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Lockdowns Coincided with Record-Breaking Drug Overdose Fatalities

36 points by mrfusion 5y ago

Loughla 5y ago
Four things: 1. a "libertarian-conservative journalist and Policy Correspondent at the Foundation for Economic Education" is maybe not the most unbiased source regarding government mandates. 2. I had to follow three links through other stories to get to the source data, which is annoying. Why not just cite the source data. 3. The data trend from the actual source (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/drug-overdose-data.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/drug-overdose-data.htm) show that this was higher than last year, but long-term trends show that this is just another increase in a line of increases from, what, March of 2019 (or just from 2015, the beginning of the data in the graph, really) according to that graph. 4. "The sad yet inescapable conclusion is that in their efforts to halt one public health crisis, the authorities fueled another." That is not really borne out in the data, supported by the original report, and is just this writer's opinion. Correlation does not equal causation, I think is the line.
- seventytwo 5y ago
  Agree. Especially on the last point. Seems very much like politically-motivated reasoning to poh-poh on lockdowns. Ironically, many of the ideas for helping these very people are likely opposed by a “libertarian-conservative” view: public addiction treatment help, less policing and more counseling on the subject, more govt regulation on companies that produce addictive substances, and a public health care system.
Brendinooo 5y ago
This sort of thing is absolutely worth discussing, but I'm always skeptical of it being engaged in good faith. The big red flag for me here is that the word "lockdown" is used to cover the entire year. Most states had brief lockdowns, and ultimately there were a lot of different levels of locking down that were implemented at different times. FEE isn't doing the work to prove that stay-at-home orders directly contributed to overdose fatalities. I mean, we have a few hundred thousand deaths in that time, right? What if someone overdoses because they lost someone? Also, one thing the pandemic has taught me is that if you see something like "record-breaking", it's imperative to dig into the numbers. If they give you raw numbers, ask for percents, and vice versa. So if you use the numbers they give, we're looking at 22,000 more deaths than the previous year. What is the context for this? Were overdose deaths trending up or down before 2020? Furthermore, though I'm not really a fan of this kind of logic, if the United States had taken zero action to try and slow the spread of the virus, would there have been at least 22,000 more deaths? I dunno. There are interesting questions to be asked and answered here, and I hope that people continue to explore it all. It's just that this article acts like it's conclusively answering questions, but it's not.
- mberning 5y ago
  Speaking of good faith, I think it’s a bit disingenuous to claim that lockdowns and similar actions did not have a significant impact for a year or more. Even if people were not under a strict lockdown mandated by law, many were impacted by work reduction, job loss, etc.
  - Brendinooo 5y ago
    > to claim that lockdowns and similar actions did not have a significant impact for a year or more I'm not claiming this. I'm trying to point out that "lockdown" evokes particular policies and imagery while acting rhetorically as an amorphous catch-all. What is a lockdown? Is it "restriction of movement", "any policy that attempts to slow the spread of Covid", or something in between? I mean, I don't think Iowa ever implemented a stay-at-home type of policy. But based on that primary source linked in another comment, they had an increase in overdoses. Does FEE engage with that at all? Furthermore, there was an unknown deadly virus in our midst. If the government had taken no action at all, do you really think that there would have been no disruption, no job loss, no increase in overdose deaths?
- tablespoon 5y ago
  > This sort of thing is absolutely worth discussing, but I'm always skeptical of it being engaged in good faith. > The big red flag for me here is that the word "lockdown" is used to cover the entire year. Most states had brief lockdowns, and ultimately there were a lot of different levels of locking down that were implemented at different times. FEE isn't doing the work to prove that stay-at-home orders directly contributed to overdose fatalities. It's been my impression that most of the people who loudly oppose lockdowns do so for dogmatic ideological reasons, but dress that up with a potpourri of whatever negative factoids they can manage to collect. Foundation for Economic Education exists to promote a rather extreme ideology, and I find it very difficult to believe they'd bemoan overdose deaths that trace to that ideology (e.g. their favored free trade policies rapidly hollowing out manufacturing towns leading to hopelessness and drug use), so it's very likely they're engaging in bad faith here.
- orwin 5y ago
GaryTang 5y ago
>”An astounding 96,000 Americans died from drug overdoses over that one-year period, the latest figures released by the Centers for Disease Control reveal. That’s a 29.6 percent increase from the previous year.” Meanwhile there is zero evidence that lockdowns had any discernible impact on the spread of Covid. The biggest threat we have today isn’t the environment or Covid, it’s Democrats and their policies that are responsible for the deaths of countless of human beings.
- secondaryacct 5y ago
  What, how are they killing people exactly?
  - GaryTang 5y ago
    https://fee.org/articles/lockdowns-coincided-with-record-breaking-drug-overdose-fatalities-new-cdc-data-show/ https://fee.org/articles/lockdowns-coincided-with-record-bre...
- disambiguation 5y ago
  didn't the lockdowns start under a republican administration?
1cvmask 5y ago
Societies have to do comprehensive societal short-term and long-term cost/benefit analysis for such extreme measures as lockdowns including measuring the increase/decrease of suicides, alcoholism, drug abuse, domestic abuse, children deprived of schooling etc... I assume most decision makers felt that lockdowns were the right measure. I think we will have to wait a decade or two to really measure the long-term results of more liberal approaches like Sweden versus say other more extreme lockdowns like Spain.
- nradov 5y ago
  The costs also include violation of the fundamental right of freedom of assembly.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

