Episode Summary

Brooke, Casandra, and Margaret talk about the war in Ukraine and how Russia is not doing great, the train derailment in East Palestine, anti trans bills, Adderall shortages and meth, the return of Big Chicken, long covid as potential auto immune disease, further bans on abortion drugs, drought, floods, earthquakes and the US's top priority: shooting million dollar missiles at balloons.

Host Info

Margaret can be found on twitter @magpiekilljoy or instagram at @margaretkilljoy. Casandra is just great and can be found at Strangers doing awesome layouts, and Brooke can be found on Twitter or Mastodon @ogemakweBrooke.

Publisher Info

This show is published by Strangers in A Tangled Wilderness. We can be found at www.tangledwilderness.org, or on Twitter @TangledWild and Instagram @Tangled_Wilderness. You can support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness.

Next Episode

A special episode will come out next week on March 17th on Surviving the Justice System.

Transcript

This Month in the Apocalypse: Feb. 2023

Brooke 00:15 Hello and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying, your podcast for what feels like the end times. This is the February-March installment of our segment, This Month in the Apocalypse and I'm calling it the February-March episode because we're recording in February and we're talking about February but you're going to be listening to it in March, most likely. I'm Brooke Jackson, and with me today, as usual are the quick thinking Casandra and the fast acting Margaret Killjoy.

Casandra 00:38 I don't know if that's accurate.

Margaret 00:42 Or at least fast talking sometimes, especially when I'm hyper. And today I'm hyper

Casandra 00:46 half of what I'm going to talk about today is brain fog and how it impacts me.

Brooke 00:51 Nice. Well, before we get into today's episode, we'd like to share a little something something from another one of the swiftly streaming podcasts on the Channel Zero network of anarchist podcasts.

Casandra 01:17 And we're back. Cas, Margaret, how are you feeling today?

Casandra 01:51 I just had my first sip of tea.

Margaret 01:55 I have been doom scrolling so hard that I didn't sleep last night because of all the anti trans legislation. So I didn't sleep enough and then I ate a protein cookie and pretended like it was food. So I'm great.

Casandra 02:07 And you don't do caffeine at all. Not even tea.

Margaret 02:09 No, yeah, a bunch of sugar and protein in a cookie form is my equivalent of like making me immediately hyper.

Casandra 02:18 Alright.

Margaret 02:19 Because I don't fuck with caffeine. I'm straight edge, except for alcohol.

Brooke 02:24 Well good, you should take all that energy and tell us some things.

Margaret 02:29 Oh, okay, right. I'm first. Okay, February has been a big month for the apocalypse. The Apocalypse is coming in hard with a bunch of mostly really bad shit. I think that the biggest story, or whatever, the earthquake that happened in Turkey and Syria was really fucking bad. Everyone probably already knows this. As of when I'm recording it, the death toll stands at about 50,000 people in Turkey and Syria. Those numbers are still expected to go up. And a lot of it has to do with poverty and with buildings that are not built to withstand earthquakes. This is happening in a poor region. And that is absolutely affecting everything. I don't have as much information about that to relay, but I just feel like it's like the single most...like now I'm going to talk about the fucking balloons and I hate the fucking balloons. And I want people to know that like the earthquake is more important. But on February 14th, I think, I don't remember, I wrote on February 14, but you think I'd remember that was Valentine's Day. A surveillance balloon, there's a Chinese balloon and the US shot it down. It was a really actually big balloon and it probably included some surveillance equipment. China was like, "It's civilian." The US is like, "No, it was military." I'm not stressed about it because I expect the US government is surveilling me and I don't really give a shit if some other country...whatever, I don't fucking care. It may have been capturing cell transmissions and shit over the US. But then, of course, this sets off this like massive paranoia, where everyone's like, "Balloons are trying to get us. Those Chinese balloons." And the US like scrambled....

Brooke 04:20 I always knew it was going to be balloons. I've always said it, the balloons are coming for us.

Casandra 04:22 Doomsday mechanism.

Margaret 04:26 I mean...

Brooke 04:27 it's the balloons. Clearly.

Margaret 04:30 They are creepy. Actually. This is funny, my my dad is phobic of hot air balloons. I'm sorry to reveal this about you, dad. And because he was always like, "No, they're just there. They're on the horizon. They're creepy." Like he's not afraid of being in that. He's afraid of them like on the horizon.

