Drug Addiction Is a Problem the Ruling Class Only PRETENDS to Want to Solve. Why? Because the Actual Solution Means No More Privileged Billionaire Ruling Class.

Instead of a real solution, we the have-nots are only allowed to support the liberal phony solution or the conservative phony solution: divide-and-rule

Nobody denies that we have a serious drug addiction problem in the United States. Watch the video here to see it.

What is, however, denied—by the ruling class!—is that there is a real solution to this problem. The solution is to abolish class inequality with an egalitarian revolution, to remove the rich from power to have real, not fake, democracy with no rich and no poor.

Why the solution to the drug addiction problem is egalitarian revolution

The reason egalitarian revolution is the solution to the drug addiction problem is because it would eliminate the overwhelmingly main cause of drug addiction—class inequality—, thereby dramatically reducing the number of people addicted to drugs.

The main cause of drug addiction is indeed class inequality—some rich and some poor. (Note that no-rich-and-no-poor does NOT mean everybody is the same and it does NOT mean there is no role for some meritocracy, as apologists for class inequality want us to believe.) It’s not just me saying that class inequality is the main cause of drug addiction. It’s scientific studies based on data.

The more unequal a society, the higher the level of drug use. This finding is just one in a study by UK epidemiologists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett into the social determinants of health, into ‘why health gets worse at every step down the social ladder’.1 Ireland was one of 22 ‘rich’ countries included in the study. The authors concluded that where there is inequality in a country, there is a corresponding loss of general health and well-being, as indicated by measures of community life and social relations, mental health, illicit drug use, physical health and life expectancy, obesity, educational performance, teenage births, violence, imprisonment and punishment, and social mobility. 

The nub of Wilkinson and Pickett’s argument is that the prevalence of poor health and social problems is related not to the average standard of living in a country but to the degree of inequality (as measured by the disparity between the incomes of the richest and the poorest inhabitants). The problem is not associated with the overall level of wealth in a country but with the size of the difference between those with the highest incomes and those with the lowest. With regard to illicit drug use, the authors found ‘a strong tendency for drug use to be more common in more unequal countries’, with Ireland lying just above the midpoint in terms of the relationship between drug use prevalence and income inequality.2

Read more about the link between poverty and drug addiction in this footnote.¹

Pharmaceutical pushers like Purdue “couldn’t have done their dirty work” without America’s increasingly unbalanced economy

America’s growing rate of economic inequality is more than a numerical ratio that worries economists or a trendy political talking point. The phenomenon has been linked to human tragedies ranging from higher murder rates to growing gaps in life expectancy.

Add death by opioids to the list.

In recent years, social scientists have been debating why more people have been dying from drug overdoses. Does the increased availability of highly addictive opioids fully explain the rise? Not entirely, it turns out.

Sociologist Shannon Monnat is author of a new study with the Institute for New Economic Thinking that examines county-level drug deaths in the U.S. Her research reveals that while overprescribing doctors, pharmaceutical pushers and illegal dealers are highly significant, a big part of what makes a community susceptible to the opioid scourge is recent patterns of economic distress — the kind inflicted by decades of bad policy.

A recent flurry of headlines about the billionaire Sackler family, whose members own Purdue Pharma, the company that created the powerful opioid painkiller OxyContin, highlights the ugliness of drug sales representatives promoting dangerously high doses to boost profits. “Supply is certainly important,” says Monnat, “but Big Pharma couldn’t do its dirty work without America’s increasing economic inequality.”

But we’re only allowed to debate which NON-SOLUTION we favor: the liberal one or the conservative one

The conservative “solution” is aimed at solving THIS problem:

“How can we make these drug addicts invisible to us better-off folks who don’t want to be inconvenienced not to mention frightened by drug addicts.”

Conservative “solutions” all amount to “I don’t care where the drug addicts go as long as they’re not allowed to be near where I work or live and I’m not taxed a lot to deal with them.”

The liberal “solution” is aimed at solving THIS problem:

“What can we do to help these poor drug addicts and thereby relieve our guilt at being better off than they are?”

From the point of view of the ruling class, these two non-solutions are perfect because they pit the have-nots against each other. Here’s an illustration of how this works, from my own neighborhood.

My liberal state representative, Will Brownsberger, wrote the following email to my neighborhood email group in support of his liberal “solution”:

Will Brownsberger <will@brownsberger.net> wrote:

To be clear, overdose prevention centers do not mean supplying people with illegal drugs. An OPC is a place where people who have obtained drugs may use them.

For what it’s worth, a lot of experts in addiction treatment do favor these centers as a way of saving lives and providing a path into treatment.

In response, one of my conservative neighbors, Eva, replied:

Boston neighborhoods may end up with taxpayer funded drug dens, and residents will have no control over that. We are in real danger of becoming San Francisco.

