(from Wikipedia 3/2/2019) "Drug czar" is an informal name for the person who directs drug-control policies in various areas. The term follows the informal use of the term czar in U.S. politics. The 'drug czar' title first appeared in a 1982 news story by United Press International that reported that, "[United States] Senators ... voted 62–34 to establish a 'drug czar' who would have overall responsibility for U.S. drug policy."[1] Since then, several ad hoc executive positions established in both the United States and United Kingdom have subsequently been referred to in this manner.NOTE: there were no mass shootings or similar violence at the Woodstock Rock Festival in 1969.
The entire hippie drug culture was about voluntary choosing, not being commanded by any Czar or Dictator. In my opinion, the original U.S. Drug Czar was named, "Jim Jones", and died with his followers in a remote village in "Jonestown", Guyana, S. America after COMMANDING everyone to commit suicide by drinking a cyanide laced Kool-Aid mixture. Those who refused to drink the Kool-Aid were shot dead on the spot. A "drug czar" is someone who issues commands to everyone under his control in terms of drugs. NOTE: this is meant to be a political joke or parody. I know that Jim Jones was not really the original U. S. drug czar! NOTE: this is meant to be a political joke or parody.
The apparent similarity of that event to the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test events is canceled if we realize that no one was commanded or required by Ken Keasey, Jerry Garcia, or the Merry Pranksters to take part in the San Franciso Kool-Aid acid tests which sometimes occurred at the Avalon Ballroom, and I've never heard of anyone dying from that Kool-Aid/LSD mixture. (Or maybe we should blame it all on Grace Slick who did command everyone to "feed your head".)
Then back in the 1980's, many noticed the sudden uptick in strange episodes of insanely violent persons occurring, mass shootings if you will, soon after the widespread introduction of Prozac, a psychiatric drug. Many journalists speculated, "Could it be the Prozac?"
Click here to see what google.com unearths about this disturbing theory: psychiatric drugs and violence.
A rather large group of researchers has concluded that one of the main problems for psychiatric patients being prescribed medications, versus persons voluntarily using recreational drugs on their own, is that the patients under the care of a physician are not generally empowered to critically evaluate the effect on themselves from their medications, while those using alcohol, marihuana, or other recreational drugs are expected to be critically aware of, and responsible for the results of using drugs on their own.
This is similar to a situation where a "patient" is advised to drink alcohol for medical reasons, by a doctor. In this case, the patient may not be taking as much personal care in making the decision to drink, or to not drink, since the doctor advised him to drink, regardless.
Likewise, if a medical patient is advised to use marihuana medically, I have to wonder if the responsibility feed-back loop is still in place??? Perhaps, we should shift ASAP into a recreational drug usage scenario wherein the "patients" are now taking full personal responsibility for their use of the herbs in question, such as cannabis (marihuana).
About 20 years ago, the available crude statistics concerning drug overdose death rates for illicit opiates, versus medically prescribed opiate overdose death rates, showed roughly that the death-rate for medically prescribed opiates was about 10 times worse, or more, than the illicit opiate overdose death rate! Perhaps, prescribed drugs give us a false sense of security and safety. However, the stats referred to here were coming from different sources and systems of analysis, like comparing apples to oranges, so it was hard to determine what exactly was going on from looking at the easily available crude stats.
And this was before fentanyl (elephant tranquilizer) arrived on the scene for human usage. There is no such thing in the USA as legal human usage of fentanyl except for a "patch" for severe cancer pain. Therefore, illicit human usage of fentanyl has now skewed the death rate from illicit opiates to a much higher rate than before. There is only illegal fentanyl usage for humans in the USA other than the legal "patch" just described. (And I don't think anyone has died from an overdose from this "patch".)
If you ignore the vague web-based stats currently being broadcast, and return to the books in your local library, you will likely find that what I'm saying is true. There were about 10,000 deaths per year from illicit drugs around the year 2000, and about 100,000 to 300,000 deaths per year from prescription drugs of all types about that year, according to the stats then available.
But the idea that self-chosen drug usage is inherently safer than doctor prescribed drug usage, since an additional personal feed-back loop is in place for the "recreational drug usage", but not enough of that for the doctor controlled scenario, should be considered before more insanity manifests in our society. Perhaps, "hard-drugs" and psychiatric drugs both should also be used such that the patient has final choice rather than being only used due to professional compulsion?
Empowering, requiring, all drug users to take personal responsibility for themselves makes sense, but our society is not generally doing that, and mass shootings are also out of control. Not all Americans are taking orders from superior officers or fanatical religious preachers in a military setting, so why do we project that scenario onto civilian life with our "Drug Czar"? No wonder so many are dying from opiates.
Mass shootings committed for religious/military reasons (ISIS) is also now a bizarre factor which has been added to the mix. Just as after World War II, it might be good for the USA and the entire world to return to normal civilian life and responsibilities, for a change, and leave the kamakazi culture behind.
Why does the USA have a "Drug Czar"? Why would any sane society follow any third party's commands concerning personal/private drug usage, drug usage which is inherently personal?
The fact that the U.S. media adopted the informal term, "drug czar" in 1982, not long after the Jim Jones tragedy, merely indicates that most Americans were fully aware then that the Office of National Drug Czar (sic) is an absurd and inherently unAmerican manifestation, or perhaps a joke or parody based on the Jim Jones massacre.
The fact that superstar United States Congressman Leo Ryan of California was one of the victims of the Jim Jones massacre in Guyana is also evidence that our own government (and our own country) was at least receiving some bad karma for some reason. All congress-people should read about this excellent representative who died bravely in Guyana.
Today's opiate death epidemic is definitely a horrible parody of the Gyuana massacre/suicide. The fact that the U.S. Office of National Drug Czar (sic) is not taking responsibility for this genocidal disaster is a red flag for current U.S. national drug policy itself.