Casandra 04:46 One of my most traumatizing childhood moments was this hot air balloon show was like going over the neighborhood and I was spinning in circles staring upward watching them as one does and forgot that my mom had a whole like row of rose bushes. And then spent the whole afternoon having like rose thorns picked out of my ass. So, that's all to say that I don't think your dad's insane.

Margaret 05:10 Yeah, so the US government scrambled a bunch of fighter jets to shoot down a whole bunch of other balloons, all of which, like the government is like, "We do not believe that they are surveillance balloons, but we don't know." And the reason that they're saying we don't know is because, well one they obliterated tiny balloons with missiles. So there's like, not a lot left. There's like like half a million dollar missiles being shot at these fucking things, one of which missed. They missed a fucking balloon over Lake Huron, and then it like, fell into the lake. And they're like, "No one was harmed." And I'm like, great, I feel so fucking good that the government is shooting missiles at the US. That makes sense. And so probably those balloons are like amateur weather balloons, like people like do this, where you're like, I'm gonna get a balloon and like, put a bunch of equipment on it and send it up into the sky. And it's cool, right? And because you can like see the stuff. And so fortunately, the US government is there to protect us against amateur weather and radio fans.

Brooke 06:11 You know, you know, our friends over that other podcast have been saying we should nuke the Great Lakes. So I think this was just a trial run to...

Margaret 06:20 Fuck, Robert Evans is like actually the one that got them to shoot missiles.

Casandra 06:24 Cancel Robert Evans.

Margaret 06:25 Yep. All right. Yeah. Or he's a prophet.

Brooke 06:32 That's what I was gonna say,

Margaret 06:34 Speaking of Prophets, but actually, in both mench versions of that word, there was a massive disaster on February 3, in East Palestine [rhymes with Springsteen], Ohio, because it's not pronounced Palestine [rhymes with Stein], in which a train carrying a bunch of toxic shit had overheated wheel bearings, and derailed. It passed like a bunch of sensors that were like, detect overheated stuff. And then like on the last one, it was like, "Hey, you're overheating," and then it crashed. This overturned 11 Toxic cars at a...a bunch of more cars overturned, but 11 of them were full of toxic chemicals, including vinyl chloride, but also a bunch of other shit. 115,000 gallons of vinyl chloride, were let loose. And then they were like, "Slright, well, we better set the shutter on fire," I'm not actually even going to like talk shit on the fact that they set on fire. It might have been the best thing that they could do in that circumstances. There is a lot of stuff that is implying that the government and you know, Norfolk Southern and all that are like downplaying the degree to this disaster. It is a massive disaster, it is a big fucking deal. And the people involved should be held accountable. And there's like, all kinds of stuff about how a lot of the deregulation and of course, you know, the fact doesn't help that Biden like stopped a railroad strike for better safety conditions, because that's mostly huge part of what people are striking for. And they absolutely are like, the numbers are trending upwards. They're like, "It's not a big deal." And they were like, "Hey, there's a bunch of dead fish." And people were like, "There are 4000 dead fish." And they had a very specific number. It might not have been that number was like 300, 800, 3,850, or something. As of this morning, when I double checked, they're up to 43,000 dead aquatic animals. That's 10 times the previous claim. I understand why people are skeptical of these claims. They're probably not forever chemicals. These are the sorts of chemicals that will break down. However, no one knows the long term effects of the exposure that people have already had to these chemicals. And it's fucked up. Norfolk Southern stock has dropped, but not as precipitously as you would might like. It's not even as low as it was last October, just like took a dip. So buy the dip, everyone go out and buy....don't do this. Don't go out and buy stock. Okay, that's what I know about that. Other people might know more about it.

Casandra 08:56 Oh, I was just gonna say that....

Margaret 08:57 Next. Okay go ahead.

Casandra 08:58 I was just gonan say that the EPA seemed pretty like, firm with them, which I appreciated. It wasn't the response I expected. Oh, were you wagging your finger at me? Or like...they were like.

Brooke 09:12 I was being the EPA. Yeah. Because we're in a point of visual medium here, right with a podcast. So, everyone can see me doing that.

Casandra 09:19 I watched the recording and the guy was like, "If y'all don't do this up to our standards, we will do it and then bill you and not just like, you'll get the bill, but we'll bill you a certain number of times the amount that it actually cost us as a penalty." Yeah, it's something I don't know.

