Privacy and medicine

I usually take naturopathic medicine when I get sick. Sometimes, I take regular med if it's recommended by someone I trust. One of my cousins is a nurse practitioner, and her mom told me that she always takes Mucinex when she gets a cold. And since this medicine also helped my dad years ago, I decided to try it out. But, when an online retailer was asking too many personal questions because "the state where I live requires it," I gave both my state, and the retailer the middle finger.

(image by Polina Tankilevitch)

Not long ago, you could buy over the counter medication and not sign your life away. Now, the government wants to control every aspect of your life. There is zero privacy. Their excuse is that medications with pseudoephedrine can be manipulated, and converted to methamphetamine. So, to put a stop to this, they ask for your date of birth, driver's license, and signing off on pages of gobbledygook that you don't bother to read. They claim that they want to stop people from going from pharmacy to pharmacy to buy the same product and turn it into Meth, and to protect children and young adults.

(image by Anna Shvets)

First, let's talk about corruption. Insurance companies don't like to pay for your medication. So, they push for a lot of meds to become over the counter so that patients would have to dish out money instead of the insurance company. Take Aspirin for example. It's a lot cheaper to buy Aspirin when your doctor writes a prescription than when you buy it over the counter. And most doctors don't write a prescription for it unless you insist. They just say take a couple of Aspirin, and call me if it doesn't work. So, you can buy plenty of stuff without a prescription, and combine them to turn it into what you want.

(image by Nataliya Vaitkevich)

Second, the laws that ask you to sign away your life have little effect on the Meth supply. What these laws do is to make it easy for drug companies and retailers to collect information on unsuspecting public. I'm not sure who came up with this stupid law, but it's not working. They know that it's super easy to get drugs on the street if you're determined. Heck, at schools, universities, parties, bars, and clubs, they're practically giving it away. I know people who were drugged without their knowledge, and those who can get drugs through their connections. Why not figure out a way to stop that instead of harassing the average customer whose goal is to get over a cold. I'm sick. I have the flu. Give me my medicine and stay out of my life.

(image by Marija Zaric)

Third, no government or police will ever put a stop to drugs when there is so much money involved. It's about politics, and how much goes into individual pockets. The entire war on drugs is a big joke. When you hear on the news that a drug cartel got busted, it is because those who busted them, made a better deal with another supplier. This is how our world works. The only time those in charge care about you is when the drugs you are taking is effecting their bottom line. And that's it. Period.

(image by: Artistic Operations)

I refuse to handover my life to heal my cold. I can do just fine with naturopathic medicine. I have no problem handing over my date of birth, but there is no way that I'm going to give them my driver's license number and other information. Remember that entire incident with Target where the company saved customers' pin numbers in their system? So, no way, no way, no way. And same goes with cough syrups. One time, when a retailer asked for my ID, I left the cough syrup by the cashier, and walked out. I'm better off without the pharmaceutical's crappy chemicals anyway.

(image by stux)

L.A Fires

I don't think I have ever seen simultaneous fires like this in L.A., the city where I grew up. It was difficult to watch all the places that I used to visit burnt down to the ground. I was reading some of the comments on social media. A lot of people didn't care about L.A. burning, and believed that the entertainment industry deserved it because of their support of Israel. Others equated Los Angeles to the United States, and the government's policies toward foreign countries. What they don't realize is that most people do not support war, apartheid, and genocide, but they are afraid to speak up because they don't want to lose their jobs. Just like everyone else, Angelenos have families, and children to support, mortgage, and car payments. People whose jobs are not affected by speaking up have done so in the past, and still do.

So, a little compassion is in order here. Animosity has never brought anything positive to the table. Let's not lose the site of our humanity, and support each other. With love and kindness, we can make positive changes. (image by Freepik)

There are a lot of bitter people out there like the actor, James Woods, who said #KillThemAll on twitter, in regards to the Palestinians, and then he cried when he thought his house was burned down. Fine, if you don't want to feel sorry for him. I get it. But here's the thing—if we lose empathy for our fellow human beings, then we will become just like the James Woods of this world. Mean. Bitter. And heartless. Be better than that.