Drug Abuse: a Social Malaise in US; Big Pharma greed, lobbying, failed governance, and economic woes lead to US' drug crisis

  Drug Abuse: a Social Malaise in US

Editor's Note:

The challenge arisen from the use of drugs is an international one; it is most acute in the US. Twelve percent of global drug users come from the country, three times the proportion of the US population to that of the world, according to a recent report released by the Chinese Foreign Ministry. 

Facts and statistics revealed that the US government has been delegating its primary responsibility to protect its citizens to the people themselves. The drug abuse is just one case in point. 

Politicians have been ignoring the sedation or even outright poison administered by interest groups to the public, always for selfish political gains. 

Check out this photographic to get deeper understanding of the gravity, causes and costs of this social malaise in the US. 

Drug Abuse: A Social Malaise in US. Graphics: Tang Tengfei, Chen He, Liu Xidan, Xia Qing/GT >>

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A man smokes marijuana while celebrating the passage of Amendment 3 which legalizes recreational marijuana in Missouri during an Election night watch party in downtown St. Louis, US on November 8, 2022. Photo: VCG

 

Big Pharma greed, lobbying, failed governance, and economic woes lead to US' drug crisis

  Editor's Note:

While the US continues to buy into the dual fallacy of being the "city upon a hill" and a "beacon of democracy," the reality on the ground tells a different story - an increasingly large swathe of the American population struggling with drug abuse, growing worries around gun violence, an ever-widening economic gap between the haves and the have nots, intensifying political polarization, more arbitrary detention of and hatred toward minorities... These sustained forms of unrest not only exacerbate social inequality and worsens domestic human rights conditions, but also expose the US' hypocrisy as it is unable to resolve its own issues, yet never stops criticizing other nations' human rights records.

The Global Times is publishing a series of articles that examine these and other sociopolitical and economic forms of chaos in the US. This is the first installment in the series.

America's drug abuse problem - a long-existing thorn in the side of US society - has grown more serious in recent years in the country along with an increasing number of young people turning to drugs due to dwindling economic opportunities and the apparent death of the so-called "American Dream," analysts said.

Statistics showed that 12 percent of global drug users come from the US, three times the proportion of the US population to that of the world, according to a report released by the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

Experts told the Global Times that the deep-rooted drug problem in the US reflects the US' failure in social governance. Despite the US government's pledge to solve the problem, not much progress has been made so far, which exposes its failed regulation across multiple systems and its inability to make an effective and comprehensive response.

The drug problem in the US is caused by an interplay among economic interests, lobby groups, as well as social and cultural factors, an expert in international relations at Fudan University, told the Global Times.

The drug problem is the US' big systematic problem. It is hard to solve. The US should make more efforts as a nation and at the same time, take action together with other countries. Instead of shifting blame and making groundless accusations against other countries, which undermines China-US counter-narcotics cooperation, it should face its own problem squarely, observers said.

Prevalent phenomenon

A man walks past a large consignment of drugs seized by police in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on February 17, 2022. Photo: Xinhua

The US National Center for Drug Abuse Statistics (NCDAS) lists eight categories of drugs most commonly used in the country: alcohol, cannabis, cocaine, fentanyl, opioids (mainly referring to psychotropic substances under control), prescription stimulants, methamphetamines, and heroin.

Forty-six percent of US drug users report having experience in using cannabis and prescription stimulants, 36 percent have used opioids and methamphetamines, 31 percent have used prescription stimulants, 15 percent have used heroin, and 10 percent have used cocaine.

Darnell Turner, a young US teacher, told the Global Times that a good percentage of young people around him are drug users, perhaps 30 percent or so.

"Most normally just use marijuana, however some, especially my college friends, take even harder drugs, like cocaine and acid. Adderall, a drug used to improve attention and focus, is extremely common in educational environments," he said, adding that recreational drug uses isn't only confined to the younger generation. Many older people also suffer from drug addiction.

"Most of them take drugs because they're bored, or because of depression brought about by economic insecurity. Taking drugs allows them to dull the pain from modern American society," he said, stressing that this is dangerous and useless.

While the US federal and state governments keep making pledges to tackle the drug problem, they have failed to take substantive measures due to the lobbying activities of various interest groups, observers said.

Reports showed that large pharmaceutical companies in the US devote large sums of money to peddle narratives such as "opioids are harmless" and push forward drug legalization as well as promotion of drug sales and prescription of drugs. The lawmakers who receive money from them actively promote bills that benefit Big Pharma.

The process of legalizing marijuana serves as one striking example. According to a report on the OpenSecrets website in April 2022, the marijuana and cannabis industry spent over $4.2 million lobbying on a variety of issues and legislation in 2021, including the Marijuana Opportunity, Reinvestment, and Expungement (MORE) Act of 2021 which aimed to remove marijuana from the list of federally controlled substances.

Amazon also spent $14.5 million funding lobbying activities between April and December in 2021 on a variety of bills, including the MORE Act, read the report.

"Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), the sole Republican co-sponsor of the bill, has received more money from the marijuana industry than any other member of Congress with $52,100 in contributions received since his election in 2017," it said.

The US government has chosen economic interests over people's lives and health, thereby exerting a sustained push for drug legalization in the country. Despite this gloomy reality, the US government, which should play an important role in the fight against one of the biggest public health challenges, chooses to sit idly by and watch things getting worse, observers said.

