SO DO ASSHOLES –

Jan. 1, 2025 – He has lost a brother and a niece to overdoses. Kennedy’s own heroin addiction began when he was a teenager, following his father’s assassination. It ended when he was arrested at age 29 for felony possession and given two years’ probation. He spent time in rehab and in the decades since has regularly attended 12-step meetings.  At the premiere of Recovering America, Kennedy summarized his approach: “The government has a role in actually pressuring the addict, to say, ‘We’re not going to tolerate you on the street anymore,’ to do tough love . . . We’re going to clean up your neighborhood . . . and if we can’t talk you into helping yourself, you are going to prison, you’re going to jail, until you choose some other option.”

Tough love is the opposite of “harm reduction,” a philosophy and practice that does not put pressure on drug users to quit. (The classic harm reduction policy is needle exchange, which is an important public health service.) But at the more radical end of the spectrum are the policies in liberal cities that allow street encampments and open-air drug markets.

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