Margaret 09:37 I mean, that's good. Yeah. Oh and then the other thing, when I when I lead with the transition of Prophets in both sense of the word. About a week before this disaster, I watched the Netflix movie "White Noise" based on the 1980s novel called "White Noise," in which a toxic chemical train spill it In East Palestine, Ohio happens and fucks everything up. And it fucks with my head, just straight up. It fucks with my head that I watched a movie about a natural disaster and then... not a natural disaster, a manmade disaster. And then a week later, it happened in the same town of 5000 Fucking people. Or 4000 people.

Casandra 10:20 Maybe, you're not a prophet, maybe actually. Your brain just determines all of reality.

Margaret 10:29 Oh, no, I'm not a prophet. No, no, no, no, I don't think this is me.

Casandra 10:31 I think that what happens in your head is then what happens in the outside world. That's more plausible.

Brooke 10:39 Yeah, that seems right.

Casandra 10:40 So, don't think anything....

Margaret 10:42 This is a really good thing to tell someone who lives alone.

Brooke 10:46 I mean, it clearly anyone who reaches a certain level of podcasting, fame then develops a power to cause things to happen. Yeah, that's what we're saying here.

Margaret 10:57 Good to know. And then everyone lived in a happy anarchist society for all times in which everyone was equal, except Margaret was a little bit more equal and got like twice as much tea in the morning.

Casandra 11:06 You don't like tea. We just went over this.

Margaret 11:10 Yeah, well, I shouldn't have more of something I want. That would be fucked up.

Casandra 11:14 This is the like weirdest Catholic version of anarchist Utopia I've ever heard of.

Margaret 11:23 Hi, I'm Margaret Killjoy. Alright, so it's speaking of other bad shit that happened this year, or actually, well, okay. The thing that happened in February is is the one year anniversary of the Ukraine war. As currently stands, it's fallen out of the news, which means that no one is dying anymore, and everything is fine. Except that...

Brooke 11:47 PBS still does it. So to just throw a tiny amount of credit over there. But yeah...

Margaret 11:54 Yeah, well actually it's funny because people will talk mad shit about mainstream news and for good reason. But like, overall, I think mainstream news is a little bit better of a job than like Twitter at like, staying attached to stories over time, rather than just like chasing the clicks, which is fucking saying something because that is what mainstream news was notoriously bad at. I just think social media is even worse at it. On the other hand, it's not the job of the random Twitter person to....Okay, so, the Ukraine war is largely out of stalemate. As stands Russia holds 17% of Ukraine, an area twice the size of Italy. It's less than they controlled at the beginning of the war by a decent amount, and specifically, almost all their holdings are in the east. And it's been like slowly being chipped away at overall is kind of the general thing. Most foreign fighters left after a few months, it went down, there's 20,000 foreign fighters, mostly like vets of various other countries who are like, "Well fuck an invasion." And a lot of people were like, I think actually a lot of people were like, "Well, I fought in all of these like evil US wars, because they have like worked for the US government. Here's a just war," and people went like chasing a just war, right. It's down from about 20,000 foreign fighters to 2000 foreign fighters as the war drags on. China is calling for peace talks right now. And more might have happened by the time you hear this, like this is like news from yesterday and today, and their position is...like I mean overall they're trying to present themselves as neutral, but like overall they're like, "This is a war of Western aggression." You know? "This is a war of you know a Ukraine shouldn't dress like that if it didn't want to get attacked." They've four times abstained....Thank you for laughing at my off color joke. And yeah, I mean, because that is what it comes down to this idea of like, we had to invade you because you are getting too close to our borders with your power or whatever. Like, you can't fucking justify invading another country for that reason.

Casandra 14:03 They're opposing US imperialism, Margaret.

Margaret 14:06 Yeah, they do.

Casandra 14:07 NATO!

Margaret 14:10 Yeah. Yeah. And that's China's position. They're with the US tankies. Or rather US tankies are with them. They have four times abstained from voting in the UN votes to ask Russia to withdraw its troops it's possible also that China's like trying to get in....and this is like everyone. This is the actual imperialism from my point of view about all this is everyone calling for these peace talks a lot of it is that they're like they want in on the economic reconstruction aka they want like their economic interest in the capitalism to to do their thing just to China it's slightly more state capitalism in the US it's slightly more..

Casandra 14:46 China's not capitalist Margaret What are you talking about?

