The marginalization that Black Panther — the film adaptation of the Marvel comic — decries of black inner cities in the US is about to be recreated in Africa. Phantasmagorical visions of smart eco cities of the east with Nairobi, Kigali and Dar es Salaam; Accra and Lagos in the west; the central city of Kinshasa; and the southern city of Luanda belie the likely successful attempts to advance a postcolonial future of the continent. Luxurious visions of progress push informal economies and their inhabitants from the land they have dwelled on and earned a livelihood from for years.

The most difficult part of this predicament is that state and city governments are not the harbingers of the master plan. The blueprint-makers are international architectural, engineering and property development companies, using Africa as the last frontier for development with government buy-in. The new city plans, satellite cities and large urban projects are recent developments of the last , with roots in the downturn of demand for development in the global North after the 2008 financial crisis.

While the Middle East and other parts of Asia are also targets of similar initiatives, Africa is portrayed as the “rising” continent. Private projects are nothing new in Africa, but those on a large, city-scale are new, especially the futuristic ones. Michael Goldman, professor of global studies and development at the University of Minnesota, : “[T]hese development interests bring with them a host of additional demands — for new and particular forms of urban infrastructure and for forms of governance and decision-making that facilitate the realization of property investment interests.”

Indeed, Africa is of rising interest in the eyes of global actors. The continent is “economically the second fastest-growing region in the world” and, by 2035, its workforce will be larger than India or China, Vanessa Watson of the African Centre for Cities at the University of Cape Town. So, it is clear there will be steady demand for urban projects and infrastructure.

The postcolonial context in which demand is occurring means the development of infrastructure is incompatible with the needs of African people. In sub-Saharan Africa especially, it is mostly the extremely poor and those living in informal settlements that are affected, whose futures will be destroyed by the projects that claim to bring about a sustainable future.

When pop culture provides a better antidote to development

The publication of preliminary analysis of these projects happens to coincide with a rise in pop culture seeking to provide an antidote to colonial history and the subjugation of the African diaspora. While the real-life urban plans are set to advance the interests of foreign speculators and the rich who live there, Black Panther presents a fictional antidote. The movie brings to life a self-sufficient nation, Wakanda, which has always been protected from colonialism and is now turning its gaze outward to bring wealth and innovation to the ailing diaspora.

In the film, Wakanda has used IT to isolate itself in the past. The nation’s technological prowess is born of reserves of the fictional metal vibranium, mined free from colonization and conflict, and bolstered by tradition. Tribes within Wakanda are united and loyal to the benevolent king.

The Wakandan Kingdom’s apparent unwillingness to put a stopper to the destruction of the whole of Africa, however, means that characters like Eric Killmonger — the son of an estranged Wakandan prince — must take up a villain’s role. Killmonger is bent on holding Wakanda true to its obligation to free the diaspora. We empathize with him as an incarnation of inner-city black America — the Black Panther Party set out to free the people.

The movie pits two “black panthers” — King T’Challa of Wakanda, clad in warrior panther costume, and Killmonger — against one another in a heady discourse about the nature of power and its ethical use for liberation. It feels like a largely a private conversation within black culture, with the US on the periphery and the world’s moviegoers looking on, it goes without saying, in speculation. The conversation isn’t meant to pit the African continent against black America, as much as it connects the struggles of the diaspora by recasting a shared ancestry in ancestral glory.

The movie begins with a parable of the former Wakandan king’s two sons, one of whom is Killmonger’s father, T’Jadaka. Prince T’Jadaka has gone against the king’s wishes by planting Wakandan warriors on American soil, who he wills to restore the strength of the diaspora starting in Oakland.

He feels the inner cities have been abandoned to a history of enslavement and now poverty; Wakanda must lend a helping hand. But before he can move forward, T’Challa’s uncle is killed by his father. Perhaps the bloody murder pre-empts the solidification of racial empires, for Killmonger, while representing a version of liberation, ultimately placing the interests of an empire above compassion, and is thwarted by the newly contested king, his brother T’Challa.

Black Panther sensitively deals with the condemnation of Killmonger, who cannot be solely a son of Africa. He grew up in America and has risen through the US military complex, killing like he was playing “video games,” a CIA agent says in the film.

However, T’Challa, the new king, has to confront the inner familial conflict, thanks to the antagonist’s virulent stance for kingship and world domination. Killmonger’s downfall mirrors that of the Black Panther Party, which notwithstanding high ideals, became a victim of patriarchy.