In the last decade, drug-related deaths in the country have risen significantly; the numbers more than tripled in Delaware and New Hampshire. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in the year following the outbreak of the pandemic (from April 2020 to April 2021), more than 100,000 people in the US died from drug overdoses, eight times the number from shooting incidents, and nearly triple the number of deaths caused by traffic accidents.

Deep-rooted social causes

Throughout history, the US war on drugs has repeatedly failed due to not only governmental incompetence but also the country's deep-rooted social problems, observers told the Global Times.

It is the US society's various complex social factors that, together, have led to the country gradually becoming the world's largest consumer of drugs, they noted. "From the Vietnam War, to financial crises and the COVID-19 pandemic, drug abuse in the US has surged whenever there are economic turndowns or prominent social contradictions."

The US' official drug war can be traced back to 1952, when then-president Richard Nixon signed the famous Boggs Act to set mandatory sentences for drug convictions.

The act and subsequent laws soon proved defective and impractical. In the 1960s and 70s, the US' time-consuming war in Vietnam triggered a "counterculture movement" as American society at the time was flooded by anti-war sentiments. Many youngsters, later known as "hippies," poured onto the streets with brandishing signs promoting love, psychedelic rock, sex, and drugs.

Nearly 40 percent of American high school seniors in the late 1970s reported illicit drug use, according to data from a survey funded by the US National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).

The COVID pandemic saw another spike in drug use in the US, as NIDA statistics showed that 91,799 and 106,999 people in the US died from drug-related overdoses in 2020 and 2021 respectively, a sharp increase from 70,630 in 2019.

Apart from social recession or crises that stimulate drug use at times, the severe inaccessibility to quality education targeting young people is also another contributing factor behind the US' drug abuse problem, experts noted.

For US teens, "it's easier to get alcohol than marijuana" used to be a common sentiment in some states, and scenes involving teens smoking marijuana are not rare in American TV series or Hollywood movies. In 2021, 30.5 percent of 12th graders and 17.3 percent of 10th graders in the US reported having used marijuana, according to NIDA.

"Chinese children are warned by parents and teachers to stay away from drugs since early age. But some American parents and teachers, rather than discouraging such behavior among their students, may even encourage some [drug use]," said the Fudan University expert. "These adults have very weak anti-drug awareness, and a few even use drugs themselves."

Against such a complex social backdrop, Nixon and his several successors in recent decades, including Ronald Reagan in the 1990s and more recently former president Donald Trump, have tried to curtail the drug abuse problem in various ways. However, very few of their efforts really worked.

Worse still, crackdowns on drugs have caused "unintended, negative consequences," such as putting a big strain on America's criminal justice system, the proliferation of drug-related violence, and an increase in racial issues locally, said a 2016 article published on American news and opinion website Vox.

Therefore, as the war on drugs looks unwinnable, some US policy experts and historians have to focus more on rehabilitation. Ironically, they seem to have given up, turning to advocate for "the decriminalization of currently illicit substances, and even the legalization of all drugs," the article said.

Buck-passing games

A lab evaluates edible marijuana gummy samples in California on August 22, 2018. Photo: VCG

The failure in giving effective "prescriptions" to prevent drug abuse leaves the US frantically attempting to pass the buck to other countries. Over the years, American politicians and media outlets have consistently accused China of selling fentanyl or precursor chemicals that end up on US shores.

"This sort of blame game does not benefit anyone except for the opportunistic politicians who wish to deflect blame onto a scapegoat. This scapegoat changes regularly, from China, to Mexico, and even Columbia. But in the case of the fentanyl crisis, the US government and healthcare system can only blame themselves," said Turner.

He told the Global Times that fentanyl has been spread in the US, not by the Chinese or the Mexicans, but by the US healthcare industry, which has a monetary incentive to overprescribe drugs. "If the US is serious about fighting the drug crisis, it must fundamentally reshape this sector."

In December 2021, the US government imposed sanctions on 25 entities and individuals allegedly involved in drug trafficking, among which four Chinese chemical companies and one Chinese citizen appeared on the sanctions list for supplying chemicals used to make fentanyl.

US State Department Spokesperson Ned Price on January 18 said that China is no longer a major source of fentanyl flowing into the US, but they continue to target China-origin precursor chemicals being used in fentanyl production.

In response, Chinese Foreign Ministry's spokesperson Wang Wenbin on January 20 said that China has played an active role in international counternarcotics law enforcement cooperation under the framework of the UN conventions on drug control and always put precursor chemicals under strict control. China is the first in the world to have officially scheduled fentanyl as a class.

US sanctions have severely impacted and limited China's counternarcotics capabilities, said Wang, calling on the US to lift sanctions and stop discrediting China's drug control efforts.

Over the years, China has actively cooperated with the US, while the US has passed on the blame. The US' attitude is not conducive to solving the problem, which truly needs international cooperation, analysts said.

According to data from the China National Narcotics Control Commission in 2019, since 2012, China has informed the US drug enforcement authorities of 383 pieces of information related to Fentanyl parcels, while the US has informed China of only six smuggling cases of fentanyl.

"International cooperation is entirely necessary, but what is most important in the struggle against drugs is introspection and investigating the profiteers in the business sector, the public and, yes, even in the government sectors. Only then can the US government take legitimate steps to combat the spread of drugs," Turner suggested. 

