This is a very good point and really puts it into perspective. Overall this is an excellent essay. I also really like how he addresses the physical affects of opioids, rather than just saying it gets you "high".
This is a very good point and really puts it into perspective. Overall this is an excellent essay. I also really like how he addresses the physical affects of opioids, rather than just saying it gets you "high".
Humans are terrible at estimating risk. We seem to do it by attributing it to the ease which we can recall an incidence of something similar happening. This may have worked well when we were part of small tribes, but it's terribly adapted to a world where every unusual, capricious event is is broadcast nationally and the mundane, common dangers receive very little media attention.
You can see this with the current debate over guns. Now I favor the liberal position of drastically increasing gun control, but only around 11,000 people are murdered with guns each year and another 22,000 or so kill themselves. That's around a 1/30,000 chance of being the victim of gun violence. Those deaths may be largely unnecessary, but we should still have the perspective to realize that they're not a significant threat to our health.
The distribution effect is often ignored by non-US reporting about various "social maladies" (stupid term, but gets the idea across) in the country: the US is surprisingly internally divided not just in politics, but in empathy. There's often a nation-tribalist effect of "people are dying not in my (city|town|state|area|demographic|politcal party); I consider those deaths sad, but no sadder than someone dying in another country", which I think is important and often overlooked.
Putting the onus on the government to solve this problem goes against the very essence of this piece. If social fragmentation is truly the cause of the opioid crisis, then government intervention will by like putting a mud wall in front of a raging river.
That I’m not sure is true, in fact I’m pretty sure it’s false.
Edit: I mean, further up the chain we are saying this method is partly inspired by studying rats! Because Scandinavia has a more homogenous culture we’re too different to learn anything? But Scandinavia can learn from rats?
One of the few proven ways to reduce overdose deaths is to establish supervised injection sites that eventually wean users off the hard stuff while steering them into counseling, safe housing, and job training. After the first injection site in North America opened in Vancouver, deaths from heroin overdoses plunged by 35 percent. In Switzerland, where such sites operate nationwide, overdose deaths have been cut in half. By treating the addicted as human beings with dignity rather than as losers and criminals who have ostracized themselves, these programs have coaxed many away from the cliff face of extinction toward a more productive life.
(This is not a trick question I am genuinely interested by your response)