How to stay faithful to identity

The conversation between inner city America and the African continent is important. Psychologically, black America and Africa grapple with how to stay faithful to identity. As Killmonger watches a setting sun in Wakanda, the land of his dreams, his loss of ego gives rise to Wakanda’s changed outlook — their dedication to bringing education and resources to inner city communities in black America.

Unlike real countries in Africa, Wakanda has been in the position to call the shots for itself and now globally. African nations today, however, are recovering from colonialism and conflicts that are inextricably connected with the disproportionate wealth that foreign aid brings — as a bargaining chip to facilitate commercial development on their own terms.

The movie’s most captivating question is what could have happened had there been a nation as free to advance as Wakanda? What if Africa called the shots? And what happens in real life, now that Africa — rich in resources, land and workforce — is at risk of becoming the pawn again to a capitalistic vision of today’s colonizer: the business conglomerate, the opportunist?

It seems that, unlike the dynamics of the film, it is black America that will have to support social movement in Africa. In the face of global property development players, there is a need for local actors to develop movements, much like have been started in America with Black Lives Matter and Seeds of Hope. These could counter the naive conceptions of this “sustainable” future and its materialistic development, under the guise of tech innovation.

Less than $2 a day

Instead, social movements would aim to bring about truly egalitarian forms of governance and land use, which largely forgo elaboration under current plans. The reality is that the average African, middle class or below, wouldn’t have the money to live in these futuristic cities, which “will attract discerning residents, companies and retailers who wish to live, work and play in the most modern, well-planned urban development in East Africa,” as stated in for Nairobi.

In Luanda, the capital of Angola, there have been a range of satellite cities, including the well-publicized Chinese-built “,” comprising tower blocks of apartments selling at between $150,000 to $200,000 each ­when around two-thirds of Angolans live on less than $2 a day. They are ghost towns because no one can afford to live in them, let alone muster enough cash or bank credit to put down a deposit. The towns remain largely empty, even of commercial activity.

In Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a consortium of international design companies will occupy two “islands” on reclaimed land of the Congo River. The modernization in mixed retail, office and residential development to boost the area is supposed to serve as “a model for the rest of Africa.” In reality, the city of over 9 million people is war-ravaged, with the majority living in deep poverty and scratching out a meagre existence from informal business. Since the civil war, farmers fled to the forest in search of food, and have since turned to poaching and bushmeat in the face of .

The most “realistic” urban plans

The most realistic plan is the one in pursuit of an eco-settlement, , on the edge of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. Supported by Minister of Lands, Housing and Human Settlements Development Anna Tibaijuka, it will be developed by the Gulf-based Mi World and China’s Hope Limited. The proposed “dream city” is to bring “” facilities to compete with Dubai, Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur. But in all likelihood, it may only be affordable to very few of these residents, which currently stands at 82,000 on the site of Kigamboni City. Even those settled there legally will have to . Minister Tibaijuka has warned “illegal” settlers, saying, “Start leaving now if you know what’s good for you.”

In Tanzania, lives in informal settlements. Since 2016, there has been an effort by the deputy minister for lands, housing and human settlement development, Angelina Mabula, to legalize this population. By formalizing unplanned settlements, those living in such places could find their way out of poverty and use the land assets for social and economic development. The plan has a timeline until 2020.

Absent such a plan in the “fantasy” city in Kigamboni, traditional mono-functional zoning demarcates the area into five land use zones: business, industry, education, residential and tourism, and a road hierarchy that is oriented toward a car-owning public. Approximately $60 billion was set aside for the first phase of the project and will rise to around $11.6 trillion, gained from outside government resources by 2032. The government will compensate legal landowners only at the prevailing value, far lower than what each development will .

The rising middle class in Africa

It may be that Africa’s rising middle class doesn’t want a replica of the US or the United Arab Emirates, with segregation of rich and poor and an automobile-centered society. Africans of all strides should have a few words to say for themselves. Municipal governments must step up and make space available for public debate, without imposing an inappropriate plan, and must work to formalize unplanned settlements.

There is a problematic assumption that smart cities only require IT hardware and infrastructure to become “smart.” This misconception “completely ignores the quite obvious human and social dimensions of ‘smart’: the role of social capital and networks of trust and reciprocity that are prerequisites for innovation,” Watson.

