Attacking the wrong chokepoint.
Dave and Joe were sitting at the bar nursing their beers. Guinness never had stouter friends. Each of them had long passed the state of farting intimacy with their spouses so they weren’t there to flirt with the bartenders. Besides, the bartenders would look at their wedding rings and their eyes would state the ‘no’ before they even asked. Since picking up women was off the books, they would just shoot the breeze and after a couple of beers, the conversations often got funnier.
It’s about Frodo, Joe said suddenly.
What?
It’s about Frodo!
Whatcha yapping about you silly old cow?
You remember when Arwen tries to save Frodo?
I do actually… Her white horse and Frodo against the 4 four dark riders - Nargoths or whatever. Then she calls in the river as a barrier. What was it she said… What grace is given me… that I have ever accumulated in this lifetime…. let it pass to him… it’s now yours Frodo. You must hold on.
Oh wow, you remember more than I do.
Yeah… well… she’s beautiful… if Mick got her imagine how beautiful her mum was…
Okay… now listen carefully you sodden old fool… you remember at the end of the stupid movie… when Aragorn runs by himself at the enemy at the gates while their army is fully surrounded? You remember what he said before he starts running?
No
Just two words… “For Frodo”
Ah…
Silence between them deepens.
When did you figure this out? They are two completely different scenes…
YouTube. That's the beauty of snippets.
I see what you mean. You get one snippet one day and your mind flashes to the other scene. It makes the connection.
Exactly… I don’t know what’s happened to my mind. It’s like a pattern finder now…
I won't hold it against you.
They order another beer each.
We’re attacking the wrong chokepint.
I hear what you did there. Your jokes are so old they ought to get their own funeral.
That’s what she said.
Ha ha fucking ha ha.
No seriously you read that WaPo Opinion piece on drugs and fentanyl?
WaPo sounds like WaCo to me.
I mean the Washington Post…
I know what you meant… now carry the fuck on…
While the going is good you mean?
What?
Aren’t you talking about the carry trade?
No! Man what gave you that idea?
You said “now carry the fuck on….”
Ah sweet Jesus matey that’s just a reference to continue doing what you’re doing.
See? Even the Australian knows that…
What Australian?
Nevermind.. I thought heard an Aussie voice.
Ahem… anyway… you were saying… WaPo piece…
No it’s an Opinion… not an article.
Okay… hit me.
Yeah okay.. see … here’s what it says. It says fentanyl deaths have plummeted. It’s a rare success story in drugs. The reason is that they got authorization from up top to stop it. So they did.
How?
They used counter terrorism techniques… stopped the flow using money tracing and so on. Here’s let me find my phone… I have the article in my email. Send it to myself.
You send yourself emails too huh?
Yeah… can’t sent it to anyone else. Okay okay I found it. Listen to this…
+++
Not coincidentally, in my view, this began shortly after federal agents from across the U.S. government implemented a collaborative strategy to disrupt fentanyl supplies. Mexican government agents were also part of the mix.
It was a strategy rooted in the counterterrorism approach used to combat al-Qaeda yet applied to Mexican fentanyl traffickers and Chinese chemical companies. The disruption involved attacking cartel finances, imposing sanctions on Chinese chemical companies, arresting money launderers, tracing pill presses, going after border couriers and, above all, sharing information quickly among agencies. The collaboration provided a template for how to fight drug supplies in the era of synthetic drugs.
Jake Braun, former homeland security adviser during the Biden administration, recounts this story in his book “Fentanyl: Fighting the Mass Poisoning of America and the Cartel Behind It.” This strategy continued during the Trump administration.
That shifts in the supply could have produced such a massive turn in fortune doesn’t surprise me. I wrote a book about the epidemic of addiction to prescription opioid painkillers and another book about Mexican traffickers’ switch to synthetic drugs, namely fentanyl and methamphetamine. My reporting gradually convinced me that these supplies were creating demand, not the other way around, as I once believed.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/04/06/opioid-overdose-deaths-drug-supply-addiction/
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Who is the writer… he says my reporting. Implies he was a reporter at some point.
Sam Quinones
Sam? Like Sean Austin?
Yeah… Sean’s now the head of Hollywood I hear.
LOL… I think you mean head of the actor’s agency.
Isn’t that the top job?
Sure it is. Let’s go with that.
So anyway… why did you share this story with me/
Don't you see it proves corruption in the drug trade. Use backwards logic and inference.
I am too drunk to use that. Explain it to me.
Ok I will. You won't remember it anyway. Okay, okay here’s how it works alright? Fentanyl is a very potent drug. Small quantities can kill you. In order to stop fentanyl trade you need to be able to know exactly when the courier is in transit, when to interdict, you need to use every fucking tool on your computer to trace that thing like it was a counter terrorism op.
I see. And that’s why fentanyl deaths plummeted?
Exactly.
So? What’s your point? How does that prove anything let alone “corruption?”
Okay okay.. check this out… if you can stop a drug that only requires very tiny quantities… the other drugs like cocaine and heroin require HUGE FIELDS… ARABLE LAND… We know exactly where they grow the stuff… Think about it!
I see what you’re suggesting not saying.
Exactly. I am not saying anything.. I am simply saying we successfully stopped a drug that required small quantities to kill people.
And we are not stopping the other drugs…
Joe looks down into the Guinness. Price of cocaine is the same. Opioids are a bit cheaper. Only the fentanyl is gone. That’s the other OpEd.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/07/27/operation-southern-spear-has-not-slowed-cocaine-entering-us/
So Southern Spear is a bullshit reason to kill fishermen?
I am sure it did some damage. Yet the price of cocaine is the final arbiter.
Right.. if cocaine was more expensive then Southern Spear is successful. Otherwise it’s a fishermen targeting platform.
Man fuck this shit.
It’s all bullshit man. They just want to look tough, act tough, take testosterone and act macho. The real work was done in the fentanyl. The rest is business as usual.
I am not surprised. People have to feed their kids.
I wonder how far up it goes?
Not many people live after asking that question.
That’s why I am telling you.
Now I know it too?
Yeap. You wanna live?
I’m like Robbie mate. There are days…
Who the fuck’s Robbie?
Nevermind. So why are we attacking the wrong chokepoint?
Wow really?
What?
The chokepoint point in drugs, dumbass, is the money.
Ah right… what were we talking about?
GOOGLE DOCS PREPARED BY GEMINI’S DEEP RESEARCH AGENT.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qjoJ5we-Afb8XF6tI2mWj4G-32PcELPc25qis93ZfCM/edit?usp=sharing
