March 2018

Easy Win for GOP: Kill the UN’s Backdoor Gun Grab

It comes as no surprise that Congress’ $1.3 trillion dollar omnibus budget package is rubbing raw the already thin patience of the Republican base. Rather than draining the swamp, which includes seizing this historic moment of Republican control of both Congress and the White House to dramatically cut government spending, Congress instead (with the support of the White House) is spending as recklessly as when Democrats were in charge. Couple this with scant legislative victories outside of President Donald Trump’s tax cuts, especially in regards to expanding gun rights, Republicans are doing little – literally – to motivate voters to show up in November, and keep them in power.

That is why killing the United Nation’s Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) is precisely the low-hanging fruit Republicans need to score a quick and much needed victory with conservatives. And, just as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell prefers it, doing so would require virtually no effort on his part.

In September 2013, the Obama administration signed the UN-ATT, an international agreement that regulates the sale, transfer and export of conventional weapons, including “small arms and light weapons”; essentially every civilian firearm on the market. And, just as gun control activists in the United States claim their “common sense” demands are aimed at reducing “human suffering” attributed to firearms, the U.N. purports the ATT to be necessary for combatting the international trade of illicit firearms. Nevertheless, as we all know to be true, these claims are nothing more than emotionally-driven and thinly-veiled attempts to undermine gun rights; both here in the United States, and abroad in member countries.

Though the treaty was officially signed by then-Secretary of State John Kerry more than four years ago, it has languished in the Senate without ratification. Even still, the treaty poses a real danger to gun rights. As a signatory, the United States is obligated not to act “contrary to” the ATT’s terms – even if those actions conflict with the interests and constitutional rights of U.S. citizens. This obligation exists, and continues to exist, regardless of whether the Senate ever gets around to ratifying it.

Of course, that may change if Democrats regain control of the Senate, and the White House. Their reticence on the treaty’s presence is by no means indication they have forgotten about this crucial power play to limit gun rights; especially in today’s domestic political climate in which even some Republicans are now caving to pressure from gun control activists. They are simply biding their time. Additionally, the very existence of the signed ATT is an excuse and policy vehicle for career bureaucrats, like those at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, to use their regulatory authority to weaken gun rights under the guise of ATT compulsion.

There is historical precedence for Trump to “un-sign” the treaty; in 2002, former United States Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton sent a letter to the U.N. formally rescinding America’s involvement with the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which had been signed by President Clinton two years before but never ratified by the Senate. However, officially removing U.S. support for the ATT would be more significant (and less controversial) were it to come from the Senate. And, all it would take is a document McConnell would transmit to the Senate. Easy as pie.

Yet, in spite of the modest effort it would take in defeating the ATT once and for all, doing so would be a huge shot across the bow of gun-grabbers in the U.S. and in the United Nations community that despite the anti-gun chatter of the last few weeks, the United States will not be party to international schemes to rid citizens of their God-given right to self-defense. Moreover, it would be a meaningful and much needed sign to conservatives that Republicans in Congress have not completely abandoned them, even as other promises such as the Hearing Protection Act and national reciprocity for concealed carry are still noticeably unfulfilled.

The recent special elections Republicans have lost in Alabama and Pennsylvania are about more than just bad candidates; they are a sign that Democrats are foaming at the mouth to get back into power, and are incredibly motivated at the ballot box to do so. So far, Republicans in Congress have done almost nothing to motivate conservatives to respond in kind. Killing the ATT would be at least some red meat to throw down to voters, while finally taking the ATT out of limbo and eliminating a vulnerability to gun rights that should have been handled months ago. If McConnell has any inkling of leadership left in him, the ATT will be slated for destruction by the month’s end.

Mother’s Little Helper Has Become America’s Big Problem

Bob Barr

3/21/2018 12:01:00 AM – Bob Barr

Is tonight’s dinner giving you heartburn? You’re in luck; there is a pill for that. Do you have high blood pressure? There’s a pill for that, too. How about going bald? Restless legs? Help in bed? Thinning eye lashes? Yes, yes, yes, and…yes – all maladies solved with the help of prescription drugs. In modern medicine today, there seems to be nothing that cannot be cured with prescription or over-the-counter remedies. Simply turn on television during a big game or an evening news program, and you’ll catch the latest drug ad from Astrazeneca, Merck, or Pfizer, hawking a treatment for whatever ails you.

While the expansiveness of today’s treatment options is good for clinical care, we as a society have been conditioned to expect that all of life’s problems are solved with a small pill and a sip of water.

Is it any wonder then, that we have an opioid epidemic?