Margaret 14:48 Oh, right. Sorry. I Forgot. They want to bring their peoples army... and I Love that It's like the tankies pretending that Russia is fucking commie...anyway. The number of Russian soldiers Ukraine is killing is going up, which, you know, whatever, fuck them. 824 Such Russian soldiers a day are dying in Ukraine in February, which is the highest rate since the invasion started. Between 180,000 and 270,000 Russians have died in the war in the past year. And for comparison, Russia is this huge place. And we think about like how Russia just like, bled people during World War II, you know. Russia is only half the population of the United States. And so this is...so when you think about percentage wise, if you think about, it's like, you know, the equivalent of half a million people dying in one year in a dumb fucking war. About 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers have died. They claim that 13,000 of their soldiers have died. Vaguely neutral observers from the outside of claims that 100,000 have died, which is like, their, their like, kill rate, oh, God, I'm not even going to pretend to put this in video game terms. That's fucked up. And also another 30,000 or so civilians, Ukrainian civilians have died. Like directly, tons more displace. Everything's fucked up. It's war. I haven't been able to get a recent number for the total number of arrests in Russia. But, it's like worth really understanding how much a lot of Russians do fucking not want this to happen. There were 15,000 people arrested protesting against the war and like the first month of the war alone, and there's thousands more at various other times, but I wasn't able to find a total count. And, you know, in case anyone needs any reminding that nationalism is garbage. between half a million and a million Russians have fled, rather than be conscripted and fight in this stupid fucking bullshit. And 200 or so Russians are actively fighting for Ukraine. There is no out good outside guests. That is a guess from one of these Russian fighters. And they all have different reasons. I am aware of their being Russian anarchists. I was not able to find more information about that. Most of the anarchists that I know from other countries I think are more involved in directing solidarity goods, except for Belarus.. A lot of anarchists fighters in Ukraine. Anyway, of the 200 or so fighters, the the one I was able to find the specific motive for he's is doing as his Christian duty to stop invasions. And let's see, okay, almost done with the Russian war thing. Dutch intelligence reports that Russia is mapping power and gas infrastructure in the North Sea for potential attack. This came out like yesterday. So who knows what will happen with that. And then it's also kind of worth knowing there's like all of these, like anti war rallies happening around the war around the world. And most of them are like about trying to stop the Russian invasion of Ukraine, right? They're like, "Hey, this war is fucked up, aka Russia is fucked up." But in the US, we get a different kind of anti war movement, we get an anti war movement that's a weird collection of tankies and Nazis...

Casandra 18:20 Margaret, that never happened!

Margaret 18:21 ...coming together like a Molotov-Ribbontrop Pact to say stop the war machine.

Casandra 18:28 Stalin is the whole reason.....

Margaret 18:34 Yeah, no, I know.

Casandra 18:38 The reason the Nazis were defeated soley was because of Stalin, therefore, you know, the Soviet Union never never ever could have allied with the Nazis, even though we have historical records that it did blah, blah.

Margaret 18:53 Yeah, like at the beginning, Russia was like, "Hey, allies, can we hang out with you, Germany's looking real weird." And the allies were like, "I'm not sure." And so then Russia was like or USSR was like, "Hey, Nazis, can we hang out with you? We know bad shits about to happen," and they were like, "Yeah, but totally," and the USSR sent them tons of aid, just literal material, tons of aid. And collectively, they mapped out which countries they were going to invade together and they invaded Poland together...It's Poland. Am I getting that right? And then, Germany was like "JK, surprise attack." And then the USSR was like, "Okay, we're against you." And then fucking millions of Russians died to defeat the Nazis and that needs to be understood and respected. But like Stalin was like making them...there's like, reports from survivors...This is totally what this episode is about. There's like reports from survivors who were like forced to charge Nazi tanks bare handed. And so like, the high numbers of Russian dead wasn't because Stalin ruled. The high numbers is because Stalin fucking sucks. Anyway.

Casandra 20:08 And there's also the whole like, the line that like the USSR saved with the Jews or whatever, when, which was just like totally. Anyway, we won't talk about how Jews were treated in the USSR.

