Lipitor

The article that I read today was about an older husband and wife who both took Lipitor. They received a message on the news saying if they got their drugs from certain pharmacies that they had to go exchange their drugs for new ones and his was one of the pharmacies mentioned. He had no idea what was wrong with the drugs the people working there said they didn't know and he just got new pills. Later he went on the FDA website and found out that the drugs that were in that bottle were something unknown. These Lipitor recalls started in 2003 and there have been over 18 million pills retruned and were fake. According to the real Lipitor company as many as 600,000 Americans may have taken the fake "Lipitor" and literally anything could be in them. There is a so called safety net that has existed and worked for years, impenitrable to any small time fake pill mover. However this clearly is a much bigger opperation. The holes in this safety net are due to people who are too preoccupied by price and are outsourcing and getting drugs from other countries. That is not to say there aren't fake drugs in U.S. there are a ton but it is much easier to sell them in other countries becuase of our drug policies.

fake drugs continued

Today I watched a video about a man named Frank who is in the European Union and he is aiming at taking the fake drugs off the market. He has a brain tumor and had a  98% chance of dying but he has been defying the odds for years. He konws that if he gets the wrong dosage and/or the wrong drug these are powerful drugs and he could die from that. Even when you buy your perscription drugs from the pharmacy there is still a 1% chance that it is not the real deal, if you order online it is a 1 in 2 chance of getting a fake drug. According to the WHO the World Health Organization a fake drug is defined as a drug made by anyone besides the actual manufacturer with the aim to fraud or deceive someone. Now the parliment is trying to shut down all of the bogus websites and increase the punishment for people caught selling them. People like Frank look at these fake drugs as attempted murder. Not only could he get too much but if he doesn't get enough he could die too. There are millions if not billions of people who need medication that are at risk.

Counterfit drugs

The first article that I read today about this issue is about a suburban mother in Maryland who got caught selling fake Viagra. Undercover officers were told by her that she could get them bags of 3-6,000 pills and there was "plenty more where that came from." She could reportedly sell thousands of these pills in just a matter on months and they aren't cheap. She was selling them on Craigslist for $10 a pop and look exactly like the real deal and could easily be mistaken for real Viagra.
This clearly is an issue for a number of different reasons. Firstly there could be anything in these fake drugs so whoever buys them doesn't know what they are taking. Also there are things in drugs that most people's bodies haven't been introduced to so they could react negativly to that drug. Without having a doctor pre-aprove you for a drug and even after that you can't be sure that it is healthy and safe to take that drug.
This isn't the only problem though, you can even go to a pharmacy and receive these fake drugs obviously without knowing that you are. This is only one way that these fake drugs get out. This goes to show how expensive these drugs are and how many people who can't afford them need them. So, they have to go to dangerous and extreme measures to receive the medication that they need to live a happy life, or live at all.

Racism Test

After taking the racism test my result was that there was little or no prefrence between white and african americans. This doesn't suprise me much becuase I feel that I am aware of racism and don't go down that road as much as I can. Sure everyone makes generalizations in their head, it may even be esential. Like it said on the website back before civilization people would have to make assumptions based on people wether to trust them and try to be allies or to not and attack them. That one little stereotype in their head of what people are like could spark a war with thousands of people dying and woudned becuase of it. Now we don't need to make these types of stereotypes to decide wether or not to attack. Another good point was that stereotypes are often veiwed the way the media potrays them. So, the people who make the movies and decide what to put on the news decide what we think of groups of people.

