GOP Presidential Contenders Cling to Drug War Policies Fueling Overdose Crisis

[justaprogressive]

Echoing what advocates have said for years, a groundbreaking new study has found that the number of drug overdoses in an urban area of Indiana doubled after police raids took fentanyl and other drugs off the street. Trusted suppliers were busted by police, and users who relied on them were forced to either find new sources and take greater risks with drugs of unknown potency or face the painful sickness of withdrawal. People arrested and jailed for selling fentanyl are often drug users themselves, and incarceration vastly increases their risk of overdose both behind bars and upon release.

The study adds to a growing pile of evidence that drug policing is complicating the overdose crisis, if not compounding record rates of drug-related death. Writing in Harvard Public Health, authors Grant Davis and Brandon del Pozo declared that “police drug busts don’t work.”

“By now, it’s clear that we’ve lost the war: We can’t arrest our way out of an overdose crisis,” write Davis and del Pozo, who teach public health at Rutgers University and Brown University, respectively. “What’s more, there’s growing evidence that drug busts may actually increase overdoses. The war on drugs is costing lives.”

Like many aspects of drug policy, this conclusion may seem counterintuitive, but the evidence paints a clearer picture. Overdose fatalities have skyrocketed despite lavish law enforcement efforts at all levels of government to attack the supply of drugs and opioid painkillers in particular, but don’t expect to hear this from politicians in either party. The fear that fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid, provokes in the minds of voters is just too politically valuable.

[link:https://truthout.org/articles/gop-presidential-contenders-cling-to-drug-war-policies-fueling-overdose-crisis/|


The US has gotten it wrong for over 60 years...

[The Magistrate]

1. Crime, Like Anything Else, Sir, Does Better When It Is Organized

Breaking the kingpin just sets the internal factions to squabbling....


"Many problems begin as solutions."

[Fresh Water Falling]

2. JUST SAY NO!