Margaret 20:23 When they signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact....Yeah. Anyway, USSR is not modern Russia, but there's an anti war movement. So that's okay. That's Ukraine. Now, the trans laws, the thing that has me up all night. Yesterday, I believe the Tennessee House passed a bill. And now this was misrepresented. And I accidentally misrepresented this too, because I trusted a Twitterer who trusted a news article from a mainstream source that, okay, a Tennessee House did pass this bill. And by the time you're listening to this, probably their fucking Senate and Governor have signed off on it. But the article was like, "And now it goes up to the governor." It doesn't it goes to the Senate first. And a lot of really shitty laws passed the House, but not the Senate in like, any given place. So there's like, still hope. But I'm not full of fucking hope because a lot of these types of laws are passing right now. The type of law I'm talking about, this is an anti drag law. And these anti drag laws are similar ones proposed around the country and all the details are a little bit different. But the overall idea is that if anyone who is a male or female impersonator, AKA a crossdresser, aka, me living my fucking life, or a drag performer, if they perform, and if it's like, in any way, like...some places it's just like literally if they perform, or exist in public, and another one's the Tennessee laws a little bit like, and they perform in a way that has any kind of like, sexual titillation, or whatever then that has to be the venue that is now a strip club legally, or like, needs to be a like 18+ adult entertainment, cabaret or whatever the fuck

Casandra 22:15 Like who's deciding if something's sexual?

Margaret 22:19 Uh huh. And it is. First cops, then judges, Two groups I trust to the bottom of my....nothing.

Margaret 22:35 Or the parents who call the cops.

Brooke 22:41 Don't forget about he mob.

Margaret 22:42 Yeah, no, totally. They're the first step in it. So that is the literal criminal criminalization of being trans in public.

Casandra 22:45 Yeah, there are nine anti trans laws on the books right now in Oregon. Yeah.

Margaret 22:52 Yeah. There's 14 other states with similar anti drag laws in the works, including Oklahoma, Texas, Arizona, and Idaho. And I just didn't find the full list, I found people like a couple different places giving like short versions of the list. South Dakota did just pass a law like not just the house or whatever, but like it's fucking signed, that forces trans youth to detransition. And Utah passed a law against trans youth also, very recently, or against allowing trans youth to transition. But, I don't believe it forcibly detransitioned. I believe that this one in South Dakota is the first one to force detransition, which from my point of view, pretty much means that trans...families with trans children who can't afford to move are going to have their trans kids run away or kill themselves. Just like, frankly, I am not recommending. I am recommending if you're a trans youth to in a place that is affected by this to get in touch with community to try and help you and your family get out of that situation. That is what I'm directly recommending. But, the the reason that doctors believe in gender affirming care for trans youth is that it lowers the rates of death substantially. Oklahoma is currently considering a bill to ban gender affirming care to adults, anyone under the age of 26.

Brooke 24:22 Fucking Oklahoma.

Casandra 24:22 I can't remember which bill i was reading, but I was reading about one that was worded in such a way where gender affirming care also ended up including things like hormones for ciswomen dealing with menopause, like it was so broad sweeping that like, I just don't think people consider the broader implications. You know what I mean?

Margaret 24:41 I don't know whether this one was that one, but I...it wouldn't surprise me and I feel like people pass laws like that all the time. And then just like, no one's going to actually stop cis women from accessing hormones from menopause, you know, or like, you know, people dealing with prostate cancer often take hormones and you know, testosterone blockers and things like that, and like...All the shit is overbroad, like crazy, but not in a way where I feel like oh, it's overbroad, and it gets struck down like no, it's gonna get targetedly used against trans people against, the Left. And 5% of US people in the US who are under the age of 25 identify as trans or like nonbinary in some way, compared to point .5% of the rest of the population as a whole. And I would like to...don't make me tap of the sign of the that graph of chart of left handedness as a chart of left handedness. Like once they stopeed. Once they started letting people be left handed, it goes up and caps itself, you know. And every major medical association in America recognizes that gender affirming care for youth saves lives. That is not a...I assume everyone listening to this already knows the shit, but it's like worth fucking knowing. This is not a like, medically contested issue. You know, this is like, and I'm not like, "Man, you know, who I trust immediately, the medical institution, they always have our backs." But, they do in this case, because they're not fucking... Oh, God. That's what I've got to talk about this week.

Brooke 26:20 Jon Stewart did a good piece that was on gender affirming care that maybe everyone's already seen, because it was a little while ago, but was, you know, citing those...Just what you're exactly what you're saying, Margaret about every every major medical organization in the US.

