|
|
 |
|
The
views expressed
on this page are soley those of the author and do not
necessarily
represent the views of County News Online
|
 |
The Daily Signal
The Parallels
Between the Gun Debate and the Opioid Crisis
Star Parker
March 07, 2018
By now, most have heard about the deadly opioid epidemic that has
struck our nation.
According to data compiled in a Kaiser Family Foundation report, there
were 42,249 casualties in 2016 related to opioids. This is double the
21,089 reported in 2010.
For a little perspective, given all the attention guns are getting
these days, per the FBI, in 2015 there were 13,455 murders, 9,616
committed with firearms.
What is driving this opioid crisis?
According to a recent report about opioids by the Social Capital
Project, organized in the U.S. Senate, “the oversupply and abuse of
legal prescription pain relievers is at the heart of the crisis.”
This has led to action in Washington with legislation such as the
Opioid Addiction Prevention Act, which would impose limits on opioid
painkiller prescriptions.
However, Dr. Sally Satel, a psychiatrist and lecturer at Yale
University School of Medicine and resident scholar at the American
Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., challenges this picture,
which she calls “a false narrative.”
According to Satel, data show “that only a minority of people who are
prescribed opioids for pain become addicted to them, and those who do
become addicted and who die from painkiller overdoses tend to obtain
these medications from sources other than their own physicians.
Within the past several years, overdose deaths are overwhelmingly
attributable not to prescription opioids but to illicit fentanyl and
heroin. These ‘street opioids’ have become the engine of the opioid
crisis in its current, and most lethal form.”
Satel acknowledges the problem of overprescribed opioid painkillers
being diverted to people other than the intended patient, but she
doesn’t see this as the core of today’s crisis.
Furthermore, we don’t want to get into a situation where doctors are
intimidated from prescribing, or prevented from prescribing,
painkillers that are justifiably needed.
I believe Satel zeroes in on the real heart of the crisis when she
says, “What we need is demand-side policy. Interventions that seek to
reduce the desire to use drugs, be they painkillers, or illicit
opioids.”
Here, I see an interesting parallel to the gun debate.
That is, the center of the deadly problem is with the disturbed user or
perpetrator, rather than with the instrument—whether it is a gun or a
drug. The instrument is the result rather than the cause.
The first impulse, particularly in a highly materialistic and secular
culture like ours, is to see the problem in the thing rather than the
person, because that’s the easiest approach.
Looking at the demographics of the opioid crisis, a number of flashing
lights emerge.
First, the perpetrators are disproportionately men (another parallel
with the gun issue). Of the 42,249 opioid-related deaths in 2016, 67
percent were men.
Also, as reported by the Social Capital Project, opioid casualties are
disproportionately not married. In 2015, “never married and divorced
individuals made up about 32 percent of the population but accounted
for 71 percent of all opioid overdose deaths.”
And opioid casualties appear disproportionately among the least
educated. In 2015, “40 percent had no more than a high school diploma
or equivalent, but they accounted for 68 percent of all opioid overdose
deaths.”
As policymakers in Washington and in state and local governments
attempt to address this opioid crisis, looking to the usual policy
tools like government programs and government spending, I think it’s
worth considering that what we’re seeing may reflect a spiritual,
cultural crisis.
There’s a price to be paid when a society forsakes the spiritual for
the purely material and when traditional institutions such as marriage
and family are abandoned. It could be that as family and marriage break
down, the first victims of this abandonment of spirit and tradition are
our young men.
Read this and other articles at The Daily Signal
|
|
|
|
