Hospitals could become distribution centers. But I can imagine the board freaking out over the idea. Somene will claim the test encourages drug use - with a straight face, as if MDs don't encourage drug use. Well, yes, different "drugs."
Please God let's cancel the laws outlawing so-called recreational drugs like opium. At this time fentanyl is a Schedule 2 drug.
A subject very close to me. Both of my sons, ages 24 and 26 are addicted to fentanyl. They have both lost many friends from overdose. This stuff is so hard to get off of. My older boy was forced to detox in jail, and as awful as it was, he said he never would have been able to do it any other way. By the grace of God, both boys are still alive, surviving multiple overdoses. I sincerely pray for all people, addicts and their loved ones, who have been traumatized by the devil's powder.
If effective, it seems it could only help. Even if only a small fraction of users practice due diligence before consuming street drugs.
"Little or nothing that government or law enforcement has been able to do seems to make a dent in the problem. Fentanyl is cheap to manufacture, and it is flooding the United States. Coming across the southern border. Being imported in small packages shipped from China."
Longer term, I hope we can overcome the cultural paralysis induced by omnipresent, specious charges of racism, and learn once again to defend ourselves. There's something absurd and idiotic about relying on a communist foe as a trading partner, debt holder, and manufacturer of many of our consumer goods. I take heart from the new administration's reported adoption of a war posture against Mexican cartels. The attack against our wellbeing is not coming from Ukraine, but rather from "frenemies" transporting over a border that could be sealed, if only we had the will to do it.
only one remark. how is it that people who are homeless, penniless, can buy drugs? and if they have a little money why not buy food?
35 years ago I had that culture shock as a baby Police Officer.
Why take drugs? The answer from numerous bad guys, arrestees, hypes, junkies, etc. is...
"Why not?" Or "I have nothing to lose." Or, or, or. Pick a reason. Drug use is running from one's problems and having no support structure or coping skills. People take drugs because the drug works and they don't know any better and don't care. Some users know exactly what the drug will do and one dose is not enough and ten is not to many. Most are poly drug users, as in multiple drugs as often as needed, with cannabis being ever present.
First I have to make the distinction between junkies, accidental ingestion of opiates and using laced versions of other drugs. Been to all three incidents.
Junkies are intentional users. They will use any and all means to get drugs and are the most consummate liars on Earth, exceeding the abilities of politicians in most cases. This rant will focus mostly on intentional users. Mostly.
Accidental ingestion is Grandma takes the wrong dosage in error, accidental exposures and med interactions. These are (almost) wholly innocent.
Laced versions of other drugs. Less empathy for this crowd. Much empathy for parents as they are all blind sided by this one. Don't do drugs.
Been to the autopsies. Done the follow ups. Interviewed more people than I can count surrounding overdoses (accidental and otherwise). Cried with the families and restrained angry male kin from doing something irrevocable and truly stupid. Kept more than one partner from doing a roadside execution for an accidental needle stick. Dragged more people into an ambulance and to rehab than I can remember. Fought with the hypes after they get jumpstarted (Narcaned) and the first thing they all say, "Is you ruined my high". You were dead mother fu!@#$. And you are bitching about us saving your life?! Again. As an aside the record for jumpstarts, locally anyway, is four in a 24 hour period.
I get it. So use of hype, junkie, etc., is not done in a vacuum. I am calling them what they are as intentional users of opiates and other drugs. I am not unempathetic. Far from it. Fentanyl and opiates have broken a huge part of American society and will continue to do so until the supply is shut down and the higher ups get arrested, tried, imprisoned and executed. Wherever those responsible may be located.
The easy access to Naxalone (Narcan) has pretty much only made things worse. When first issued Narcan I was less than happy as it put the burden on responding LE to jump start the hypes. The amount of Narcan needed to jumpstart has increased every year. Used to be one hit, maybe two. Now four or more. LE generally keeps Narcan on hand to treat one's partner or little kids or Grandma.
A test would help. A massive education campaign would help more. Robust enforcement, FULL jail sentences for users and dealers alike would be even better. You charge users criminally to create a mechanism to get them into rehab. I have had family members beg me to arrest their junkie kids to keep them away from the drugs. Grown men begging is a sorry sight.
