced that opinion: https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/02/business/pfizer-earnings/index.html The very idea that a pharma company could use a global epidemic as an opportunity to cash in like that- I'm aghast. Furious.
(It's off-topic here, but I'll defend my position on nationalization, too. That's one policy suggestion that Brookings will never make, lol- slicing through the Gordian knot. I realize that all the incoherent Ayn Randers and "free-market" zealots fronting on hating on Big Pharma are suddenly clutching their pearls. I favor a diversified market economy overwhelmingly. But ideological dogmatism is not my hangup. Generic chemicals are not like some new improved brand of track shoe.)
The fact remains that some people get hooked on opioids, whether from underground sources or diverted sources. If physicians were legally allowed to supply monitored amounts to addicts in connection with the addicts making efforts to stabilize their life circumstances, most of the street market would dry up. That is the Top Priority. The illicit distribution networks need to dry up and go away, so we can make sure that they can't come back.
"Enabling addiction", yes. With a purpose- to keep addicts from going over a cliff. It's imperative to get people out of the street market in hard drugs before they slide too far. Before they end up somewhere like Kensington PA. Ask any parent of an addicted child if they'd rather have them in the household and getting a regular prescription than have them stealing things to feed their habit and drowning in the criminal social milieu. If they'd rather have them getting a steady supply of drugs in regulated dosage amounts--even heroin--and stabilizing their lives rather than having them end up on the streets.
There's another think-tank report by Brookings or Rand that offers much the same recommendations as mine--for the development of addiction medicine as a medical specialty, including prescription opioid maintenance as one of the options. I'll try to look it up. There are ways to do this wrong, but there are also ways to do it right, including as a first step to stabilize someones condition in order to encourage them to enter recovery. https://www.addictionsuisse.ch/faits-et-chiffres/opioides/opioides-consequences/
The programs I've read about in Vancouver are NOT the way to do this. Prescription maintenance does not work very well for addicts who have already developed addictions so severe that they're living on the street and routinely committing petty--or not so petty--crimes. Scofflaw recividist offenders need to go to jail--but if they're found to be addicted to opioids, they need to go to rehab jail for six months or a year, where they're given the option of long-term treatment. Peope who leave, return to their habits and the streets, and start doing the same old crimes as part of the same old pattern need to go back in for another year. If nothing else, this will deprive the illicit market of customers. Top priority.
"Are people in the US regularly prescribed fentanyl? I doubt it."
That was formerly one of the opioids that was over-prescribed, yes. Nowadays, illicitly manufactured fentanyl is the staple opioid of the street market. There are other opioids 100 times as powerful as fentanyl by weight. If the street market product line shifts again, it will shift in that direction. Synthetic opioids with effective dose weights of 1/10 of a milligram are checkmate in the interdiction game. Opioids with effective dose weights of 1/millionth of a gram, even more so.
"Do MANY people make money on opioid use/abuse here in the US? Way too many."
Richard Reeves closed the podcast with a beautiful description of manhood, which I think is an equally beautiful description of womanhood. You become an adult when you give more than you take-from a community, family or society. You give time, love, concern and/or money. You wrote..........
""Enabling addiction", yes. With a purpose- to keep addicts from going over a cliff. It's imperative to get people out of the street market in hard drugs before they slide too far. Before they end up somewhere like Kensington PA."
Those babies in the hospital could easily be given opiates, legally and safely for the rest of their lives. Why not enable their continuing addiction?. They never chose to use drugs and they never chose the pain of withdrawal yet no one suggests giving them a steady stream of opiates. Do you think that the system is punishing those babies or giving them a life worth living? Giving drugs with no benefits to adults that chose to use them so they need not suffer the pain or discomfort of withdrawal just enables them to continue a life where they only take and cannot know the joy of giving. In a just and fair society, every person gets to enjoy sharing their knowledge and talents with others and the psychological and emotional rewards that it offers. Why would I want addicts to not have THOSE good feelings? Why trap someone in that world?
We're back to your anecdotal account of addicted babies again. Apparently because you have nothing else to offer--except for Selective Emotivism ignoring the reality that criminalization wasn't able to stop the mothers from getting addicted, a policy that make them social pariahs and left them to the social milieu of other criminalized addicts and their career criminal suppliers.
A pregnant woman living as a criminalized addict who took up prostitution to get the money to hand to the cartels to feed her habit isn't really an environment that encourages prenatal care.
Of course no one suggests that babies born to addicted mothers be given a lifelong supply of opioids--what sort of straw argument is that? You're insulting the readers.
"giving drugs with no benefits to adults that chose to use them so they need not suffer the pain or discomfort of withdrawal just enables them to continue a life where they only take and cannot know the joy of giving."
This is the cloud-castle dream world of Punitive Moralism--the delusion that you're "saving" an addict by whipsawing them into withdrawal against their will, so that
"in a just and fair society, every person gets to enjoy sharing their knowledge and talents with others and the psychological and emotional rewards that it offers. Why would I want addicts to not have THOSE good feelings? Why trap someone in that world?"
As a defense of criminalization and zero tolerance prohibition, that is not coherent logic. The Rhetoric is your own personal fantasy, created for the benefit of your own ignorant idealism- and, ultimately, to flatter your own private ego.
If you want to know what actually happens out there on the streets to the victims of punitive moralist criminalization policy, read the book Dopesick. Face empirical factual reality. Stop arguing from a dream world.
There's one circumstance where I would agree with you: if someone has really hit bottom and they're living a dysfunctional lifestyle on the streets, they need to be apprehended for the actual malum in se criminal offenses they commit, and then forced into abstention and recovery in confinement. But we'll need a better jail system than the overcrowded pits that most of them are now, as a result of over-criminaizing the drugs trade and handing it over to criminals. Because right now, in a lot of places it's almost as easy to get opioids inside jail as it is outside. Which should tell you something, if you can handle the reality of it.
you make some interesting points. I watched the Hulu fictional show Dopesick, but it was extremely illuminating about Perdue Pharmacutical and the opiod crisis AND not only the failure of our govt. to limit it, but our Govts. complicity by allowing Govt. officials to make decisions that benefit these companies and then go to work for them for huge salaries. Corporations are running our country, plain and simple. Both Dems and Repubs cater to corporations. The CIA and all of the illegal acts they've done in foreign countries were all about creating opportunities for american corporations. And, they want the american public to be dumb, drugged, and divided. That way they get to continue the status quo...which is corporations and their investors making bank while most americans struggle.
I've read the book Dopesick, which is nonfiction, not fiction.. That has kept me from wanting to watch the series that was made from it. I've read well over a hundred books on the subject of illegal drugs, and that's the one book that had me staring at the ceiling all night after I finished it.
You're raised some really good points. I'll be writing more on them when time allows.
I agree. The book is almost always better than the movie:. Always better in the case of nonfiction.
But I'll warn you in advance: Dopesick is not a book to be enjoyed. It was riveting reading. I picked it up in the New Book selection at the library, started reading it there, checked it out and took it home, and did not stop reading it until the end. But it's a haunting book, and not a fun read at all.
The reason an office of women’s health was needed was that virtually all medical research had been done on men. You may be too young to remember (I’m 71), but the nation was shocked when it came out that virtually all subjects in medical studies were men. It was a shocker when an unusual study showed that men and women died from heart disease at different rates. The reason so many charities popped up to study breast cancer was because so little research on breast cancer had been done. I think the deficit in studies on women’s health has been corrected to a great extent, so most likely a separate office of women’s health isn’t needed. We’ve come a long way in recognizing that *people’s* health is what’s important. But for *hundreds* of years the idea didn’t even come to mind that women might not have exactly the same experiences with diseases and medications as men.