The Rolling Stones presaged America’s obsession with pharmaceutical “therapy” in songs such as “19^th Nervous Breakdown” and “Mother’s Little Helper,” recorded in the mid-1960s; decades before today’s crisis. “Mother needs something today to calm her down,” the song goes; “and though she’s not really ill, there’s a little yellow pill; she goes running for the shelter of a mother’s little helper.” The pill referenced in the song is thought to be Miltown (meprobamate), a precursor to Valium and Xanax; a psychotropic drug with properties of a tranquilizer, and once used to treat everything from alcoholics to stressed-out housewives and Hollywood’s elite. According to Andrea Tone, a pharmacology historian, Miltown “normalized the notion that people who didn’t have serious illnesses, who are just riding the roller coaster of the vagaries of life could pop a pill,” and be cured; a cultural mindset Tone says has become “enduring.”

Enduring, indeed. Today, the pharmaceutical industry spends an estimated $6 billion a year marketing its products; with roughly two-thirds of that on television advertisements. As a society, we have gone far beyond simply accepting prescription drug treatment as normal; it is now relentlessly pounded into our heads everywhere we turn. Paired with today’s cultural demand for instantaneous gratification and impatience with even momentary delay, the opioid epidemic was a perfect storm just waiting to finally break.

Clinically speaking, opioids are a popular treatment option because of their low cost and effectiveness in pain management; decreasing pain transmission along nerve fibers, while providing patients a relaxed feeling. Unfortunately, the very reasons that make the drugs a legitimate treatment option for pain management, have given rise to its illegitimate use as an escape mechanism for people not suffering from physical pain but rather, as Tone mused, from “the vagaries of life.”

This psychological dependency on opioids to take a break from life’s problems, coupled with the physical changes to the brain’s chemistry that makes them so potentially addictive, means opioids do represent a dangerous recipe for chronic addiction if not carefully monitored by a physician. As a result of the government’s recent crackdown on opioid abuse, they have become both harder to obtain legally and more expensive on the black market; thereby causing addicts to turn to a far more dangerous substance — heroin.

Opioids are just the tip of the iceberg with the drug epidemic infecting our society, and some recent actions by the federal government wind up actually making the problem worse, or papering over the real problems. It certainly does not help, for example, when the Congress itself intentionally sabotages an effective law enforcement program to identify and intercede in suspicious trafficking of prescription pain pills. And President Trump’s call for the “death penalty” to punish opioid traffickers, will do nothing whatsoever to solve the complex, underlying problem of a medicated nation.

Fortunately, there are some actions Congress can and should immediately consider to help in pushing back the tide of opioid abuse. First, it should repeal the legislation passed in 2015 (and written by a pharmaceutical lobbyist) that effectively killed the Drug Enforcement Administration’s ability to police illegal narcotic shipments. Secondly, Congress should remove marijuana’s federal classification as an illegal Schedule I controlled substance, thereby enabling state-level programs for medical marijuana to move forward without threat of federal intervention by the Justice Department. Such a move could provide alternatives to opioids as patient treatment, meaning fewer people would be exposed to potential addiction even during genuine medical treatment.

Ultimately, however, America’s drug crisis – with opioids and drugs more generally – will continue so long as we as a society believe popping a “little helper,” is a normal response to the non-medical problems in our lives.

Gun Crimes Are Not a “Public Health” Issue – Keep the CDC Out

What’s in a name? In Washington, not much. Here, Republicans who run campaigns on fiscal discipline regularly jack up the national debt. And, Democrats who constantly preach “tolerance” push the narrative that “free speech is violence” and disagreement is itself cause for punishment.

So, to the inhabitants of this strange place, it actually makes sense that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) should be involved in researching, funding, and advocating for regulations about non-disease related issues, such as gun violence. After all, to Beltway insiders, a federal agency established in the 1940s to combat malaria (which at the time was rampant in parts of the United States), should be free to spend federal tax dollars studying everything from the Ebola virus to school bullying, workplace hazards, domestic violence and, yes, gun control.

Last month’s tragic mass murder in Parkland, Florida has – predictably – again raised the notion advocated for years by the gun control movement that gun violence is a “public health” issue with which the CDC should deal.  The fact that gun violence has nothing to do with diseases or the public’s health, matters nothing to individuals bent on dismantling the protections guaranteed by the Second Amendment however they can.

As a term of art, gun violence can be, and often is described metaphorically as a “disease,” a “cancer,” or a “blight” on our society.  But speaking in a nation ruled by laws not opinions or personal views — a world in which words have assigned, accepted and understandable meanings — there is absolutely no connection between mass shootings and the flu, Ebola, malaria, or any other disease which should be consuming the time, resources, and focus of doctors and scientists at the CDC.

