this post was submitted on 18 May 2025
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How the US turned the tide on drug overdose deaths (www.vox.com)
submitted 5 days ago by jeffw@lemmy.world to c/upliftingnews@lemmy.world
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[–] scarabic@lemmy.world 83 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (7 children)

“Some people are just bad” is a core conservative belief. They don’t believe in harm reduction for drug addicts. In fact they want the harm to happen, and ideally for it to be fatal. Because these people are bad, so let’s get rid of them.

They have the same mentality about criminal justice. Some people are just bad - criminals. Give them the death penalty. They don’t want to talk about rehabilitation or small improvements to the recidivism rate. Some people are just bad, they think, so lock em up and throw away the key.

Of course, most conservatives have either done drugs or committed a crime, but the whole “some people are just bad” concept never applies to themselves in their own minds. Because some people are just good too, and doing bad things doesn’t change that.

So, conveniently, they themselves can get away with any kind of wrongdoing, forever. But a single transgression by another person is a good justification to simply end their fucking life.

It’s such hypocritical, violent, hateful mentality. Humans have succeeded as a species by coming together and looking after one another. This mentality is positively inhuman.

[–] baggachipz@sh.itjust.works 31 points 5 days ago (2 children)

If it’s a family member or loved one who commits a crime, they’re “misguided” or “have a good heart”.

[–] Angry_Autist@lemmy.world 27 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I worked for a medium sized refrigeration contractor company. The owner's son was a massive opiate and coke addict and kept stealing equipment, embezzling and had no less than 2 ODs on company property.

The second time I was tasked to bring him his new phone in the hospital as he had sold his original one for the drugs he overdosed on.

I sat there and synched it up to his SIM and got to watch all the texts from his family pour in

All about 'our little druggie boy' and wishing him quick recovery and the most gentle and humorous of chiding

Two weeks before they had fired my friend, a single father, for testing positive for weed

Guess who the owner voted for

[–] MangoCats@feddit.it 1 points 4 days ago

Oh, they know drug addicts are nobody you want to pay money to - just look at what a useless pile of nothing their little druggie boy is.

[–] scarabic@lemmy.world 7 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Yes and God will help! The second they get into mixed territory like that, they run to religion for help. “Love the sinner” blah blah. Just don’t ask them to be a good Christian to immigrants and prisoners, like Christ said to.

[–] MangoCats@feddit.it 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

They say "God, Family, Country" but it runs more like "Self, Family, Self, Self, God, Self, Self, Self, Country as long as it doesn't inconvenience: Self."

[–] scarabic@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

That’s a good way of putting it. Honestly, Christianity is incompatible with the “family / country” part. Christians are supposed to sell everything they own and help the poor, not hoard it for their own. And “country?” Jesus couldn’t give a shit for countries.

[–] MangoCats@feddit.it 1 points 3 days ago

Yeah, my impression is that "country" was more of an Old Testament thing. Jesus' experience of "country" ended poorly, on a hill, and then they wrote the New Testament about him. At least in the Old Testament you have the Hebrew nation sticking up/together for themselves, even as other countries make them miserable.

As for Christianity in the US today, it's like being in the soda and chips aisle of a grocery store: what brand are we talking about? Most of them are bad for you, but oh so appealing.

[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

“Some people are just bad…”

But it’s never themselves just wanting addicts to die, breaking up immigrant families, breaking up or preventing lgbtq rights, or wanting to enact violence on anyone who disagrees with them.

[–] MangoCats@feddit.it 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Because these people are bad, so let’s get rid of them.

Rush Limbaugh was an addict, I'd at least like to have gotten rid of him off the airwaves when his habit got out of hand (circa turn of the century...)

[–] scarabic@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago

For a long time he topped my list of people I’d love to get rid of. Just not because of his addiction.

[–] Seleni@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Exactly. To these people, being ‘bad’ isn’t something you do, it’s something you are. (You may thank certain types of Christianity for this nonsense.)

So the thinking goes something like: ‘I’m a Good Person. And as a Good Person, I do Good Things and have Good Family, because I am Good.’ They feel (and it is always feel, not think) that Bad People are what cause the true downfall of society—mostly because they’re told that by their Good Authority Figures (you can tell the Authority Figures are Good because they lead/belong to a Church, and Churches are Good—as long as it’s the right church, of course).

This all means, of course, that since they’re Good, they can’t do Bad Things; they just make occasional mistakes.

(This is also where you get ‘The people I voted for are Good, because only a Bad Person would vote for Bad People, and I’m not Bad, I’m Good. So Trump isn’t Bad, he’s just misunderstood!’ nonsense.)

And, I hate to break it to you, but this behavior is very human. This is a version of Tribalism; my In Group is Good and everyone in the Out Group is Bad.

Edit: I think Sir Terry Pratchett said it best:

It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things.

[–] scarabic@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago

Yes in group / out group is pretty universal. It doesn’t necessarily rule the day for everyone all the time, but it’s inside each of us.

Adding to the things other awesome people have said on this, I’ll add the lyrics from David Bowie’s song God Knows I’m Good.

It’s about a poor woman who shoplifts some meat, thinking “god knows I’m good - god may look the other way today.”

