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Pulling Rank: Best Ways to Combat the Opioid Crisis Listed from Light Buzz to Overdose

How have opioids affected your life?

By Skyler SaundersPublished 6 years ago 10 min read
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This is a documentary on the crisis.

Throughout American history, epidemics such as influenza and smallpox have ravaged various populations. Influenza and smallpox are illnesses among others that have plagued the Americas. But what is not an epidemic is opioids. It is, properly, a crisis. And it is also a crisis that ought to be fought by private means, exclusively. Chris Christie is chairman of President Trump’s Commission on Combating Drug Abuse designed to “study ways to combat and treat the scourge of drug abuse, addiction, and the opioid crisis.” At least here it is referred to as its proper nomenclature. Further down the article, the writer chooses to use the word epidemic. This is an error. Opioids are not an epidemic because no infectious disease is involved in the conscious decision to do harm to one’s own mind and body. It is not an issue of a spread of a virus or harmful bacteria that is at hand here. Choices cannot be constituted as a crisis. Abusers possess the ability to engage in the abuse of opioids and any other substance. And that is the root of this problem. The feelings of the abuser worsen the situation. The simple thought of an abuser ingesting powerful agents and expecting to be cared for by the government, no less, because of their own choices, is sick.

It is the willful acknowledgement of whether to slowly (or in some cases quickly) commit suicide. People lower their standard of life and elect to have the worst things happen to them. The opioid crisis is just one of the last gasps of the “trial period” that has arisen over the past few decades. In the mid twentieth century, heroin remained the drug of choice (DOC) for users. The sixties saw the introduction of LSD and other hallucinogenic drugs. Then, the seventies came and cocaine was all the rage. Once the eighties came around, crack had taken over the scene. And in the nineteen nineties, heroin reared its ugly head once again along with ecstasy and methamphetamines. Now, opioids and heroin stand as a two-headed monster. Once an abuser can no longer afford the high of opioids, heroin is a cheaper, potent substitute. In the future, with a fully-free society in place, there would be a place where no drugs would be blocked from usage, thus allowing people to pick the best way of living for them. So, get your private clinic pamphlets ready for Pulling Rank: Best Ways to Combat the Opioid Crisis Listed from Light Buzz to Overdose.

Tell the politicians to sit out on this one.

Federal, state, and local government officials have been tasked to fight the dilemma of the day: opioids. But why is this the case? Why should the government sniff around and stick its nose where it ought not stick? Private institutions would be better at receiving patients, administering the right counter agents, and dispensing resources and therapy. A bureaucrat is only going to jam up the system. He or she is going to take a considerable wage attempting to do the job of a non-governmental official. Politicians like Christie ought to sit out on trying to get people off of opioids. It is against reason that the government be involved in anything dealing with the economy. And yes, drugs are a multi-billion dollar business that continues to grow. With the government in the mix, only exacerbation can occur. While the police chief is concerned with the “welfare” of citizens strung out on this substance, the murderers, thieves, fraudsters and the rapists are all gaining ground on their victims. They’re relieved that the politicians have engaged with police forces around this country to ban a drug rather than actual acts of the initiation of physical force. What these officials fail to see is that government ought to play no role in the affairs of addicts not just on a political level but on a moral one. The ethics involved in the opioid crisis is the statement that a person ought to not abuse the drug based on the possibility that life would be obstructed or destroyed.

There is no protection of individual rights when a police officer has to spray naloxone into an abuser’s nose. He or she ought to be out in the streets handling real police matters that safeguard citizens from force and fraud. And that is what the government ought to be doing, not roaming the streets in search of the next overdose case. Every avenue that the politicians seem to take on this saying, “only the government can fix this problem” or “without the government people would be dying in the streets” is wrong. These are also illogical. If the government at all of the levels were to have a “hands off” approach to the crisis, then private individuals would be able to step into create safe spaces for abusers and ensure that they get the best care.

Politicians with their hollow bromides position themselves as moral authoritarians. They feel that they can just boss around people and make them quit their DOC. This is infeasible and inefficacious to say the least. The only way to rid people of the toxic “scourge” is for a complete separation of State from economics. This separation would present the user with the possibility to buy drugs on a fully-free market. The exit of bureaucrats would mean that the opioids would be handled through private means with no government interference to regulate, control, or criminalize the trade.

Rank: Light Buzz

Legalize all drugs now.