Since the Clinton presidency, however, gun control advocates, especially within the Democratic Party, have pushed relentlessly to shoehorn gun violence into the jurisdiction of what should be an apolitical agency focusing on medicine and science.  To these advocates, gun violence is a “public health” issue, and therefore a legitimate issue for the CDC to engage.  Once that threshold fact is established, the rest follows – to help rid society of its cause; not a virus or bacteria, but an object – a gun.

The approach favored by the gun control advocates – a long-term, multi-faceted strategy involving political, financial, legal and PR tracks — worked well for Nanny State warriors in the late-20^thCentury battle against tobacco.  That war finally (in 2009) opened the door for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to gain statutory jurisdiction with which to regulate and control all tobacco products.

Now — following decades of demonizing firearms in the public arena and engaging in regulatory “death by a thousand cuts” – Democrats hope that what worked with tobacco and the FDA will result in the CDC being given money and power to research and study “gun violence” as a disease; to be then “controlled” by containing and restricting, if not eliminating its root cause – guns.

While Republican efforts to deny funding for the CDC’s foray into gun control since Bill Clinton launched the effort two decades ago, have stopped the agency from formally working in that arena, the Left has not been sleeping.  They have quietly and consistently been working to ensure that the false notion of gun violence being a public “health” issue, remains part of the public policy debate.  And, they have seen to it that private donors, including the CDC Foundation, and other agencies not so visible (such as the National Academy of Sciences) have been provided money to keep that work alive.

Mass shootings and our response to them are incredibly complex issues, touching on subjects ranging from law enforcement, education, delinquency, mental health, and physical school safety, to fundamental due process, equal protection of the laws and other constitutionally-guaranteed protections. To pigeon hole this issue as a “public health” issue so the CDC is able to “research” and solve it as a “disease” will contribute little, if any, greater understanding to the problem or the best solutions.

Actually, dropping the CDC into the mix will make solving the problem of stopping mass murders more difficult.  The debate should and must remain focused on stopping evildoers within the context and bounds of our Constitution (including the Bill of Rights); with the Department of Justice leading the effort at the federal level.  Treating this problem as a medical or quasi-medical matter will allow gun control advocates the “cover” of engaging in scientific and medical endeavors; while what they really will be doing is systematically dismantling our Second Amendment rights, and the ability of law-abiding citizens to protect themselves and their families against evil sought to be perpetrated on us.

Space competition is more important than ‘Starman’

BY BOB BARR, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — 03/07/18 04:00 PM EST

Generations of American inventors and entrepreneurs have touted the value of competition. Walt Disney — the pioneering creator of Disneyland and shrewd businessman — once remarked, “I have been up against tough competition all my life [and] wouldn’t know how to get along without it.”

Today, there are those who push themselves to the head of the class and claim they should be the sole provider of a service simply because they performed a successful assignment and are more adept at claiming government support. Enter Elon Musk and SpaceX — and the game of crony capitalism.

Broadly speaking, the advent of modern crony capitalism can be traced directly to the 20th century explosion of federal government involvement in virtually every economic activity in which society is engaged, and using taxpayer dollars to mold the marketplace to its agenda. This has produced a class of business people adept at manipulating government, and reducing competition in favor of projects in which they are involved, thereby reaping substantial pecuniary gains.

Musk clearly is an extremely savvy technology expert and businessman. And he is among the most successful at convincing government officials and agencies to “invest” in products he builds and markets (or tries to market). While the most visible of Musk’s ventures are his solar-powered products — including the Tesla automobile — for several years he has been actively developing rocket boosters with which to deliver payloads into earth orbit.

Just last month, Musk’s SpaceX venture captured front-page coverage around the world with the successful launch of his “Falcon 9 Heavy” rocket booster. The attention he secured through the rocket launch was magnified by a subsequent video feed, depicting his red Tesla roadster cruising through space after being released from the rocket’s delivery bay.

Musk has used the success of his Falcon Heavy liftoff to accelerate the positioning of SpaceX, as the only private sector company in which the U.S. government should partner in developing the next generation of heavy lift rockets. Despite Musk’s repetitive lip service to “competition” as the foundation for his innovative endeavors involving electric cars and rocketry, his ability to move both projects forward has relied heavily on securing government grants to launch and keep such programs alive. The Falcon Heavy launch, for example, was preceded in just the last two years by earlier Falcon booster failures that cost taxpayers some $200 million.

