I was a little boy at the time. I was a little boy with a 39 cent benzedrine inhaler, and I could sniff the inhaler and hold my breath for two minutes. And then we moved to Montana and my new inhalers didn’t work worth dammit.
I didn’t realize that Congress had protected me and taken the vital ingredient out of the inhaler for another 30 years. Then, I got sandbagged into teaching the drugs class, and as I researched to prepare myself, I learned. I realized the timing was a coincidence – they took the vital ingredient out of the inhaler just before we moved to Trego. Those miserable congresscritters took away a medicinal inhaler that controlled my asthma, and sentenced me to 30 years of sniffling with a usually runny nose. The article “On a Bender with Benzedrine” showed up in 1946 – and a dozen years later, Congress was busy in DC working to take away my inhaler.
This article tells about the use and misuse of the inhalers before they classified my inhaler as a schedule 2 drug and sentenced me to years of a runny nose, sneezing, and eventually a series of injections to overcome the allergies. I couldn’t find any record of any congresscritter’s concern about a little boy with allergies to Ponderosa pine pollen, Juniper pollen and Brome Grass pollen.
They figured that they could save speed freaks lives and never considered the folks with allergies. Nothing personal – just pointing out that these elected SOBs never considered how important breathing is to a kid.
As I drive and listen to AM radio, I hear public service spots telling what a great job they are doing by not prescribing opiates – yet I read headlines that say “Opioid Deaths Skyrocket Among Teens Due to Fentanyl.” So we check CDC, and find out just how much of the opiate deaths are fentanyl, and then look at the states where opioid deaths are on a major increase. People aren’t overdosing on Tylenol 3 and the big increases are in Louisiana and DC.
I think I can come up with a better bunch of folks to protect me than Congress.
Trego's Mountain Ear 