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Op-Ed War on Drugs Logic and Overdose Deaths

thegreenhand

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War on Drugs Logic and Overdose Deaths

Conor Friedersdorf
The Atlantic
24 Aug 2022

Excerpts:
This week the War on Drugs is top of mind for me because of an article I happened upon that features a quintessential example of what I’ve regarded for years as “War on Drugs logic.” That’s when you point to the catastrophic consequences of drug use that took place under prohibition in order to justify continuing those same prohibitionist policies.
The Post article doesn’t mention fentanyl, but it does detail the fact that under the War on Drugs approach, “the Colombian trade has reached record levels,” tripling in the last decade, and that the U.S. is aware of the bloodshed in Colombia that prohibition guarantees. Put more simply, the status quo has immiserated a foreign country for decades, enriching its most sociopathic residents, while coinciding with record cocaine exports to the U.S. and spiking overdose deaths because a black market means no safeguards against fentanyl. The bipartisan consensus that continues to stand in defense of this deadly status quo is a moral abomination.
 
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