The opioid crisis has gotten much, much worse despite Congress’ efforts to stop it
The opioid crisis has gotten much, much worse despite Congress’ efforts to stop it
Lawmakers missed the deadline to renew a law supporting treatment and recovery.
America’s drug overdose crisis is out of control. Washington, despite a bipartisan desire to combat it, is finding its addiction-fighting programs are failing.
In 2018, Republicans, Democrats and then-President Donald Trump united around legislation that threw $20 billion into treatment, prevention and recovery. But five years later, the SUPPORT Act has lapsed and the number of Americans dying from overdoses has grown more than 60 percent, driven by illicit fentanyl. The battle has turned into a slog.
Even though 105,000 Americans died last year, Congress is showing little urgency about reupping the law since it expired on Sept. 30. That’s not because of partisan division, but a realization that there are no quick fixes a new law could bring to bear.
Have they considered doubling the number of prisons and providing police with tanks?
No, this is seen as a drug that white people are addicted to.
Treatment and compassion only.
(Not joking)
America's response to the opioid epidemic is a far cry from treatment and compassion. They're literally charging friends (addicts) of overdose victims with murder just for being associated by redefining "drug dealer" to be super broad and reclasifying ODs as poisonings.
Amazing read: He Tried to Save a Friend. They Charged Him With Murder.
Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas signed a law this month to reclassify fentanyl overdose deaths as “poisonings,” and Arkansas passed a “death by delivery” bill in April to charge some overdoses as murders in an effort to deter anyone from selling or even sharing fentanyl. Prosecutors in Alaska, California, Florida and at least a dozen other states were beginning to pursue new murder cases against any defendant who fit under the wide-ranging definition of a fentanyl dealer: a 17-year-old in Tennessee who, after graduation, shared fentanyl in the school parking lot with two of her friends, both of whom died; a husband in Indiana who bought fentanyl for his disabled wife, who overdosed while trying to numb her chronic pain from multiple sclerosis; a real estate agent in Florida who threw a party and called 911 when one of her guests overdosed; a high school senior in Missouri who gave one pill to a 16-year-old girl he met at church and warned her to “only do a quarter and then do the other quarter if you don’t feel it.”**
Don't give them ideas. They'll have everyone and their mothers working in a private prison factory by winter!
Everyone's either a convict making products or a guard, it's the perfect citizenry!
No , but I understand invading Mexico is on tap
20b is less than 3 days of military spending. thats how important this is to us.
3 days.
you want to solve this, decriminalize the national healthcare crisis that is drug use. put an actual percentage of the 'defense' budget against it. stop pretending like throwing a one time pittance at a shitty program is going to solve it.
We did that in Oregon, ballot measure 110, and it's been a disaster. Crime is up. Overdoses are up. You know what's not up? People seeking treatment.
Here's how it works... You get busted with drugs, it's a $100 fine. The fine is waived if you seek treatment. 16,000 people got ticketed. Less than 150 sought treatment. :(
Because treatment is technically voluntary, people won't do it.
Meanwhile, Honduran gangs are setting up open air drug markets 3 blocks from police HQ.
It's unfortunate that Oregon didn't setup the necessary infrastructure and processes that are used by countries who have successfully decriminalized drugs. Cops often walk by people doing hard drugs on the street rather than doing their jobs. There isn't anyone forcing addicts into treatment if there's continued recidivism, and perhaps most importantly - the biggest factors driving people on the streets to use drugs (no money, no stable housing, no mental health counseling, etc.) are not being addressed.
Many people would rather see measure 110 fail so they can go back to prohibition (which obviously doesn't work). Decriminalization and legalization are cheaper and more humane, but progress requires multiple parts of the government to actively help people.
Yeah, but if the military cuts back any further, they may have to delay the building of the 79th aircraft carrier!
Before the Isreal Hamas flare up I saw reports saying the US was mulling the idea of ground presence in Haiti. The military looks more apt to try and find problems to insert themselves rather than not spend taxpayer money. God forbid they let their budget go down.
Surely the military budget isn't 2.4 trillion dollars? Or am I misunderstanding?