Hypes generally don't practice good hygiene or use good practices in ingesting drugs. Users will get high within 5 minutes or 1 mile of obtaining drugs. A few have Narcan on hand and if there are several hypes using together, one of them is supposed to stay sober and administer Narcan if someone OD's. Sometimes that plan works. The drug culture is not what most of you are used to and is not even close to "normal". Parents and other enablers are not helping. Society and legalizing cannabis (and in some states hard drugs) is certainly not helping.
A test would be awesome if you could get them to use it and then not take the drugs they just bought.
Darn good comment. Amazing just how quickly this happened. Was a research tech 10 yrs before going to grad school so a 10 yr window there with most peers. A girl from a well to do area of houston absolutely refused to believe my hi sch. had no drug problem, much less Okla City in '60s. So what happened in that 10 yrs? The Nam war? We sent men into war without a drug epidemic before but in Nam we were sending over kids, many having never had the word no applied to their behavior. They were undisciplined, undereducated and way unready for what awaited them in a cesspool seething with available narcotics. That?
Thanks for this, Mark! Good to hear the realist view from someone on the ground; we often hear politicized theories from those who have neither "been there" nor "done that", and never will. Empathy is important, but i find that a typical bleeding heart offers self-motivated lip service; perhaps inappropriate and ineffective. These are real crises and intervention is the effective action.
Thank you for this analysis, reporting and support! Just forwarded to my boss lady (who has told me she and her family are into drugs - maybe some prescribed).
In view of possibly walking on banana peels, I'm planning to redo my will and powers next week - putting her in the drivers seat. Am hoping she will make good use of your information.
We here in Florida wanted to do drug testing on those who collect food stamps but it was noted to be unconstitutional. These recipients, although drug addicts, may be the families only source to food. Loose, loose situation.
That sucks! How can treating criminals differently from the rest of the population unconstitutional? I drug abusers use, buy, and possess contraband, therefore breaking the law. Am I missing something here?
Because it’s cheap and they will use their nickel to purchase it. We have homeless camps here in SW Florida and on any day they are panhandling on the street corners. So as much as you want to give them money, it’s wise not to. We too are failing our homeless population.
Nice try, but it's not going to solve anything. Am I expected to believe that someone is going to go out and buy some nice street heroin, then test it for fentanyl and throw it away if it tests positive? Street drugs are used by people without a lot of foresight to start with, made worse by their cravings. They're not going to use this.
The only solution is to legalize the drugs. I don't worry about fentanyl in my celery. Why? Because the suppliers have a reputation to uphold, and there is legal recourse if they did. Neither of which apply to suppliers of street drugs. I can't sue my heroin supplier for selling me some tainted junk. I can't shame them. I probably can't even buy from someone else next time.
Is legalization a complete solution that will make everything sunshine and roses? No. It's just less harmful than prohibition. Prohibition doesn't make the demand go away, it just means that demand will be met by criminals. And not nice criminals, because in that world nice criminals end up dead pretty quickly.
As long as there are people stupid enough to take heroin there are going to be problems. There are just fewer problems if they're getting their heroin from reputable manufacturers and suppliers than from whatever criminal gang happens to be the most violent this week.
Decriminalization in Oregon has essentially enabled unrestricted use of cocaine, heroin, LSD, methamphetamines, ecstacy, methadone and oxycodone. It hasn’t helped.
I can believe that there are problems. All those things are really still illegal. Maybe the police aren't jailing users, but that's not enough to really solve the problem. A competent manufacturer can't produce them, so the only option is for the products to be supplied by criminals.
I don't know for sure what's going on in Oregon, but let's try a hypothetical. Someone is selling heroin. Someone else comes along and steals his heroin. Can the dealer go to the police, and expect the police to seriously investigate the crime, and if possible recover his product? If so I'll believe it's really legalized. If not, it's not really.
Good points! Still believe that enabling the users is not benefiting them in any way. Spent some time working in a mid-town ED. What we’re doing is not humane IMO. Just noticed recently that our city is encouraging funding for “drug use programs.” 🤪 They can’t even bring themselves to call the extremes abuse. Narcotics can be used appropriately. We need a different term for those whose use destroys their lives. “Abuse” worked just fine.
Thanks for sharing the reality. This is made complex by addict mentality, unfamiliar ground to most of us writing here. Sober logic is not on the table; whatever is effective has to counter ill effects of addict mentality.