Musk counts among his many supporters former Speaker Newt Gingrich, who marveled at the Falcon Heavy launch as the spark to move the world into a new era of space exploration. Gingrich focused on the pictures of Musk’s red Tesla being “driven” through the cosmos by a space-suited mannequin, as an inspiration for “every young person in America” to switch from other endeavors to math, science, and space exploration.

Although I agree with Gingrich that the “Starman” photos are cool, they hardly will provide the impetus for a major shift in educational foci and career paths for a new generation of young people. It will take far more than that. It will also take far more than one successful rocket launch to rekindle America’s leadership in rocketry that we deliberately surrendered after the phenomenal success of the Apollo moon program in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Regaining leadership in this technology-driven field will take continued success, vast resources and perseverance. Most important, it will take competition. And competitors to Musk there are — including Jeff Bezos’ “Blue Origin” and the United Launch Alliance conglomerate. The effort will prove more costly and lengthy if the mistake is made to put all our eggs in one basket — no matter how cool the pictures or how convincing the messenger.

If America is to regain its leadership in space science, exploration and manufacturing, it will be because we have not closed the door to competition or because we have been taken in by the legerdemain of a master manipulator.

Bob Barr is a former Republican congressman from Georgia, serving from 1995 to 2003.

“Due Process” Is Not a Constitutional Footnote, Mr. President

Townhall.com

Bob Barr

3/7/2018 12:01:00 AM – Bob Barr

Cherry Blossom season approaches our nation’s capital, the Congress remains gridlocked, and Robert Mueller, the latest “special counsel,” continues his free-wheeling search to unearth “Russian collusion” armed with a limit-free credit card.  All the while, the most recent mass murder involving a firearm fans the flames of gun-control ire from the state legislature in Tallahassee, Florida to Clarksburg, West Virginia (home of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS).

Amidst all these goings on, President Trump continues to display his unique understanding of our Bill of Rights.  Last week, during a televised meeting with Republican congressional leaders about the February mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, the President declared that the notion of “due process” is little more than a footnote to the United States Constitution.

The President’s view notwithstanding, the principle of due process – that a citizen is absolutely entitled to his or her “day in court” before the government may take action against them – is a bedrock of our representative democracy.  This is the case whether one considers a special counsel attempting to gather evidence against a person believed to have broken the law; or a federal agent seeking to deny someone their constitutionally-guaranteed right to possess a firearm.

Imagine for a moment, how large would be the crowd of defendants facing charges initiated by Mueller, in addition to Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort, if the Special Counsel could — to paraphrase Trump – “arrest now, give due process later.”  Manafort would have plenty of company.

And yet the President states publicly — in a room full of lawmakers, each of who has taken an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States – that he favors the government being able to “take the guns first, go through due process second.”  Perhaps even worse, nary a single of the Republican lawmakers in that meeting had the understanding of the Constitution, or of the manner in which the government operates, to voice objection to Trump’s statement.  Maybe they were all being polite, or were fearful of correcting an obviously mistaken president.  Whatever the reason, the silence was deafening.

It is to be hoped that the concept of due process being afforded an individual who has chosen to exercise their freedom guaranteed by the Second Amendment, will not fall victim to changes now being considered in Washington and state capitals across the country.  The primary vehicle that could be employed to do just this, is the so-called “gun violence restraining order.”  Such a process has been proposed as a way to keep firearms out of the hands of persons prone to abuse them. It can be a legitimate procedure; but one that must be very carefully considered and explicitly limited.

Unfortunately, the importance of “due process” in this regard — applied to a person arguably mentally unstable or, in the words of current federal law, someone who has “been adjudicated as a mental defective” — is not so easy to discern.

The term “mental defective” is hopelessly vague, and surprisingly is not defined in federal law.  Thus, whether an individual falls into that category of persons prohibited from possessing a firearm (there are eight others), is left to state and federal agencies and judges to determine; many of who are openly hostile to the Second Amendment. Without clarification in federal law, allowing for such “protective” orders is a recipe for unlawfully restricting a right that is expressly guaranteed in our Constitution.

For example, does the term “mental defective” encompass any person who requires assistance in handling their finances – a view embraced by the Obama Administration?  Is it more narrowly circumscribed to include only persons mentally incapable of standing trial?  Or veterans undergoing counselling for depression?

Trump’s off-handed remark that if a person is considered by someone – perhaps anyone – to be “crazy,” the government could immediately and unilaterally confiscate any firearms and “weapons” to which he or she might have access, plays straight into the hands of the modern gun-control movement.  That movement is founded on the notion that the government has a fundamental responsibility to protect the citizenry from gun violence, and that this responsibility trumps all other rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights.

There is, however, a glimmer of constitutional light at the end of this tunnel.  Utah Sen. Mike Lee is working on an amendment to a “fix NICS” bill that would provide a clear and constitutional procedure, through which a court could determine if a person’s mental state truly renders him or her such a danger as to warrant restricting their possessing a firearm.

We all will benefit if it is the Senator’s understanding of due process, and not the President’s, that prevails in that debate.

Profiting from the opioid crisis

The Washington Times

By Bob Barr – – Tuesday, March 6, 2018

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Whether one labels it a “crisis” or an “epidemic,” or understates it simply as a “problem,” no reasonable observer can consider the human and monetary cost of opioid abuse anything other than a matter of the utmost national importance.

In 2016 alone, more than 64,000 people died from drug overdoses in America; the highest number ever recorded. The opioid crisis has cost the United States more than $1 trillion since 2001. President Trump appropriately has declared it a “public health emergency.” To try and end the epidemic and obtain for addicts the help they need, the demand for opiate-treatment drugs has skyrocketed; unfortunately, a result not without its own set of problems.

It is well-known that the drug buprenorphine, properly administered, can manage opioid dependency. The drug reduces craving for opioids, and in a properly managed regimen, truly can reverse the tide of addiction and death.

However, one drug company — Indivior, which produces buprenorphine under the patent Suboxone — has viewed the opioid crisis as nothing more than a profit-making opportunity. Rather than increasing the quantity of opiate treatment drugs available, Indivior has done everything possible to keep its own prices high and lock competitors out of the market. This profit-driven effort has been called a “shocking scheme to profit off of heroin addicts,” with the drug maker’s actions leading to “nearly a billion dollars in undeserved profits.”

This scheme appears not only to violate state and federal antitrust laws, but every notion of common decency and ethics in coming together to solve our country’s current drug epidemic.

Indivior’s actions, like the opioid crisis itself, began years ago, but at least now are beginning to garner the public’s attention. When Suboxone entered the market in tablet form in 2002, it was granted patent exclusivity for seven years; meaning no generic copies could enter the market during that time. As this exclusivity neared its expiration, the company engaged in a “product-hopping” scheme, in which it made slight, medically-unnecessary alterations to its product in order to preserve patent protections and box out competitors; in short, to maintain its product monopoly.

Although its tablet seemed to work fine, the company touted “unfounded pediatric safety concerns” and began to develop a dissolvable film version, like a breath strip. These small changes allowed Indivior to expand the length of its patent and repel generic competitors who could, and were ready to, enter the market and charge lower prices. Indivior’s claims also appear hypocritical — although the tablet form of the drug was removed from the U.S. market, the company continued to sell the drug in tablet form overseas with no problem, and even increased its marketing.

This sort of naked, profit-minded behavior in a true health emergency is unconscionable. This is why, in September 2016, a bipartisan group of 36 state attorneys general announced that they were suing Indivior for illegally driving up the cost of a key treatment for opioid addiction. The company is charged with manipulating Suboxone to extend its patent and discourage lower-priced competitors to enter the market for buprenorphine.

However, while the lawsuit by the attorneys general has been pending for nearly a year and a half, no tangible results or relief has been seen. The opioid crisis has only worsened; to the degree that overall life expectancy in the U.S. dropped last year, driven by the increasing number of drug deaths. Now, drug overdoses — not heart disease — are the leading killer of Americans under the age of 55.

While the federal government has a legitimate role to play, the real leadership must come from the state attorneys general; primarily by being far more aggressive in pressing legal action. Simply filing a lawsuit and issuing a news release does little but raise expectations; real commitment must come through seeking injunctive relief and emergency hearings to get the ball rolling.

The Congress, however, has an important role to play; especially given the lack of movement in the courts. On Feb. 28, that effort came into focus with a hearing on the opioid crisis by a subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Hopefully, this congressional effort will not only continue, but accelerate.

Among the options on the table should be ending predatory pricing and monopolistic behavior by the very companies that claim to be cohorts in the battle to end opioid addiction. Congress — and the Department of Justice — must prioritize and deal with anti-competitive practices by drug manufacturers that place profits above competition, sound pharmaceutical ethics and patient outcomes.

If this effort to save a generation of our fellow citizens requires criminal prosecutions in addition to legislative and civil remedies, then so be it. The alternative is far too dread to allow.

• Bob Barr, a lawyer in Atlanta, Georgia, was a federal prosecutor and a Republican U.S. representative from Georgia.