The economy no longer generates secure, purposeful jobs for the working class, and so millions of people live in a state of insecure despair.
The opioid epidemic is generating a lot of media coverage and hand-wringing, but few if any solutions, and this is predictable: if you don’t face up to the causes, then you can’t solve the problem. America is steadfastly avoiding looking at the causes of the opioid crisis, which is soberly reflected in these charts of soaring opioid-caused deaths:
If we are going to have an honest conversation about the opioid epidemic, then we need to recognize the real causes of the epidemic:
1. The Pharmaceutical industry falsely claimed synthetic opioids were non-addictive, and a complicit, toothless regulatory system did nothing, egged on by politicians who were bought off by mega-bucks campaign contributions from Big Pharma.
2. Our sickcare system is very good at over-prescribing painkillers as a substitute for treating the source of the pain, which is often complex. Our “healthcare” system, much of which consists of endless TV adverts promoting one costly medication after another, is basically a conduit from Big Pharma to poorly informed “consumers” (quaintly referred to as “patients” to mask the actual dynamic).
This system has trained “consumers” to expect a magic pill for every ailment or pain, and any doctor who refuses to over-prescribe is risking blowback from the “patients” and the rest of the system. Americans have been trained to avoid treatments that require effort and changing their lifestyle; they demand a magic pill that works right away, with no effort required.