Almost like it's caused by broader societal issues
What if people do drugs because their actual lives are dissatisfying because literally everything they could do to enjoy themselves or socialize with others costs money at a time when inflation and poor planning has made the things they need to live more expensive and pay isn't keeping up because of the greed of a relative minority?
Or it's just that people like drugs idk I'm not a psychiatrist or senator.
Yes, but the current state of crisis unfolded because pharma corps like Purdue lied about addictiveness thanks to the consult of such upstanding groups as McKinsey, and then the printed billions in cash for almost 2 decades while the top of the funnel of opiod users exploded. The bottom of the funnel, your meth, heroin and fentanyl ODs and related crimes are the cost of that years laters as addicts inevitably spiral downward. Pharma companies took what used to be an extreme and made it mainstream by hooking everyone from high school kids, to those injured at work on their products.
Just let doctors prescribe painkillers fucking christ. Kicking legit patients off meds drives this entire issue.
Exactly. My partner has chronic pain from an old car accident. Their neck is full of screws and bolts. Medications like oxycontin are literally the difference between them having a tolerable active life, and being in constant excruciating pain. Yeah I know a lot of people abuse it. But all the regulatory responses are just trying to make it harder to get, it's like performing brain surgery with a sledgehammer and people like my partner get caught in the crossfire.
If they want to fix the problem they should address pharmaceutical advertising, both to doctors and patients. Get rid of the kickbacks.
There also needs to be a differentiation between different levels of pain. The case like you described seems like one where opioids are warranted. An opioid addiction is the lesser of two evils here. But if someone has chronic back pain because they sit all day and are overweight (not trying to shift blame here), opioids are an overkill and all painkillers can only be stopgap measures to tackle the root issues.
This is an oversimplification.
And so is the legislative response that put us here.
Doctors prescribing painkillers is exactly how this got so bad. As someone who came of age in the mid '00s and watch this all start unfolding firsthand in many of my peers, 100% of them began their addiction using prescription painkillers like Vicodin, Percs, and Oxy. Literally all of us knew someone selling them, family members who had extra and would give them out, friends/coworkers who'd share with you, etc because they were so easy to get a (or multiple) prescriptions for and you could sell the rest.
I know personally at least half a dozen people who wound up ODing and dying. I know at least two dozen more who battled through it, did jail, did rehab, lost jobs, or became homeless. Many made it through and stopped using, but now 5, 10, or 15 years later still have the cloud hanging over them and have to actively manage the cravings.
If you're a 'legit patient' and you turn to heroin just because you can't get painkillers, you're already addicted to opioids. That's not driving the issue, it is the issue.
If you're an American who isn't part of the wealth class, not a lot of great reasons not to numb your pain if you can.
"Oh but you have so much to live for!"
Yeah, spending most of your waking hours making rich assholes richer in exchange for just enough to subsist off of to stave off death by homelessness. What great fucking lives that must be protected, amirite?
It is a public health crisis. Cops can't fix a public health crisis. It's not their job, they are not trained to do so. This was the heart of defund the police. Not to get rid of police but to redirect funds to agencies that are trained to fix non police problems.
I don't see what cops have to do with this.
Why not raise taxes on the wealthy to fund social services?
Prohibition was 100 years ago and we still haven't learned that it doesn't work
Well, it made for some great movies.
Doesn't work for who?
Seems like a great way to keep poor people desperate and dependent on ridiculously expensive drugs.
Heroin isn't a dangerous drug, just addictive. Legalisation would mean fewer deaths as quality could be regulated like other prescription drugs.
The only way to stop this is for the government to start selling clean and affordable heroin.
"efforts"
“Opposite of progress” and all that
Congress' what now?
I love that it's the cop that looks like he's got the opiate lean going on in this photo.
Make a nationwide ban on Narcan. Wait for the problem to fix itself. Total cost $0.00.
People using the drugs isn't really the issue that needs solving. It's people dying and being harmed by them. Narcan is good, not bad. Make it free and easily available and save tax payer's lives. Total cost: negative.
So your solution is to just let people die then and not actually fix the underlying issue. Okay bub.
If the junkies die they take their 'underlying issues' with them.