The decriminalization and therefore legalization of all drugs and the abolition of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) would create such a wave of detoxification that Chris Christie’s head would spin. Without vicious sectors of the government like the FDA coupled with rigorous private educational programs, there would be little to no incidents of overdoses. All of the money that would have gone to pay for the FDA would go to private research firms that would follow the profit motive and be more engaged with creating drugs that sustain life rather than present detriments. Minus the FDA drugs considered experimental would be made legal and clear for sale on the free market. The opioids would be available for sale like they are today. But unlike in modern America, the abuse would never be a factor as people would be dissuaded from using the substances improperly based on morality. The concentration of chemical dependence cases would nosedive as people learn the dangerous and adverse effects of taking these drugs.

If the DEA existed no more, then the beheadings, brutal slayings, and other horrors based on the drug trade would cease as well. The number of people (mainly black men) being carted off to the penitentiary would be a thing of the past. The market for drugs would open up to anyone over the age of twenty one. Everything, including heroin, would be made legal and ready for sale. Cartels would be converted into corporations. Abusers could be given the chance to clean themselves up and revolutionize their lives. The money flow would all be on the free market and ready for free trade among other nations. Now, as DEA agents crack the skulls of abusers high on opioids, they would be focused on catching actual criminals. The money that is sucked out of taxpayers’ pockets could be saved with the elimination of the DEA. In tandem, the FDA and the DEA ought to be DOA (dead on arrival). Millions of lives would be saved if these two noxious institutions went the way of the horse and buggy.

This so-called “War on Drugs,” or a fight against an inanimate object must stop. No one is winning. The bureaucrats who’ve stolen billions of dollars from the United States citizens in this “War” would be able to refund those people in a free society. And if the Americans so choose, they would be presented with a choice to live or abuse drugs. Or to put it another way, it would be to think or not. Furthermore, the cases of addiction would plummet as Americans find that it is not worth being strung out and at rock bottom. The FDA and the DEA present the largest obstacles between people receiving the best care and going on to live flourishing lives. With the FDA, they’re blocking life-affirming drugs that could make opioids a minor distraction. With the DEA, they’re locking up almost anyone and everyone even associated with the crisis. To phase out both of these corrupt institutions would mean a groundswell in peace and harmony among all individuals.

Rank: Groggy

Education is key to quash the crisis.

Now, this is no plea to public education speeches in health class. This is far beyond that. Education through private means with parents and other family members ought to suffice. Also, in a fully free society, the children in the streets would be able to voice whether they would partake in drugs like opioids once they grow older. They would be afforded the chance to make up their own minds whether to poison themselves or live in misery or die in despair or embrace their brains and lead happy, healthy lives. There’s no need for the “Just Say No” campaign. (What a disaster that program has proven to be.)

Obviously, the children might say “yes” emphatically to drug usage. Even with all of the education, study, and learning about the dangers of drug usage, they’re still going to use. In the “War on Drugs” this has been the only case. And only death, incarcerations, and broken families have resulted. Opioids are not the problem. What makes it a crisis is the fact that so many people decide that their lives are not worth living, that this world is a dreary place with not opportunities to succeed, and that they surmise that they have no self-esteem to raise them up from the doldrums.

To learn about how you can choke yourself to death if you’re not in the right sleeping position on heroin or physical dependence and constipation on opioids would be a boon to one’s consciousness. The children would know. They would be able to choose for themselves, once they are adults whether they would get high or not. But the choice would be theirs. Based on the private education that they receive, chances are that they may try the drug and like it and only use it once a month. Or, another child would pop those pills or inject that needle and become hooked on it.

The morality stays the same. The individual’s right to choose how to best steer his or her own life is key here. Additionally, with the eradication of the FDA, drugs would be in place to apply to any surges in usage. If there ever seemed like there was an opioid addiction crisis in a fully free society, then it would be eliminated with the drugs from some brilliant pharmacologist to wipe out any impending crises. Education would afford the young minds of tomorrow the opportunity to “Say Yes to Life.”

Instead of the negative statement, the children would be able to wave off any advances for them to intake drugs or try them. But the decision would be theirs. It won’t be the politician, the FDA bureaucrat, or the DEA agent. Instead, they would equip themselves with enough knowledge. If a child grows up to be an addict in his own home and never imposes upon the lives of another person by driving or committing any other crimes, so be it. But the point is all in the choice. That child does not have to grow up to be a junkie. He does not have to ruin his brain, his life. Rather, he could experience the drug, dislike it, and start an online petition for everyone to not abuse drugs. He would be empowered to go on speaking tours and conferences decrying the abuse of drugs altogether. He would set up private clinics to help those who choose to abuse the drug. His actions would be noteworthy and pivotal in the espousal of life.

Rank: Overdose

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Skyler Saunders

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