Even Germs are Scared of the US Health Secretary

How surreal is the United States government? It seems that each secretary reveals their deepest monstrosities quite straightforwardly. One could argue that it’s fine to have contradictions: to smoke a joint every once in a while; to admit that one had too many Jägerbombs during spring break in Las Vegas and vomited on the Blackjack table; or even to have pedophile friends (it has become a normal thing nowadays). Contradictions make us human, don’t they?

However, when the current Secretary of Health, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., goes onto a podcast (thinking, perhaps, that no one would listen) and sparks the phrase, “I used to do cocaine in public toilets,” the contradiction thermometer just explodes. It’s not just because the statement is nasty and stupid; it’s because it represents everything this government has been fighting against since 1986. We are talking about millions of dollars poured into a failed war against drug cartels in Latin America, especially in Mexico and Colombia.

The statement was likely meant to prove the immortal immune system of Mr. Secretary of Addiction. Perhaps he doesn't realize that his neurons are the real issue. It’s a probability that if you go to those dark, underground places in major cities where drug abuse is rampant, you might sniff something off a toilet rim because it’s the only flat surface in the entire space. Do you know what you find on that rim? The worst bacteria known to man live there. Yet, most of them would be scared of Mr. Kennedy’s nostrils approaching them.

Is this the man in charge of the national health system? Everything is wrong here. This episode shows us what a failure the “War on Drugs" is, and foremost, it shows how deeply this problem has flooded society, from the bottom of the barrel to the power elite.

We must remember that once upon a time, during the late 19th century, cocaine had its acceptance. Clinical psychologists and psychiatrists used it to help patients with chronic mobility issues. Even Freud promoted the powder as an anti-depressant and sexual driver. Why the shift towards oppression? Well, it’s a matter of exclusivity and privileges. When the “mob", the desperate lower castes suffering from abandonment and violence, turned to addiction, the top elite wouldn't accept it, branding it a public health crisis. Hence, the declaration of war on drugs, solidified by Reagan’s famous speech in 1986.

Cocaine is the second most used psychotropic substance in the world, whether it is Colombian, Bolivian, Peruvian, or Ecuadorian. The war against it has provoked a collateral reverse effect: its production has increased. There are more drug dealers and cartels now than in the times of Pablo Escobar; there are more people from even younger ages abusing the substance and mixing it with alcohol, leading to more deaths and violence. It’s one of the cancers of our society. But to know that the U.S. Health Secretary, a Kennedy heir, has sniffed it from a public toilet rim is just the peak of the irony, cynicism, irrationality, and hypocrisy of a human being.

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