Month: May 2013

Walter White is in a long tradition of meth-monsters. Fabienne Hurst traces the drug’s origins to the Third Reich:

When the then-Berlin-based drug maker Temmler Werke launched its methamphetamine compound onto the market in 1938, high-ranking army physiologist Otto Ranke saw in it a true miracle drug that could keep tired pilots alert and an entire army euphoric. It was the ideal war drug. … From that point on, the Wehrmacht, Germany’s World War II army, distributed millions of the tablets to soldiers on the front, who soon dubbed the stimulant “Panzerschokolade” (“tank chocolate”). British newspapers reported that German soldiers were using a “miracle pill.” But for many soldiers, the miracle became a nightmare.

As enticing as the drug was, its long-term effects on the human body were just as devastating. Short rest periods weren’t enough to make up for long stretches of wakefulness, and the soldiers quickly became addicted to the stimulant. And with addiction came sweating, dizziness, depression and hallucinations. There were soldiers who died of heart failure and others who shot themselves during psychotic phases. Some doctors took a skeptical view of the drug in light of these side effects. Even Leonardo Conti, the Third Reich’s top health official, wanted to limit use of the drug, but was ultimately unsuccessful.

Update from a reader:

Uppers in various forms were used in many societies well before the Nazis came to power and every military in World War II used speed.

Marisa A. Miller, a director at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a unit of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, estimated in an article in “The American Drug Scene,” a 2004 book, that during World War II roughly 200 million amphetamine pills were given to American troops. Both the U.S. and British military studied the use of uppers on troops during the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s. “All of the important combatant nations in World War II used these drugs judiciously in aviation, especially during prolonged and hazardous bombing missions.” wrote Dr. Maurice H. Seevers, a pharmacology professor at the University of Michigan Medical School, in “Amphetamine Abuse,” a 1968 book.

During World War II, Japan’s pharmaceutical industry produced millions of doses of meth which were used by the military and civilians who were supporting the military in manufacturing and other similar industries. When Japan surrendered in 1945, those drug companies simply dumped their remaining product on the market. “After the war, the contract for a large amount of methamphetamine which had been stored by pharmaceutical companies for military use was canceled,” according to one study by a Japanese researcher in “Use and Abuse of Amphetamine and Its Substitutes,” a 1980 book. “The companies tried to sell these stocks on the open market by advertising the drug as one that would inspire the fighting spirits in daily life.”

The first man-made, amphetamine-like substances were reported by a chemist in Germany in 1887, according to “The Amphetamines: Their Actions and Uses,” a 1958 book by Chauncey D. Leake, a professor of pharmacology at Ohio State University. A Japanese chemist, identified only as A. Ogata in studies, first synthesized methamphetamine in 1919.

The Nazis did not create meth. It’s an awful drug, but this argument that says meth is bad because the Nazis made is both wrong and dumb.

Earlier this week, ten members of Congress sent a letter to the front office of the Washington Redskins, pushing them to select a new mascot:

In this day and age, it is imperative that you uphold your moral responsibility to disavow the usage of racial slurs.  The usage of the “R-word” is especially harmful to Native American youth, tending to lower their sense of dignity and self-esteem.  It also diminishes feelings of community worth among the Native American tribes and dampens the aspirations of their people. We look forward to working with you to find a solution to this important matter.

Their idea of a solution is a bill that would amend the 1946 Trademark Act to cancel any trademark that uses the term “redskin”. Pat Garofalo figures such federal intervention may be the only way the change will happen:

For precedent, it’s worth revisiting what led Washington’s football franchise to integrate. Then-owner George Preston Marshall was perfectly content to play up the team’s racist history, leaving it the last segregated squad in the league. He finally relented in 1962, not because of any change of heart, but after the John F. Kennedy administration threatened to refuse the team access to what is now called RFK Stadium, which was on federal land, unless it integrated.