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Washington owes world an explanation of Nord Stream explosion after Pulitzer winner's probe

 

A picture released by the Danish Defence Command shows the gas leak at the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline seen from the Danish F-16 interceptor on Bornholm, Denmark on September 27, 2022. The two Nord Stream gas pipelines linking Russia and Europe have been hit by unexplained leaks, raising suspicions of sabotage. Photo: AFP

More than four months after the explosion of Nord Stream pipelines, a shocking report by US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh released on Wednesday has once again ignited international public opinion. The report provides details of how the US intelligence agencies planned the sabotage under the order of US President Joe Biden and how the US Navy carried out the bombing with the cooperation of the Norwegian forces. After the report was published, Washington quickly denied it. But simply using the phrase "fake news" is obviously not convincing. The international community needs to keep asking Washington until it gives a convincing explanation.

The 85-year-old Hersh is a famous Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. More than 50 years ago, his report that exposed the US military's massacre of Vietnamese civilians significantly pushed the anti-war movement in the US. He was also behind the investigation of the notorious incident of Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse in 2003 and contributed to revealing the Watergate scandal, one of the most disgraceful political scandals in Washington's history. Hersh's latest report is not comparable to conspiracy theories in public opinion, nor are they something Washington can just gloss over.

To be honest, the suspicions about the US are not baseless, but the details that got exposed still send chills down one's spine. For example, the report claims that Washington had been secretly planning the sabotage of Nord Stream pipelines since the end of 2021, long before the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. And in more than nine months of debate, Washington focused not on whether to blow up the pipelines, but on how to leave no evidence behind. Therefore, the execution forces, time, place, and the way the explosion was carried out were all carefully planned. Even the most imaginative screenwriter in Hollywood would not dare to write such a plot. If what is reported in Hersh's article is true, then the world will probably have to reassess the US' capability to disrupt peace.

The explosion of the Nord Stream pipelines, one of the world's most important transnational energy supply infrastructures, was an extreme event in international politics. Under the fragile political mutual trust, the Nord Stream pipelines were once a main artery of energy connecting Western Europe and Russia, stabilizing the security situation by expanding common interests. Because of this, it has always been a "thorn in the eye" of Washington.

With the blast of the Nord Stream pipelines, the only remaining bridge to build common security in Europe was destroyed, which means that Western European countries have to choose to be deeply bound with the US at the crossroads of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Hersh also mentioned in his latest report that "Germany and the rest of Western Europe would become addicted to low-cost natural gas supplied by Russia - while diminishing European reliance on America." This is one of the main reasons Washington decided to blow up the Nord Stream pipelines.

Attacking and destroying major civil infrastructure is a highly egregious act of terrorist nature and must not be tolerated. The international community has no dispute over this. After the explosion, many countries publicly condemned it, and the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also declared that sabotage on the Nord Stream gas pipelines would be "in no-one's interest."

The Global Times then published an editorial, calling for relevant international agencies to set up a joint investigation team to restore the truth as soon as possible, find out the perpetrators, and let them be punished. But as expected, some countries are blocking such an international investigation, and more than four months have passed, with little progress made. Hersh's report now at least provides an important clue to the international investigation.

It is worth noting that the US mainstream media, which has always claimed to be "professional" and "independent," was selectively blind to Hersh's revelations or simply reported denials by the US government. Compared with their unanimously pointing their fingers at Russia after the explosion, this abnormal silence shows that American media agencies are very clear about when to be high-profile or low-key.

A large number of facts show that the US is the well-deserved leader in the "double standard arena." It is obsessed with and good at fabricating rumors or making groundless accusations against others. But it will never admit its own mistakes or even crimes, even if the evidence is solid. It will instead try to blame others. Public opinion predicts that the US government will most likely respond to Hersh's revelations in this way, which will leave another stain on its international credibility.

It is likely to become an event with the Rashomon effect in the 21st century for how the Nord Stream pipeline incident happened. But it does not mean that we should give up the pursuit of the truth, because it is not only about morality, responsibility, and conscience, but also about what kind of footnotes human beings will write for war and peace when looking back at this period of history in the future. This is very important. 

 

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Washington seems to absolve itself by using an obscure and pro-Ukrainian group

 

US urged to explain Nord Stream blasts after Pulitzer winner's probe

 

A picture released by the Danish Defence Command shows the gas leak at the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline seen from the Danish F-16 interceptor on Bornholm, Denmark on September 27, 2022. The two Nord Stream gas pipelines linking Russia and Europe have been hit by unexplained leaks, raising suspicions of sabotage. Photo: AFP

About five months after the explosion of the Nord Stream gas pipelines which shocked the world, an article by veteran US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has accused the US of being the culprit of the blasts.

Washington has denied the accusations without further explanation, but the article immediately prompted a fierce verbal confrontation between the US and Russia and making waves in geopolitics.

Given previous US behaviors, Chinese experts believe that the Hersh report is highly credible and Washington's denial cannot hinder Russia's determination to dig out more evidence from the report's value as a clue.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on Wednesday urged the US to give an explanation over its role in 2022 explosion of the Nord Stream gas pipelines. "The White House must now comment on all these facts," Zakharova said in a post on her Telegram page.

In response, White House National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said on Wednesday that the investigative article was "utterly false and complete fiction," and the CIA and Pentagon also dismissed the allegation with similar rhetoric, according to media reports.

Hersh, an 85-year-old Pulitzer Prize winner, published the article on his personal website on Wednesday, stating the US military involvement of sabotaging the Nord Stream gas pipelines after senior White House officials' nine-month long plot inside the national security community.

Citing sources with direct knowledge of the plot, the article revealed many details of the operation: Explosives were planted by US Navy divers under the cover of the NATO maritime exercise; and a surveillance plane of NATO member Norway triggered the explosives on September 26, 2022 after US President Joe Biden greenlighted the operation.