Similar to Killmonger’s attempts to jumpstart an empire from Wakanda, perhaps the ploy for futuristic cities is still simply an attempt to truly advance the prospects of the African continent. But the plans do not actually recognize the real past and the present needs in African cities. By circumventing public debate and participation, they are doomed to not be smart.

There are uses of the land that serve purposes for livelihood such as agriculture and wildlife conservation, which would be lost to development. No public process of participatory planning and discourse has begun, with African citizens as the stakeholders envisioning their future.

What does a continent of farmers and lands rich in wildlife and natural resources have to offer in their own right? For their own good? We have yet to find out.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit: /

The post What Africa Has to Offer appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Percy Menzies is a pharmacist by training and has worked for almost 18 years for a pharmaceutical company that developed and marketed a range of pain medications like oxycodone and oxymorphone. Even at that time, some 40 years ago, they knew these drugs were not appropriate for long-term use. “They were only for acute pain in hospitalized patients,” says Menzies.

Since then, an epidemic has ensued in the US, with . Only recently has an antidote for an opiate overdose become prominent. The same company Menzies worked for, Dupont Pharmaceuticals, developed the antidote, naloxone (or Narcan), over 30 years ago. The antidote reverses the effects of opioids, knocking out opiates from receptors in the brain, which may slow or stop breathing. It is a temporary fix, buying time to get the person to a hospital.

“My job was to train physicians in how to use it,” said Menzies. “So Narcan is not a new drug. It’s an old drug that has suddenly come into prominence because of what is happening with the overdoses.” The company also developed a non-opiate medication to prevent people from relapsing, but even now the drug is hardly used. It is called Naltrexone and was developed during Richard Nixon’s time in office.

Nothing New

Menzies decries the failure to offer comprehensive treatment for opiate addiction. Even today, the three drug options available to treat addiction and prevent relapse — methadone, buprenorphine, better known as Suboxone, and Naltrexone — are operating under silos, according to Menzies. They are largely inaccessible to the public, and sometimes even to physicians.

In order to access methadone, for instance, that is used to treat addiction to opiates and other narcotic drugs, patients need to visit a methadone clinic every morning and stand in line for the daily dose. There are only  in the country. “After a period, if you do well, after six months to a year, and you’re keeping all your appointments, and they drug test you, and your urine is clean, free of any opioids, they might initially give you a weekend dose to take home. Then they might give you a week’s medication to take home as a privilege. But you can never get it in a physician’s office. You can only get it at the methadone clinic,” said Menzies.

Unlike any other drug under the sun, including opioids, in order to get Suboxone, which is an opioid medication like methadone, doctors must be licensed to prescribe it, and  who have had the opportunity or have taken the time to sit the eight-hour certification test. “There are about 900,000 physicians in this country, and only about 25,000 have taken the DEA [Drug Enforcement Agency] exemption to write for Suboxone,” said Menzies. “And studies have shown that the average number of patients that these physicians have is around 14.”

Some physicians have not even heard of Naltrexone, an effective non-opioid option. “Why can’t methadone clinics be using all the medication? Why don’t they use methadone, Suboxone and Naltrexone?” asks Menzies. “We have to individualize the treatment. You cannot just tell patients the only drug to use is methadone, Suboxone or Naltrexone. All three should be used for the appropriate patient.”

The second problem is that . Rehabilitation centers often do not coordinate with doctors’ offices and do not offer standardized treatment. “You know exactly what to expect for stroke rehab, what to expect for cardiac rehab. Nobody knows what addiction rehab is,” said Menzies.

What’s more, people with the means to travel to high-end rehabs distance themselves from their usual environment. Upon return, they can quickly relapse. “Some people go to these fancy programs in California, and they spend $30,000, $40,000 or $50,000. They get all sorts of therapies,” Menzies explains. “What they don’t realize is that when you take the patient away from the natural environment where they work and live, your addiction goes in an incubator. The addiction doesn’t go away. You are in a bubble. You are in a very isolated area. So you are distracted. You talk to other people, you eat some great food, you are in a very comfortable environment. But your addiction is getting stronger and stronger, and so as soon as you come back home, your cravings explode like a volcano.”

Because of this “deprivation effect,” Menzies thinks it is important that rehab follows patients home. As it stands, an addict could be treated for an overdose at the hospital and, within the hour, discharged without any sort of follow up.