I think as we are learning, this isn’t just about “street people”.
In fact, I know of a young family not on the street, with teens that are druggies with a huge lack of parental control. This test could be hard-core “evidence” to them of the lethality of what they are dosing, therefore a huge help to the parents who trying to bring reality home to these kiddos.
Have made the same argument re decriminalization. However, that alone not enough. Okla was dry and bootleggers ruled. It only went wet when the governor there dried the state up by forcefully closing down the bootleggers by blocking all incoming hooch.. Then and only then, were they ready to vote the state wet.
Two types of people are drawn to drugs. Those with no purpose, and those with a wrong purpose in life. When our culture rejected its historical Christian foundation, the right purpose and understanding of one's place on this earth was lost. For over two thousand years, Jesus has saved people from their own self destructiveness. He is still doing that, and for the individual and the culture, he is the answer.
First a disclaimer that you are or aren’t receiving a cut. If I missed it I apologize. Next the government should not provide anything free since it’s either tax money spent or more debt. The globalists Covid crime dug a giant unnecessary debt hole that no prior civilization on the verge of collapse has ever been able to stop. Let’s see if Trump can be the first. Not to be unsympathetic to drug users and accidental deaths in the US but a million Russians and Ukrainians have been killed in large part by these same people who want a war that could wipe out the planet and all of us.
This is such a mixed bag, hot topic and controversial subject. I understand where you are coming from T. The war on drugs thru our government has been waged for as long as I can remember (I'm no spring chicken), using tax payer monies, with little/nothing to show. Along with that is my belief, as someone else in here stated, hard core users are not likely to bother. I wonder if teens/young people even would, as status among peers and a less than formed capacity for reasoning vs. being popular makes them inclined to have an 'it can't happen to me' complex.
It's so tragic, and all 'caring souls' want to do something to help. But what/how??
What we truly, desperately need is a reset of high standards of care in the mental health field. We need parents who engage early and often with their children in all aspects of life: health, social responsibilities, work ethics, spiritual (do unto others), fun, mental wellbeing, praise for job well done, appropriate punishment for less than, etc. We could use people to stop saying "you are the problem" and start asking "am I the problem?" We need more dialog (honest to God talking, discussion/debate) and less tech time, Facetime, blog time, less arguing, one upmanship. We need humans to feel less lonely and more accepted, dignified, significant, worthy.
All that being said, I would still buy one of these kits and try to find an appropriate venue for distribution. If even 1 life is saved by doing so, it is a price worth paying. The person who took the time from their life to try to make others' lives better or to save a life is a beautiful soul and the rest of us should THANK them and God for their being on this earth!
I sympathize with those struggling to exit drug addiction based on personal experience trying not to end up dead. Fortunately I never had to worry about fentanyl so if people are worried about their children, or friends they should first warn them of the risks repeatedly and only as a last resort provide a method to save a life. The government is never the solution, knowledge and accepting responsibility is the key. Thank you for the reply and I praise the ingenuity of someone taking the time to provide a solution to a terrible problem. IMHO The Chinese don’t care and are paying the West back for the opium wars.
That's crass Paine. How is any form of disclaimer in order here? If you want to save what we've got you need to stop looking over your brothers' shoulders. In our way of doing things, as your subsequent comments seem to indicate you understand, one man's legitimate gain is a gain for us all--and on multiple levels at that.
I have no use for such a test kit myself, but I'd gladly donate to a charity that would buy them and distribute them to those who need them.
Perfect response. Lets save lives
Hospitals could become distribution centers. But I can imagine the board freaking out over the idea. Somene will claim the test encourages drug use - with a straight face, as if MDs don't encourage drug use. Well, yes, different "drugs."
Please God let's cancel the laws outlawing so-called recreational drugs like opium. At this time fentanyl is a Schedule 2 drug.
Me, too. So, how?
A subject very close to me. Both of my sons, ages 24 and 26 are addicted to fentanyl. They have both lost many friends from overdose. This stuff is so hard to get off of. My older boy was forced to detox in jail, and as awful as it was, he said he never would have been able to do it any other way. By the grace of God, both boys are still alive, surviving multiple overdoses. I sincerely pray for all people, addicts and their loved ones, who have been traumatized by the devil's powder.
Thank you, Dr. Malone, for this promotion of a life saving test for fentanyl contamination.
