>We all know Trump projects 99% of the accusations he makes of others so it
>stands to reason (along with his advanced age, poor health, erratic
>behavior and incoherent speech) that he's taking combinations of mood
>altering / performance enhancing drugs to sustain himself. His time in
>the White House saw large members of his closest staff taking Xanax and
>amphetamines daily, dealt by Trump's physician Dr. Jackson.
>
>So what will it be tomorrow night? Speed / LSD / Peyote / Cannabis /
>Fentanyl / Heroin / Cocaine / Oxycontin / Xanax / Diazepam (and all the
>other pams) or just all of the above?
>
>
>
>Trump�s White House Was �Awash in Speed� � and Xanax
>Under Trump, the White House Medical Unit was �like the Wild West,� and
>staffers had easy access to powerful stimulants and sedatives,
>
> If you ever looked at the actions of the Trump White House and wondered,
>�Are they on drugs?� � the answer was, in some cases, yes. Absolutely,
yes.
>
>In January, the Defense Department�s inspector general released a report
>detailing how the White House Medical Unit during the Trump administration
>distributed controlled substances with scant oversight and even sloppier
>record keeping. Investigators repeatedly noted that the unit had ordered
>thousands and thousands of doses of the stimulant modafinil, which has
been
>used by military pilots for decades to stay alert during long missions.
>
>The report didn�t say why so many of those pills had been given out. But
>for many who served in the Trump White House, the investigation
highlighted
>an open secret. According to interviews with four former senior
>administration officials and others with knowledge of the matter, the
>stimulant was routinely given to staffers who needed an energy boost after
>a late night, or just a pick-me-up to handle another day at a uniquely
>stressful job. As one of the former officials tells Rolling Stone, the
>White House at that time was �awash in speed.�
>
>Knowledgeable sources say that samples of the stimulant were passed around
>for those contributing lines to major Trump speeches, working late hours
on
>foreign policy initiatives, responding to Special Counsel Robert Mueller�s
>probe, coping with the deluge of media inquiries about that investigation,
>and so much more. (Trump�s campaign did not respond to an email seeking
>comment for this story.)
>
>Modafinil � also known by its brand name, Provigil � wasn�t the only
>controlled substance that Trump officials young and old routinely
acquired.
>�It was kind of like the Wild West. Things were pretty loose. Whatever
>someone needs, we were going to fill this,� one source with direct
>knowledge of the matter recalls.
>
>The anti-anxiety medication Xanax was also a popular, easy-to-get drug
>during the Trump years, three sources tell us. Neither Xanax nor its
>generic, alprazolam, is mentioned in the Pentagon report, which notes that
>it is not a comprehensive list of the controlled substances ordered during
>the Trump years. Two people with direct knowledge of the situation recall
>senior officials getting Xanax from the White House Medical Unit � and
>sharing it with colleagues.
>
>
>The Trump administration was well known for its chaotic, often-erratic
>approach to policymaking � and for its atmosphere of paranoia, where
>staffers regularly spilled their colleagues� secrets and bureaucratic
>factions often spent as much energy attacking one another as addressing
>matters of state. It�s impossible to know how much of that was fueled by
>the widespread availability of drugs like Xanax and Provigil. But what�s
>clear is that there was a breakdown of medical standards and safeguards at
>the highest levels of the American government; some staffers even believed
>that confidential information about their mental health was at risk. With
>Trump pushing to return to power on an agenda even more vicious than his
>first, a full accounting of the misuse of powerful stimulants and
sedatives
>by his staff isn�t just a matter of historical interest. It�s a preview of
>a very possible future.
>
>During Trump�s presidency, two sources say, senior staffers would
>repeatedly down Xanax with alcohol. Such a combination increases the risk
>of �serious, life-threatening side effects,� according to the National
>Library of Medicine. Nevertheless, senior officials would use Xanax and
>alcohol together to soothe themselves while enduring the sky-high levels
of
>stress that come with working at the highest pressure environment job in
>America � with the added pleasure of serving the whims of the infamously
>volatile, intemperate Trump.
