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.

* * * * *

Scott Adams' Fentanyl Policy Idea:

And there you have it. Is this a solution?

Prohibition and the Drug Trade

While writing about Port of New York yesterday I touched on the manner in which the drug trade is addressed today in Hollywood is much grittier and dark than the film noir period pieces. Another film comes to mind that could have been cited as well: Traffic.

This questions remain, however: Can prohibition work? Can the war on drugs ever really be won without also taking away another value vital to the American people, their freedoms? Are there better ways of addressing this problem?

If someone were to ask me what my political stance was, I would not say Republican or Democrat, Liberal or Conservative per se. I lean Libertarian. The pork barrel politics of our past fifty years are a natural outgrowth of Machiavellian power games and party politics. When it comes to government, less is more.

For this reason we have been long time subscribers to Reason magazine, which takes a reasoned libertarian approach to government, society and culture. Occasionally I have found myself at odds with the Libertarians on certain key issues. They have historically favored drug legalization. But the arguments they make are good ones, cogent and persuasive.

It wasn't alcohol that made Al Capone a powerful gangster. It was Prohibition. After prohibition was repealed where did the gangs and moonshiners go?

To get some wheels turning I wanted to share this article which I stumbled upon in the last couple days, "The Drug Laws Don’t Work," by Michael Huemer. A philosophy professor at the University of Chicago, Huemer's logic is easy to follow here though I do have some questions.

Earlier this summer our waitress at Blackwoods in east Duluth told us she used to work at Falk-Newman's Pharmacy until an armed robber came in, held the manager with knifepoint on throat, and insisted on taking all the Oxycotin. The waitress, I forget her name, then went to work in the sister pharmacy in Lakeside, a safer neighborhood. Two weeks later she was working while another armed robber came in and demanded all the Oxycotin. At this she quit pharmacy work and took up waitressing to put herself through college.

I relate this story because I do not know how ending prohibition will stop these kinds of robberies? Nor do I think drugs like Oxycotin should be sold on the streets as freely as bubble gum.

Which leads to the next question... where do we draw the lines? Maybe there are answers to these things which smarter people than I have already proposed.

Another article (with video clip) I'd like to point out this morning is the interview of Glenn Greenwald by Reason editor Nick Gillespie which appeared in the June issue of the mag, "Drug Decriminalization In Portugal." Greenwald is a civil rights attorney and author of a Cato Institute study titled, "Drug Decriminalization in Portugal: Lessons for Creating Fair and Successful Policies." Portugal's drug problems had been escalating and were out of control when the nation conducted a policy experiment out of desperation, decriminalization. The results were surprising. Be sure to check it out.

I agree with Huemer when he cites Voltaire's dictum, "The best is the enemy of the good." It would be nice to eliminate all social problems, but an overtly meddling government often only serves to make them worse. What do you think?

Port of New York

"Hey, do you want to make a deal?" ~Bob Dylan

One of the things that set Dylan apart when he emerged on the scene was his grittiness. At a time when the airwaves were alive with sweet little love ditties and cheery faced folk singers, Dylan approached subjects too nakedly and unsettling. This line, "Hey, do you want to make a deal," from Like a Rolling Stone has a context. It's cold. Like the scene in Ironweed where Streep, reduced to being a street tramp, has to produce a sexual favor to get a needed place to sleep out of the cold... in an abandoned car. It'ugly, but it is an indignity experienced by women on a near daily basis in this world.

Film noir was a style of Hollywood film in the 40's and 50's that sought to expose and exploit that dark side of life. Themes were ambiguous, often not pretty, and occasionally considered scandalous. I just finished watching Port of New York, a movie about smuggling drugs into the Big Apple. Yul Brynner stars as the lead bad guy, the top of the food chain. Ever smooth, careful, calculating and ruthless. He's even got hair.

An old fashioned black and white, the film opens with a narrative along the lines of the Dragnet television show, something akin to "This is the city." The narrator has that serious deadpan, no funny business approach, implying a serious topic is being discussed. In this instance, narcotics being smuggled into New York through its ports. It's a good B-movie for entertainment value, but what a contrast to films on this same theme to films of a more recent vintage. All good guys and bad guys are in suits and ties. You never see anything related to the effects of the drugs themselves. When the final sting occurs, what a small quantity of dope to be getting in such a lather about. The entire shipment was in a satchel.

French Connection with Gene Hackman broke new ground for earthiness and realism. Same theme, intensely different.

But today's drug trade films really bump it up. American Gangster with Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe shows the whole drug scene with such vividness it blinds. Blow, with Johnny Depp, likewise shows a full panorama and puts the drug world into a perspective. Yes, there is glamour for some but at great expense in human suffering. Customers of the drug dealers are harrowingly desperate. One must have a cold ruthlessness in the heart to be a player in that game.

Which leads us to Anton Chigurh, the ultimate personification of evil, and relentless pursuer in No Country For Old Men. A brute? Not quite the right word. Disturbing? Definitely. He is a by-product of the times and someone you don't want to mess with. I've encountered his kind a few times, people with no conscious, dangerous and unpredictable. You meet these people when you're somewhere you don't belong. And they are out there.

For a "dark" movie, Port of New York was pretty clean and easy, a short, tight little package of 82 minutes. Like Scorcese's The Departed, the plot involves placing a cop in the inner circle of the gang that controls the ports. It's hard to get too emotionally entangled in the film because it is more about plot than character, unlike Gangster where you actually feel empathic toward both Crowe and Washington because you understand their motivations, understand where they were each coming from.

What's your favorite in the oldie from Hollywood's film noir school? Double Indemnity is a classic that still holds. I had a friend who liked D.O.A. What about you?