Just last week, two high school students in Santa Rosa, California (a few miles from me) died from ingesting drugs tainted with fentanyl.
https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/santa-rosa-teen-fatal-overdoses-suspected-fentanyl-srhs-montgomery-hs/
If effective, it seems it could only help. Even if only a small fraction of users practice due diligence before consuming street drugs.
"Little or nothing that government or law enforcement has been able to do seems to make a dent in the problem. Fentanyl is cheap to manufacture, and it is flooding the United States. Coming across the southern border. Being imported in small packages shipped from China."
Longer term, I hope we can overcome the cultural paralysis induced by omnipresent, specious charges of racism, and learn once again to defend ourselves. There's something absurd and idiotic about relying on a communist foe as a trading partner, debt holder, and manufacturer of many of our consumer goods. I take heart from the new administration's reported adoption of a war posture against Mexican cartels. The attack against our wellbeing is not coming from Ukraine, but rather from "frenemies" transporting over a border that could be sealed, if only we had the will to do it.
On the other end of the line, read an interesting article this morning ( in a way re thinking through decisions)
March 9, 2025
How Instant Gratification Kills America
By Matthew Williams
American Thinker
A perspective worth considering.
We may not be in a war against China, but they DARN sure are in a war with us !
This might work best for the chronic pain patients who rely on the black market because legitimate opiates are harder to come by.
Ingrid Durden commented below:
only one remark. how is it that people who are homeless, penniless, can buy drugs? and if they have a little money why not buy food?
35 years ago I had that culture shock as a baby Police Officer.
Why take drugs? The answer from numerous bad guys, arrestees, hypes, junkies, etc. is...
"Why not?" Or "I have nothing to lose." Or, or, or. Pick a reason. Drug use is running from one's problems and having no support structure or coping skills. People take drugs because the drug works and they don't know any better and don't care. Some users know exactly what the drug will do and one dose is not enough and ten is not to many. Most are poly drug users, as in multiple drugs as often as needed, with cannabis being ever present.
First I have to make the distinction between junkies, accidental ingestion of opiates and using laced versions of other drugs. Been to all three incidents.
Junkies are intentional users. They will use any and all means to get drugs and are the most consummate liars on Earth, exceeding the abilities of politicians in most cases. This rant will focus mostly on intentional users. Mostly.
Accidental ingestion is Grandma takes the wrong dosage in error, accidental exposures and med interactions. These are (almost) wholly innocent.
Laced versions of other drugs. Less empathy for this crowd. Much empathy for parents as they are all blind sided by this one. Don't do drugs.
Been to the autopsies. Done the follow ups. Interviewed more people than I can count surrounding overdoses (accidental and otherwise). Cried with the families and restrained angry male kin from doing something irrevocable and truly stupid. Kept more than one partner from doing a roadside execution for an accidental needle stick. Dragged more people into an ambulance and to rehab than I can remember. Fought with the hypes after they get jumpstarted (Narcaned) and the first thing they all say, "Is you ruined my high". You were dead mother fu!@#$. And you are bitching about us saving your life?! Again. As an aside the record for jumpstarts, locally anyway, is four in a 24 hour period.
I get it. So use of hype, junkie, etc., is not done in a vacuum. I am calling them what they are as intentional users of opiates and other drugs. I am not unempathetic. Far from it. Fentanyl and opiates have broken a huge part of American society and will continue to do so until the supply is shut down and the higher ups get arrested, tried, imprisoned and executed. Wherever those responsible may be located.
The easy access to Naxalone (Narcan) has pretty much only made things worse. When first issued Narcan I was less than happy as it put the burden on responding LE to jump start the hypes. The amount of Narcan needed to jumpstart has increased every year. Used to be one hit, maybe two. Now four or more. LE generally keeps Narcan on hand to treat one's partner or little kids or Grandma.
A test would help. A massive education campaign would help more. Robust enforcement, FULL jail sentences for users and dealers alike would be even better. You charge users criminally to create a mechanism to get them into rehab. I have had family members beg me to arrest their junkie kids to keep them away from the drugs. Grown men begging is a sorry sight.