“Imagine this being done with somebody with chest pains that you use a defibrillator to revive them, and then instead of keeping them in the hospital sending them home within the next hour. All hell will break loose, but here we do it all the time.”

Root Causes

Palliative care does not address the root causes of addiction, according to Menzies, who stresses the importance of cutting off the supply of illegal opiates, namely heroin, which is so readily available in the US. While Afghanistan and Myanmar supply , in the US it now comes mostly over the  “You may have the tallest wall, the most beautiful wall, whatever you call it, you cannot stop it because it is so easy to smuggle things in,” said Menzies of heroin, a kilogram of which is easily taken through checkpoints, compared to, say, a bale of marijuana.

Now that for both medical and recreational purposes,  and have turned to producing harder drugs, like heroin. “Young children are taken out of school who are 10 or 12 years old to harvest the opium poppy,” explains Menzies. “They have to make a slit in the opium poppy for the juice to be to ooze out. These children are ideal because they are the same height as the opium plant. It’s really sad what has happened.”

The , where a war on drugs created the second deadliest conflict zone after Syria, and in 2016. Without pressure from the US to curb the cultivation of poppy in Mexico and to close down labs that process opium into heroin, this impoverished and unstable country will continue to be terrorized by drug cartels, which compete for territory within its own borders. The cartels take in between from US drug sales.

“We have to offer aid to these impoverished regions to grow alternative crops and develop industries. Unlike marijuana and cocaine, opium poppy does not require as much acreage,” added Menzies. “The advances in drone technology can be used effectively to monitor the targeted area. Indeed, some trade and bilateral agreements could be tied to how effectively Mexico acts to curb this problem.”

The issue is so politically contentious that a collective strategy is non-existent, and curbing the demand for these drugs in the US is also a cause in need of funding. “I mean, I tell people that there are 23 million people [in the US] who are addicted to drugs and alcohol, and the last budget that Obama got approved he had allocated $5 billion for treatment of addiction to heroin and alcohol,” says Menzies. Compare that to , a cause that was allocated  in the same budget.

“Look at the phenomenal progress we have made in treating AIDS and HIV,” says Menzies. “Today, if you are HIV positive you can lead a very normal life. Your life expectancy is almost as much as people with no HIV, because we have gotten in the last 35 years almost 40 drugs developed to treat AIDS and HIV, and what do we have, three drugs for opiates.”

Menzies thinks that the key to changing our response to the crisis is to humanize it. “We have demonized it, we have moralized it, we have criminalized it, but we have not humanized like we did for AIDS and HIV,” she says. “Initially we were very moralistic with the AIDS epidemic occurred. We saw it as hedonism, as bad behavior and things of that sort, and all that changed once you put a human face to the problem.”

No one plans to be an addict. It is a culture that has been encouraged by pharmaceuticals, which poured billions into marketing opiates to treat any and all chronic pain. There has been little response from the medical community to make treatment more effective, and a dearth of funding to treat opioid addiction from the government.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit: /

The post Barriers to Treating Opioid Addiction appeared first on 51�Թ�.

“There’s a guy in the bathroom who overdosed,” said a volunteer at a seasonal shelter in Amherst, Massachusetts, where homeless people come for a hot meal, a shower and a place to sleep. The town is relatively affluent, and it might seem unusual to see a drug overdose, much less on heroin.

From the latest headlines, it seems that all of sudden we are faced with an opioid crisis. The truth is that opioids have been with us for a long time and their use has been or . The impacts are felt disproportionately by .

Perhaps in an effort to show that this problem is affecting many strata of society, the media have paid more attention to it as a white problem. In his book, , investigative journalist Kevin Deutsch reported: “Since 2013, more than 22,000 news stories published in American media outlets have made mention of ‘white’, ‘suburban’, or ‘rural’ addicts battling opiate addiction. Meanwhile, fewer than 20 such stories have focused on black opiate addicts, living — and dying — in poverty stricken cities during that same time.”

Opiates are disproportionately affecting communities of color, who, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) statistics cited by Deutsch, saw a 213% increase in heroin deaths between 2000 and 2014. Only now that addiction is creeping into middle-class communities is it making headlines. But it is a problem with considerable history.

