America’s drug overdose crisis is out of control. Washington, despite a bipartisan desire to combat it, is finding its addiction-fighting programs are failing.
In 2018, Republicans, Democrats and then-President Donald Trump united around legislation that threw $20 billion into treatment, prevention and recovery. But five years later, the SUPPORT Act has lapsed and the number of Americans dying from overdoses has grown more than 60 percent, driven by illicit fentanyl. The battle has turned into a slog.
Even though 105,000 Americans died last year, Congress is showing little urgency about reupping the law since it expired on Sept. 30. That’s not because of partisan division, but a realization that there are no quick fixes a new law could bring to bear.
Yeah…as a white person from Appalachia that’s definitely not the case in large swaths of the country where the actual plan is “fuck those poor hillbillies, let em die.”
Yeah… It was a culture shock going from Marietta/Parkersburg area to college in Akron … just in terms of like “wait, you went on vacation out of the country!?”, “cedar point wasn’t the vacation but just a thing you did one, two, three, many times during the summer?!”, etc
Pretty much fully incognito as a college educated urbanite now, but the roots are still there…
Oh hey there, MOV. I probably know your family lol. I grew up in Belpre. And I hear ya about the culture shock. It took me a long time to realize that Appalachian is a thing I can identify as
You guys aren’t “that” kind of white. I’d guess the Appalachian racism was a pivot from Irish targeted hate, and got a pass to keep going through the years bc poor and Catholic.
Correct. While technically “white” in that I am able to access the benefits of white privilege by masking my accent and dressing “fancy,” we are not the WASPs most people think of when they think “wypipo”