Two articles concerned with the damage opioids do to individuals and society were juxtaposed on the editorial page of the PD on Friday. One was by Travis Lupick, a journalist based in Vancouver, British Columbia, and the title of the opinion said it all: “Safe drug-injection sites are urgently needed, but are illegal.”
The writer describes how Canadians responded to their overdose crisis of the 1990s by engaging in harm-reduction practices, which included safe and clean places for addicts to self-medicate with unadulterated opioids. The number of overdose deaths fell by over 50 percent in a few years, and now there are 25 safe injection sites in Canada.
The second editorial was penned by U.S. Senator Rob Portman, who has been in the forefront of calling for sane drug policies in this country for years. His article is headlined: “Ohio has plenty of jobs, but opioids have had a devastating toll on workers.” He goes on to detail how businesses large and small have job openings, but addiction keeps those jobs from being filled. Senator Portman is both right, and wrong. Allow me to explain.
A conservative estimate would put the percentage of waiters working in New York City’s fine-dining establishments that self-medicate with opioids at 50; which means that half of the men and women that get up and go to work each day at these establishments get off work and go cop their drugs, then go home and use them and get back up the next morning and go back to work just like everyone else. Except for the fact they self-medicate, they live otherwise unremarkable and stable lives.
These are professional junkies. They are not going to overdose because they know how to test for purity, and they know exactly how much opioid to use. They fly under the radar because they cop their drugs from the known, professional dealers who don’t need to add fentanyl to their product because they are already making enough money, and what kind of professional dealer wants to kill a customer? Duh!
The problem with opioids in this country isn’t a lack of knowledge in regard to how to address the issues; the problem is one of false morality. For decades upon decades, we have failed to adequately address addiction because of blue-nosed religious leaders and public officials that viewed it as a moral rather than a medical problem.
But now that we can no longer maintain the pretense of being a moral nation — just take a cursory glance at what these fake moralists are currently supporting in Washington — perhaps we now can establish programs that will stabilize opioid-addicted individuals, provide them with safe substances, and with clean places in which to use them. This will allow these folks to get a handle on their lives and get back into the workforce.
Believe it or not, the real problem isn’t the addiction. It’s the cost of acquiring of impure drugs, the meeting in back alleys with shady dealers, and the using of dirty needles. Solve those problems and we save lives while at the same instant put people back to work — in spite of the fact they self-medicate every day.
This is a proven fact. It’s what has already been happening successfully for years and years with waiters in New York City, and it can happen with workers all across America if we simply drop our national sense of false morality.
From CoolCleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author at http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.