In the 18th century, opium was first used as a means of leveling out a trading imbalance between the West and China. While Western countries had great demand for luxury goods from China, there was little demand in return. Initiating the Opium Wars, the British became the largest traffickers of opium into China, creating an artificial demand in a country where the substance was banned.

Other countries, including the United States, followed suit in trafficking the drug to China. In a , opium later came to the US from China.

“In fact, the first anti-opium ordinances were passed in the late 19th century in the US because you had a lot of Chinese laborers who migrated from the Yunan province of China, where opium was used and grown and been pushed into China by the British as part of the Opium Wars,” Jeremy Kuzmarov tells me. Kuzmarov writes about drug trafficking as a professor of American history at the University of Tulsa. “That was the beginning of the War on Drugs.”

Opium Today

Today, economies are still enmeshed in the opium trade. Lillian Landrau, who earned an associate’s degree in addiction studies at Northwestern State University of Louisiana, one of the few colleges in the country where it is offered, says, “Without drugs the economy would collapse.”

Kuzmarov acknowledges that pharmaceuticals and the illicit drug trade generate huge revenue. “During the 2008 financial crash, some of the banks stayed afloat because of money they had from traffickers who they were loathe to crack down on,” says Kuzmarov. “Drug cartels have an easier time laundering money in banks. So, some banks do flourish or even stay open because of that revenue.” According to Landrau, while oil runs the economy, it is a volatile market. Drug money from cartels has been a steadier source of revenue, and opioids are particularly lucrative. “It does have a major impact on the US economy and various Latin American economies, like Mexico and Afghanistan,” confirms Kuzmarov.

In Afghanistan, opium fields cover more ground than the coca plant does in Latin America. When in power, the Taliban successfully banned planting opium, but in weathering the turmoil of several wars the country has not had a chance to develop its economy in other ways. After the Central Intelligence Agency funded the mujahedeen rebels in a covert operation during the Soviet-Afghan War of the 1980s, economic insecurity prevailed and farmers turned to opium for survival. Today, , an opium derivative, worldwide.

Landrau wonders how a narcotic like heroin can make its way in such dizzying amounts overseas to the US, where it fuels an underground economy targeting the poor and, increasingly, the middle class.

“It just doesn’t make sense that with so much security in the airports, supposedly in the ocean, on the border, that so much drugs comes into the country without being detected. Somewhere, there’s help. Somewhere.” Landrau believes a “shadow government” of connections to the CIA is facilitating an underground economy.

Kuzmarov corroborates that the CIA has historically protected drug traffickers. In fact, former that during his 30-year career, almost every major trafficking suspect worked for the agency.

“That is one big reason why the War on Drugs fails, because you have very powerful interests protecting traffickers,” says Kuzmarov. “The ravaging effects of wars can also be a big boon to traffickers and smugglers. In the chaos of war, it’s harder to police.”

Big Pharma

Parallel to shadow state actors facilitating the illicit drug trade are corporations, namely pharmaceutical companies and their lobbies, that promote a culture of opioid misuse in the modern world.

Recently, the , including Wal-Mart, CVS Pharmacy and Walgreens, as well as the three largest pharmaceutical distributors in the US: Amerisourcebergen, McKesson and Cardinal Health. The Cherokee claim these companies knew they were saturating the market with painkillers for addicts.

The case and others like it are a means of holding corporations accountable for the social implications of their business model, which generates $24 billion globally and has spent over $880 million in the past 10 years on lobbying for opioid use and deregulation in the US, according to Deutsch. That is more money than the gun lobby.

Even if corporate actors are brought to justice, there remain thousands of opioid addicts in the US, where opioid overdose is the leading cause of accidental death, and the number has .

According to the (ASAM), “Of the 52,404 lethal drug overdoses in 2015, opioid addiction was found to be driving the epidemic, with 20,101 overdose deaths related to prescription pain relievers and 12,990 overdose deaths related to heroin in 2015.” Of the 130 Americans who die each day from drug overdoses, a quarter identify as African American, reported Deutsch. Yet both Landrau and Kuzmarov caution using the word epidemic in reference to opioids because it has elicited a legal crackdown on addicts more than it has affected change of the system and rehabilitation of people.

A Global Opium Shortage

The US , but it consumes 80% of the world’s opioids. If Canada and Western Europe are included, consumption of the global opioid supply increases to 95%. “[S]o the remaining countries only have access to about 5 percent of the opioid supply,” Vikesh Singh, assistant professor of medicine and director of the Pancreatic Center at Johns Hopkins University, told .