I am a woman who agrees that it is time to stop dividing men and women into separate and opposing groups. But you could go a long way toward ending this situation by not buying in to it. Some current “feminists” like to stir the pot to make themselves relevant and make news. Don’t reward that with knee-jerk hate and counter-accusations.
I was delighted to come across this newsletter addressing the current situation of men with concern and reasonableness. The responses here make me think you don’t appreciate the brave stand Mr. Galloway is taking on men’s behalf in today’s climate. Do carry on, Mr. Galloway.
All medical research in the beginning resulted from men losing limbs and lives in war. The research was about the nation’s defense. Women didn’t die for their country. Men did. Women put pressure on men to do so. Of course the research was mainly on men.
Not true. The Congressional Women's Caucus created the Office of Women's Health by deceiving their colleagues. They claimed that female-specific health "only" received 15% of the NIH budget. They conveniently left out the fact that that 15% was already TWICE the amount spent on male-specific health.
Feminists are liars and con artists, and the dismissal of men by the feminist-driven culture is precisely what is creating division between the sexes. Until men get comparable recognition AND FUNDING, the division will continue.
As of now, many times more money is spent on breast cancer than prostate cancer, despite similar numbers of deaths for the two diseases. Do you justify the far greater funding for breast cancer over prostate cancer?
So "people's health" is important to you? Are you now calling for a comparable Office of Men's Health, or are you just ignoring the fact that that comparable program doesn't exist?
The American Cancer Society’s estimates for testicular cancer in the United States for 2024 are:
* About 9,760 new cases of testicular cancer diagnosed
* About 500 deaths from testicular cancer
Because testicular cancer usually can be treated successfully, a man’s lifetime risk of dying from this cancer is very low: about 1 in 5,000
Pardon me, Frank, if I don’t give credence to any of your other facts. I was going to look into the history of the formation of the Office of Women’s Health, but in light of the above statistics from the Center for Disease Control and the American Cancer Society, and your claim that men and women die at the same rates from these cancers, I don’t see the need.
You are comparing breast cancer with testicular cancer, not prostate cancer. Was that an honest mistake, or were you hoping I didn't catch it? Speaking of the American Cancer Society, they alone spend two times ,more on breast cancer than prostate cancer. When Martin Luther King's son passed away from prostate cancer earlier this year, they virtue-signaled on their Facebook page: they mentioned that prostate cancer claims more black men's lives than white men's lives, but omitted the fact the fact that they were spending 2 times more on breast cancer than prostate cancer. I think that's a case of a turd varnishing itself.
I did make a mistake in giving statistics about testicular cancer instead of prostate cancer. The CDC says that more than 33,000 men died of prostate cancer. I apologize for my snide remark about your research.
I disagree with @Tom Golden and @Frank, I think both of those sentiments reflect a zero sum sort of thinking. If you can't acknowledge the benefit of feminist work then you are missing the point, IMHO. I agree that the label of "toxic masculinity" is not helpful, and yet it is a step forward to call out bad behavior on the part of men when appropriate to do so. I don't think we need to take offense to that. I think men have been done a pretty good job of oppressing themselves, war, capitalism, etc, and feminism has arrived rather late on the scene to really account for anything other than the advancement of women, which is clear. Sure, are there women that are angry with men, but lets be real men are great at tearing each other apart and have been doing it for quite some time now. This is not a zero sum game between men and women and I think that is the most important point. We all can have better lives and lets support each other along the way.
Hatred of any other group would have people hitting the stratosphere. Toxic Blacks, Toxic Jews etc. ??? But the hatred of men get a ho hum. What does hatred have to do with zero sum?
I would urge you to study this a bit. Have a look at the substack of Janice Fiamengo or better yet watch her series on early feminism and its central idea of the hatred of men. People have been hoodwinked into thinking feminism is about equality. It is not.
Yes it’s not zero sum game. We need a renewed focus on men’s health, isolation induced mental health issues and related concerns. Making progress on women’s status does not have to be at the cost of boys and men.
But it IS coming at the cost of men and boys. Feminists have made it a zero sum game, by funding women's issues while ignoring men's issues. Back in February, Jill Biden announced that $100,000,000 (of taxpayer funds) had been give to the White House Initiative on Women's Health Research - and zero dollars had been given to men's health. Has Galloway ever mentioned that injustice? If so, I sure haven't seen it.
Feminist in Congress made sure that vastly more taxpayer funds are spent on breast cancer than prostate cancer, That is the "benefit of feminist work" you mentioned. Think about that "benefit" at your next annual physical. If you are diagnosed with prostate cancer, you can thank the "benefit of feminist work:" for your poorer prognosis.
A few percent of men conspire with a huge chunk of womankind, and the losers are some women and the vast majority of men.
It’s the same in the animal kingdom, look at most mammals, whales, etc. why work humans be different. Women flock to alpha males at the expense of Joe average.
Correct. The nature shows on TV show the two dominant sea lion bulls competing for the harem of female sea lions. The rare show depicts the bachelor colony, the vast majority of male sea lions that can't or won't play that game.
You guys are sounding like incels. I don't know what's gone wrong with humans, americans only perhaps, but there are plenty of women out there who would like a man in their lives, but the men only want the hot models. Which, only the alpha males typically get. So we end up with angry 'average' men and single 'average' women. Pretty silly. Wish I knew how to change it. The best relationships I've seen out there are just average people who found someone they enjoy being with and didn't focus on looks.
In your personal experience, how true do you really think it is that "the men only want the hot models"? Just like Tom Golden below claims that "women choose men from the top percentage of available men" and we both know that's a load of bull otherwise society would not be made up of mostly very average couples, similarly, while average men may fantasize about the "hot models" our eyes tell us that they pair up with average women. Otherwise again, society would not be comprised of mostly very average couples.
What research? Dating app swipes on photos don't count. Most women don't have the oppurtunities to "choose from the top percentage of available men" because they are not in the top percentage of available women (accounting for looks, wealth, status, whatever metric). Assortative mating is the norm. That's why you see a lot of average looking and average earning couples out here whenever you go out.
You will never find a man if you use misandric terminology like "incels". Men want women that reject the misandry that is built into feminism, and value and respect men. It is that simple.
not my word. I think everybody wants to be treated with respect Frank. But respect isn’t blindly following someone. It’s hearing them, it’s seeing them, it’s recognizing them for them…. and of course it’s being kind.
I remember as a little girl, a friend of mine’s mother was a ‘feminist’. And she did seem to have some anger in her. Understandable to a certain degree, I imagine, given the limitations she had grown up under. As an adult, I don’t see that same anger around anymore. We have a whole generation of women that have grown up, for the most part, with opportunity. And the men of that generation grew up with that too and accept it. The concept that men are inherently ‘better’ just isn’t a thing for the younger generation, so that ‘battle’ isn’t there. They recognize that people are individuals each with their own strenths and weaknesses. Expecatations is what leads people down paths toward conflict. If we can eliiminate expectations, most of which are unrealistic anyway, we eliminate a lot of the conflict between men and women. Anyway, my thoughts for what it’s worth.