Although there's no final verdict on who was responsible, the US, NATO, as well as investigators from Sweden and Denmark agreed it was "a result of sabotage."

Finding smoking gun

Some US media had blamed Russia as the likely culprit soon after the Nord Stream explosion in September 2022, but Hersh wrote that political elites from his country has more incentives to destroy the pipeline regarding their words prior to the incident.

On February 7, 2022, US President Joe Biden threatened that "if Russian tanks or troops cross the border of Ukraine, there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2."

At a press conference in September 2022 about the consequences of the worsening energy crisis in Western Europe, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken suggested halting Nord Stream is a "tremendous opportunity to once and for all remove the dependence on Russian energy" and stop Russia from "weaponizing energy" for political purposes.

If Biden were an ordinary citizen, and a tube explosion had happened somewhere in the US after Biden made those threats, his words would have been interpreted by the US procurator as a strong motive, and Biden would bear legal liability,Lü Xiang, an expert on US studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Thursday.

Hersh proved his credibility in his investigations on the 1969 massacre of Vietnamese civilians by US forces and US troops brutalizing Iraqi prisoners after the US invasion in 2003, which prompted Lü to believe in his latest investigation of the North Stream pipeline explosion.

"Even if it's not 100 percent accurate - exposure of such shady activity can hardly be 100 percent accurate - it's definitely not made up out of nowhere," Lü noted.

As of press time, US mainstream media including The New York Times and The Washington Post maintained silence on the matter, which is qualified to be top on a US newspaper's front page.

Lü suspected the consistent silence was a sound coordination between the US media and the US government, and the strategy is to deny it and wipe it from news portals even if their smoking gun was caught.

Li Haidong, a professor at the Institute of International Relations at the China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times on Thursday that as the US had used washing powder to accuse Iraq of possessing weapons of mass destruction, it's a genius of playing dirty.

Hersh's courage should be praised, yet analysts expressed concerns about his safety.

It is obvious that the US benefited most from the destroyed pipelines. "If the US was behind the sabotage, definitely the Americans would have carefully planned how to destroy or hide the evidence and mislead the public," Li said.

Lü said that without an entity in legal sense to be in charge of such international disputes, it is almost impossible to establish a legal fact even if more evidence further support the point that the US was the culprit. But this investigative report will strengthen Russia's determination to dig out more evidence, he said.

Reactions to the blasts by some Western leaders also added to suspicion of US, including then British Prime Minister Liz Truss' texting "it's done" to Blinken and former Polish foreign minister's tweet "Thank you, USA."

In January 2023, Russia blamed that Sweden and Denmark, who were investigating holes in the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, "have something to hide" and blocked Russia from engaging in the joint investigation.

"Whether or not the US is the culprit, Europe has acted too obedient. It is also tragic that as the Russia-Ukraine conflict intensifies, Europe has less and less room to bargain with US on security issues," Li said.

European politicians should reflect on whether blindly following the US would ultimately benefit Europe, or just the opposite, the expert said. He urged Europe to effectively strengthen autonomy. "Otherwise incidents like the Nord Steam pipeline blasts could happen again, and the price will again be paid by Europe, not the US." 

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Abnormal for West to dodge Nord Stream explosive revelations: Global Times editorial

In recent years, Washington has frequently threatened to punish others using the excuses of "threats" on the international stage. Now, the Nord Stream bombing has exposed the security loopholes facing human society. When it comes to this matter, the US and other Western countries, which have always held an attitude of "better to kill a thousand innocent people than let one truly guilty person go free" on security issues, should stop pretending cordiality. It should be noted that even if someone holds the microphone for a moment, they can never monopolize the truth forever.

 

What are the US demands for Chinese government to accomplish in order for the US to list China as a friendly nation?

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What are the US demands for Chinese government to accomplish in order for the US to list China as a friendly nation?

There are things American politicians will say and wrap them as highly noble, but are actually destructive and dangerous. Here are some examples you can hear from any “well intentioned” American politician.

Statement no.1: “We want China to become a fully democratic society with a vibrant political life.”

Reality: “We want China to become a toxic, polarized and unstable society where even simple state decisions will be next to impossible to make because of corrupted political parties representing only their own interests, not the national ones. We’ll also be able to influence those parties through our “democracy development funds” and ensure that there’s always enough polarization to prevent any serious economic and infrastructure development.”

Statement no.2: “We want China to give Taiwan, Hong Kong, Tibet, Inner Mongolia and all provinces freedom of self determination and let them grow civil rights organizations and political parties that will promote new, democratic values.”

Reality: “We want China to fall apart to many smaller regions and provinces that will be easy for us to control through advocating and financing organizations that promote separatism and anti-China policies - look, some people in HK and Taiwan already claim they’re not Chinese! If Islamic terrorism starts happening again in Xinjiang, we’ll call those terrorists fighters for freedom. If some rioters in Hong Kong burn cars, loot shops and attack anyone who speaks Mandarin, we’ll call them young fighters for democracy.”