In this way, painkillers are practically withheld from developing countries. According to the United Nations, the global supply problem could be solved with relatively cheap morphine, another derivative of opium. But “selling it held little allure for multinational drug companies,” reported . Instead, companies prefer to market expensive preparations.

Purdue Pharma, one of the leading pharmaceuticals, sells hundreds of dollars per bottle for a month’s supply of OxyContin — a semisynthetic prescription opioid — when generic morphine costs as little as 15 cents per day. Based on the , Purdue Pharma, Johnson & Johnson, Insys Therapeutics, Mylan and Depomed made the top five opioid products.

According to Kuzmarov, there is much profit to be made, with drug companies incentivizing doctors to prescribe opioids that their patients may not need. “I think we do live in an overly medicated society,” he says, “and doctors can facilitate people’s addiction.”

Some companies attest that they have tried to safeguard the business from abuse by creating opioids with . They have cited the need for better use of prescription-drug monitoring programs, better education of physicians and public awareness, and better access to anti-overdose drugs like Narcan for law enforcement.

But none of these tactics change the corporate context in which drug overdose in the US and global shortage occurs.

Marketing campaigns, including Purdue Pharma’s inaccurate advertising of OxyContin as a non-addictive opioid, have encouraged Americans into an abyss of addiction. Pharmaceuticals have even gone so far as to offer “” to medical professionals on the merits of opioids in treating all pain types. Lobbyists have funded groups like the Pain & Policy Studies Group to promote opioid use and discourage regulation.

The government is poised at the time of this writing to spend less than $200 million in the coming months on an epidemic that kills far more Americans each year than terrorism, Ebola, and AIDS combined — yet receives less funding than each of these.

“It points to the irony that we spend so much money trying to police certain substances, yet you have corporations that facilitate addiction that could be just as harmful to people’s health and the health of communities like the Cherokee,” says Kuzmarov.

Deutsch reported that: “The DEA, too, can slow the rate of opiate deaths, simply by reducing the number of prescription opiate drug makers are permitted to manufacture. Such a move would ensure there are enough pills in circulation for those who need them but not the surplus of painkillers that exists today.”

Holistic Treatment

Both Landrau and Kuzmarov believe that drugs should be legalized but carefully regulated. “For harder drugs it’s debatable,” says Kuzmarov, “but I think that would be the best approach. The drugs are more a symptom of a problem than an evil in itself.”

Landrau agrees: “The problem is not on the sheets that cover the sick person. The problem is deep. The problem is society.”

Landrau says she will not be part of the recovery movement, referring to programs like the 12 Steps and similar models, which require addicts to admit to a moral failing.

In truth, the problem is systemic, one that Landrau believes targets the poor and benefits from overly-medicating the middle class. Although the language in treating opioid addiction has changed somewhat to one that acknowledges it as a chronic disease, Landrau believes the health care system inculcates people into dependence in other ways.

For one, patients identify with the addiction group as their sole community, and they find themselves relapsing to return to where they feel they belong: as an addict. “That is false,” says Landrau. “The brain has plasticity.”

The process of healing is gradual. But, according to Landrau, the way society responds is by putting pressure on addicts to solve problems quickly and in a one-size-fits-all mode of steps.

Instead, Landrau believes in a holistic method, including nutrition and sensory therapeutic techniques, which she says facilitate recovery much better than any anti-addiction drug like methadone ever could. “The use of substances changes the pathways in which the neural transmitters are working and it changes behavior,” she explains, describing the breakdown that occurs of the myelin sheath, a protective layer that surrounds the nerve cells where electrical impulses are transmitted.

The sensory techniques Landrau has learned make it possible for the protective covering of those neurons to regain wellness. “It’s difficult, but the senses have a lot to do with the regeneration of the nervous system.”

This kind of rehabilitation means more than just offering clean needle exchanges and methadone, although these are very important strategies. Indeed, some countries have decriminalized psychoactive drugs and fully cover the cost of pain-relieving, addiction-fighting substances like Suboxone.

But that will not eliminate the root causes of addiction, according to Kuzmarov, who blames inequality, isolation and a lack of opportunity.

“This society demands that you always feel happy and you have no problems, no pain, no issues and it doesn’t matter how oppressed you are,” says Landrau. “You have to be happy. You have to put on a face.”