Hypes generally don't practice good hygiene or use good practices in ingesting drugs. Users will get high within 5 minutes or 1 mile of obtaining drugs. A few have Narcan on hand and if there are several hypes using together, one of them is supposed to stay sober and administer Narcan if someone OD's. Sometimes that plan works. The drug culture is not what most of you are used to and is not even close to "normal". Parents and other enablers are not helping. Society and legalizing cannabis (and in some states hard drugs) is certainly not helping.
A test would be awesome if you could get them to use it and then not take the drugs they just bought.
Darn good comment. Amazing just how quickly this happened. Was a research tech 10 yrs before going to grad school so a 10 yr window there with most peers. A girl from a well to do area of houston absolutely refused to believe my hi sch. had no drug problem, much less Okla City in '60s. So what happened in that 10 yrs? The Nam war? We sent men into war without a drug epidemic before but in Nam we were sending over kids, many having never had the word no applied to their behavior. They were undisciplined, undereducated and way unready for what awaited them in a cesspool seething with available narcotics. That?
Thanks for this, Mark! Good to hear the realist view from someone on the ground; we often hear politicized theories from those who have neither "been there" nor "done that", and never will. Empathy is important, but i find that a typical bleeding heart offers self-motivated lip service; perhaps inappropriate and ineffective. These are real crises and intervention is the effective action.
Messing with big pharma is usually lethal. He's entered a very risky business.
Thank you for this analysis, reporting and support! Just forwarded to my boss lady (who has told me she and her family are into drugs - maybe some prescribed).
In view of possibly walking on banana peels, I'm planning to redo my will and powers next week - putting her in the drivers seat. Am hoping she will make good use of your information.
only one remark. how is it that people who are homeless, penniless, can buy drugs? and if they have a little money why not buy food?
In CA at least, we provide a lot of the food, freeing up their limited funds. The war on drugs is failing here.
There are some states that require a drug testing for folks on "entitlements." CA, of course is NOT one of them.
We here in Florida wanted to do drug testing on those who collect food stamps but it was noted to be unconstitutional. These recipients, although drug addicts, may be the families only source to food. Loose, loose situation.
That sucks! How can treating criminals differently from the rest of the population unconstitutional? I drug abusers use, buy, and possess contraband, therefore breaking the law. Am I missing something here?
The states, according to my husband, are Florida, Kentucky and Missouri .
Because it’s cheap and they will use their nickel to purchase it. We have homeless camps here in SW Florida and on any day they are panhandling on the street corners. So as much as you want to give them money, it’s wise not to. We too are failing our homeless population.
Wow! I’ll put out the word and samples at my 12 Step meetings.
"first FDA-cleared urine dip-card test"
What's one's pee got to do with it? I thought you test before you ingest..
Please, someone answer this question for us? A urine test doesn’t help?
The govt. should distribute this test to everyone. Since that will never happen, each of us needs to acquire a test for ourselves.
Everyone could by two tests, one to give away.
Fantastic news Dr. Malone! Thank you for your involvement.
Nice try, but it's not going to solve anything. Am I expected to believe that someone is going to go out and buy some nice street heroin, then test it for fentanyl and throw it away if it tests positive? Street drugs are used by people without a lot of foresight to start with, made worse by their cravings. They're not going to use this.
The only solution is to legalize the drugs. I don't worry about fentanyl in my celery. Why? Because the suppliers have a reputation to uphold, and there is legal recourse if they did. Neither of which apply to suppliers of street drugs. I can't sue my heroin supplier for selling me some tainted junk. I can't shame them. I probably can't even buy from someone else next time.
Is legalization a complete solution that will make everything sunshine and roses? No. It's just less harmful than prohibition. Prohibition doesn't make the demand go away, it just means that demand will be met by criminals. And not nice criminals, because in that world nice criminals end up dead pretty quickly.
As long as there are people stupid enough to take heroin there are going to be problems. There are just fewer problems if they're getting their heroin from reputable manufacturers and suppliers than from whatever criminal gang happens to be the most violent this week.
Decriminalization in Oregon has essentially enabled unrestricted use of cocaine, heroin, LSD, methamphetamines, ecstacy, methadone and oxycodone. It hasn’t helped.
I can believe that there are problems. All those things are really still illegal. Maybe the police aren't jailing users, but that's not enough to really solve the problem. A competent manufacturer can't produce them, so the only option is for the products to be supplied by criminals.
