Recent news concerning the overdose death of Prince points at the possibility that the pain pills he was taking were counterfeit. It seems that Prince thought he was taking Vicodin (or the generic equivalent), but the pills were actually Fentanyl. The linked article indicates that pill counterfeiters will use Fentanyl because it’s far more powerful and therefore far less is needed to make an “equivalent” dose.
This news, in essence, hangs the blame for Prince’s overdose on the War on Drugs. Yes, Prince freely chose to buy his pills illegally, and that obviously comes with risks, but if he had legitimate access to what he decided to take despite prohibitions, it’s quite likely he’d still be alive today. Pharmaceutical companies don’t mislabel or mis-dose their products.
Flash back, for a moment, to the recent article about a young engineering student who overdosed on heroin that he thought was cocaine, and survived only because of a series of lucky breaks. Flash back, as well, to the overdose deaths of other celebrities, recent and decades-past. Consider that, despite nearly a century of prohibition and half a century of War on Drugs, over half a million Americans still use heroin, and over 20,000 die each year from heroin and opiate overdoses.
The answers from the government regarding all this human tragedy never include admission of failure on the part of prohibitionists. Instead, they look for new ways to prohibit and punish, even if it includes imposing greater suffering on the innocent or finding new and creative ways to punish users and dealers.
We might think that, after decades of failing to force people not to do things that may be bad for them, the government nannies and the puritanical scolds who give them power might realize that, perhaps, just perhaps, it’s time to stop trying. Sadly, too many people in this country, people who claim to be good, moral and caring, have little care or compassion for addicts and those who overdose. The callousness we witness daily is quite stunning, and it’s only when someone as beloved as Prince overdoses that we lament the loss of a human life.
Yeah, yeah, I know that some of you believe that abuse and overdoses will skyrocket if drugs are legalized. The lessons of Portugal’s decriminalization suggest otherwise, and those lessons are rooted in reality, not in your “it stands to reason” handwaving.
Your handwaving, likely born out of personal biases and puritanism, doesn’t counterweigh the tens of thousands who die each year, the millions arrested for possession charges and thus saddled with criminal records for the rest of their lives, the tens of billions spent on enforcement each year, the terrible toll our prohibition has taken on Mexico and other countries, and the destruction of our liberties.
Prince, dead of an overdose, is just one of millions of victims of America’s continued obsession with telling people what they cannot eat, drink, smoke, snort or otherwise put into their bodies. How many more have to die before the nation comes to its senses?
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