One person's view of the whole "opioid epidemic"...
Opioid, Schmopioidhttp://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/07/opioid_schmopioid.htmlExcerpts:
If you intentionally crash your car into a tree, don’t call me for a tow. If you deliberately set fire to your own house, don’t ask me to put it out. And if you overdose on opioids, don’t expect me to come to your rescue.
Come to think of it, opioids aren’t even in the same moral category as the car and the house. Opioids are worse. For all I know, it may be legal to burn your house down. And, depending on where it is, crashing your car into a tree may be legal too. Opioids, by contrast, are against the law. Libertarians like me may want to make drugs legal, but my side lost that argument. And, legal or not, using opioids is just plain stupid. Compared to an opioid user, a man who punches himself in the face looks smart.
That's why I roll my eyes and change the channel when hectored about this so-called epidemic. If you want to talk about an epidemic, talk about zika or bird flu. Opioid addiction comes from a decision, not a virus. No mosquito can infect you with opioid addiction, and you don't need antibacterial soap to avoid catching it. To speak of it as an epidemic and to speak of addicts as victims is to stack the rhetorical deck for the view that addictions and overdoses are diseases rather than choices.
You want to pay EMTs to drop everything and come the rescue of repeat overdoses just as they do with heart attacks, strokes, and other ills that flesh is heir to? Not with my tax money you don't. If you want to help an addict who OD's, help him yourself. Keep public emergency services out of it. And if my cold-hearted attitude means that more opioid users die, my answer is a big, fat so what? If they don’t want to die, they shouldn’t abuse opioids. If an addict doesn't care about his own life, why should I?
Spare me your sanctimonious flubarb about how every life is precious. Precious to whom? Those sentimental memes on Facebook are wrong; the death of some drug-addled wretch does not make all of us poorer. In fact, it probably has the opposite effect on everyone but the dead addict's mother.
Judgmental, you say? You betcha. Our society needs to be more judgmental. Your indulgence of the opioid addict makes the problem worse. It is because of people like you that there are so many people like him. Telling the addict he's a jerk and turning your back on him, as I do, discourages not only him, but also any sober but temptable people who might be in earshot. Your alternative, which is to coddle the addict and pay for his care, is no disincentive at all.