The "War" Comes Home

Here's a key fact to keep in mind: Russian heroin addiction exploded in the 1990s, shortly after that country ended its occupation of Afghanistan. It is a problem that continues to this day.

The U.S. is finally winding down its own occupation/adventure of/in Afghanistan—I refuse to call it a war—its longest such conflict in its 200+ year history. President Obama declared in his latest State of the Union Address that it was time at last for this country to stand down from its "permanent war footing," something I've been saying essentially since the inception of this blog.

Afghan opium production reached a historic high in 2013.

Many see a full-blown epidemic of heroin abuse nationwide, especially among suburban teens who can now purchase incredibly pure heroin cheaply and in capsule form.

Governor Peter Shumlin, e.g., even devoted his entire 2014 State of the State Message to what he called "a full-blown heroin crisis" in the state of Vermont.

Then today, sadly, we hear that 46-year old Philip Seymour Hoffman, one of this country's absolute best actors and, by all accounts, an all-around decent human person, died from a heroin overdose. Reports indicate he'd suffered from addiction since his 20s, he'd recently had a relapse and voluntarily checked himself into a rehab facility. The problem with opiate addictions of any kind—whether its morphine or methadone or Oxycodone or Hydrocodone or street skank—is that once addicted always addicted. You never get clear. Moreover, if you do manage to clean yourself out and then relapse, if you go back to the sorts of dosages you were used to when you were using, your body can't tolerate it and you overdose. I'm not saying this is what happened with Hoffman, but it sure sounds like it fits the pattern. And, I'm afraid, Hoffman is merely the vanguard.

Call it blowback, or Afghani payback. Pay attention: For the Afghanis, it was never a conventional war. They cannot win a conventional war against a major world power (read Empire). They waited out the Bushian Occupation as they've waited out invasions and occupations since at least Alexander the Great. And now that we're finally pulling out, they're fighting back. They are ramping up their production of opium, and we're seeing the beginnings of an epidemic of heroin abuse and addiction nationwide.

Coincidence? Who's to say?

Such a thing wouldn't be unprecedented. Remember Vietnam, anybody?

If it isn't a coincidence, we may be witnessing the beginnings of what could turn out to be an all-out, albeit invisible, street war on our own shores with our youth in the cross-hairs. If large numbers of young people get addicted to the cheap heroin now beginning to flood our streets, even if they are able to pull themselves out of addiction and get clean later, they still stand the risk of relapsing at any point later in life. And as one doctor put it, heroin addiction is a fatal disease, as or more fatal than cancer.

"For he on honey-dew hath fed,/ And drunk the milk of Paradise."

The answer to yesterday's quiz?

Like the poem quoted in the title (continued above) from S.T. Coleridge's Kubla Khan, the three works in question are about opium/heroin experiences, also known as the milk of the poppy. Berlioz was a noted opium user, as were many Romantics of the era—de Quincey, e.g.

The Symphonie Fantastique famously "tells the story of 'an artist gifted with a lively imagination' who has 'poisoned himself with opium' in the 'depths of despair' because of 'hopeless love.'" The Velvet Underground song is, of course, heroin porn, an underground classic that shocked the world in its day. And the La's la-la-la pop song is controversially said to be about the experience of heroin "racing through my brain," "pulsin' through my vein"—rushing again and again and nothing else heal can "heal my pain."

Thanks for playing.

"And close your eyes with holy dread..."

Went to the symphony this weekend. Heard the Berlioz below. Had a thought/association: What do these three musics have in common? [And 'Romanticism', though a good and fairly accurate response, is too general and vague.]







There are no prizes other than the pride in your own knowledge base you will feel at having correctly divined the answer. And isn't that enough?