White Privilege Helps Explain The Opioid Epidemic

Notice how the response is to the epidemic in the white communities verses the response to drug epidemics in communities of color



Understanding white privilege is a critical part of moving toward effective and equitable drug policy.

There is much talk nowadays about the “white face” of the opioid epidemic and how sympathetic media coverage of white drug users has inspired compassionate policies that differ markedly from the country’s draconian response to crack use.

While this is true (although we shouldn’t overlook the impact of opioids on communities of color), there is less talk about why the opioid epidemic has hit Caucasians so hard.

Several theories have been bantered around. First, there is the explanation that whites are more likely than people of color to have access to health insurance and prescription opioids, which also pave the way for alternatives such as heroin and illicit fentanyl. Second, research has demonstrated bias among some physicians who prescribe painkillers. Some providers have a tendency to think it’s safe to prescribe to white patients while worrying that black patients might misuse or divert the pills. Third, we still live in a largely segregated society, so a drug that becomes popular among a particular racial demographic stays largely limited to that demographic even as use spreads.
White privilege is rarely mentioned by name when talking about opioids, but it is glaringly obvious in almost every discussion. Time and time again, a white person with a loved one using opioids will say something like: “I couldn’t believe my daughter was using heroin. I never thought something like this would happen to our family,” or “We raised our children in a good family. How did this happen?”

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entr...e-opioid-epidemic_us_59f0d806e4b078c594fa14a9

 

You have to understand though, Jeff Sessions sees it different than what is presented. The prisons will be filled with white people. There is no way around mandatory minimums in federal court. No race can save you, no lawyer can save you. No matter your race you are taking these years in prison. If whites are getting arrested on felonies it’s open season. Now I do agree they may not be getting demonized like blacks did but right now the country is hard on crime. I think it’s only fair honestly. If you sell heroin in this country you will take the time. No way around it.

 

Check this out you look at the statistics for demographics on this county. https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.nytimes.com/2016/09/02/upshot/new-geography-of-prisons.amp.html

 

I see, so it's "white privilege" and not the far higher incidence of comorbid violent crimes associated with cocaine and heroin that leads to different sentencing? Bigfoot much?

 

Complete nonsense as the sentence is control by the prosecutor charge sheet as mandatory sentences for such deeds as using a firearm have been gotten around by such tactics for decades.

The whole criminal justice system is a let made a deal system at both the federal level and the states level.

Then there is always jury nullification if the government over do going after middle class and 'white' citizens

 

US to Ban Illicit Versions of Fentanyl...

US to Ban Illicit Versions of Synthetic Opioid
November 10, 2017 - The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration plans to ban all illicit versions of fentanyl, the highly addictive opioid painkiller responsible for tens of thousands of deadly drug overdoses in the United States in recent years.

 

Granny says dat's a lotta money...

Opioid Crisis Cost US Economy $504 Billion in 2015
November 19, 2017 | WASHINGTON — Opioid drug abuse, which has ravaged parts of the United States in recent years, cost the economy as much as $504 billion in 2015, White House economists said in a report made public on Sunday.

 

Ha White Privilege? That's laughable. Blame white people anytime we don't want to take personal responsibility.

 

Right now the "country" is hard on crime? Well the government is hard on crime, but it profits from being hard on crime. We have had the highest per capita rate of imprisonment in the entire world for 30 years or more. At something over 600 per 100,000 we lead the world by a huge margin.

Considering how many states have legalized marijuana, claiming that the country is "hard on crime" is not necessarily an accurate statement.

The government is hard on crime because that allows steady growth of the prison industrial complex.

 

If it is illicit isn't it already banned?

 

An excellent question. In this case, fentanyl is actually available on prescription, and that would be the legal version of the drug.

Fentanyl is apparently also available black market style, having been compounded somewhere other than the legal labs. That's my take anyway...