DECRIMINALIZE ALL DRUGS –
Dec. 2, 2021 – While some drug users actively seek out fentanyl, many die without knowing that a different drug they had consumed — cocaine, for example — was laced. “It’s not that fentanyl is attracting more users or creating new users,” Bryce Pardo, a drug policy researcher at the RAND Corporation, told The New Republic. “It’s just a very dangerous time to be a drug user and to be buying street drugs.” Many experts say the pandemic played a leading role in last year’s surge. Public health resources were already stretched to the limits, so people working on the opioid crisis had to shift their attention to Covid treatment, Leana Wen, a former Baltimore health commissioner and medical analyst, told CNN. Many people struggling with addiction lost their health insurance and the ability to get treatment, as well as the jobs that paid for their housing and food.
And on top of that, Wen says, “we also can’t forget that addiction and mental health issues are diseases of despair, and this pandemic has worsened mental health for so many people.”
