Opioids: White Lives Matter

morphine   tramadol   oxycodone   hydrocodone   tapentadol   anileradine    levorphanol   buprenophine   fentanyl   heroin   

As he continues not to addresses the “opioid epidemic”, I am put in mind of writing colleague, Lorraine Berry, and thoughts she allowed me to share few month’s back on Passionate Justice Radio. Lorraine Berry reminds us of a critical set of ideas and ideals as we think on this.

All concerned, now, with its impact on (overwhelmingly White, working-class) communities, how exercised, how engaged were they, demanding from Washington on down, as heroin, say, ravaged Black and other non-White communities, that government at all levels marshal and deploy its considerable resources, take hold of and put an end to what is (now, well too late yet rightly) judged a medical epidemic? 

Lorraine is, as I am, as most are, not unsympathetic toward those who now have ongoing struggles with opioid addiction but when heroin was a scourge largely confined to the inner city and all that is code for, no one remotely connected to central authority seemed to care enough to act. Why do resources to apprehend and address this as a medical problem [and not as a matter of ‘thug’ culture and go-to incarceration]…why do resources now become available, why is this a crisis only now that white parents and kids have become victims and have victimized themselves? 

…public piety, “resolve, mobilisation, seven-day supply limits, training, very major lawsuits pretty soon, don’t take them/don’t start adverts, common sense solutions, drug-demand reduction “, emergency declarations…

And no, this is not, as the man says, the worst drug crisis in our history.

It is, however, the latest wave, and because White Lives Matter, it’s now Real.