What Should We Do About Fentanyl?

From time to time, when not too busy, I enjoy reading the comments at the end of articles or news stories. You can get the same effect reading a lengthy Twitter-feed discussion. It's interesting to see people attempting to hash out solutions to problems or contemporary issues.

This morning a lengthy discussion about how to deal with the fentanyl problem was generated by Scott Adams (Dilbert creator) posting a 10-point plan on how to deal with it. His recommendations were controversial, but in his defense (a couple of respondents defended him) he did at least propose a set of actions as opposed to just ignoring it all. 

For the record, here is the size of the problem at this point in time, according to the CDC:

More than 932,000 people have died since 1999 from a drug overdose.1 In 2020, 91,799 drug overdose deaths occurred in the United States. The age-adjusted rate of overdose deaths increased by 31% from 2019 (21.6 per 100,000) to 2020 (28.3 per 100,000).

To give you an idea of how much fentanyl is entering the country, check out this ABC News story from Phoenix:

One million fentanyl pills seized from Avondale home Wednesday

(Article includes photo of the goods seized.)

By posting a ten-point plan out in the Twitterverse Adams does succeed in generating a discussion around the issue. Here are a few examples of responses to his plan...  

--Make people eat a proper diet because a bad diet leads to health issues that cause pain.

--Legalize all drugs so as to put the cartels out of business.

--It's a supply and demand issue: eliminate demand. 

--Better fathering.

--Addiction is a series of decisions. Remove victim status.

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Scott Adams' Fentanyl Policy Idea:

And there you have it. Is this a solution?

Anheuser-Busch Does It Again -- Truly Fun Commercial for the 2020 NFL Season

It's apparent that times are strange. The mask thing is just one facet of our 2020 life experience, accompanied by markers on the floor spaced six feet apart in every public space. Strangest of all, IMHO, are the cardboard fans for baseball and football, accompanied by fake crowd noise. 

What I keep thinking is, when will Hollywood make films about events in 2020 in which the characters put on masks when they go to the store? (If this has already happened let me know in the comments.) 

Scott Adams, earlier than anyone else, had Dilbert and his co-workers masked, a cutting edge on the wave one might expect to be coming. That was at least a couple months ago, and still we see no masks on Dagwood and Blondie, Zits characters, the Lockhorns, Pickles or Rex Morgan.

So it was tremendously fun to catch the new Bud Light spot this past week during my few minutes watching the Browns get shanked by Pittsburgh. I have not been watching much football this year, so maybe this was not the debut weekend for it, but it was absolute fun. There will be a link below if you haven't seen it. 

The two minute spot opens with a brief long shot showing a professional sports stadium, then cuts to the camera facing the stands, crowded with cardboard cutouts as stand-ins for fans. One of the cardboard cutouts, our hero, spots a cardboard cutout of a beer vendor. (At this point it is a world of Flat Stanleys.) He proceeds to stand and slide out to make his way there for a Bud Light. Unfortunately, there is no beer left in the beer basket.

Our hero decides to go explore. Maybe he can find a beer elsewhere under the stands. Lucky he. A forklift loaded with cases of Bud Light. As he approaches the forklift, a worker says, "Hey! Can I help you?" 

Our hero, with his usual chagrined expression, quickly hurries off. As he leaves the stadium he sees a Bud Light delivery truck parked across the street. Unfortunately, he doesn't look both ways when crossing the street (a challenge without a real neck) so that he is struck by a car. Our flat hero is flattened against the windshield of a bus. The bus driver flips him aside with the flick of a windshield wiper.

His expression never changing--a cross between bemused nobody-in-particular and hapless hero--he ends up on the street, walked on, staring skyward. Shortly after he ends up in a dumpster where suddenly, there on the side of a building, he finds inspiration once again by a giant ad for Bud Light. 

After a quick interlude in the back of a garbage truck he ends up on his feet again and continues his quest. I won't spoil the ending. To see the actual spot here's the hotlink: Cardboard Cutout Seeks to Quench His Thirst

Kudos to the ad agency that invented this story, a tall tale perfectly suited for our maddening postmodern times. 

Throwback Thursday: Car Quotes

"Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do." ~Jason Love

Yesterday I wrote about the cars of the Alcatraz East Crime Museum. It seemed like for Throwback Thursday it wouldn't be too far out of line to share a few more quotes about cars.

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In 2009 the Street Rodder Road Tour was in town, passing through on the third leg of its eight scheduled week-long road tours for that year. More than 300 local folks brought their classic cars as well to make it the second such annual event at the AMSOIL Center in Superior, Wisconsin.

In honor of the occasion I thought a few car quotes would be in order. Funny thing is that when you look up "Hemingway Quotes" in Google, you get quotes by Hemingway, and when you look up "Quotes about Suffering" you get proverbial wisdom about suffering. But when you type in "Car Quotes" you get pages of sites dedicated to pricing your ride, or someone else's vehicle. It takes a little more work to pull up quotes about cars.

Nevertheless, I achieved my aim and thought a few of these worth sharing.

"The best car safety device is a rear-view mirror with a cop in it." ~Dudley Moore

"Never drive faster than your guardian angel can fly." ~Author Unknown

"Car sickness is the feeling you get when the monthly payment is due." ~Author Unknown

"The shortest distance between two points is under construction." ~Noelie Altito

"I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered." ~George Best

"When buying a used car, punch the buttons on the radio. If all the stations are rock and roll, there's a good chance the transmission is shot." ~Larry Lujack

"In less enlightened times, the best way to impress women was to own a hot car. But women wised up and realized it was better to buy their own hot cars so they wouldn't have to ride around with jerks." ~Scott Adams

"The best way to keep children at home is to make the home atmosphere pleasant, and let the air out of the tires." ~Dorothy Parker

Enjoy your day, and and your ride.



Related Links
F. Scott Fitzgerald's Love Affair with Cars
Cars of The Great Gatsby

Meantime life goes on all around you. Get into it.