Margaret 26:38 And honestly has been one of the only cispeople I've seen talking about it in public. The silence from cispeople has been deafening. And if your cis and listening to this, I'm hoping that if you've been silent about it, I'm hoping that the reason you've been silent about it, is because you're afraid of taking up too much of the conversation. Because we do have this way of talking about social issues right now, where people are afraid to talk about issues that don't directly affect them. And I think that that is a misstep. And that it will take cis people talking about this angrily, before anything will change. Because, when it's just trans people, and sometimes their immediate families who are showing up to protest, everyone's going to be like, "Well, fuck those pedo whatever," fuck, whatever. Fucking bullshit, you know. So from my point of view, part of the reason this keeps me up at night is not because the Nazis want to kill me, they've wanted to kill me for a long time, they've sent me letters to this effect, with like, my parents address in it, you know, it's that when I don't feel supported, is when I feel the most lost about all of this stuff, just frankly. And so sometimes like that support is like, like, "Margaret's guide to being supportive to your trans friends," is like, like, sometimes, like random people messaging me to be like, "I see you, you're valid." I'm like, that's great. I don't I don't need that from strangers. What I need from strangers is for people to talk to the people, they're around and say shit about this, you know, I have a, I know I'm valid. I have a supportive family. And I have a supportive network of friends and all of that, you know? Yeah, sorry, this is...I mean, all of these things that we're going to talk about are big deals. But you know, this one affects me very directly.

Brooke 28:45 Oh, no, I appreciate you saying more about it, because I was gonna ask follow up questions about like, you know, showing support and good ways to do that. So thanks for talking about that.

Margaret 28:55 Be fucking angry. Like, you know, and it's like, and this stuff like, it's also all part of misogyny. Like, because people want to control people's bodies. And so transmen are affected by this because they're, like, leaving womanhood behind and that's bad or whatever. And then of course, transwomen are like, the reason that people don't want us to exist is a weird protect the women thing, right? And so like, when cis women are loudly like, "No, I would rather have this transwoman in the bathroom with me then like I don't know someone who's like peeking under stalls to make sure no one has a penis." Like people being loud about that kind of support. There's this brilliant video of thus person who I believe is a cis woman who's like getting gender policed by a Karen in a bathroom.

Casandra 29:47 I saw that

Margaret 29:48 And refuses to answer whether or not she has a dick. Yeah, it fucking...that gives me hope. So, I like.

Casandra 30:00 That's like reverse Karen.

Brooke 30:02 I just bookmarked that so I can watch it after

Casandra 30:05 We should start a Nazis know our parents' address club.

Margaret 30:17 And then like...it's funny I try not to talk too much about my family on this podcast, I guess, but then again the Nazis already know where they live. Like my dad's fucking ex marine with anger management issue who loves this trans daughter? How's do they think this is gonnna go?

Casandra 30:35 I mean, my situation, my parent's would've been like "Whatever."

Margaret 30:41 Yeah, okay, fair. I'm sorry.

Casandra 30:43 Okay, who's next?

Brooke 30:48 Okay. Can we talk about happier things?

Margaret 30:54 What podcast are on?

Casandra 30:57 I genuinely can't remember who's next. Is it you, Brooke?

Brooke 31:03 Allegedly. Although, if it's something you have segues better for, I'm all for it. I had a good segue from the war thing. But then we then we start talking about the trans issue and I don't know where to go from there.

Casandra 31:13 I think the world is shit. There are lots of them. They're diverse, shitty things to talk about, you know?

Margaret 31:18 Well, and even the war thing, it's like, you know, what, Ukraine is fucking holding on a year later. That is a fucking positive story. It is a terrible, horrible story. But they're still fucking there. You know, like people thought Ukraine wasn't going to be a country by last summer.

Brooke 31:36 That's a really good point. Well, speaking of war, wars, the war on drugs. Drugs. Adderall. I did it you're welcome. We did a, I think our August episode or something like that we did a roundup on like shortages, things that were in shortages. And I know we talked about Adderall at one point and being in shortage and why. And that started like last summer sometime I think August or so it was when people started talking about it. The FDA or DEA, I can't remember which one it was that came out with the announcement. I think the the FDA came out like late October and said, "Hey, we have an Adderall shortage." And everyone said, "We fucking know we've been dealing with with this for two or three months now." And it's gotten worse than it's been in the news again, recently, because of just how much worse it has gotten. We talked about it previously, we talked about some of the reasons why the shortage was happening. And part of it is a production issue. It's a very controlled substance. So, it's not like manufacturers can just start pumping out a whole bunch more. And not just like the creation of the Adderall. But the ingredients that go into it are controlled substances as well, so they can only make so much of that. Allegedly, there's enough supply of the base ingredients that we shouldn't have this shortage. So....