The only helpful thing about pain is it lets you know something is wrong. And there is no denying that. “It is the poor who are holding up the middle class so they can work, and the poor are holding those on the top, and the middle class is holding those on the higher top,” says Landrau. “So you see the pressure on the poor from the other layers of society. But who talks about it?”

In Baltimore, , the “opportunity” available to young, poor men and women is drug dealing. Unless they are given the environment to prosper otherwise, dealing is where the tech prowess and intention of a considerable portion of the populace, young and old, will go. And for now, the funding for community and rehabilitation centers within inner cities is frightfully low.

The need to support holistic rehabilitation and community revival is pressing, and the time to do it is now. “The government is poised at the time of this writing to spend less than $200 million in the coming months on an epidemic that kills far more Americans each year than terrorism, Ebola, and AIDS combined — yet receives less funding than each of these,” Deutsch wrote in the concluding chapters of his book.

The CDC has fortunately changed its prescribing guidelines so doctors are advised not to prescribe opiates for chronic pain. “But we need more than just guidelines,” an interviewee told Deutsch. The US needs to appropriate $10 to $15 billion to “a massive, sustained, serious effort all across this country dedicated to ending this epidemic everywhere, including communities of color.”

*[This article was updated on May 27, 2017.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit: 

The post Opioid Crisis in America: The Politics of Pain appeared first on 51�Թ�.

The conflict over a section of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAP), along with other pipelines  in Texas and back in June in , poses pressing issues ranging from indigenous rights and landscape preservation, to the prevention of pollution of waterways and the commodification of drinking water, to climate change and energy independence.

While the DAP pipeline was as a way of relieving America from dependence on foreign fossil fuels, in actuality the pipelines will siphon crude oil for export. And while Native Americans, namely the Standing Rock Sioux tribe of North Dakota, initially agreed to the pipeline as a source of economic development, promises of responsible construction were broken as historic sites were bulldozed, including , which had just been discovered and were under review by the state historic preservation office. The Sioux were excluded from consultations throughout the rest of the process.

Legal Loopholes

To begin with, the pipeline was approved through a loophole as several small projects judged by states and counties. This process and, most importantly, the minimum four-year environmental-impact study that it would have entailed had the company, Energy Transfer (ET), the project. Keystone XL was rejected after a federal approval process, and ET has taken care to avoid the same move.

“So this approval happened in less than a year,” says Chris Newell, an education supervisor at the Pequot Museum in a phone interview in November. “We take all the environmental risk for this private company that is not serving the public. The oil leaves the country, and over 50% of the banks [that invested in the pipeline] are foreign. So the money made is leaving the country as well.”

There have been many instances where oil agreements with indigenous nations have not worked out as originally planned. “In Texas, an oil company set up the Bakken shale oil, and some of the natural gas was supposed to be capped to heat homes on the reservation, but the company just burned it,” said Newell.

“There’s also a history of uranium mining where water resources have been permanently poisoned on the . There are now high rates of thyroid cancers there and no way for tribes to have recourse for the damage done to the land.”

Since reservations are reduced to the smallest amount of land that the federal government is willing to allocate to a tribe, indigenous nations depend on a small base. They must protect resources for survival, and without clean water, the land does not support them. “It poisons you in the long run,” said Newell.

Leakages are common. Since 1990, there have been .

“There’s a promise from Energy Transfer that they can shut down the pipeline from Texas within seconds of a leaky pipe,” said Newell. “We’ve heard that promise before. We don’t believe it this time. Not anymore.”

If there is a from the DAP, it would be an environmental and health catastrophe, Newells says. “The Missouri River is the largest watershed central part of Midwest. From that part of river, it services 18,000,000 people downriver. If the water is contaminated, it will contaminate all way downriver. So it’s not just a fight for Standing Rock Sioux community. It impacts the whole country [as a legal precedent] and all those dependent on water from the Missouri River.”

Standing in Solidarity

Newell’s colleagues, recognizing that the pipeline affects their brother Standing Rock Sioux tribe and beyond, travelled to North Dakota to protest in solidarity. “We’ve had atrocities going on for 500 years, but you don’t always see thousands of native people coming together to fight for something,” said Nakai Northrup, an educator and member of the tribal youth council at the Mashantucket . “We took  and headed out.”