Thank you, but it's much more than expectations. Feminists in Congress created the Office of Women's Health, but ignored men's health. That being the case, the male issues that Galloway mentioned will not receive the government funding necessary to address them. I have never seen Galloway make that point, so it is important that that point be raised.
Yep but it’s worse than that. Because in our case boss man Mr Dominant Alpha Bossman Sea Lion and his henchladies can harvest those bachelors - and their sons - and the future productivity of the grandsons - into securitized government debt, send them off to war, and play the off each other to distract them.
Keep calling men toxic and you will continue to see rising numbers of male deaths of despair. Admire and respect men and boys and masculinity and these deaths will decrease. We worry about stereotype threat with girls being exposed to attitudes that they might not do well in math but we don't give a damn about the flood of negatives we pour onto our men and boys. Who could be stupid enough to think that boys should thrive in such a morass of hate.
Absolutely correct. How nice of Galloway to say, "Not all masculinity is toxic". I don't see how he can look in the mirror and call himself an advocate for men.
Back in the early 1990s, feminist Democrats in Congress created the Office of Women's Health, but ignored men's health, both back then and ever since. So why are more men dying from unnatural causes? The answer lies in the fact that feminists and the feminist-driven culture has no concern for the welfare of men. A comparable funding program for men's health would be able to study those issues, and address them. But the necessary culture concern for men and men's lives has to first be created.
Your argument is so similar to those who rebuff the black lives matter movement by yelling all lives matter. Of course all lives matter, but at that moment, and probably still now, black lives were being killed at a much higher level. Going back to 1990, we were realizing that all medical studies were focused on male bodies.....somewhat understandable since researchers were scared to possibly damage a preganant woman's baby, but that doesn't change the fact that the knowledge gained by studying male bodies and trying to apply that to women's bodies wasn't very effective. A new approach that recognized that women's bodies are different than mens (something I think you agree with) was needed. Basically all medical studies were directed toward men.
I think one thing that would help men's health, would be to find a way to remove the stigma of seeking medical care. So many men, especially younger men, do not go to the doctor. Add to that, many fields that men work in, such as construction, don't include medical benefits. I live in a town where people are really active and fit, there's really no over weight people here. Yet, these fit, active men (the single ones in particular) die by their early 60s. I've thought about this for awhile, once I recognized the trend. They work jobs where they get more money than women, which puts them out of govt. funded health care, but they didn't make enough to pay for their own health insurance. My neighbor died of prostate cancer at 60. If he could've just received a govt. funded test, perhaps he'd still be alive. But if we can get the govt. to fund tests such as PSA, Mammograms, colonoscopys for people without health care, would men take advantage of it? To me, that would be a great path to go down to help men. Eliminating the stigma of men going to a doctor would be a huge step in the right direction. It's interesting that married men are so much more likely to seek medical care, I assume because they're being pushed by their wives, and tend to live longer. While I have 3 sons and 3 brothers, I still don't know why men are so resistant to seeking medical care. I'm curious if perhaps you have thoughts on that?
" So many men, especially younger men, do not go to the doctor."
--- What's different about younger men? I guess most young people are generally healthy so what's making younger women go to the doctor (if they are) more than younger men? Do older men depend on their wives to make doctor appointments for them - is that why they go more?
Not seeking help is not actually a stigma. It is tied up with men wanting to maintain their independence. This desire to maintain independence is connected to what research calls "Precarious Manhood" which marks the societal push of both men and women to value independence in men and devalue dependence. Think of your own situation. Do you help men value dependence? Do women tend to choose dependent males for mates? lol
I would urge you to read this link. It offers some facts about women's research participation and offers interesting facts about the ratio of the phrases in pub med of "women's heatlh" versus "men's health" from 1973- Interesting stuff. The women's health phrase is much more abundant even in 1975.
The vast majority of black murders are committed by other blacks.
You wrote, "I think one thing that would help men's health, would be to find a way to remove the stigma of seeking medical care"
No, what would help men's health is FUNDING for men's health. Back in February, Jill Biden announced that $100,000,000 (of taxpayer funds) were donated to the White House Initiative on Women's Health Research; ZERO dollars were given to men's health research. Which also happens to be a violation of the Equal Protection Clause.
If Galloway has ever mentioned these injustices, I sure have not seen it.
This is why, my friend, we need to vote Trump. The Democrats and the left live in a gynocentric matriarchy that ignores male problems. Kemala programme mentions women 10 times: It mentions none. Sorry, but we have a good chance now to let Democrats known that they you cannot govern against males. Period.
Finally, Prof G and Richard Reeves talk. Off to hear this.
Really? You seriously are comparing 3 years of war with 23 years and think that's useful comparison? You undercut your point by doing so. I would also like to know if the death rate from drug use is unproportionally impacting men or have those numbers increased for all? Not to minimize the issue with young men, but I like things to be true and rational. That helps in accurately diagnosing the problem and hopefully in coming up with solutions. The disparity between the opportunity previous generations had compared to today's youth's opportunities is pretty huge. The older generations are holding onto weatlh in such a way that it's easy for youth to become discouraged and more apt to abuse drugs....which our own country has allowed. Why are pharmeceutical companies allowed to air TV ads? It's disgusting. Yes, young men are struggling, but this dial it down to get to the actual issue.
What are you smoking?
Would you prefer to compare to say 1977-2000?
Learn some empathy lady.
The heart of it is a Bad Drugs problem. Most of the overdoses of the last 10 years are due to street fentanyl, mostly in the form of counterfeit opioid pills. Most of the casualties were addicts who had got hooked on Oxy back in the 1990s-2000s when it was easy to find a State with loose regs (some of them, like Florida, were ridiculous), hop State borders with a prescription (or without one), doctor shop, find a pill mill and buy mass quantities for a habit and/or the diversion market to funnel it into the high schools.
The whole thing kicked off in the mid-1990s, when Purdue pharma salespeople were doing all the "drug education" for doctors who hadn't had any in medical school, telling them it was okay to prescribe Oxy for every little back sprain. Typical "time release" dose was 40mg- 8 times as much as 5mg Percodan that was the same drug. All anyone had to do was chew the pill and boom, better than street heroin. Powerful enough that overdoses from Oxy outpaced heroin by the end of the 2000s. So the Feds cracked down on the pill mills, and now most every state is signed up to a central Federal database, which should have been policy 25 years before it happened. But the rapid cutoff of legit macufactured pills without any alternatives available led the addicts to the street heroin market, which rapidly turned into the fentanyl market, because this is the age of designer drugs. And ever since fentanyl, we've had a REAL drug problem. 40 times the annual death toll, compared to heroin in the 1990s. 7 times the annual death toll from Oxycontin and the other pills in the early 2000s.
Nowadays the surveys show that teenagers are scared off of opioids, because almost all of them are aware of the counterfeit problem and the fentanyl contamination problem that affects other drugs. New users of opioids are down by 2/3- but the cartels have started to put it into every drug that passes through their hands, and it's gotten dirt cheap https://kstp.com/kstp-news/top-news/price-of-illicit-fentanyl-drops-to-dangerously-cheap-in-twin-cities-metro/
At a dollar a pill, some suckers will try that shit. It's an introductory offer.
