Further Reading

 

The Stanton Peele Addiction Website, 11 December 2015..

Why we will never solve our heroin/addiction issues, in six easy points, AKA "the middle-class heroin epidemic"

 

  1. Every major media outlet has set in type "heroin use and addiction surge in middle class," to run every six months or so.
  2. When I run a workshop, I say "4-5 times as many people in one of these groups use heroin as the other, $<20,000 household income/$50,000+ income, and ask which is which, people invariably get it wrong, having read newspapers.  (When I do the same with "people in one of these groups use heroin 4-5 times as often as those in the other, people with no insurance/Medicaid or those with private or other insurance," they do better.)
  3. No one cares -- liberal media version: If you say to people in the liberal media (think MSNBC), 1.2 people in 1,000 in middle-class income families use heroin, and 5.5 per thousand in the lowest-income group do so, they go, "Eek -- 1.2 per thousand in my neighborhood are using heroin!"
  4. No one cares -- effected groups version: Kentucky was the only Southern red state (but with a Dem governor) to adopt Obamacare, sharply increasing health insurance coverage for low-income groups.  Recently, a new Republican governor sworn to dismantle Obamacare was elected by a margin that surprised even Republicans -- carrying even those counties with the largest Obamacare populations, who didn't come out to vote.
  5. And, so, we will never address the underlying social issues that drive drug addiction, as per: "Only a strong social fabric, one formed of good communities, with health care (not simply for addiction) and other social resources to assist people can reverse our addiction epidemic. And, to put it simply, that ain't going to happen in these United States." https://www.thefix.com/america-addiction-treatment-trap
  6. To believe that addiction occurs to people no matter what their social status or resources is to believe the disease theory of addiction and eliminates the most effective routes to reach the largest swath of drug-addicted populations, who are 40x as likely to be addicted to painkillers as well as heroin and 15x as likely to be addicted also to cocaine. http://www.substance.com/why-liberals-love-the-disease-theory-of-addiction-by-a-liberal-who-hates-it/12116/