Statement no.3: “We want China to allow full media freedom”

Reality: “We want China to allow our media companies to enter the market and promote destructive values through publishing lies or skewed facts that show that the government is the enemy of the people. We will promote the destruction of the current political and social system and then claim that we’re fighting for freedom and democracy. We will accuse everyone saying anything good about the current government even when it’s true to be an anti-democratic piece of scum. If the society in China implodes as a result this anti-national propaganda - pity, you cannot have democracy and freedom without victims”

Statement no.4: “We want China to open its economy to equal treatment of American businesses and investments”

Reality: “We want China to sell all their valuable companies to us and let us enter the strategic national industries we would never allow Chinese companies enter in the US. The fact that many American companies do business in and with China is not good enough for us - we want to be able to own the strategic industries in China. At the same time, we’ll ensure that no Chinese companies buy anything truly valuable in the US under the guise of protecting the American national interests, which is a great trump (!) card no one will ever dispute.”

Statement no.5: “We want China to stop government subsidies and allow a fair market competition.” 

Reality: “We want China to stop investing in development of industries that can compete with ours and just buy our products. Even then, if a Chinese company has any potential to succeed in the US, we will make sure that through corporate lobbying and merciless anti-China campaigns any chance of success is nipped at the bud. We’re all for free markets, but only when it works for our companies.”

Answer: Nothing can be done. The US at this moment wants to see China weak, poor and destroyed. A strong, developed China with a competitive economy and global Chinese brands is something the US will never accept. 

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Malaysian Chip industry outlook remains bright, says expert

 

Attendees of the talk and networking session for semiconductor industry players in Penang.

MALAYSIA’S role in the global semiconductor supply chain is invaluable as the country is one of the United States’ largest semiconductor trading partners.

Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) president and chief executive officer John Neuffer said Malaysia was also a leader in semiconductor assembly, test, and packaging.

“The Semiconductor Industry Association looks forward to continuing our work with our counterparts in Malaysia to ensure Malaysia and our industry can thrive, innovate, and realise an even brighter future built on semiconductors,” he said.

Speaking after the Malaysia Semiconductor Industry Association (MSIA) and SIA talk and networking session with MSIA members in George Town, Neuffer said in the 1990s, “the US produced 37% of the world’s chips but today, it only generates 10%.”

“The US has not kept pace with the rest of the world and it has seen chip manufacturing growth everywhere in the world except in the US.

“Chips are designed to make the US competitive and not to replace any country, not to decouple from the world but to be a competitive destination for investment along with countries like Malaysia and many others,” he said.

Neuffer noted that the long-term outlook for the semiconductor industry was still bright with the digital transformation of every industry with technologies such as the internet of things (IoT), artificial intelligence and 5G.

“Everyone needs more and more chips with the advanced growth and development of technologies worldwide.

“The good news here is that the pie will be getting bigger and the pieces of the pie will also get bigger.

“The future of the industry is bright and the CHIPS Act 2022 is not expected to badly affect the industry’s growth especially in countries like Malaysia,” he said, although the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) forecast a decline of 4.1% in the industry this year due to inflation pressures and weaker demand.

The CHIPS Act prohibits funding recipients from expanding semiconductor manufacturing in China and countries defined by US law as posing a national security threat to the US.

MSIA president Datuk Seri Wong Siew Hai, when asked about the recent US semiconductor policy, said, “Although the situation will add another layer of uncertainty to the outlook for the semiconductor industry, there is a window of opportunity for South-East Asian countries especially Malaysia.

“There will be opportunities to capture investments, business opportunities and sales orders as Malaysia is quite broad based.

“In cases where US factories in China have to move, we hope the volume will eventually move out to Malaysia,” he said.

Wong added that all E&E (Electrical and Electronics) companies, US companies, Chinese companies including Malaysian companies would be assessing the potential impact of the CHIPS Act and US exports control restrictions and how they could mitigate the impact.

Wong also urged the E&E industry and the Malaysian government to move quickly to seize these opportunities.

Despite Malaysia’s Electrical and Electronics (E&E) sector’s slower global growth, exports for 2022 was RM593bil, 30% higher than in 2021.

Malaysia continues to be an attractive location for E&E companies with 7% of the global market share and 13% global market share for semiconductor assembly, test and packing.

Malaysia has attracted E&E investments of RM186.2bil since January 2020 and some of the investments have started operations with more being operational this year and in 2024.

Neuffer and his team from SIA, which is the voice of the US Semiconductor Industry, were in Malaysia to meet with key relevant stakeholders including SIA member companies and those in the E&E community.

MSIA is an industry association which covers individuals and companies incorporated in Malaysia who are involved directly or related to semiconductor industry (electronics and systems), semiconductor industry supply chain, institutions providing significant related services to semiconductor industry such as engineering, finance, legal and those societies, associations, chambers and government-linked agencies. Subscribe now to our Premium Plan for an ad-free and unlimited reading experience! 

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Tight job market? AI meets worker shortage

FILE PHOTO-OpenAI and ChatGPT logos are seen in this illustration taken, February 3, 2023. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

THE two investment obsessions of the year so far – artificial intelligence (AI) and super-tight labour markets – meet head on.

If the hype about the former is to be believed, concern about the inflationary impact of the latter should be well wide of the mark. If only they were so perfectly aligned.

Timing is everything of course. The speed with which ChatGPT-style AI tools zap swathes of white-collar desk jobs could be more glacial than any Big Tech rah-rah suggests – and at least slower than the 12-18 months of the Federal Reserve’s current policy horizon.

But two reasonable questions are being asked around investment houses.

Does the wave of layoffs in the digital and banking worlds this year relate directly to the presumed quantum leap in so-called generative AI – just as pandemic-related overstaffing and more recent job hoarding is being pared back?

And if it does, should policymakers relax more about what could be temporary worker shortages in the service sector, where most of the wage and inflation concerns seem to centre?