We need a legal opioid option, like opium cough medicine, quantity and ID controlled at each outlet. We have the technology to do it: I've had my ID copied when purchasing a 6-pack of beer, I've bought booze from stores with quantity limits. We can do the same thing for people buying a bottle of liquid suspension of opium. Also, tightly regulated physician prescribed opioid maintenance for the people with the heaviest habits. The rest of the opioids should remain illegal, but the criminal marketplace will shrink drastically, and that's the most important thing. Not a perfect solution, but it would work a lot better than most people think.
Straight talk: I'm tired of hearing the problems of our catastrophic Drug War policy diverted into another issue. Drug and alcohol consumption is a situation where men are just plain more reckless than women: males start underage more often, they experiment more widely, they take more dangerous drugs, they combine them together more, they care less about the source, they take them in greater quantities, they get addicted more often than females. As a result, men die from overdoses 2-3 times as often as women. https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/men-died-overdose-2-3-times-greater-rate-women-us-2020-2021
It isn't Misandry. It's Us, males. XYs. Most of drug addiction is a side effect of Type-R personality, which has a heavily male bias. Drugs are the wrong place to push limits and take risks, because there's no effort involved, and hence none of the natural checks and brakes that are part of most other type-R challenges. The reward comes all at once, bypassing any authentic benefit from testing ones limits. Men like to find an edge to be tested with, but drugs are deceptive like nothing else. It's like testing how deep you can sink in quicksand. And as Stupid Guy Tricks go, playing with drugs that can swallow you whole seems to have an enduring popularity.
I'm recommending liberalizing the laws on a dilute opium formulations because nothing else is going to ensure regulated product safety and starve the money supply of the criminal business, which has been booming for half a century. That's the only reason. I'm advocating it because I throw up my hands. If some people want to get high on opioids, let them have it. I'm tired of seeing Criminal Culture running a controlling interest in the music lyrics, the fashions, the slang, the cynicism, the nihilism, the conspicuous consumption materialism, the alienation, the social divides. The guns, the violence, the climate of lawlessness that's resulted from over-policing peoples personal decisions. We know that some of those decisions are reckless per se, when it comes to drug use.. The lawlessness of criminalization makes the hazards incomparably worse.
Alcohol Prohibition repeal stopped the 14-year process of the gangsterfication of America- for a while. Then it came back worse with Other Prohibited Drugs, 30-odd years later. No conspiracy, just the return of the repressed. And this society has been in denial about it ever since. A time period four times as long as the duration of Alcohol Prohibition, with its 14-year span of the Roaring 20s, Jay Gatsby, the introduction of coed college students to binge drinking. The 1920s was the era that invented the drive-by shooting. How much worse is the decadence and corruption now than it was then- I dunno, 50 times worse, 100 times worse?
But, sure, go on. Blame it on neglected men, not getting our egos stroked enough, dying "deaths of despair." The despair is real. But it's an end stage of addiction, a ride that felt so carefree at the outset. So carefree that few of the addicts even read so much as a single piece of paper outlining the hazards. Especially not the fine print. Most of the illegal drug users I know just jumped in head first, beginning as teenagers. Most of them have been men. Nobody pushed them.
Big Weed will be next. It's not your hippie grandma's grass anymore. These new strains are stronger, more dangerous, make people angry - not happy, and are linked to psychosis and schizophrenia. The healing herb is no longer healing.
Speaking as someone who is hippie grandpa age: I know. That's a line that I had been hearing since the late 1980s. And I scoffed at it--because while California sinsemilla and Maui Wowie were a lot more powerful than bricked Mexican weed (and noticeably fresher, with much less of the drowsy CBN content found in stale cannabis), that just meant that you only needed one or two pulls on a joint to get high.
BUT---in the mid-1990s, something happened: it really wasn't the same substance. The product really WAS different. It was twice as powerful as what had previously been considered really potent weed. The cultivators had overshot the mark. Not only that, the superpotent product was the standard of the underground market. It was a turnoff. So I basically stopped smoking pot 20 years ago. Special occasions only. I still like the effect. Of a little bit. Now and then. (Never had any problem quitting cold, ever, even in my wake-and-bake days.)
If you want to know more, my views on the over-engineering of cannabis in the 1990s to turn it into a THC factory have been on the record for many moons in posts on my Substack page, as well as in various comments and notes found on this platform. https://adwjeditor.substack.com/p/the-benefits-of-naturally-existing
In my opinion, cannabis with a THC content of 20%-30% makes about as much sense as adding five 200mg caffeine pills to a cup of coffee that formerly worked just fine as-is. But, many of my fellow Americans have just plain fallen for the hype about this more-is-better adolescent dope macho.
No surprise, almost all of them are my fellow XYs. Males. That tendency toward unbalanced excess should be seen in the wider context as an unwanted side effect of our male metabolism--which, while indispensable to the inventive advance of our species and mostly awesome in my personally biased male opinion, nonetheless deserves a lot more of a critique than it's gotten. It ain't naturally all good. That much should be obvious, shouldn't it?
(Human drives and desires in general deserve a good long unsparing dicussion- be they male, female, or generated from other levels of our default mode of egocentricity. Understand, I realize that coercive punitive moralism imposed from outside is like Leninism: the cure is worse the disease. That doesn't mean that it isn't imperative to run our drives and desires past a feedback loop of reflective self-awareness, in order to minimize our human tendencies to act like dreadfully thoughtless, heedless, and proudly self-exculpating beings. A much wider discussion than I'm up for in this post, or this reply thread. Although I do have a lot more to say on the subject.)
I don't feel much like repeating my opinions on cannabis here. They can be found by clicking on the link to my page. (Which navigates and reads better with a grownup computer.) I'll simply make the general observation that nearly all mind-altering substances have a range of effects that begin at "barely noticeable threshold effect", and continue on with an increasing dosage level to to achieve what might be termed an "optimal desired effect"--beyond which the additives begin to add more body load and side effects, turning excessive--and, depending on the substance, unrecognizably strong, disorienting, or lethally poisonous.
I've already mentioned caffeine; the same is true for alcohol, THC, MDMA, psilocybin, amphetamine, benzodiazepines, opioids...the dose makes the poison. Increased frequency of use nearly always leads to tolerance--which should not be taken as widening the margin of safety; it should be taken as a warning. Tolerance indicates reckless overuse, practically always.
Tolerance also gives the drug-tolerant unrealistic ideas about the strength of the substances they use in terms of their effects on newbies and occasional users. I think one of the unrecognized consequences of ultrastrong high THC cannabis is that it has a way of turning people off of the experience entirely. >10% THC weed isn't fun for most of us. Many of us prefer more like 3%-5%. We have no interest in taking up the continuous use required to turn the strong stuff into a more ordinary baseline. Illegality and adolescent initiation--nearly always in male-centered social circles--always included a component of social pressure to use as much as possible. As a status competition. Same with binge drinking, no? It's juvenile. It's bad, wrong, unnecessary, and was largely initially powered by "forbidden fruit" illegality. (Binge alcohol drinking didn't really take off with college-age youth until Prohibition either, for that matter--particularly for women.) In the states where it's legal--and everywhere else, for that matter--cannabis culture needs to step back from the edge and grow up. Overdoing weed is senseless. Understand, I was that chump. With binge drinking, too, even before pot, that was my 1960s. I don't think I stopped after only one beer and put the brakes on until I was in my 20s. Lo and behold, I actually realized that alcohol had some effect short of being staggering drunk and numb in the face. Nowadays I don't drink at all until after I exercise, which basically means that I don't drink. I've never felt better. The endocannabinoids of a runner's high really do feel like a good optimal dose of THC, for what it's worth.. Although I freely admit that unlike alcohol, I can handle a little bit of THC just fine when I work out or hike. Emphasis on "a little bit." Cannabis is catalytic. Take enough to flip the switch, and quit while you're ahead.