Egyption protests

I had watched a tiny bit of this on the news but I didn't really know much about the subject. Just that everyone hated the Egyption president Hosni Mubarak and wanted him to step down from his 30 year rule. There were strikes and labor protests spread acorss the country, against the militaries will. Another part of the protest that I didn't know about was that they changed the constitution, so real change was being done along with the president being changed. This is a very important part in a nations histroy, like the U.S., after we had our constitution written the country started to fall in place. If you have a constitution that your people disagree with and is unfair, you can't get anywhere during that time until it is switched. This, I beleive, was as important as switching the president by the sounds of it.
In the first video I saw there were a lot of people running franticly from a smoke cloud that looked to be coming towards them. It is unclear what they were running from but what was clear is how chaotic the whole situation was. There were no laws during this time because there wasn't enough police or military to enforce it. In the next video that I saw there was stopped traffic from both directions. Also there are a suprising amount of people who are shooting stuff into the air I think they are flares but I am not sure. Also it looks like things are being shot near those people. It looks like an overall very dangerous situation. It is a lot of pissed off people with weapons and nothing is being done about it.

Final Tweak post

Throughout the autobiography the author and main charecter talks about the issue of drug use in the United States. He underlines how rediculously popular these very dangerous drugs really are. There are litterally millions of people using and they are almost impossible to stay off of. Starting your life as an addict like Nic did just sets you up for failure for the rest of your life. He was a great student in high school getting a 4.0 GPA and got accepted to some great colleges. He even went to college for a couple of years however he was using almost the whole time he was at school. Becuase it was so far from his parents they had no idea that he was using and they couldn't do anything to stop him. While using the addict can't keep a job or be any use to society. Also, to quit the drugs is only one really hard battle in a huge war. Quiting initially makes your body go into withdrawl and physically hurts. But the real hard part is the test of time. No one beleives in the addict and that makes it even harder to stay sober. Lots of people are dying from these drugs and it seems that the police aren't doing enough to stop it. Nic uses for months and is buying and selling meth and the police don't even notice. Or, there is nothing that they can do about a person who look stoned on meth. In L.A. and San Fransico more than most other places the drugs are very present. It seems like all of the authorities are aware of the drug problems but don't have the power they need to stop it. There is even a place in L.A. that he talks about going to that is a needle exchange. You go there with your old used needles and they give you knew sterile ones. They know it is for drugs even asking what his drug of choice is. This seems like they are enabeling the addict. Using dirty needles is a risk they have to be willing to take to use. Having dirty needles could be the one thing keeping the addict from shooting up but since he can now exchange them for new ones he can shoot up littereally whenever he wants. So, I think that there shouldn't be these needle exchange places. Also, something should be done about the increasing and scary drug problem that we have in our counrty.

Tweak response 5

Spencer ends up living and Nic through this experience finally feels like he is important because while Spencer was in the hospital he was taking care of their kid which made him feel responsible. He starts to write movie reweiws for a website and getting paid for it. He is really happy and isn't even smoking ciggerettes. Then he gets and email from his  girlfriend who was an addict saying that she left her husband and she wants him back and that she is clean. They live together for a while and everything seems to be going well until she stars using crack and pills again. He manages to stay sober a while until they decide to get married and he starts using a lot again. They use together and he thinks he loves her. Everyone tells him that she will do this to him but he doesn't beleive them and goes off and messes up his life again. He loses his job at the salon, breaks his computer so he cant reveiw movies, and they just keep spending more and more of Zelda's money on drugs. The worst comes when one of Nic's close friends from childhood dies in a motorcycle accident. His parents find out that he is using again and send him to a detox hospital. He goes straight from there to a rehab center. He stays there for 3 months and you can tell that this time things are different and he is not going to use once he gets out. That is where the story ends and you assume that he succesfully stayed sober becuase he wrote this whole book about his life.