>
>As one former senior administration official puts it: �You try working for
>him and not chasing pills with alcohol.�
>
>
>THE WHITE HOUSE MEDICAL UNIT has been handing out prescription medications
>to staffers for decades � especially when they�re traveling abroad, and
>need to combat jet lag. �I think any White House staff knows that overseas
>trips are very grueling,� Stephanie Grisham, Trump�s former White House
>press secretary, recalls. �For us, you�d be on a flight with a president
>who never sleeps, and then you hit the ground running in a foreign
country,
>and you have to be alert and ready for the president and other foreign
>leaders.�
>
>She describes a procedure broadly familiar to staffers across
>administrations: On overseas trips, physician to the president Dr. Ronny
>Jackson �would come around Air Force One asking Donald Trump�s senior
staff
>if they needed anything. This included Provigil and [the sleep aid]
Ambien,
>and he would hand them out, typically in the form of packets with two or
>three pills in them. When this happened on Air Force One, a nurse would be
>trailing him, writing down who got what.�
>
>It�s back home where things got sloppier, the Defense Department
>investigation and our sources note. Pills were often handed out without a
>specific need or diagnosis. Black-and-white procedures that doctors and
>pharmacists routinely follow when prescribing controlled substances were
>ignored. Orders for pills were often written down incorrectly, or not at
>all. One former White House Medical Unit staffer told Pentagon
>investigators that the unit �work[ed] in the gray� helping anybody who
>needs help to get this mission done.� Another said, �Is it being done
>appropriately or legally all the time? No. But are they going to get to
>that end result that the bosses want? Yeah.�
>
>So while prescription drugs have long been in the White House � John F.
>Kennedy reportedly took a cocktail of uppers and downers to fight back
>pain, and Richard Nixon allegedly took an anti-epileptic drug �when his
>mood wasn�t too good� � they have rarely been dispensed as widely as they
>were in the Trump years.
>Then-President Donald Trump participates in a briefing at the White House
>on April 21, 2020. Drew Angerer/Getty Images
>
>The anything-anytime-anywhere approach inspired a sense of entitlement
>among Trump staffers. Some senior administration officials would casually
>mention their Xanax intake, one source with direct knowledge of the matter
>recalls. The source describes a time when an aide to Melania Trump walked
>into the White House Medical Unit and said, ��Could you prescribe me
>Xanax.� She just came in and demanded it.� The source wasn�t a doctor or
>pharmacist, however, and wasn�t allowed to prescribe the anti-anxiety
drug.
>The source politely turned the aide down. �She stormed out,� the source
>says.
>
>This is not, to put it mildly, how these drugs are ordinarily handled. �We
>tightly track controlled substances like this because they�re addictive or
>can cause overdoses,� says Dr. Beata Lewis, a psychiatrist based in
>Brooklyn. �It sounds like with all of these substances, people could get
>whatever they wanted. That puts people at risk for addiction.�
>
>She adds: �The significant thing is these rules apply to everyone � except
>for the White House. It�s a culture of entitlement and being above the
>rules to the point of putting people in danger.�
>
>There wasn�t much the medical unit staffers could do, even if they wanted
>to hold the line. Several told Pentagon investigators �they feared they
>would receive negative work assignments or be �fired� if they spoke out.
>
>ADDING TO THE CLIMATE OF FEAR was the sense that even private therapy
>sessions would not be kept private in the Trump White House. The medical
>unit provided psychological counseling on request. But White House
staffers
>were instructed to be on their guard. One former senior administration
>official tells Rolling Stone that within the first two years of the Trump
>presidency, they were warned by a colleague against divulging anything
>during a private White House medical session that they �would not want to
>be used against� them. At the time, this source notes, this puzzled the
>official, who was then told that under Trump, the office had a reputation
>for being more porous with private information �than you might expect.�
>
>The former administration official didn�t think much of it at the time.
The
>source shrugged the warning off as mere gossip and moved on. However,
>according to other individuals with intimate knowledge of the matter, it
>was hardly an idle rumor. Immediately after counseling sessions,
therapists
>were pressed for information about what they were told.
>
>�They�d say, �We need you to see this person.� They�d walk me over there.
>I�d see this person. Then as soon as I got out, they would ask, �Hey what
>happened?�� one of these sources tells us. To this source, this was a
>blatant violation of patient confidentiality. The source would try to be
as
>vague as possible in their responses to the questions, but in the Trump
>White House, �it was all kind of open kimono,� they say.
>
>Keith Bass, who led the White House Medical Unit from 2017 to 2019,
>confirms that these sorts of debriefs did, in fact, happen after
counseling
>sessions. But he says they never went into details; they were merely to
>determine whether a �medical/behavioral health event� would prevent a
>�military/DoD staff� member �from performing their duties or impac[t]
their
>ability to maintain a [top secret] clearance while assigned to the White
>House,� Bass says in an email. �Detailed clinical notes were not required
>from the psychologist; only a broad overview to determine fitness for duty
>status.�
>
>Our source says that�s not entirely accurate. For starters, these debriefs
>happened after therapy sessions with civilian staffers as well. And while
>the questions may have been �seemingly innocent,� the source says they
>could be seen as the start of a �slippery slope,� which would then �drif
[t]
>down into asking for information that was not appropriate.�
>
>The White House Medical Unit�s often casual approach to giving out
>controlled substances didn�t exactly inspire confidence. �The sloppiness
>around handing out medications had me highly concerned about the
protection
>of behavioral health information � medical information at large. There was
>no protection of sensitive patient information, period,� the source says.