“It’s not hostile out there like the media makes it look. There’s a family vibe. People greeted us and invited us to dinner. A lot of prayer is going on at these camps.”

Despite peaceful protests, guard dogs were used on the Standing Rock Sioux, injuring six, including a child, and the use of that left 17 injured.

“This is something I haven’t seen since Selma. It brings back traumatic memories,” said Newell.

The backlash signals how far the DAP is willing to go to protect its construction project. “As a country we should be looking forward to the days past oil. This [the DAP] means we’re not looking forward. We all heard about Keystone for years and eventually we shut it down.”

According to , chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux, the tribe “has always opposed fossil fuel development within our territory.” Its focus has been on the protection of water resources and sacred sites. In this regard, the Army Core of Engineers was supposed to consult with the tribe before going forward with plans, but they were ignored, according to Archambault. “Even if they just say, ‘We’re gonna re-route this pipeline out of your territory,’ that’s huge for indigenous people,” said Archambault.

In their fight to end construction, the Sioux are still in need of �����Ի���, including winter clothing, as they continue to protest and support their camp facilities, which include a .

“Standing Rock is tied to a deeper movement,” said Dr. Jason Mancini, Director of the Pequot Museum at a panel event at the University of Connecticut. “From Black Lives Matter, to Occupy Wall Street, people are tired of the government and corporations not really considering people on the ground.”

He continued: “The Standing Rock Sioux are really taking a stand on behalf of everyone. So how can you be of help? Start engaging boots on the ground. Stand up. If you can’t be there, support the . Participate in social networking going on. Individuals can make a difference and share ideas of the kind of society we want, what kind of future for our children and grandchildren.”

Relearning the Past

The past is also of concern to the Pequot Museum. According to Newell, Native American history is not represented correctly or on the scope it should be in public schools. These typically focus on Columbus Day, Thanksgiving and westward expansion. Two of those subjects are based on mythologized information and the last one concentrates only on the west.

America didn’t begin in 1776. There is a lot to the history of this country that needs to be taught, the Pequot War being one of them. The conflict marked the first time a European power took on a Native power in America and won. Without the war, the English may not have taken over what eventually became known as New England.

Historically, Native Americans were only provided a public education in order to “assimilate and “civilize” them, reports Mae Ackerman-Brimberg of the . “Children were removed from their homes and communities, placed in boarding schools or taught in missionary schools, and prohibited from using their languages, practicing their customs, or exhibiting any form of Native culture,” Ackerman writes.

“We have a lot of work to do,” said Newell of current public education. “Schools are basically telling the victor’s side of the story.” He continued: “Our schools generally don’t teach about the Pequot War, without which the idea of the United States might not have not existed.” Thanksgiving is also taught incorrectly: “[I]t’s taught that the first one happened in Plymouth, when it was really Jamestown. Columbus Day—we don’t teach that right either.”

“We teach that the first reservations happened in the 19^th century, when really the first one began in the early 17^th������Գٳܰ���.”

Schools in Connecticut are open to updating their curriculums and the Pequot Museum is helping them to do so. “Schools are hungry for good sources of new information,” said Newell. This is why Jane H. (not her real name) of the Institute of American Indian Arts at Harvard University urges students and scholars to write more. (Her family is directly involved in the land disputes and in the oil industry and have signed non-disclosure agreements, agreeing not to speak to media regarding contracts, the status of the pipelines or the land dispute. But, as an adjunct professor, she did provide a history of North Dakota and civic awareness about the impacts on Native communities.)

“Write more about Native History. We need more writing to testify to indigenous roots and culture. So write. Write, write, write,” said Jane H. at a panel event at the University of Connecticut.

The blessings of prayer and writing have also led up to the decision to re-route the pipeline, which is now Lake Oahe in North Dakota. Although the Standing Rock Sioux tribe has been successful in protecting their water supply near the reservation, they are still , which has been sustained for months on end.

“We are asking our supporters to keep up the pressure, because while President Obama has granted us a victory today, that victory isn’t guaranteed in the next administration,” said Dallas Goldtooth, lead organizer for the Indigenous Environmental Network, . “More threats are likely in the year to come, and we cannot stop until this pipeline is completely and utterly defeated, and our water and climate are safe.”

*[Updated: January 22, 2018]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit: 

The post Standing Up to the Dakota Access Pipeline appeared first on 51�Թ�.