Tweak post 4

After going back to L.A. to live in his old apartment and receive help from his old friend Spenecer, everything seems to go right for a while. He starts going to rehab meetings, succesfully gets through the withdrawl symptoms, gets a job that spencer offers him at a buety salon as a receptionist. As a part of the "12 step prgoram" which is the rehab program aimed at staying sober, a crucial and early step is accepting that a higher power has control over what happens to him and he needs to ask for guidence from that higher power. This has been a problem thorughout the book that nic just doesn't beleive in god. He truly doesn't, but with the help of Spencer and constantly trying to talk to god through prayer Nic eventually starts beleiving in him. He starts riding his bike a lot like he used to before he relapsed this last time. He rides very far almost every day and almost becomes an addiction or habit. He realizes that without the excersize in the morning the rest of the day he is too anxious and can't do anyhting as calmly. This is a much better addiction to have but shows me as the reader that he is not over addiction he just temporarily switched what he is addicted to. He meets up with some old friends from rehab at 12 step meeting and this proves to be good for him. He is back socializing which he didn't do for a while. However Spencer becomes very ill with spinal meningitis which could prove deadly. This is a test to Nic I beleive and I think if Spencer dies there is a good chance that Nic will go back to using. That's becuase Nic has completely turned his life around and stands for everyhting good in his life and his strength to get rid of his addiction. This past 50 pages really showed me how hard it really is to get off of drugs. Not only the physical pain but also getting a job is hard for a recovering drug addict and getting used to normal life again is a real struggel. Without the help of Spencer I hihgly doubt he would've completed becoming sober.

Tweak response #3

After introducing his girlfriend to heroine and she overdoses and has to go to the hospital, her parents find out about the overdose. Having overcome drug problems in the past and been sober this relapse really scared her parents. They tell her that she must go see a drug counselour and go to rehab. Originally Nic was going to go with her to the rehab and they were going to become sober together. Nic talks to his friend from L.A. who talks him into coming back there becuase he has an apartment there. Nic realises that going to rehab with his girlfriend would be bad for bothhem becuase they won't be able to get sober together. That's becuase when they are together they both make each other want to use. Nic, with his last $300 goes to the airport and gets a plane to L.A. wehre he got picked up by his friend. His friends name is Spencer who used to also use and became sober. He tells Nic that he is going to take him to rehab meetings where people talk about their journy to becoming sober. Even right after he goes through the worst of the withdrawl symptoms he still thinks a lot about the drugs that he left behind. It seeems to me that he will relapse atleast one more time in the future. This is scary becuase he talks in the book about how if he did relapse too soon then he would just die of overdosing.

Tweak response #2

After Nic starts dealing meth with his dealer he realizes some of the dangers of dealing. One time a customer didn't give him enough money so he went back and had to threaten him before getting his money. That could've been any crazy meth head who isn't afraid to stab or kill someone and he could've been the victim of that. Another problem that comes up is he is using more than he is selling, has an expensive heroine addiction, hasto pay for his girlfriends and friends drugs and other expenses prove costly. During this time he also introduces heroine to his girlsfriend. After about a week of her using it she overdoses and almost dies. This shows the dangers of the types of drugs that they were using every day. A combination of this, him running out of all of his savings, and other things he decides to become sober he leaves his girlfriend who was getting ready to go to rehab and goes back to where he lived when he was sober a month before. It had only been a day and he was going through terrible withdrawl symptoms. This is one reason why  a lot of people don't quit drugs and other people don't realize their danger. Not only do they need to have the will to quit the one thing they feel they need to survive, but also they need to have the will power to get through the withdrawl symptoms from the drugs.

Tweak response #1

The book that I chose for outside reading is called Tweak by Nic Sheff. It starts out with him talking about a girl that he used to date in high school talking about how his drug addiction, like I imagine is true for so many others, started in high school with weed and drinking. He was a great student and felt that after all of his hard work he deserved to smoke weed on ocassion. Then he talks about how he had been sober for 18 months straight before he just recently relasped. He then goes through his life day by day since he had relapsed often having flashbacks where you learn a lot about the other charecters and his life. He is addicted to mainly cystal meth, but also uses heroine, pills, and drinks heavily. He picks up dealing meth with his dealer to pay for his habit and talks about some of the horros of drugs. The part that is most interesting to me is how normal all of these things were to him. In poor places like places not far from deerfield addiction is a part of a lot of peoples lives. There is a nasty vicious circle that goes along with addiction. Eventually he would always end up stealing from friends and loved ones, often had nowhere to sleep becuase no one wanted to enable him, getting a job was very difficult and keeping one harder, and people like his girlfriend or only friend and drugdealer constantly pressuring him into using.