Same with coffee. Granted, I'm much more ah "habituated" to coffee. Fortunately, it's a pretty safe substance. I have a tolerance to caffeine. But it isn't as if anyone elevates to some transcendent euphoria zone from drinking 12 cups of coffee. There would probably be a lot more nonsensical mythology and folklore claims on that score if coffee was prohibited and criminalized.
Finally, it has to be said that even given the legality, too much caffeine can lead to psychosis. Same with tobacco. Same with alcohol. If you don't believe me, do a keyword search (preferably on a grownup computer, okay?) Mind alteration of any sort can precipitate a first psychotic experience, in psychically vulnerable people. Consider all of the mental problems that the Internet and social media has caused, particularly when ingested through the medium of the cellphone. Some of those problems are very serious.
I think if we really want to examine opiate use and deaths of despair we should use a wider lens before we broaden opiate use-I suspect many of these deaths are for people that were first prescribed opiates. If a man works in a position where he can temporarily (or permanently) become disabled, there are financial gains. Federal tax, payroll taxes, many state's taxes are not removed from a disability check, health insurance is provided and often opiates are prescribed. With this smaller payment, the family keeps much more money, qualifies for scholarships at parochial grade and high schools, YMCA memberships, federal Pell grants at college, reduced price/free lunch at school and has a parent at home to mind the children. Now, the disabled man would lose so much financially if he went back to work and he becomes an addict. So many rehabs, social workers, pharmacists and doctors are making money, this will never stop. It will not take long before the addiction destroys what remains of the family.
I had children in the Intensive Care Nursery. They eventually graduated to the "angry baby room". These are the babies born addicted to opiates because an entire system supports Mom's drug use throughout pregnancy (with methadone). Sometimes these newborns cannot be fed, they are so distraught and screaming with the withdrawal discomfort. An army of supports are in place making sure mom never feels any discomfort for her opiate use and can dine at restaurants with special coupons and sleep in a comfortable bed while her newborn goes through withdrawals. No person should suggest allowing opiate use until they have heard these babies and watched the vultures making a living off of allowing this or worse, promoting it. Opiates should be available by IV ONLY, in a hospital or for the terminally ill. People are earning a living off destroying the lives of others.
"I had children in the Intensive Care Nursery. They eventually graduated to the "angry baby room". These are the babies born addicted to opiates because an entire system supports Mom's drug use throughout pregnancy (with methadone). Sometimes these newborns cannot be fed, they are so distraught and screaming with the withdrawal discomfort. An army of supports are in place making sure mom never feels any discomfort for her opiate use and can dine at restaurants with special coupons and sleep in a comfortable bed while her newborn goes through withdrawals. No person should suggest allowing opiate use until they have heard these babies and watched the vultures making a living off of allowing this or worse, promoting it."
I realize that the babies of drug-addicted mothers go into withdrawal. Of all of the drug-addicted pregnant women giving birth every year, how many do you suppose were addicted to opioids legally prescribed by their physician? Does keeping all opioids illegal and prohibited help with the situation of addicted women getting pregnant? Might it not actually be making that situation worse? Does criminalization and prohibition really interfere with the easy access to impure, illicit, and possibly lethal fentanyl counterfeit pills all over the country, at cut-rate prices?
"Opiates should be available by IV ONLY, in a hospital or for the terminally ill. People are earning a living off destroying the lives of others.""
According to this link, 6 of the top 10 prescription pain medications are opioids. https://www.definitivehc.com/resources/healthcare-insights/most-common-pain-medication
It's been that way as long as opioids and opiates have been around. Many millions of Americans are prescribed opioids every year. Millions take them for chronic pain management. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2788755
Maybe some percentage of those millions of people are malingering, I don't know. There were probably malingering opioid addicts in the 19th century, too. And the 18th century, before that. And so on, all the centuries when it was legal. Civilization can survive a small percentage of habitual opioid users. What's caused the breakdown of society is handing the market over to a criminal monopoly.
The statistics I've found bear out the reality that around 85% of the opioid deaths over the past five years involve fentanyl, most of it in the form of counterfeit pills. https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fdd17bfce-8fd6-469b-af59-a4811c71d12d_1180x1020.png
I know exactly what you're saying about OSHA related disability and SSDI eligibility, and that it exists as a potential problem--that there's a temptation for people working low-paid jobs to turn disability into a long-term welfare benefit that sometimes has included being addicted. More of a problem in some places than others, and not as easy to get in the case of SSDI.
But I'd bet that it's a lot harder to get prescribed opioids from most occupational health doctors any more. The Feds began cracking down around 2014. The first thing they did was shut the quantity window. And doctors--everywhere--are stingy with opioids any more, sometimes very stingy.
That's the sort of overcompensation rebound that happens when the legal prescription trade in a DEA Schedule II substance--supposedly Federally regulated--is left to the separate states to do the oversight for 20 years, with no connection to a centralized Federal database. Well, there is one now, and almost all of the states have signed on to it--but in the 1990s, there was no Federal oversight of accountability for physician prescriptions. And states with loose regs and low enforcement like Florida and Ohio were just full of script docs and pill mills.
But that's over now. And many of the addicts who started out on legally manufactured product have been forced into the street market, which is run by a different breed of career criminal than scrip docs. That why all the fentanyl deaths, read the linked chart. Reproduced with other charts in the expanded comment that I turned into a post on my Substack https://adwjeditor.substack.com/p/the-real-dangerous-drug-problem
The Brookings Institute had an excellent report on opioid use. It is worth a read.
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/what-the-us-and-canada-can-learn-from-other-countries-to-combat-the-opioid-crisis/
"Lesson 1: Flooding the health care system with prescription opioids is not needed for population pain management."
and especially
"Lesson 3: The rules under which opioids are prescribed matter."
"Germany’s high per capita opioid consumption rate is driven by extensive use of opioids in institutional settings (e.g., fentanyl during inpatient surgery). But unlike in Canada and the United States, in Germany prescriptions for chronic non-cancer pain are uncommon for people living outside of medical facilities. Only 4.5% of Germans living in the community receive an opioid prescription each year, versus 20% of Canadians. "
Are people in the US regularly prescribed fentanyl? I doubt it. Do MANY people make money on opioid use/abuse here in the US? Way too many.
Can I know how the mothers became addicted? No. Did I overhear many conversations? Yes. Heroin was different when I was young, now people can just grab granny's pills. The mothers on methadone are given a host of government and charitable resources making other people wealthy while they don't go through withdrawals and their baby does. Greed is the problem. Long term opiates actually increase the perception of pain.
https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/more-opioids-more-pain-fueling-the-fire-2019070817024
Don't prescribe it outside of hospitals and don't subsidize drug use-the solution is known and it is NOT cheaper, more available drugs that ruin lives.
"Heroin was different when I was young"
--- So was marijuana.
"now people can just grab granny's pills. "
--- And now there's "medical marijuana". This isn't the stuff grandma smoked at Woodstock. It's stronger, more dangerous, makes people angry (instead of high) and is linked to psychosis and schizophrenia.
"Don't prescribe it outside of hospitals and don't subsidize drug use-the solution is known and it is NOT cheaper, more available drugs that ruin lives."