Far from relaxing, should office or home-based workers now fret that we’re in for anything but a tight jobs market over the coming years?

More questions than answers perhaps – but enough to have investment strategists thinking laterally and joining dots.

Morgan Stanley’s thematic research team said last week it was inundated with enquiries about generative AI during its recent client visits.

And while investment fads come and go, they said, this one is “worth considering seriously” given the speed of take-up and its diffusion across many industries.

Aside from stock price and valuation frenzies, the team said a new wave of AI fed the debate about white-collar industry disruption in a “creative destruction moment” – with possible side benefits from reskilling workers to better wage diffusion.

Citing numbers indicating employment in business, knowledge, customer and developer outsourcing in excess of 100 million across Asia alone, Morgan Stanley said the impact was already being felt even if the jury was still out on “the degree to which it is deflationary or productivity enhancing.”

If this generative AI takes the tech transformation to non-routine office work that it largely skirted over the last decade, it will affect tens of millions more jobs than currently assumed.

The two sides of the theoretical debate at least are whether that then leads to mass unemployment and demand problems – requiring a reconsideration of things like universal basic income to support economies – or whether productivity gains lift wages and see workers simply choosing to work ever fewer hours over time as bots take their place.

London-based Fathom Consulting last Thursday concluded that a “fourth industrial revolution powered by AI could greatly affect the demand for and supply of labour” and the United States and China were bound to vie for leadership.

“The speed and impact of this change will be profoundly disruptive for global politics and for the structure of the labour market,” economists Erik Britton and Andrew Harris wrote, adding that the United States needed to keep investing in tech that both supports and replaces labour in order to retain its edge.

But just what is the scale of the likely disruption?

A frequently cited study by business consultant McKinsey from 2017 showed 60% of occupations worldwide have at least 30% of work activities that could be automated – even though automation may well create more jobs in tandem.

That tallies with numbers from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, which reckoned 10% to 15% of jobs will be lost due to tech changes over the next 20 years – but about as many may be created in other industries.

While varying hugely among the 46 countries it examined, the McKinsey study said up to 30% of activities could be displaced by 2030 – with advanced and ageing economies more likely to move faster given higher wages and incentives.

More recent polling from McKinsey last year showed companies saying at least a quarter of their tasks could be automated over the next five years but less than a fifth of respondents reckoned their firms were yet in a position to do that.

And that observation underlines the timing of all this in terms of years. How soon do tech revolutions change the world – and at least aggregate demand or supply for workers?

As the flub by Alphabet’s chatbot Bard illustrated in spectacular fashion this week, the big problem for the latest wave of emerging AI is still one of accuracy.

“While ChatGPT’s output is credible, accuracy is its Achilles’ Heel,” Morgan Stanley’s team wrote. “Manual validation should act as a breakwater to this employment threat for now.”

If creases take years to iron out, perhaps it’s not so useful to see the craze providing a timely offset to tight labour markets and wage inflation.

There’s even a chance the trepidation may exaggerate the prevailing conundrum and cause as many problems as the reality.

In a discussion paper published by the Centre for Economic Policy Research last month, economists Marta Golin and Christopher Rauh said their work found a “strong relationship” between worry about automation and intentions to join a union, retrain or switch occupations, preference for taxation and government handouts, populist attitudes and voting intentions.

Much like the pandemic, fear of automation could have as big an economic impact as its actual spread. — Reuters

Mike Dolan is a columnist for Reuters. The views expressed here are the writer’s own. 

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Lies, racism and AI: IT experts point to serious flaws in ChatGPT

 

 ChatGPT may have blown away many who have asked questions of it, but scientists are far less enthusiastic. Lacking data privacy, wrong information and an apparent built-in racism are just a few of the concerns some experts have with the latest 'breakthrough' in AI. — Photo: Frank Rumpenhorst/dpa

BERLIN: ChatGPT may have blown away many who have asked questions of it, but scientists are far less enthusiastic. Lacking data privacy, wrong information and an apparent built-in racism are just a few of the concerns some experts have with the latest 'breakthrough' in AI.

With great precision, it can create speeches and tell stories – and in just a matter of seconds. The AI software ChatGPT introduced late last year by the US company OpenAI is arguably today's number-one worldwide IT topic.

But the language bot, into which untold masses of data have been fed, is not only an object of amazement, but also some scepticism.

Scientists and AI experts have been taking a close look at ChatGPT, and have begun issuing warnings about major issues – data protection, data security flaws, hate speech, fake news.

"At the moment, there's all this hype," commented Ruth Stock-Homburg, founder of Germany's Leap in Time Lab research centre and a Darmstadt Technical University business administration professor. "I have the feeling that this system is scarcely being looked at critically."

"You can manipulate this system"

ChatGPT has a very broad range of applications. In a kind of chat field a user can, among others, ask it questions and receive answers. Task assignments are also possible – for example on the basis of some fundamental information ChatGPT can write a letter or even an essay.

In a project conducted together with the Darmstadt Technical University, the Leap in Time Lab spent seven weeks sending thousands of queries to the system to ferret out any possible weak points. "You can manipulate this system," Stock-Homburg says.

In a recent presentation, doctoral candidate and AI language expert Sven Schultze highlighted the weak points of the text bot. Alongside a penchant for racist expressions, it has an approach to sourcing information that is either erroneous or non-existent, Schultze says. A question posed about climate change produced a link to an internet page about diabetes.

