The Corrupt Lecture the Non-Corrupt - Part XXVI - Campinos Has Put Unfit-for-Employment Drug Addicts in Charge of the European Patent Office (EPO)
2 months ago: Today, Europe's Second-Largest Institution (EPO) Goes on Strike That Can Last Until 2027. Nobody in the Media Covers This!
The previous part spoke of some impacts of cocaine at the Office, brought by the President himself (through his "brother-in-law"). Today we'd like to discuss this some more.
"The trauma is that cocaine destroys both private and professional relationships," an insider explains. "It destroys marriages, families and work environments."
We've decided to write about what it is like to work with someone who uses cocaine by pointing at outside credible sources. "This will serve your credibility too," argues the insider.
Our findings indicate that over time, users do become quite paranoid (as noted in the previous part), but it does not have to do with the fear of people finding out about the abuse, it is merely a permanent physiological side effect.
An associate argues that some EPO insiders should be old enough to know this, as anyone who lived through the 80s read all about it if not saw it firsthand.
While checking for citations we've stumbled upon this 1991 paper (blocked by gratuitous JavaScript) which says: "The transient paranoid state appears to be a common feature of cocaine dependence and does not seem to be simply a result of exceeding a threshold of use. Rather, affected individuals might possess a predisposition to this drug-induced state. The fact that paranoia became more severe and developed more rapidly with continued drug use is consistent with a sensitization model of cocaine-induced paranoia. In vulnerable individuals, limbic sensitization may underlie its expression, but localization to a specific brain region is speculative. Quantity of use and route of administration do not appear directly to predispose to this phenomenon. Future investigations must be aimed at uncovering the markers and meaning of vulnerability to transient paranoia in heavy cocaine users."
A more recent study (2014) says: "Cocaine use can induce transient psychotic symptoms that include suspiciousness, paranoia, hallucinations, and other cocaine-related behaviors. In this commentary, the authors provide an international perspective while reviewing the recent advances in epidemiology, clinical features, and risk factors related to cocaine-induced psychosis exhibited by patients with cocaine use disorders. In some settings, the occurrence of cocaine-induced psychosis has been shown to be as high as 86.5%. Many risk factors have been linked with cocaine-induced psychosis, including the quantity of cocaine consumed, lifetime amount of cocaine use, onset of cocaine dependence, years of use, routes of administration, other substance use disorder comorbidity, weight, gender, comorbidity with other medical and mental health disorders, genetics, and pharmacological interactions. Research has shown that the evaluation of cocaine-induced psychosis in patients with cocaine use is clinically relevant, especially in those patients who consume high amounts of cocaine, have a cannabis dependence history, have antisocial personality disorder, use administration routes other than intranasal, or exhibit attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) comorbidity. Currently, the literature lacks information regarding the evolution of cocaine dependence or cocaine-dependent patients’ risk for developing schizophrenia or other psychotic disorders. Furthermore, clinicians still do not have an evidence-based pharmacological approach to management of cocaine dependence available to them. Additional research is also needed regarding risk factors such as neurobiological markers and personality traits. Finally, we recommend the development of an integrative model including all of the risk factors and protective factors for cocaine-induced psychosis."
Users feel themselves particularly clever while high, an associate explains, yet are actually a lot dumber and less wise while the high lasts. Then, as mentioned, a tiny bit of IQ is shaved off permanently each time.
As this papers from 4 years ago put it (lots of JavaScript barriers and paywalls): "Cocaine use disorder (CUD) is a devastating disorder, impacting both individuals and society. Individuals with CUD face many barriers in accessing treatment for CUD, and most individuals with CUD never receive treatment. In this review, we provide an overview of CUD, including risk factors for CUD, common co-occurring disorders, acute and chronic effects of cocaine use, and currently available pharmacological and behavioral treatments. There are no FDA-approved pharmacological treatments for CUD. Future studies with larger sample sizes and testing treatment combinations are warranted. However, individuals with CUD and co-occurring disorders (eg, a mood or anxiety disorder) may benefit from medication treatments. There are behavioral interventions that have demonstrated efficacy in treating CUD – contingency management (CM) and cognitive-behavioral therapy for substance use disorders (CBT-SUD) in particular – however many barriers remain in delivering these treatments to patients. Following the discussion of current treatments, we highlight some promising emerging treatments, as well as offer a framework that can be used in building a treatment plan for individuals with CUD."
Around the same time another paper found that "[c]ocaine is by far the most commonly used illicit psychostimulant in the Americas and in Europe (UNODC, 2019). In 2017, there were 18 million global cocaine users according to the United Nations World Drug Report, and its production remains at record levels (UNODC, 2019)." (Full text in page, unlike some that have too many paywalls etc.)
So yes, an associate argues, the abuse will severely impair any negotiations and, in general, interrelations between the abusers and their colleagues and underlings. The usage renders them unfit for employment, even aside from any other disqualifying factors. It affects judgement and how the abuser perceives interactions again paranoia is the base line there.
That in itself is bad enough "and alcohol + cocaine really destroys the intellect even faster," the associate concludes, citing "Little Bush as a prominent example - dumb as a box of rocks [as] the decline goes rapidly with that combination".
To be clear, being stoned does not mean being incapable or seizing positions of power. Holding on to those positions of power is another matter. How many months has Campinos got left before the delegates show him the door? And if they don't, what does that tell us about these delegates' position on illegal drugs?
We'll continue to discuss this in the next part. █
Previously: