In a succinct statement on the folly of recent liberal policies, the New York Post editorial board takes on a growing problem in the city: So-called tranq zombies with rotting flesh. The board believes with considerable justification that recent “harm reduction” policies have exacerbated the drug problem and put addicts on the path to self- and city-destruction. The editorial ends with, “Too bad we’re stuck with a political overclass so addicted to its own virtue-signaling its members are willing to let thousands die.” *
So, just while you are in the midst of worrying about you or your family and friends accidentally being exposed to fentanyl, you discover that xylazine is also a threat to the knowing and the ignorant. Both could be in anything as the Post editors say: “It’s found in a hideous 15% of all drugs tested by the DEA for the northeast, and more than 85% of the drugs containing tranq also contain another major killer: fentanyl.”
Let’s call it the Chamberlain Effect. Why? Recall that Neville Chamberlain had met with Hitler before the latter attacked England and then claimed that he had reached “peace in our time.” Appeasement doesn’t work. And neither do the “safe injection sites,” “free drug paraphernalia vending machines,” and “harm reduction” policies.
According to the Post, liberal politicians are more concerned about “stigmatizing” the addicts by requiring them to seek rehabilitation. And as almost every recent liberal social policy has done, so the “harm reduction” policies have engendered the opposite of what they intend. More than 3,000 New Yorkers died from drugs in a 12-month period ending in August 2022, and there appears to be no policy in place to prevent even more deaths in the coming years.
Common sense has given way to “virtue signaling.” No detrimental effects of policies that are evidently bad ideas seem to be enough to convince liberal politicians to change their views. They know there’s a problem; thus, the efforts to alter it by appeasement. They then refuse to alter those efforts lest they incur the wrath of vocal Leftists. And in the time following the inane policies with no evidence that they work as planned, the innocent suffer, the drug dealers make profits, and the major media outlets ignore the mounting deaths. The editors say that the “oh-so-compassionate Dems want [addicts] to keep taking more and more of their chosen poison until they die.”
As with the “open border policy” of the Biden Administration, the “open drug policy” of local and state officials will produce more of the same. One cannot ethically wish harm on these knowingly ignorant politicians, but anyone can wonder if they might keep their “virtual signaling” policies if a member of their circle of loved ones turns zombie-like because of tranq.
To answer what they might do, one needs only look at the liberal politicians response to an influx of illegal aliens. The tent cities, trashed hotels, and increased crime—including drug use and drunk kids—in “sanctuary cities” have Democrat leaders scrambling and spending more taxes on coping than on preventing. Remember that warning about the consequences of wishing? Seems that the liberal politicians are “getting what they asked for.”
Of course, one could ask how effective anti-drug policies have been in comparison. That answer is difficult to quantify for a simple reason: The human population keeps growing, so if there is a percentage of humanity that will always be comprised of bad actors, then the absolute number of bad actors has ballooned at the same time that the drug problems have become international problems. The interception of drugs by the DEA, local, and state policing agencies has decreased the incoming supply, but the suppliers keep making more of the same and now more of the even-more-dangerous drugs that addicts and casual users use. There's no ultimate solution because every generation produces its own bad actors.
There are apparent measures that both the Feds and the state authorities might take to prevent the unbounded proliferation of this plague on humanity, specifically on American humanity. Closing the border is one policy that might reduce the quantity of drugs. Going after international drug cartels as well as domestic cartels is another policy that might lessen the number of the "living dead" produced by drug use. Educating youth doesn't, however, seem to have much effect as evidenced by the drug culture so popular among college students and business professionals--and dare I say some politicians (Bill Clinton: "I didn't inhale"). But I might suggest aversion therapy (as in A Clockwork Orange) for the young not yet exposed to a culture of drug acceptance if only for a personal argument: In junior high school I attended an afternoon assembly during which the speaker showed images of healthy and tobacco-damaged lungs. Those blackened masses of cancerous lungs served well to forever turn me against smoking--and I was reared in a home with two parents who smoked. ** Would images of people with rotting skin produced by tranq use stave off use by the next generation of New Yorkers? To answer my own question, I would say, "NO." The reason? "Keep off the grass signs work for a while, but then someone says, "Well, this one time won't hurt." That leads to making a path through the grass, one used by more people, leading to the building of a new sidewalk, usually for a diagonal connection that leads to another set of "keep off the grass" signs leading to evermore diagonal crossings until the only solution is the complete elimination of the grass by the paving of the entire area. Is there an analog to the drug problem in this phenomenon of new sidewalk construction? I'll let you decide.
For sure, there's evidence that legalizing pot hasn't reduced the drug problems, but has, rather, opened the door for younger users (the Post points out that tranq is not an illegal drug in NYC). More sidewalks crisscrossing the yard do not ensure protection for the grass (ironically, more grass seems to result in more grass, if you get my drift: NY has 1,493 illegal weed stores***).
*Flesh-eating tranq? Go right ahead, addicts, says NYC. Online at https://nypost.com/2023/08/06/flesh-eating-tranq-go-right-ahead-addicts-says-nyc/. Accessed August 7, 2023.
**Side note here: Neither parent seemed to have suffered the consequences of smoking, which they both stopped in their sixties. Both lived into their mid-plus nineties. But who knows? Maybe they might have reached 100+ without those decades of smoking.
***Thaddeus Flint. 9 Jun 2023. NYC's Illegal Weed Stores: Seven Down, One Thousand, Four Hundred, and Ninety-three to Go. Online at: https://globalcannabistimes.com/nycs-illegal-weed-stores-seven-down-one-thousand-four-hundred-and-ninety-three-to-go/
So, just while you are in the midst of worrying about you or your family and friends accidentally being exposed to fentanyl, you discover that xylazine is also a threat to the knowing and the ignorant. Both could be in anything as the Post editors say: “It’s found in a hideous 15% of all drugs tested by the DEA for the northeast, and more than 85% of the drugs containing tranq also contain another major killer: fentanyl.”
Let’s call it the Chamberlain Effect. Why? Recall that Neville Chamberlain had met with Hitler before the latter attacked England and then claimed that he had reached “peace in our time.” Appeasement doesn’t work. And neither do the “safe injection sites,” “free drug paraphernalia vending machines,” and “harm reduction” policies.
According to the Post, liberal politicians are more concerned about “stigmatizing” the addicts by requiring them to seek rehabilitation. And as almost every recent liberal social policy has done, so the “harm reduction” policies have engendered the opposite of what they intend. More than 3,000 New Yorkers died from drugs in a 12-month period ending in August 2022, and there appears to be no policy in place to prevent even more deaths in the coming years.
Common sense has given way to “virtue signaling.” No detrimental effects of policies that are evidently bad ideas seem to be enough to convince liberal politicians to change their views. They know there’s a problem; thus, the efforts to alter it by appeasement. They then refuse to alter those efforts lest they incur the wrath of vocal Leftists. And in the time following the inane policies with no evidence that they work as planned, the innocent suffer, the drug dealers make profits, and the major media outlets ignore the mounting deaths. The editors say that the “oh-so-compassionate Dems want [addicts] to keep taking more and more of their chosen poison until they die.”
As with the “open border policy” of the Biden Administration, the “open drug policy” of local and state officials will produce more of the same. One cannot ethically wish harm on these knowingly ignorant politicians, but anyone can wonder if they might keep their “virtual signaling” policies if a member of their circle of loved ones turns zombie-like because of tranq.
To answer what they might do, one needs only look at the liberal politicians response to an influx of illegal aliens. The tent cities, trashed hotels, and increased crime—including drug use and drunk kids—in “sanctuary cities” have Democrat leaders scrambling and spending more taxes on coping than on preventing. Remember that warning about the consequences of wishing? Seems that the liberal politicians are “getting what they asked for.”
Of course, one could ask how effective anti-drug policies have been in comparison. That answer is difficult to quantify for a simple reason: The human population keeps growing, so if there is a percentage of humanity that will always be comprised of bad actors, then the absolute number of bad actors has ballooned at the same time that the drug problems have become international problems. The interception of drugs by the DEA, local, and state policing agencies has decreased the incoming supply, but the suppliers keep making more of the same and now more of the even-more-dangerous drugs that addicts and casual users use. There's no ultimate solution because every generation produces its own bad actors.
There are apparent measures that both the Feds and the state authorities might take to prevent the unbounded proliferation of this plague on humanity, specifically on American humanity. Closing the border is one policy that might reduce the quantity of drugs. Going after international drug cartels as well as domestic cartels is another policy that might lessen the number of the "living dead" produced by drug use. Educating youth doesn't, however, seem to have much effect as evidenced by the drug culture so popular among college students and business professionals--and dare I say some politicians (Bill Clinton: "I didn't inhale"). But I might suggest aversion therapy (as in A Clockwork Orange) for the young not yet exposed to a culture of drug acceptance if only for a personal argument: In junior high school I attended an afternoon assembly during which the speaker showed images of healthy and tobacco-damaged lungs. Those blackened masses of cancerous lungs served well to forever turn me against smoking--and I was reared in a home with two parents who smoked. ** Would images of people with rotting skin produced by tranq use stave off use by the next generation of New Yorkers? To answer my own question, I would say, "NO." The reason? "Keep off the grass signs work for a while, but then someone says, "Well, this one time won't hurt." That leads to making a path through the grass, one used by more people, leading to the building of a new sidewalk, usually for a diagonal connection that leads to another set of "keep off the grass" signs leading to evermore diagonal crossings until the only solution is the complete elimination of the grass by the paving of the entire area. Is there an analog to the drug problem in this phenomenon of new sidewalk construction? I'll let you decide.
For sure, there's evidence that legalizing pot hasn't reduced the drug problems, but has, rather, opened the door for younger users (the Post points out that tranq is not an illegal drug in NYC). More sidewalks crisscrossing the yard do not ensure protection for the grass (ironically, more grass seems to result in more grass, if you get my drift: NY has 1,493 illegal weed stores***).
*Flesh-eating tranq? Go right ahead, addicts, says NYC. Online at https://nypost.com/2023/08/06/flesh-eating-tranq-go-right-ahead-addicts-says-nyc/. Accessed August 7, 2023.
**Side note here: Neither parent seemed to have suffered the consequences of smoking, which they both stopped in their sixties. Both lived into their mid-plus nineties. But who knows? Maybe they might have reached 100+ without those decades of smoking.
***Thaddeus Flint. 9 Jun 2023. NYC's Illegal Weed Stores: Seven Down, One Thousand, Four Hundred, and Ninety-three to Go. Online at: https://globalcannabistimes.com/nycs-illegal-weed-stores-seven-down-one-thousand-four-hundred-and-ninety-three-to-go/
RSS Feed