"As a general rule the case is that the sources and/or the scientific studies do not even exist," he said. The software is based on data from the year 2021. Accordingly, it identifies world leaders from then and does not know about the war in Ukraine.

"It can then also happen that it simply lies or, for very specialised topics, invents information," Schultze said.

Sources are not simple to trace

He noted for example that with direct questions containing criminal content there do exist security instructions and mechanisms. "But with a few tricks you can circumvent the AI and security instructions," Schultze said.

With another approach, you can get the software to show how to generate fraudulent emails. It will also immediately explain three ways that scammers use the so-called "grandchild trick" on older people.

ChatGPT also can provide a how-to for breaking into a home, with the helpful advice that if you bump into the owner you can use weapons or physical force on them.

Ute Schmid, Chair of Cognitive Systems at the Otto Friedrich University in Bamberg, says that above all the challenge is that we can't find out how the AI reaches its conclusions. "A deeper problem with the GPT3 model lies in the fact that it is not possible to trace when and how which sources made their way into the respective statements," she said.

Despite such grave shortcomings, Schmidt still argues that the focus should not just concern the mistakes or possible misuse of the new system, the latter prospect being students having their homework or research papers written by the software. "Rather, I think that we should ask ourselves, what chances are presented us with such AI systems?"

Researchers in general advocate how AI can expand – possibly even promote – our competencies, and not limit them. "This means that in the area of education I must also ask myself – as perhaps was the case 30 years ago with pocket calculators – how can I shape education with AI systems like ChatGPT?"

Data privacy concerns

All the same, concerns remain about data security and protecting data. "What can be said is that ChatGPT takes in a variety of data from the user, stores and processes it and then at a given time trains this model accordingly," says Christian Holthaus, a certified data protection expert in Frankfurt. The problem is that all the servers are located in the United States.

"This is the actual problem – if you do not succeed in establishing this technology in Europe, or to have your own," Holthaus said. In the foreseeable future there will be no data protection-compliant solution. Adds Stock-Homburg about European Union data protection regulations: "This system here is regarded as rather critical."

ChatGPT was developed by OpenAI, one of the leading AI firms in the US. Software giant Microsoft invested US$1bil (RM4.25bil) in the company back in 2019 and recently announced plans to pump further billions into it. The concern aims to make ChatGPT available to users of its own cloud service Azure and the Microsoft Office package.

"Still an immature system"

Stock-Homburg says that at the moment ChatGPT is more for private users to toy around with – and by no means something for the business sector or security-relevant areas. "We have no idea how we should be deal with this as yet still immature system," she said.

Oliver Brock, Professor of Robotics and Biology Laboratory at the Technical University Berlin, sees no "breakthrough" yet in AI research. Firstly, development of AI does not go by leaps and bounds, but is a continuing process. Secondly, the project only represents a small part of AI research.

But ChatGPT might be regarded as a breakthrough in another area – the interface between humans and the internet. "The way in which, with a great deal of computing effort, these huge amounts of data from the internet are made accessible to a broad public intuitively and in natural language can be called a breakthrough," says Brock. – dpa    

By Oliver Pietschmann, Christoph Dernbach

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OUR MANY APPETITES: Figuring out the right amount of protein we need could be the key to weight management

People follow various diet fads, hoping to unlock the secret to weight management. — Photos:123rf.com 

This dia­gram indic­ates the out­come of a diet­ary “chase” (res­ult­ing in the “excess Cal­or­ies”) from an ini­tial inad­equate to a more optimal level of pro­tein con­sump­tion.

 

How much pro­tein a per­son needs depends on his life­style too. - 123rf.com
 
 

Figuring out the right amount of protein we need could be the key to weight management.

MANY would have enjoyed the 15-day Chinese New Year season of bingeing on food and drink, and some would have added on a few spare kilos of weight as a result. My own Body Mass Index (BMI) is heading back towards 27 (again) which means I am significantly overweight (again) and this simply implies some immediate weight loss is needed.

At my advanced age, being overweight confers no momentous benefits, but can present several potential negatives, so weight control in such circumstances is quite important. And this is why a 2013 published study into a single wild female Chacma baboon named Stella in South Africa may be relevant.

Researchers from various anthropological and veterinary science institutes embarked on analysing in detail the food consumption of Stella over a 30-day window, breaking down her diet into the three macronutrients: carbohydrates, fats and proteins.

The study was done in South Africa in a region where there was a diverse range of foods available for baboons, and the original purpose was to establish if baboons can (a) regulate their intake of macronutrients, (b) cope with dietary restrictions, and, (c) establish a timescale for nutritional demands.

The data surprisingly indicated that Stella’s diet was driven primarily by the amount of protein eaten. Regardless of food availability, the ratio of calories from non-protein energy to energy from proteins was remarkably steady at 5:1, and this ratio was maintained every day. The wet mass of food varied considerably with an average of 1.9 kilos a day, and may fluctuate by 800 grams daily.

Stella’s average daily calorie intake was 940 calories, which varied up or down by 426 calories a day. The study found that the other two macronutrients, fats and carbohydrates were interchangeable with each other as far as Stella was concerned, and the overriding driver of total calories consumption was solely the amount of protein in Stella’s diet.

Protein leverage

The astonishing outcome of the study on Stella was actually predicted much earlier, by two Australian researchers, Simpson and Raubenheimer, in their 2005 paper, ‘Obesity: the protein leverage hypothesis’ where a simple mathematical model was presented which offered a plausible explanation for the global human obesity epidemic.

