Prison Population, Prescription Drugs. USA. A sick society.

Sean O'Torain. 

Think about this. The USA has 5% of the world's population. Well actually slightly less than 5%. But it has 25% of the world's prison population. This is staggering. No other country comes close to the US in the proportion of its population it locks up. So much for the land of the free. Of course there is big money to be made in the prison industrial complex. This is why so many people are locked up.

But this post is not about the profit driven prison industrial complex. It is about something else which is also profit driven. That is the giant ruthless drug pushing companies which are poisoning the population in the interests of it making bigger and bigger profits. They liked to be referred to as Big Pharma. makes them sound sort of cuddly. Yesterday I heard another statistic which is close to as bad as the numbers of people locked up. Again remember the USA has less than 5% of the world's population. With this tiny proportion of the world's population the USA consumes over 80% of the world's opioid drugs. One in three of these are for anti anxiety. The rest are mainly pain killers. We hear from the right wing nuts and the capitalist politicians about the land of the free and the pursuit of happiness. US capitalism is not doing so well on either of these fronts. It is not so free and it is not providing so much happiness. US capitalism is a sick society.