Oh, yeah? What is that solution? You have a solution better than this one?
https://psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.pn.2018.6b15
https://www.northcarolinahealthnews.org/2019/01/21/switzerland-couldnt-stop-drug-users-so-it-started-supporting-them/
https://www.statnews.com/2024/03/26/opioid-addiction-methadone-treatment-switzerland-europe/?utm_campaign=morning_rounds&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=299795638&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--7ByPcbtMbRzrW0P0g_mOkN4bFnQyuWMK6_pXgAwbuXnY66sycm7I2YSeemVcdWSolzM2i8KqXogYx1fpCbjDQnwEY3Hc49m2V3lY5sgjJTBsDDno&utm_content=299795638&utm_source=hs_email
Along with all of the other positive indicators--lower crime rate, lower incarceration, lower overdose casualty toll, etc.--the Switzerland program, which has been in place since 1994, 20 years, is showing an aging out of the addict population, with no one replacing them.
I read both reports already. The parts you've excerpted indicate that you're misconstruing my position. I'm not in favor of prescribing excessive amounts of opioids for pain conditions. Never have been. I'm not in favor of profiteering pharmaceutical companies. Never have been. Less so than ever. As I mentioned earlier, there's bee a steep drop in opioid prescription in the US in recent years https://www.aiche.org/sites/default/files/images/cep/inline/2022-09-01-Feature/2022-09-01-Responding-to-the-Opioid-Epidemic/images/fig_01.png
In fact, since most of the problems of the 1990s surge in opioid addiction were due to Purdue Pharma actually Pushing increased opioid use to doctors by misleading them, I favor nationalizing the pharmaceutical companies. The covid vaccine deals only reinforced that opinion: https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/02/business/pfizer-earnings/index.html The very idea that a pharma company could use a global epidemic as an opportunity to cash in like that- I'm aghast. Furious.
(It's off-topic here, but I'll defend my position on nationalization, too. That's one policy suggestion that Brookings will never make, lol- slicing through the Gordian knot. I realize that all the incoherent Ayn Randers and "free-market" zealots fronting on hating on Big Pharma are suddenly clutching their pearls. I favor a diversified market economy overwhelmingly. But ideological dogmatism is not my hangup. Generic chemicals are not like some new improved brand of track shoe.)
The fact remains that some people get hooked on opioids, whether from underground sources or diverted sources. If physicians were legally allowed to supply monitored amounts to addicts in connection with the addicts making efforts to stabilize their life circumstances, most of the street market would dry up. That is the Top Priority. The illicit distribution networks need to dry up and go away, so we can make sure that they can't come back.
"Enabling addiction", yes. With a purpose- to keep addicts from going over a cliff. It's imperative to get people out of the street market in hard drugs before they slide too far. Before they end up somewhere like Kensington PA. Ask any parent of an addicted child if they'd rather have them in the household and getting a regular prescription than have them stealing things to feed their habit and drowning in the criminal social milieu. If they'd rather have them getting a steady supply of drugs in regulated dosage amounts--even heroin--and stabilizing their lives rather than having them end up on the streets.
There's another think-tank report by Brookings or Rand that offers much the same recommendations as mine--for the development of addiction medicine as a medical specialty, including prescription opioid maintenance as one of the options. I'll try to look it up. There are ways to do this wrong, but there are also ways to do it right, including as a first step to stabilize someones condition in order to encourage them to enter recovery. https://www.addictionsuisse.ch/faits-et-chiffres/opioides/opioides-consequences/
https://www.northcarolinahealthnews.org/2019/01/21/switzerland-couldnt-stop-drug-users-so-it-started-supporting-them/
The programs I've read about in Vancouver are NOT the way to do this. Prescription maintenance does not work very well for addicts who have already developed addictions so severe that they're living on the street and routinely committing petty--or not so petty--crimes. Scofflaw recividist offenders need to go to jail--but if they're found to be addicted to opioids, they need to go to rehab jail for six months or a year, where they're given the option of long-term treatment. Peope who leave, return to their habits and the streets, and start doing the same old crimes as part of the same old pattern need to go back in for another year. If nothing else, this will deprive the illicit market of customers. Top priority.
"Are people in the US regularly prescribed fentanyl? I doubt it."
That was formerly one of the opioids that was over-prescribed, yes. Nowadays, illicitly manufactured fentanyl is the staple opioid of the street market. There are other opioids 100 times as powerful as fentanyl by weight. If the street market product line shifts again, it will shift in that direction. Synthetic opioids with effective dose weights of 1/10 of a milligram are checkmate in the interdiction game. Opioids with effective dose weights of 1/millionth of a gram, even more so.
"Do MANY people make money on opioid use/abuse here in the US? Way too many."
Well, yes, beginning with the cartels.
Richard Reeves closed the podcast with a beautiful description of manhood, which I think is an equally beautiful description of womanhood. You become an adult when you give more than you take-from a community, family or society. You give time, love, concern and/or money. You wrote..........
""Enabling addiction", yes. With a purpose- to keep addicts from going over a cliff. It's imperative to get people out of the street market in hard drugs before they slide too far. Before they end up somewhere like Kensington PA."
Those babies in the hospital could easily be given opiates, legally and safely for the rest of their lives. Why not enable their continuing addiction?. They never chose to use drugs and they never chose the pain of withdrawal yet no one suggests giving them a steady stream of opiates. Do you think that the system is punishing those babies or giving them a life worth living? Giving drugs with no benefits to adults that chose to use them so they need not suffer the pain or discomfort of withdrawal just enables them to continue a life where they only take and cannot know the joy of giving. In a just and fair society, every person gets to enjoy sharing their knowledge and talents with others and the psychological and emotional rewards that it offers. Why would I want addicts to not have THOSE good feelings? Why trap someone in that world?
We're back to your anecdotal account of addicted babies again. Apparently because you have nothing else to offer--except for Selective Emotivism ignoring the reality that criminalization wasn't able to stop the mothers from getting addicted, a policy that make them social pariahs and left them to the social milieu of other criminalized addicts and their career criminal suppliers.
A pregnant woman living as a criminalized addict who took up prostitution to get the money to hand to the cartels to feed her habit isn't really an environment that encourages prenatal care.
Of course no one suggests that babies born to addicted mothers be given a lifelong supply of opioids--what sort of straw argument is that? You're insulting the readers.
"giving drugs with no benefits to adults that chose to use them so they need not suffer the pain or discomfort of withdrawal just enables them to continue a life where they only take and cannot know the joy of giving."
This is the cloud-castle dream world of Punitive Moralism--the delusion that you're "saving" an addict by whipsawing them into withdrawal against their will, so that
"in a just and fair society, every person gets to enjoy sharing their knowledge and talents with others and the psychological and emotional rewards that it offers. Why would I want addicts to not have THOSE good feelings? Why trap someone in that world?"
As a defense of criminalization and zero tolerance prohibition, that is not coherent logic. The Rhetoric is your own personal fantasy, created for the benefit of your own ignorant idealism- and, ultimately, to flatter your own private ego.
If you want to know what actually happens out there on the streets to the victims of punitive moralist criminalization policy, read the book Dopesick. Face empirical factual reality. Stop arguing from a dream world.