Summarised, the Protein Leverage Hypotheses (PLH) is simple. Like baboons, people eat to satisfy their need for protein, and they will eat potentially enormous amount of carbohydrates and fats until the food

eaten finally fulfills their protein requirement. And if people do not get enough protein, then they will simply eat more and more foods (which often contain carbohydrates and fats) in a forlorn quest for protein.

The body’s need for a relatively small amount of protein can therefore hugely “leverage” the consumption of other foods. And as such other foods contain more calories than proteins, the final result is often the accumulation of body fats resulting in obesity.

The obvious and significant difference between Stella and humans is that baboons appear able to restrict the overconsumption of fats and carbohydrates, even in the absence of protein. There may be several reasons for this. Perhaps there is a “protein switch” in baboons, or more probably, the range of foods available for baboons is simply limited, unlike for most humans.

Modern food production techniques use all sort of chemicals and flavouring compounds to mimic the texture and taste of protein-rich foods, resulting in processed foods that taste remarkably like proteins, but actually have very little or zero protein content. These foods have lots of cheap carbohydrates and fats instead, as protein is an expensive ingredient to include in processed foods.

Classic example are potato-based snacks and crisps, which come in all sorts of “meaty” flavours, even though there is usually no meat or protein content. According to the PLH, humans can easily consume many thousands of calories from meat-flavoured crisps in a futile attempt to satisfy the need for protein. Their taste senses will be fooled into erroneously provoking the consumption of such fake foods.

The amount of proteins needed by humans vary with age, with older people needing more protein content in their diets. And this includes both vegetable-based and animal sources of protein as there is little difference in the way the body processes proteins in general. Proteins are linkages of amino acids which the body disassemble into various smaller amino acids and molecules and recombine into other compounds to create enzymes, hormones and other tissues.

The main differences between animal and vegetable proteins are that meat proteins are considered “complete” proteins as they contain all 9 of the essential amino acids, and additionally they have some micronutrients (eg, certain minerals) which may not be present in plant proteins. However, these variances are easily resolved by adding or cooking/preparation with various added ingredients.

Our five appetites?

Leading from the PLH, where it seems that baboons and humans can detect the protein content of food, Simpson and Raubenheimer further proposed a theory that humans may actually have five different appetites, one each for protein, fat, carbohydrate, calcium and salt. Note that these are appetites which may reflect a physical need and not the same as taste sensors in the mouth, which are reflective of eating pleasures and displeasures.

There may be an element of truth involved, though the science is still unclear. Certainly, salt and some carbohydrates such as sugar can be detected by taste buds in the mouth. Fats can apparently be detected by specialised sensors in human digestive tracts, calcium may be detectable via a protein known as NCS-1 encoded by the FREQ gene in humans, and the real puzzle is how humans can detect proteins in the diet. Some papers have suggested that humans may have amino acid chemoreceptors, but it is far from clear that these receptors are involved in creating an “appetite” for protein as there are no neural linkages associated with these receptors.

Therefore, it is plausible that proteins are complex foods which require more processing for digestion and hence the lack of protein may be inferred by the body from the lack of digestive effort (and continued feeling of hunger) when insufficient protein has been ingested. We do not know for certain, even though the effect of humans eating inadequate amounts of proteins appears to be observable.

Regardless, of all the five appetites proposed, by far the most dominant appetite is for protein. The other may be in place to remind the body to also consume other macro- and micro-nutrients.

Too much protein is bad too

However, too much dietary protein can also be bad. The muchhyped keto diet is basically a meal plan comprising of primarily proteins and fats, which is quite odd, if one thinks about it.

Here is some simple maths. A gram of fat contains nine calories, a gram of sugar (carbohydrate) contains 4 calories, and protein is roughly the same as sugar. So if one wants to lose weight, it would make sense to ingest only proteins and carbohydrates, and skip the fats. However, the inclusion of carbohydrates would preclude the onset of ketosis, which is the phase when the body begins to burn stored body fat, instead of deriving energy from the carbohydrates.

This may be good for short-term weight loss, but it is also likely to have an effect on the kidneys because any diet too high in protein ends up building acid in the bodily fluids. This causes the kidneys to excrete the excess acid which is extracted using the calcium from the bones, resulting in excessive calcium loss.

The kidneys themselves may be damaged, especially if there is not enough water in the diet. There are also other side effects which can impact the liver and the heart, but it seems that the keto diet can work with healthy, younger adults, though it is probably less suitable for older people.

The right amount

Although it is a subjective matter, the amount of protein needed daily generally depends on physical activity and age. For a healthy adult, the minimum requirement is 0.8 grams per kilo of weight. So an adult weighing 70 kilos would need a minimum of 56 grams of protein daily. For younger, growing people and people who are more active, the requirement rises to 1 gram to 1.6 grams per kilo of body weight.

Older people, aged 65 or more, generally require around 50% more protein than someone younger, so an inactive pensioner should aim for 1.2 grams of protein per kilo of body weight, rising to perhaps 2 grams per kilo for a reasonably active pensioner.

Translated into food, 56 grams of protein is obtainable from around 200 to 250 grams of meat or fish, or 160 grams of dry soybeans.

Once the daily protein requirement is established, aim to consume the right amount of protein daily and vary the calories from the rest of food to a point where one feels comfortable, especially if the target is weight loss. One can also increase the daily protein amounts if hunger pangs persist. Cravings for overeating should be reduced once the right amount of protein has been found, according to the PLH. 

 

By  Curious cook CHRIS Chan - The views expressed here are entirely the writer’s own. 

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