Doug Mataconis disagrees with the liberal lawmakers’ strategy:

I have to wonder why this is something that Members of Congress need to be getting involved in, or why legislation is necessary to address something that is, in the end, a private business matter.

The people who don’t like the name are free to protest it. Dan Snyder and the rest of Redskins ownership are free to reject their pleas. If there ever comes a time when the public sympathizes with the protesters, then perhaps the team will feel the kind of economic pressure most likely to cause them to change positions, then we’ll likely see a name change of some kind.

Personally, I think the odds of that happening are pretty remote. The Redskins name has been in existence now since 1933 when the football version of the Boston Braves changed its name to Boston Redskins before moving to Washington, D.C. several years later. We’re not that far away from the 100th anniversary of that name. It’s going to be around for a long time to come, and I’m just fine with that.

(Photo: Fans of the Washington Redskins cheer against the Dallas Cowboys at FedExField on December 30, 2012 in Landover, Maryland. The Redskins defeated the Cowboys 28-18. By Larry French/Getty Images)

Suspicion is mounting over government interference in the now stalled Chilcot Inquiry exploring the former prime minister’s role in hyping the Iraqi threat in 2002:

The central allegation against Mr Blair is that he gave a private assurance in early 2002 to President Bush that Britain would join the United States in an invasion of Iraq. Thereafter, it is said, all was decided. Even though Mr Blair later highlighted Saddam Hussein’s alleged weapons of mass destruction, and misrepresented what he was being told by the intelligence services to the House of Commons, it was of little significance to him, because the die had been cast anyhow.

Hence the central importance of access to those conversations. They are likely to cast much-needed light on whether or not the allegations that the prime minister struck a private deal with the president are true. Yet, amazingly, the Chilcot Inquiry’s website states that it has “not yet” even “begun its dialogue” with government over the treatment of these Blair/Bush conversations.

David Owen, former foreign secretary, has launched an attack, accusing Blair and Cameron of a secret deal to prevent the truth coming out:

Speaking at a public meeting, Lord Owen said that the inquiry “is being prevented from revealing extracts that they believe relevant from exchanges between President Bush and Prime Minister Blair”. The culprits, he said, are Tony Blair and David Cameron: “Publication of the Bush extracts would not be blocked if Tony Blair had not objected, nor if that objection had not been supported by the present prime minister, David Cameron. Both men are hiding behind conventions that are totally inappropriate given the nature of the inquiry.”

I agree. It is of critical importance in a democracy that a declaration of war – the gravest decision a leader has to make – is made transparently, that the case be built on facts, and that the process of deliberation is a real one – and not effectively a farce because of a secret deal to go to war regardless of the arguments. If people cannot trust their own governments to be open and truthful on these matters, then the entire democratic project is in jeopardy. Massie, always worth reading, nonetheless sticks up for Blair:

The war may have proved a grievous blunder and those who opposed it look more prescient (in some ways) than those who backed it. But later mistakes – including, of course, the failure to find WMD – do not actually mean the argument for “dealing” with Saddam Hussein was based upon arguments that were known to be untrue at the time they were being made.

And so, what is the point of “revealing” these conversations [between Bush and Blair]? What, indeed, is the point of the Chilcot Inquiry? Who can it satisfy or whose mind can it possibly change? Some people will not be persuaded because they cannot be persuaded.

If there’s an irony here it is that there were people a decade ago who took any suggestion Saddam might not have active WMD programmes as evidence of Saddam’s utter deviousness. It was proof he could not be trusted and therefore, perversely, evidence he was up to no good. Ten years later we see the same thing: the absence of evidence against Blair is proof of the former Prime Minister’s cunning. He must have been up to something, otherwise why the need for secrecy? And so down the rabbit hole we merrily go.

(Photo: Former British Prime Minister and Middle East Quartet Envoy Tony Blair greets US President George W. Bush following speeches during the Annapolis Conference in Memorial Hall at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland on November 27, 2007. By Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)