Chapter 20: Drugs: A Sign of God’s Final Countdown
Nearly 21 million Americans ages 12 and older had a substance use problem according to a new federal estimate.
Every single day, more than 115 people in America die after overdosing on opioids. The misuse of and addiction to opioids—including prescription pain relievers, heroin, and synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, and synthetic opioids such as is a serious national crisis that affects public health as well as social and economic welfare.
It is estimated that the total “economic burden” of prescription opioid misuse alone in the United States is $78.5 billion dollars per year, including the costs of healthcare, lost productivity, addiction treatment, and criminal justice involvement.
How did this come about?
In the late 1990s, pharmaceutical companies reassured the medical community that patients would not become addicted to prescription opioid pain relievers, and healthcare providers began to prescribe them at greater rates. This subsequently led to widespread diversion and misuse of these medications before it became clear that these medications could indeed be highly addictive. Opioid overdose rates began to increase and more than 33,000 Americans died as a result of overdose, including prescription opioids, heroin, and illicitly manufactured fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid. It is estimated 2 million people in the United States suffered from substance use disorders related to prescription opioid pain relievers, and 591,000 suffered from a heroin use disorder in the same year.
Revelation 9:21, “Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication (immorality), nor of their thefts.”
The word sorceries: Greek, pharmakeis, means a medicine, poison, magic potion or formula, the preparing and giving of medicine, English is pharmacy.
In N.T. we read of the magic arts, sorcery, enchantment, also in Galatians 5:20, “Witchcraft.” Revelation 9:21, 18:23, “For by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.”
The Septuagint for Hebrew, Exodus 7:11-22, “The Pharaoh also called — the sorcerers,”
Isaiah 47:9, “But these two things shall come to thee in a moment in one day, the loss of children (abortion), and widowhood, they shall come upon thee in their fullness.
Among those with a substance use disorder, some 15.7 million had a substance use disorder related to alcohol,
It has been reported that more than 64,000 Americans died from drug overdoses in 2016, including illicit drugs and prescription opioids–nearly doubling in one decade.
Drugs offers the unsaved many benefits; or they would not commit themselves to them. Drugs will make them spend more than they want to spend: drugs will make them go further than they intended to go, and drugs will cost them more than they are willing to pay. These are the wages of doing drugs.
Countries Where Drug Lords rule:
1. Burma (Myanmar). … Burma or Myanmar is a pillar of the so-called Golden Triangle, one of Asia’s two main areas of illicit opium production which also include Laos, Vietnam, and Thailand. It is the world’s second largest producer of illicit opium. Run by a military junta, Burma’s government has been on paper trying to eradicate opium production, but its senior officials have been persistently reported to be involved in the drugs trade, and that drug money continues to pour into government coffers.
2. Mexico. … The Guzman-led Sinaloa cartel is just one of the four major drug cartels wreaking havoc in Mexico, the major transit point for over 90% of America’s cocaine supply. With the dismantling of Colombia’s Medellín and Cali cartels, Mexico’s Sinaloa, Juarez, Tijuana and the Gulf cartels have become the predominant smugglers and wholesale distributors of South American cocaine and Mexico-produced marijuana, methamphetamine and heroin. These cartels have grown increasingly wealthy and powerful over the years, and if their ongoing war against the Mexican and US government is any indication, have become increasingly violent as well.
3. Colombia. … The Medellin and Cali cartels, which have come close to making Colombia a narco-state in the 1990s, may no longer exist, but Colombia remains the world’s top producer of cocaine, with 70% of the world’s coca leaf grown there, and approximately 90% of the world’s cocaine processing market.
4. Peru. … is the second biggest producer of cocaine in the world, next only to Colombia. Historically,
5. Bolivia: ranking third behind Colombia and Peru in cocaine production is Bolivia, which, according to a recent United Nations report, has allocated 28,900 hectares of its land to coca production in 2007, a figure that is more than double than what Bolivian law allows. This leniency towards coca growing, however, is hardly surprising, considering that the sitting president, Evo Morales, did not only farm coca himself during his youth, but was also head of Bolivia’s coca growers association before he became president.
6. Afghanistan: With the fall of the Taliban in 2001, the drug lords of Afghanistan have slowly worked their way towards becoming the world’s top producer of opium today. More than 90% of the world’s opium is produced in the country, a major part of The Golden Crescent, the name given to Asia’s principal area of illicit opium production covering Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan. It is believed that the opium trade flourishes in Afghanistan because Afghan government officials are said to be involved in at least 70 percent of opium trafficking in the country. Experts say that more than a dozen provincial governors have a direct hand in the production and distribution of opium.
7. The Bahamas: For such a tiny island nation like the Bahamas have a thriving illegal drugs trade. A recently released United States narcotics report has revealed that more than a dozen drug-trafficking organizations are operating in this Commonwealth territory. This underlies the central role in drug smuggling that it has assumed over the last two decades, starting with Medellin Cartel cofounder Carlos Lehders initiative to use The Bahamas as a transit point for drugs from Colombia into the United States. Lehder, who is currently incarcerated in the US, even went to the extent of commandeering an entire Bahamian island, called Norman’s Cay, and made it his own drug fortress, where 300 kilograms of cocaine would arrive every hour.
The word “sorceries” in the Greek is ‘pharmakeia.’ In scripture it is translated sorceries. What word do we get from ‘pharmakeia’? It’s pharmacy. And what is pharmacy? Drugs!
It appears in these last days it is going to be a world literally saturated with drugs, and a drug culture. What particular events have taken place as a result of drugs? Those on drugs have to steal to support their habit. In the process of stealing they may commit murder, and along with that they come into gross immorality, prostitution, kidnapping and slavery. This will continue to mushroom until the world is living under the environment of drugs.
But the Scripture gives us hope, one day there will be an end to it all.
Phil LaSpino www.seekfirstwisdom.com