I don't know for sure what's going on in Oregon, but let's try a hypothetical. Someone is selling heroin. Someone else comes along and steals his heroin. Can the dealer go to the police, and expect the police to seriously investigate the crime, and if possible recover his product? If so I'll believe it's really legalized. If not, it's not really.
Good points! Still believe that enabling the users is not benefiting them in any way. Spent some time working in a mid-town ED. What we’re doing is not humane IMO. Just noticed recently that our city is encouraging funding for “drug use programs.” 🤪 They can’t even bring themselves to call the extremes abuse. Narcotics can be used appropriately. We need a different term for those whose use destroys their lives. “Abuse” worked just fine.
Thanks for sharing the reality. This is made complex by addict mentality, unfamiliar ground to most of us writing here. Sober logic is not on the table; whatever is effective has to counter ill effects of addict mentality.
Right, Fred - And it also drastically increased the homeless problems. More drug users = more homeless.
I think as we are learning, this isn’t just about “street people”.
In fact, I know of a young family not on the street, with teens that are druggies with a huge lack of parental control. This test could be hard-core “evidence” to them of the lethality of what they are dosing, therefore a huge help to the parents who trying to bring reality home to these kiddos.
Have made the same argument re decriminalization. However, that alone not enough. Okla was dry and bootleggers ruled. It only went wet when the governor there dried the state up by forcefully closing down the bootleggers by blocking all incoming hooch.. Then and only then, were they ready to vote the state wet.
Two types of people are drawn to drugs. Those with no purpose, and those with a wrong purpose in life. When our culture rejected its historical Christian foundation, the right purpose and understanding of one's place on this earth was lost. For over two thousand years, Jesus has saved people from their own self destructiveness. He is still doing that, and for the individual and the culture, he is the answer.
You forgot to mention how ad hominem comments such as yours not only induce people to turn to drugs, but also move them away from the grace of god.
First a disclaimer that you are or aren’t receiving a cut. If I missed it I apologize. Next the government should not provide anything free since it’s either tax money spent or more debt. The globalists Covid crime dug a giant unnecessary debt hole that no prior civilization on the verge of collapse has ever been able to stop. Let’s see if Trump can be the first. Not to be unsympathetic to drug users and accidental deaths in the US but a million Russians and Ukrainians have been killed in large part by these same people who want a war that could wipe out the planet and all of us.
This is such a mixed bag, hot topic and controversial subject. I understand where you are coming from T. The war on drugs thru our government has been waged for as long as I can remember (I'm no spring chicken), using tax payer monies, with little/nothing to show. Along with that is my belief, as someone else in here stated, hard core users are not likely to bother. I wonder if teens/young people even would, as status among peers and a less than formed capacity for reasoning vs. being popular makes them inclined to have an 'it can't happen to me' complex.
It's so tragic, and all 'caring souls' want to do something to help. But what/how??
What we truly, desperately need is a reset of high standards of care in the mental health field. We need parents who engage early and often with their children in all aspects of life: health, social responsibilities, work ethics, spiritual (do unto others), fun, mental wellbeing, praise for job well done, appropriate punishment for less than, etc. We could use people to stop saying "you are the problem" and start asking "am I the problem?" We need more dialog (honest to God talking, discussion/debate) and less tech time, Facetime, blog time, less arguing, one upmanship. We need humans to feel less lonely and more accepted, dignified, significant, worthy.
All that being said, I would still buy one of these kits and try to find an appropriate venue for distribution. If even 1 life is saved by doing so, it is a price worth paying. The person who took the time from their life to try to make others' lives better or to save a life is a beautiful soul and the rest of us should THANK them and God for their being on this earth!
I sympathize with those struggling to exit drug addiction based on personal experience trying not to end up dead. Fortunately I never had to worry about fentanyl so if people are worried about their children, or friends they should first warn them of the risks repeatedly and only as a last resort provide a method to save a life. The government is never the solution, knowledge and accepting responsibility is the key. Thank you for the reply and I praise the ingenuity of someone taking the time to provide a solution to a terrible problem. IMHO The Chinese don’t care and are paying the West back for the opium wars.
That's crass Paine. How is any form of disclaimer in order here? If you want to save what we've got you need to stop looking over your brothers' shoulders. In our way of doing things, as your subsequent comments seem to indicate you understand, one man's legitimate gain is a gain for us all--and on multiple levels at that.