There's one circumstance where I would agree with you: if someone has really hit bottom and they're living a dysfunctional lifestyle on the streets, they need to be apprehended for the actual malum in se criminal offenses they commit, and then forced into abstention and recovery in confinement. But we'll need a better jail system than the overcrowded pits that most of them are now, as a result of over-criminaizing the drugs trade and handing it over to criminals. Because right now, in a lot of places it's almost as easy to get opioids inside jail as it is outside. Which should tell you something, if you can handle the reality of it.
you make some interesting points. I watched the Hulu fictional show Dopesick, but it was extremely illuminating about Perdue Pharmacutical and the opiod crisis AND not only the failure of our govt. to limit it, but our Govts. complicity by allowing Govt. officials to make decisions that benefit these companies and then go to work for them for huge salaries. Corporations are running our country, plain and simple. Both Dems and Repubs cater to corporations. The CIA and all of the illegal acts they've done in foreign countries were all about creating opportunities for american corporations. And, they want the american public to be dumb, drugged, and divided. That way they get to continue the status quo...which is corporations and their investors making bank while most americans struggle.
I've read the book Dopesick, which is nonfiction, not fiction.. That has kept me from wanting to watch the series that was made from it. I've read well over a hundred books on the subject of illegal drugs, and that's the one book that had me staring at the ceiling all night after I finished it.
You're raised some really good points. I'll be writing more on them when time allows.
good to know it was based on a book. I always enjoy books more than tv shows or movies based on books. I'll go look for it to read.
I agree. The book is almost always better than the movie:. Always better in the case of nonfiction.
But I'll warn you in advance: Dopesick is not a book to be enjoyed. It was riveting reading. I picked it up in the New Book selection at the library, started reading it there, checked it out and took it home, and did not stop reading it until the end. But it's a haunting book, and not a fun read at all.
I’m sorry, Richard Reeves writes the newsletter and Prof Galloway was his guest.
Reeves was the guest on Galloway's podcast.
Thank you! I’m obviously all confused about who’s producing what here.
The reason an office of women’s health was needed was that virtually all medical research had been done on men. You may be too young to remember (I’m 71), but the nation was shocked when it came out that virtually all subjects in medical studies were men. It was a shocker when an unusual study showed that men and women died from heart disease at different rates. The reason so many charities popped up to study breast cancer was because so little research on breast cancer had been done. I think the deficit in studies on women’s health has been corrected to a great extent, so most likely a separate office of women’s health isn’t needed. We’ve come a long way in recognizing that *people’s* health is what’s important. But for *hundreds* of years the idea didn’t even come to mind that women might not have exactly the same experiences with diseases and medications as men.
I am a woman who agrees that it is time to stop dividing men and women into separate and opposing groups. But you could go a long way toward ending this situation by not buying in to it. Some current “feminists” like to stir the pot to make themselves relevant and make news. Don’t reward that with knee-jerk hate and counter-accusations.
I was delighted to come across this newsletter addressing the current situation of men with concern and reasonableness. The responses here make me think you don’t appreciate the brave stand Mr. Galloway is taking on men’s behalf in today’s climate. Do carry on, Mr. Galloway.
Because it was about survival
All medical research in the beginning resulted from men losing limbs and lives in war. The research was about the nation’s defense. Women didn’t die for their country. Men did. Women put pressure on men to do so. Of course the research was mainly on men.
And why did the research focus primarily on men? This is yet another feminist myth that is used to convince women they have been victimized.
Not true. The Congressional Women's Caucus created the Office of Women's Health by deceiving their colleagues. They claimed that female-specific health "only" received 15% of the NIH budget. They conveniently left out the fact that that 15% was already TWICE the amount spent on male-specific health.
Feminists are liars and con artists, and the dismissal of men by the feminist-driven culture is precisely what is creating division between the sexes. Until men get comparable recognition AND FUNDING, the division will continue.
As of now, many times more money is spent on breast cancer than prostate cancer, despite similar numbers of deaths for the two diseases. Do you justify the far greater funding for breast cancer over prostate cancer?
So "people's health" is important to you? Are you now calling for a comparable Office of Men's Health, or are you just ignoring the fact that that comparable program doesn't exist?
In 2022, 42,211 females died from breast cancerJun 13, 2024
https://www.cdc.gov › publications
The American Cancer Society’s estimates for testicular cancer in the United States for 2024 are:
* About 9,760 new cases of testicular cancer diagnosed
* About 500 deaths from testicular cancer
Because testicular cancer usually can be treated successfully, a man’s lifetime risk of dying from this cancer is very low: about 1 in 5,000
Pardon me, Frank, if I don’t give credence to any of your other facts. I was going to look into the history of the formation of the Office of Women’s Health, but in light of the above statistics from the Center for Disease Control and the American Cancer Society, and your claim that men and women die at the same rates from these cancers, I don’t see the need.
Goodness, one can smell the hate in this post. Did you not have a dad or a brother? Prostrate cancer isn’t nothing.
You are comparing breast cancer with testicular cancer, not prostate cancer. Was that an honest mistake, or were you hoping I didn't catch it? Speaking of the American Cancer Society, they alone spend two times ,more on breast cancer than prostate cancer. When Martin Luther King's son passed away from prostate cancer earlier this year, they virtue-signaled on their Facebook page: they mentioned that prostate cancer claims more black men's lives than white men's lives, but omitted the fact the fact that they were spending 2 times more on breast cancer than prostate cancer. I think that's a case of a turd varnishing itself.
I did make a mistake in giving statistics about testicular cancer instead of prostate cancer. The CDC says that more than 33,000 men died of prostate cancer. I apologize for my snide remark about your research.
How about all cancers overall? What are the death tolls and rates?
Heart disease?
How about dying while at work?
I disagree with @Tom Golden and @Frank, I think both of those sentiments reflect a zero sum sort of thinking. If you can't acknowledge the benefit of feminist work then you are missing the point, IMHO. I agree that the label of "toxic masculinity" is not helpful, and yet it is a step forward to call out bad behavior on the part of men when appropriate to do so. I don't think we need to take offense to that. I think men have been done a pretty good job of oppressing themselves, war, capitalism, etc, and feminism has arrived rather late on the scene to really account for anything other than the advancement of women, which is clear. Sure, are there women that are angry with men, but lets be real men are great at tearing each other apart and have been doing it for quite some time now. This is not a zero sum game between men and women and I think that is the most important point. We all can have better lives and lets support each other along the way.
Hatred of any other group would have people hitting the stratosphere. Toxic Blacks, Toxic Jews etc. ??? But the hatred of men get a ho hum. What does hatred have to do with zero sum?
I would urge you to study this a bit. Have a look at the substack of Janice Fiamengo or better yet watch her series on early feminism and its central idea of the hatred of men. People have been hoodwinked into thinking feminism is about equality. It is not.
https://fiamengofile.substack.com/
https://youtu.be/qyRUHSsZZa4?si=RA3pIkw3lFIHdgyT
Yes it’s not zero sum game. We need a renewed focus on men’s health, isolation induced mental health issues and related concerns. Making progress on women’s status does not have to be at the cost of boys and men.
But it IS coming at the cost of men and boys. Feminists have made it a zero sum game, by funding women's issues while ignoring men's issues. Back in February, Jill Biden announced that $100,000,000 (of taxpayer funds) had been give to the White House Initiative on Women's Health Research - and zero dollars had been given to men's health. Has Galloway ever mentioned that injustice? If so, I sure haven't seen it.
