TL;DR really fucking bad
- In all, 12 states had more opioid prescriptions than people 2012:
Alabama: 142.9 per 100 people
Tennessee: 142.8
West Virginia: 137.6
Kentucky: 128.4
Oklahoma: 127.8
Mississippi: 120.3
Louisiana: 118
Arkansas: 115.8
Indiana: 109.1
Michigan: 107
South Carolina: 101.8
Ohio: 100.1
Now here's what I wanna know: how is it that an ethnicity that legit fought opium wars are apparently immune to opioid addiction?
FYI: the John Oliver segment on opioids is largely cribbed from the 2-hour Frontline on opioids linked in the article.
The Chinese fought against the opium trade in those Wars against the British and French who wanted to export it. Fun fact: In Canada, which I believe was the first country in the world to criminalize narcotics, opium was legal until the early 1900s. Opium use among whites and Chinese were about equal at that time and was taxed. Chinese smoked opium. White people generally drank it as laudanum (aka snake oil). In 1907 white people rioted in Vancouver as they felt that the Chinese, who arrived there en masse after the completion of the cross-Canada railroad, out-competed them for jobs. The Minister of Labour went to investigate. His solution was to propose the criminalization of the smoking of opium only, therefore criminalizing the behavior of much Chinese labor. So the first narcotics legislation in Canada, and perhaps the world, was proposed by the Minister of Labour and effected immigrants only.
Marijuana is illegal because it was a quick way to deport Mexicans in the Great Depression Oh, and it was a way to crack down on Black Jazz Clubs When Nixon kicked off the modern war on drugs, it was in part to combat the Negroes and anti-war protesters Want to work for racial equity and social justice? Fight for the end of the War on Drugs.“There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the U.S., and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others.”...“Reefer makes darkies think they’re as good as white men.”
Well the Mexicans started it with their Revolutionary War classic "La Cucaracha": "The cockroach, the cockroach, can't walk anymore because it doesn't have marijuana to smoke." :) I don't think Harry Anslinger was opposed to pot until the end of Prohibition when he needed something new to demonize in order to preserve his job and budget. So I am not sure he was racist but certainly used the prejudices of others to achieve his own ends. Reefer Madness baby.
The most racially charged depictions of black and Mexican peddlers appeared in yellow journalistic efforts to exploit sensationalized marijuana atrocities. Much of Anslinger’s anecdotal evidence relied on these articles, some of which he himself wrote, and each story fell into three basic types: articles about the prohibition movement, articles about criminals who blamed their actions on marijuana and the most common type, marijuana busts. Articles that documented marijuana and heroin arrests established the dominant narcotics storyline after 1937, as they emphasized busts that caught “peddlers” and always emphasized when dealers and growers were “Negro.” Once prohibition began, the message became less about the growing crisis and more to reassure Americans that the FBN had control of the situation and the problem was somewhat contained.In fact, many racist quotations attributed to Anslinger are either poorly cited, wrong or just plain fabrications. (while Wikiquote labels this quotation as “disputed” several books have used it, which has sparked an unresolved controversy about its validity). In fact, when Anslinger revealed his obvious racism in 1934, it nearly lost him his job. After Anslinger called one marijuana user and informant a “ginger colored nigger,” Senator Joseph Guffey (PA-D) complained and asked that Anslinger be replaced. While Anslinger’s pejoratives explicitly betray his bigotry, politics demanded that he make a more subtle connection between race and marijuana.
Nice find. I have had to bookmark that site. I had forgotten about his campaign against famous jazz musicians, particularly Billie Holiday.
Yeap. Indiana even gets the bonus of a full blown AIDS epidemic about an hour from where I live. Pence did somewhere between Jack and Squat to combat the problem as it blew up, and now he is V.P. To give a "white guy whom never did drugs and is disgusted by those do" perspective... Asians in the US tend to have stronger families, make more money and less likely to live at or below the poverty line. Poor whites in rural areas and poor blacks and Latinos in inner cities are more likely to do heroin, because as you say, it is cheap. Now, the real question is where is all this heroin coming in from all the sudden? Thanks for the link to the Frontline episode. I saw people talking about it, reminds me to listen to it in the background while I do data entry tonight.
I'm genuinely asking questions here. Isn't the current opioid epidemic being portrayed as a prosperity/education issue? Aren't Asian Americans, Chines, Indian, Pakistani, etc, pretty well educated and well off? If so, wouldn't their social situation insulate them from this particular issue?how is it that an ethnicity that legit fought opium wars are apparently immune to opioid addiction?
The current opioid epidemic is directly traceable to Purdue selling Oxycontin off-label (it's intended for palliative/hospice care pain relief). The archetypal opioid addict is a middle-class middle-aged suburb dweller. When Oxycontin ceases to be available, the addict often ends up using heroin because it's cheaper. I'm not sure how that paradigm skips the Asians.