Another, named P.J., wrote:

People who suffer from drug addiction should be given two options.  Treatment or jail.  

Safe injection sites, particularly here in Boston, are going to be a magnet for more hard drug users. 

And Eva replied in agreement:

Great points, PJ.

This is so mind-boggling to me.  Illegal drugs are illegal drugs.  The state should not be bypassing/ignoring federal laws on this or anything else (the “sanctuary cities” that interfere with effectiveness of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement is another example).

How ironic that very little is being done to prevent illegal drugs availability in the first place, and when people get addicted, instead of cutting them off from those drugs by any means possible (as you said, treatment or jail), some clandestine forces quietly emerge behind the scenes – and their solution is to capitalize on the problem by setting up a taxpayer-funded enterprise/industry that will keep the addicts addicted in perpetuity – and the taxpayers funds will have to keep flowing to state-sponsored drug use forever.

It’s morally wrong, and fiscally bordering on criminal.

The ruling class loves to see us debating the non-solutions that we are offered in the name of liberalism or conservatism. It’s perfect divide-and-rule.

The rich also love to use a phony “war on drugs” to whip up racist divide-and-rule as I discuss in some detail here.

Read here how YOU can help build the egalitarian revolutionary movement to remove the rich from power and (to a great extent) solve the drug addiction problem.

Understanding the Relationship Between Poverty and Addiction

1. By St. Joseph Institute|Published On: June 18th, 2018|Categories: Articles, Drug and Alcohol Addiction, Family Resource

The relationship between addiction and poverty is complicated. Lower income people are slightly more likely to struggle with drug or alcohol abuse, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that poverty causes addiction. In some cases, financial troubles are the result of a substance use disorder.

Poverty Increases Addiction Risk Factors

There are several ways in which financial struggles increase the risk of a person developing a substance use disorder:

• Poverty increases stress. Stress is well recognized as a risk factor for substance abuse and relapse after treatment. Worrying about how to afford shelter, food, and other basic needs causes a tremendous amount of stress. When you’re struggling to make ends meet, there is a great temptation to turn to drugs or alcohol to temporarily escape from your problems.

• Poverty increases feelings of hopeless. When meeting daily expenses is difficult, dreams of attending college, buying a home, opening a business, or traveling the world seem impossible. Feeling as though you are powerless over your own future creates a vulnerability to substance abuse.

• Poverty decreases self-esteem. In a culture that values material possessions and financial success, being poor can feel like a moral failing. This can lead to feelings of guilt, shame, and diminished self-worth. According to Psychology Today, people struggling with low self-esteem have an increased vulnerability to developing substance use disorders.

• Poverty decreases social support. Having the emotional support of friends and family helps people cope with difficult situations in their lives. However, lower income adults are less likely to have strong social support networks simply because they are expending all of their energy on trying to survive from day to day. For example, a UCLA survey found that lower income adults are less likely to be married even though they value marriage just as much as their higher income peers.

• Poverty decreases access to healthcare. Although the number of uninsured adults has decreased in recent years, the Henry J. Kaiser Foundation found that 45 percent of uninsured adults lacked coverage simply because the cost was too high. Despite the fact that most of these individuals had at least one working adult in the family, 1 in 5 admitted to foregoing recommended medical treatment due to cost. Access to preventative health care is also severely limited for members of this group. Untreated mental health conditions or chronic illnesses that are poorly controlled can lead to the use of drugs or alcohol to self-medicate symptoms.

One frequently cited example of how poverty affects addiction risk is the Appalachian opioid epidemic. Stretching from the Southern Tier of New York to northern Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia, the Appalachian region of the United States has struggled with widespread poverty since the early 1900s. The majority of the available jobs are physically demanding, carrying a high risk of injuries despite their relatively low wages. Residents who begin taking opioids to cope with chronic pain from their employment-related injuries often find themselves spiraling into addiction. The effects of substance abuse make it nearly impossible to keep working, thus perpetuating financial struggles.

Addiction Can Cause People to Slip into Poverty

It’s important to remember that people with substance use disorders don’t necessarily develop an addiction simply because they are poor. Someone who is solidly middle class can easily slip into poverty as the result of an untreated drug or alcohol addiction.

As an addiction develops, it becomes increasingly likely that a person will have problems performing at work. This might include arriving late, missing shifts, failing to meet project deadlines, or getting into arguments with colleagues. Eventually, this can lead to job loss.

Being terminated for performance issues will make it harder to find another job. This increases the overall stress in the person’s life and provides an incentive to engage in criminal activity to fund continued substance abuse.

Middle class individuals can also slip into addiction-related poverty by selling assets or dipping into retirement savings to buy drugs or alcohol. Untreated addiction impairs judgement and critical thinking skills, which can lead someone who is normally very financially responsible to burn through decades of accumulated wealth in just a short time.