>
>Any attempts to add more rigor were entirely unwelcome, the source adds.
>�The more I held to professional standards� � the more the source objected
>to the pressure to divulge details about therapy sessions, and to keep
>patient information private � the worse it got. White House staffers
>�ostracized me,� the source says. �Nobody would talk to me. The culture
was
>toxic as fuck.�
>
>MODAFINIL WAS DISCOVERED in the 1970s by French scientists and was first
>handed out to pilots to help keep them awake and on task in the 1991 Gulf
>War. The U.S. military started to use modafinil in earnest around the 2003
>invasion of Iraq. At the time, it was heralded as a massive improvement
>over previous stimulants: stronger and more effective than caffeine, less
>physically addictive than amphetamines. �These medications aren�t
>stimulants like the old military �go pills,� there are few if any side
>effects when taken as prescribed. They simply stave off drowsiness until
>the medication wears off, then you naturally fall asleep,� one
>knowledgeable source writes.
>
>But that �taken as prescribed� caveat is crucial. When handed out willy-
>nilly, outside a doctor�s supervision, modafinil can pose serious risks,
>notes Dr. Rachel Teodorini, a researcher at London South Bank University�s
>division of psychology who has examined the drug and its effects. �If
>people have cardiovascular problems, heart problems, or blood pressure
>issues, it could cause things like strokes or heart attacks,� she tells
us.
>And while modafinil doesn�t appear to physically hook patients, �there�s
an
>element of at least psychological dependence. Tolerance builds up, and you
>need more and more.�
>Modafinil tablets. Alamy Stock Photo
>
>As a recent study in the journal Military Medicine notes, �although
>modafinil was initially said to comprise no risk for abuse, there are now
>indications that modafinil works on the same neurobiological mechanisms as
>other addictive stimulants.�
>
>And just like with other stimulants, the overuse of modafinil can lead to
>the perceived need for anti-anxiety medications like Xanax. �Effectively,
>you�re using one drug to get you up and another to get you down,�
Teodorini
>said.
>
>Some former Trump staffers tell Rolling Stone they didn�t get these drugs
>directly from the White House Medical Unit. One former Trump White House
>aide concedes they �borrowed� some modafinil from �a friend,� who said
>they�d gotten it from the unit. �I had a lot going on in my life and I
>wanted some,� they say.
>
>In other administrations, modafinil was used �99 percent of the time� for
>jet lag, one source notes. The Trump White House was a free-for-all. Two
>other sources each independently compared the White House during those
>years to college campuses where students cramming for finals or pulling
>all-nighters would pass around Adderall and other drugs, prescriptions be
>damned. But it wasn�t just the administration�s junior staffers � the
>recent college grads � who partook. The sources add that midlevel and
>certain senior officials � including those who reported to then-President
>Trump and First Lady Melania Trump � came to rely on modafinil, as well.
>The sources and former senior Trump officials, who all requested anonymity
>to discuss sensitive matters, recall instances of staff casually slipping
>the medical unit-provided stimulant to one another, in efforts to stay
>focused and help navigate the exhausting chaos of the Trump presidency.
>
>It was �ironic� that Trump�s White House was �one place the war on drugs
>wasn�t being fought,� one of the former officials sardonically notes,
given
>Trump and many of his lieutenants� zeal for waging the international war
on
>drugs.
>
>NEARLY EVERY SOURCE INTERVIEWED for this story traced the problems with
the
>White House Medical Unit back to Jackson, who joined the team during the
>George W. Bush administration and became physician to President Barack
>Obama in 2013. Before then, he was known as an eccentric. Afterward, he
>became a menace, as several Defense Department investigations detail.
>
>On a trip to Argentina in March 2016, one of those reports notes,
Jackson�s
>�intoxicated behavior in the middle of the night, pounding on [a female
>subordinate�s] hotel room door, screaming, yelling, and overall loud
>behavior in his hotel room exhibited less than exemplary workplace conduct
>while on official travel to provide medical care for the President.� The
>Pentagon interviewed 60 of Jackson�s former subordinates; 56 �experienced,
>saw, or heard about [him] yelling, screaming, cursing, or belittling
>subordinates.� During a six-week stretch in 2018, a Defense Department
>hotline received 12 complaints� about Jackson.
>
>Jackson�s office did not respond to a request for comment. After this
story
>was published, he complained on X that Rolling Stone is �nothing but a
>liberal rag,� and demanded the names of our sources.