Feminist in Congress made sure that vastly more taxpayer funds are spent on breast cancer than prostate cancer, That is the "benefit of feminist work" you mentioned. Think about that "benefit" at your next annual physical. If you are diagnosed with prostate cancer, you can thank the "benefit of feminist work:" for your poorer prognosis.
A few percent of men conspire with a huge chunk of womankind, and the losers are some women and the vast majority of men.
It’s the same in the animal kingdom, look at most mammals, whales, etc. why work humans be different. Women flock to alpha males at the expense of Joe average.
Correct. The nature shows on TV show the two dominant sea lion bulls competing for the harem of female sea lions. The rare show depicts the bachelor colony, the vast majority of male sea lions that can't or won't play that game.
You guys are sounding like incels. I don't know what's gone wrong with humans, americans only perhaps, but there are plenty of women out there who would like a man in their lives, but the men only want the hot models. Which, only the alpha males typically get. So we end up with angry 'average' men and single 'average' women. Pretty silly. Wish I knew how to change it. The best relationships I've seen out there are just average people who found someone they enjoy being with and didn't focus on looks.
In your personal experience, how true do you really think it is that "the men only want the hot models"? Just like Tom Golden below claims that "women choose men from the top percentage of available men" and we both know that's a load of bull otherwise society would not be made up of mostly very average couples, similarly, while average men may fantasize about the "hot models" our eyes tell us that they pair up with average women. Otherwise again, society would not be comprised of mostly very average couples.
The research is pretty clear that women choose men from the top percentage of available men while men choose from a much broader percentage of women.
What research? Dating app swipes on photos don't count. Most women don't have the oppurtunities to "choose from the top percentage of available men" because they are not in the top percentage of available women (accounting for looks, wealth, status, whatever metric). Assortative mating is the norm. That's why you see a lot of average looking and average earning couples out here whenever you go out.
You will never find a man if you use misandric terminology like "incels". Men want women that reject the misandry that is built into feminism, and value and respect men. It is that simple.
not my word. I think everybody wants to be treated with respect Frank. But respect isn’t blindly following someone. It’s hearing them, it’s seeing them, it’s recognizing them for them…. and of course it’s being kind.
I remember as a little girl, a friend of mine’s mother was a ‘feminist’. And she did seem to have some anger in her. Understandable to a certain degree, I imagine, given the limitations she had grown up under. As an adult, I don’t see that same anger around anymore. We have a whole generation of women that have grown up, for the most part, with opportunity. And the men of that generation grew up with that too and accept it. The concept that men are inherently ‘better’ just isn’t a thing for the younger generation, so that ‘battle’ isn’t there. They recognize that people are individuals each with their own strenths and weaknesses. Expecatations is what leads people down paths toward conflict. If we can eliiminate expectations, most of which are unrealistic anyway, we eliminate a lot of the conflict between men and women. Anyway, my thoughts for what it’s worth.
Thank you, but it's much more than expectations. Feminists in Congress created the Office of Women's Health, but ignored men's health. That being the case, the male issues that Galloway mentioned will not receive the government funding necessary to address them. I have never seen Galloway make that point, so it is important that that point be raised.
Yep but it’s worse than that. Because in our case boss man Mr Dominant Alpha Bossman Sea Lion and his henchladies can harvest those bachelors - and their sons - and the future productivity of the grandsons - into securitized government debt, send them off to war, and play the off each other to distract them.
Keep calling men toxic and you will continue to see rising numbers of male deaths of despair. Admire and respect men and boys and masculinity and these deaths will decrease. We worry about stereotype threat with girls being exposed to attitudes that they might not do well in math but we don't give a damn about the flood of negatives we pour onto our men and boys. Who could be stupid enough to think that boys should thrive in such a morass of hate.
When will people wake up to the hatred?
Absolutely correct. How nice of Galloway to say, "Not all masculinity is toxic". I don't see how he can look in the mirror and call himself an advocate for men.
He’s afraid.
Back in the early 1990s, feminist Democrats in Congress created the Office of Women's Health, but ignored men's health, both back then and ever since. So why are more men dying from unnatural causes? The answer lies in the fact that feminists and the feminist-driven culture has no concern for the welfare of men. A comparable funding program for men's health would be able to study those issues, and address them. But the necessary culture concern for men and men's lives has to first be created.
Your argument is so similar to those who rebuff the black lives matter movement by yelling all lives matter. Of course all lives matter, but at that moment, and probably still now, black lives were being killed at a much higher level. Going back to 1990, we were realizing that all medical studies were focused on male bodies.....somewhat understandable since researchers were scared to possibly damage a preganant woman's baby, but that doesn't change the fact that the knowledge gained by studying male bodies and trying to apply that to women's bodies wasn't very effective. A new approach that recognized that women's bodies are different than mens (something I think you agree with) was needed. Basically all medical studies were directed toward men.
I think one thing that would help men's health, would be to find a way to remove the stigma of seeking medical care. So many men, especially younger men, do not go to the doctor. Add to that, many fields that men work in, such as construction, don't include medical benefits. I live in a town where people are really active and fit, there's really no over weight people here. Yet, these fit, active men (the single ones in particular) die by their early 60s. I've thought about this for awhile, once I recognized the trend. They work jobs where they get more money than women, which puts them out of govt. funded health care, but they didn't make enough to pay for their own health insurance. My neighbor died of prostate cancer at 60. If he could've just received a govt. funded test, perhaps he'd still be alive. But if we can get the govt. to fund tests such as PSA, Mammograms, colonoscopys for people without health care, would men take advantage of it? To me, that would be a great path to go down to help men. Eliminating the stigma of men going to a doctor would be a huge step in the right direction. It's interesting that married men are so much more likely to seek medical care, I assume because they're being pushed by their wives, and tend to live longer. While I have 3 sons and 3 brothers, I still don't know why men are so resistant to seeking medical care. I'm curious if perhaps you have thoughts on that?
" So many men, especially younger men, do not go to the doctor."
--- What's different about younger men? I guess most young people are generally healthy so what's making younger women go to the doctor (if they are) more than younger men? Do older men depend on their wives to make doctor appointments for them - is that why they go more?
Not seeking help is not actually a stigma. It is tied up with men wanting to maintain their independence. This desire to maintain independence is connected to what research calls "Precarious Manhood" which marks the societal push of both men and women to value independence in men and devalue dependence. Think of your own situation. Do you help men value dependence? Do women tend to choose dependent males for mates? lol
How much "independence" can be maintained if one doesn't get regular check-ups to stay one step ahead of a health crisis?
"Do you help men value dependence? Do women tend to choose dependent males for mates? "
--- It's said that married men depend on their wives to make doctors appointments for them. Is this true?
I would urge you to read this link. It offers some facts about women's research participation and offers interesting facts about the ratio of the phrases in pub med of "women's heatlh" versus "men's health" from 1973- Interesting stuff. The women's health phrase is much more abundant even in 1975.
https://jameslnuzzo.substack.com/p/gynocentrism-in-biomedical-research
The vast majority of black murders are committed by other blacks.
You wrote, "I think one thing that would help men's health, would be to find a way to remove the stigma of seeking medical care"
No, what would help men's health is FUNDING for men's health. Back in February, Jill Biden announced that $100,000,000 (of taxpayer funds) were donated to the White House Initiative on Women's Health Research; ZERO dollars were given to men's health research. Which also happens to be a violation of the Equal Protection Clause.
If Galloway has ever mentioned these injustices, I sure have not seen it.