Casandra 33:10 Sorry, I'm stupid about Adderall, is it it because meth. Is that the....? Okay, sorry.

Brooke 33:18 That's where I'm going with this, but yeah, that's that is that. That is part of the reason it's such a controlled substance, because Amphetamine is, you know, main ingredient, it's it's people often refer to Adderall as being, you know, legal meth, or prescribed meth.

Casandra 33:33 I know nothing. Wow. That's wild.

Brooke 33:42 So, there have been some reports of folks that haven't been able to get their Adderall and have, in fact, turned to meth in order to get the substance they need, and there's not a good sense of how like widespread this is, versus, you know, a couple of instances that hit the news, you know, there's at least one story of somebody who died in an ER, because of meth. And they said they were taking the math because they couldn't get their Adderall prescription. And, you know, meth, you know, historically causes no problems to the brain and doesn't make people say things that are wacky and untrue. So we can trust that story. But, that's what's happening. But, the fun conspiracy theorh where I'm going with this that's floating around is that the government is purposely restricting the manufacture of Adderall to force people to turn to meth to perpetuate the war on drugs. So there you go. Conspiracy theories are fun.

Margaret 34:43 Wait, So this is a new conspiracy. Okay. How the balloons tie in?

Casandra 34:48 Yeah.

Margaret 34:49 Is that where moving it? They're getting the Adderall out of the country?

Casandra 34:52 They're delivering it. If we would have let them come in farther, they would have just released it because everyone wants Adderall.

Margaret 34:58 Oh, yeah. That's sort of true...the part where everyone wants Adderal.

Casandra 35:03 I do not.

Margaret 35:06 Yeah. No, I don't want Adderall. I'm hyper off a cookie.

Brooke 35:12 That's part of the issue is that the prescriptions for Adderall increased 27%. From 2019 to 2022. There were like 35 million prescriptions in the US, which is a fuck ton, in 2019. And then it went up to like 45 million by 2021 or 22. And I mean, shocker. Everybody's stuck inside with a pandemic. Like we overprescribed, that are all for sure. And I and that is not to say there's not people who genuinely need it out there. And I don't mean to bash anybody's use of of that prescription. But you know, one of the articles that I was reading they, you know how news reports like to pick a human interest story to tell their story, they were talking about this 16 year old female in Utah, who's like in all of the AP classes, honors classes is getting ready for college and how stressed out she was and obsessed with perfection, and she couldn't get all her stuff done. And then she got an Adderall prescription. And, and now she's able to get all her homework done, and she's acing all their classes, and it's ready for college and blah, blah, blah. And it's like, well, yeah, I mean, you just gave her gave her amphetamines.

Casandra 36:36 I feel like there's a misuse potential. Like, the people I know, who have ADHD and take Adderall, it doesn't impact their system that way, you know. And I also think there's a certain, I see this with autism as well, there's a certain amount of like, like the left handed thing that Margaret brought up, you know? Like, it might seem like, it might seem like an undue spike, but I'm sure a large percentage of that is people who are finally getting care they need.

Margaret 37:12 And then also, like, I think about it because I came closer to seeking medication for ADHD than I ever have. And what it was for me is that I built my entire life around the fact that I have ADHD, there's a reason that I'm a freelancer, there's a reason that I, you know, I travel, there's a reason I work for myself. Like, there's all these things that I've done, that have made ADHD not a problem in my life, right. But actually, the beginning of the pandemic, it made it more of a problem. It made it harder for me because like, I had to sit in my cabin and work on a computer in order to eat food, and stuff, you know, and so like, and I don't thrive in certain environments, and so I was like, "Man, if I had something that helped me thrive in this environment." So.

Casandra 37:56 Which then makes me wonder, like, how much of that need is attached to Capitalism, you know, lthe ike productivity. So? Yeah.

Margaret 38:04 Oh, yeah. No, totally. I mean. Totally. I had a day job for a minute.

Casandra 38:10 Sitting in a cabin alone with....That sounds like my dream.

Margaret 38:16 I know. Well, I was fine until the day job. Awesome.

Margaret 38:24 Okay, so,

Brooke 38:25 Again, I don't want to like bash anybody that's taking it. I don't know. I don't want to say that there aren't legitimate reasons that some of those people didn't need it. But, we we do know that it's overprescribed, that you take you know, young people who are high achieving, and we've got them overscheduled and fucking