>
>His nomination to become Secretary of Veterans Affairs that same year was
>derailed over accusations he handed out pills to White House staffers like
>a �candyman.� (In one case, a Senate report noted, medical staffers fell
>�into a panic� because he had given such �a large supply� of Percocet pain
>pills to a member of the White House Military Office.)
>Then-President Donald Trump looks to White House physician Ronny Jackson
>during an event at the White House on Aug. 3, 2017. Jabin Botsford/The
>Washington Post/Getty Images
>
>Jackson briefly returned to the White House as Trump�s �chief medical
>adviser� in 2019 before running for Congress. But no matter what position
>he held, several sources tell us, his influence dominated medical care at
>the Trump White House, and Jackson�s �minions� and �loyalists� ran the
>White House Medical Unit in his stead. �Any practices existing at that
time
>were all set up by Jackson, who�d been there for a dozen years. Though the
>med unit was led by an administrator, little happened without his say-so,�
>one of those sources say.
>
>The source adds, �Unit leadership did slowly start making appropriate
>changes, but due to [the] complicated nature of missions, individual
>expectations within the organization, a self-imposed cone of silence and
>fear of being held liable for sins of the father, it took a long time to
>find the right way forward.�
>
>OUR INTEREST IN THIS STORY was sparked, in part, by a handwritten ledger
>reprinted on page 14 of the January inspector general�s report: a tracking
>form for the controlled substances ordered by the White House Medical
Unit.
>In addition to the thousands of pills of Ambien and Provigil listed are
>even more potent sedatives and pain pills: morphine, hydrocodone, diazepam
>and lorazepam (better known by their brand names, Valium and Ativan),
>fentanyl, and even ketamine.
>
>Jackson, now a Republican congressman from Texas, told the Washington Post
>that his team prescribed narcotics �less than five times� across his
>tenure. And according to the paper�s sources, drugs like fentanyl were
>�kept on hand for extreme emergencies � such as a White House fence jumper
>impaling themselves on a spike.�
>
>That�s a ridiculous example, a well-placed source tells us. �Someone just
>made up something. If there was a jumper, someone would call 911,� the
>source says. The jumper would then be transferred to a nearby civilian
>hospital.
>
>But there was a grain of truth to the idea that the medical unit retained
>fentanyl and the like for extreme events. In the wake of the wars in Iraq
>and Afghanistan, there was a desire to bring the advances in battlefield
>medicine to the White House. If the president or vice president were to
get
>shot in a remote location, far from any hospital, the unit�s physicians
>wanted to be able to insert a breathing tube into the VIP almost
>instantaneously, a process known as �rapid sequence induction and
>intubation.� Doing that requires sedating the patient in a hurry with
>powerful drugs.
>
>�The unit employed the world�s standards in pre-hospital trauma care, as
>directed by the DoD�s Joint Trauma System & Committee on tactical-combat
>casualty-care guidelines. That includes the use of ketamine, fentanyl,
etc.
>for pain management,� a second knowledgeable source writes. �The whole
>mission is contingency planning for providing most/best possible care for
>the worst/craziest scenarios.�
>
>Needless to say, they never encountered a scenario that nuts. And we
didn�t
>uncover any evidence that ketamine or fentanyl were handed out to White
>House staff the way Xanax and Provigil were.
>
>
>But as the handwritten ledger shows � and our sources confirm � the
medical
>unit�s procedures had grown so sloppy, so lax, that it�s impossible to
>prove the negative, that these sedatives and dissociatives weren�t given
to
>White House staff. �In our analysis of the White House Medical Unit�s
>controlled substance records, we found that medications, such as opioids
>and sleep medications, were not properly accounted for,� the inspector
>general�s report reads. �These records frequently contained errors in the
>medication counts, illegible text, or crossed-out text that was not
>appropriately annotated.�
>
>That might sound like minor errors in paperwork. They�re not. They�re the
>kind of transgressions that turn patients into addicts, and doctors into
>ex-doctors. �If you�re sloppy even a little bit with controlled
substances,
>you�ll lose your [medical] license,� one source notes. Without proper
>record keeping, there�s no way to say just how much of the Trump White
>House was on drugs. There�s no way to tell how they might use � and abuse
�
>prescription medications if they come back to power. �Nothing is written
>down,� another source says of the unit�s drug distribution during the
Trump
>years, �because we will always get to yes.�
>

In article <v5ik6q$2i4in$1@dont-email.me>, X@Y.com wrote:

>Reportely Trump is very sick with AIDS from banging porno actors and
>hookers and his mental problems are because he has Neurosyphilis, the same
>disease that drove Al Capone insane, from his days prowling the streets of
>NYC just around the time he dodged the Vietnam draft, his own private
>Vietnam he say.

Takes one to know one, eh?

--
"The sky was low and heavy, like the brow of a retarded child."