And later when she’s caught and led away by the authorities, she thinks “god knows I’m good - surely god won’t look the other way!”

Epic takedown of in-group mentality and religious hypocrisy at once.

[–] CommissarVulpin@lemmy.world 6 points 5 days ago (3 children)

I’ve had people (family) argue that drug use increases crime, and by providing things like safe injection sites or narcan you’re encouraging more drug use and inviting more crime by removing the consequences.

[–] Angry_Autist@lemmy.world 5 points 5 days ago (2 children)

This was one of Rush Limbaugh's biggest drug talking points, one that he pushed again and again

All while secretly addicted to opiates

I guarantee you his rhetoric led to preventable deaths

The hypocrisy of the modern repugnican party is grounds for violence

[–] MangoCats@feddit.it 4 points 4 days ago

his rhetoric led to preventable deaths

Eventually including his own, barely age 70 - no amount of money could stretch him to an average lifespan.

[–] CommissarVulpin@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

What’s the counterargument for it? Or do I just nod and smile

[–] Angry_Autist@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago

If you have a connection with that person, over time it may be possible to shift their position

A random stranger on the street? Smile and walk away as soon as possible

For non-MAGA people, the statistics on the drop of preventable deaths are usually enough to convince. Unfortunately MAGA is immune to statistics, or secretly are glad the 'trash is being taken out'

[–] isolatedscotch@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

they're not completely wrong, but wishing death upon people is still utterly insane

[–] MangoCats@feddit.it 2 points 4 days ago

They're more wrong than right. The illegality of drugs is a huge part of why it leads to crime.

How many alcoholics do you see busting car windows at 3am to steal something to pawn for a six pack?

[–] scarabic@lemmy.world 3 points 5 days ago

Oversimplified foolishness isn’t really what I’d call a core conservative value. It’s more just the way they roll. They roll based on their gut feelings 99.9% of the time.

[–] barneypiccolo@lemm.ee 2 points 4 days ago

Going back to Reagan's presidency, when he encouraged the spread of AIDS, and discouraged any research. The general thought was that it was spread behaviorally, so all they had to do to end AIDS, was stop the behavior (gay sex).

[–] SidewaysHighways@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago

this is very well put! thanks for saying it so succinctly

[–] axum@lemmy.blahaj.zone 12 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Meanwhile trump is trying to just kill easy access to Narcan to save people.

So I'm sure in a few years we'll see numbers climb again.

[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 27 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Yeah all that is or already was in the chopping block and on it's way to the chipper.

[–] glimse@lemmy.world 34 points 5 days ago (3 children)

Good. They don't need narcan.

They need a healthy diet, the power of God, and a $20,000-40,000/month rehab clinic.

Hell, instead of sending kids to high school with our failing public education system, why don't we send them straight to rehab? The debt they accrue will motivate them to pull themselves up by the bootstraps and get a job at the factory

[–] surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 13 points 5 days ago

*deletes angry reply

Very nice

[–] Broadfern@lemmy.world 9 points 5 days ago (2 children)

If anybody is thinking of downvoting the above comment, they’re being sarcastic to highlight the point.

[–] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 5 points 5 days ago

The fact that this needs to be pointed out makes me sad. I remember a time when it would have been obvious. There was a time when if someone said something over the top, and absurd, it was known to be sarcasm.

Now we have a president who says things like "THEY'RE EATING THE CATS AND DOGS!!!" and a large, maybe even majority, percent of the population just nod and accept it as fact. Because despite being 100% false, it was said with the intention to be treated as fact.

This is just one example, but this is how society is now. People just saying the dumbest shit, and others nodding along.

So when a comment like that is posted, a lot of people WON'T get the sarcasm, because there ARE people who would legitimately say these things. So now it needs to be pointed out.

We live in the dumbest timeline.

[–] darvocet@infosec.pub 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

What i appreciate about Lemmy is usually not needing to include the /s.

[–] Kanda@reddthat.com 1 points 3 days ago

You never need to, unless you're afraid of internet points

[–] isolatedscotch@discuss.tchncs.de -1 points 4 days ago

Good. They don't need narcan.

I get it's sarcasm, but yeah you don't need narcan if you don't do drugs. People told you drugs are bad for a reason, and we should be providing aid to the people already addicted and suffering, not to some kid fresh out of high school who thinks narcan is gonna make him invincible

[–] Bieren@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago

“Fuck em” - MAGA cucks

[–] SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world 13 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Weird this billionaire owned news source is telling us this just as we ended the Narcan program, shifting the tide back in the bad direction again

[–] blakenong@lemmings.world 4 points 5 days ago

Hey, look over here!!!!

shank

[–] UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

All drugs should be legal

[–] crimsonpoodle@pawb.social 7 points 4 days ago (2 children)

I mean it didn’t seem to work out for Portland; maybe in a perfect world but in a world full of stresses and homelessness it seems like it might hurt people who get addicted and exploited. But would be fine legalizing weed and shrooms.

[–] Galapagon@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 days ago

You're right, it didn't work for Portland - but things that were promised were never delivered. Other states took it as an invitation to send their problems out of state, which of course is unsustainable.

Lots more factors that doomed it to never really have a chance.