36 points by mrfusion 5y ago

Four things: 1. a "libertarian-conservative journalist and Policy Correspondent at the Foundation for Economic Education" is maybe not the most unbiased source regarding government mandates. 2. I had to follow three links through other stories to get to the source data, which is annoying. Why not just cite the source data. 3. The data trend from the actual source (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/drug-overdose-data.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/drug-overdose-data.htm) show that this was higher than last year, but long-term trends show that this is just another increase in a line of increases from, what, March of 2019 (or just from 2015, the beginning of the data in the graph, really) according to that graph. 4. "The sad yet inescapable conclusion is that in their efforts to halt one public health crisis, the authorities fueled another." That is not really borne out in the data, supported by the original report, and is just this writer's opinion. Correlation does not equal causation, I think is the line.

seventytwo 5y ago
Agree. Especially on the last point. Seems very much like politically-motivated reasoning to poh-poh on lockdowns. Ironically, many of the ideas for helping these very people are likely opposed by a “libertarian-conservative” view: public addiction treatment help, less policing and more counseling on the subject, more govt regulation on companies that produce addictive substances, and a public health care system.

Brendinooo 5y ago

This sort of thing is absolutely worth discussing, but I'm always skeptical of it being engaged in good faith. The big red flag for me here is that the word "lockdown" is used to cover the entire year. Most states had brief lockdowns, and ultimately there were a lot of different levels of locking down that were implemented at different times. FEE isn't doing the work to prove that stay-at-home orders directly contributed to overdose fatalities. I mean, we have a few hundred thousand deaths in that time, right? What if someone overdoses because they lost someone? Also, one thing the pandemic has taught me is that if you see something like "record-breaking", it's imperative to dig into the numbers. If they give you raw numbers, ask for percents, and vice versa. So if you use the numbers they give, we're looking at 22,000 more deaths than the previous year. What is the context for this? Were overdose deaths trending up or down before 2020? Furthermore, though I'm not really a fan of this kind of logic, if the United States had taken zero action to try and slow the spread of the virus, would there have been at least 22,000 more deaths? I dunno. There are interesting questions to be asked and answered here, and I hope that people continue to explore it all. It's just that this article acts like it's conclusively answering questions, but it's not.

mberning 5y ago
Speaking of good faith, I think it’s a bit disingenuous to claim that lockdowns and similar actions did not have a significant impact for a year or more. Even if people were not under a strict lockdown mandated by law, many were impacted by work reduction, job loss, etc.
- Brendinooo 5y ago
  > to claim that lockdowns and similar actions did not have a significant impact for a year or more I'm not claiming this. I'm trying to point out that "lockdown" evokes particular policies and imagery while acting rhetorically as an amorphous catch-all. What is a lockdown? Is it "restriction of movement", "any policy that attempts to slow the spread of Covid", or something in between? I mean, I don't think Iowa ever implemented a stay-at-home type of policy. But based on that primary source linked in another comment, they had an increase in overdoses. Does FEE engage with that at all? Furthermore, there was an unknown deadly virus in our midst. If the government had taken no action at all, do you really think that there would have been no disruption, no job loss, no increase in overdose deaths?
tablespoon 5y ago
> This sort of thing is absolutely worth discussing, but I'm always skeptical of it being engaged in good faith. > The big red flag for me here is that the word "lockdown" is used to cover the entire year. Most states had brief lockdowns, and ultimately there were a lot of different levels of locking down that were implemented at different times. FEE isn't doing the work to prove that stay-at-home orders directly contributed to overdose fatalities. It's been my impression that most of the people who loudly oppose lockdowns do so for dogmatic ideological reasons, but dress that up with a potpourri of whatever negative factoids they can manage to collect. Foundation for Economic Education exists to promote a rather extreme ideology, and I find it very difficult to believe they'd bemoan overdose deaths that trace to that ideology (e.g. their favored free trade policies rapidly hollowing out manufacturing towns leading to hopelessness and drug use), so it's very likely they're engaging in bad faith here.
orwin 5y ago

GaryTang 5y ago

>”An astounding 96,000 Americans died from drug overdoses over that one-year period, the latest figures released by the Centers for Disease Control reveal. That’s a 29.6 percent increase from the previous year.” Meanwhile there is zero evidence that lockdowns had any discernible impact on the spread of Covid. The biggest threat we have today isn’t the environment or Covid, it’s Democrats and their policies that are responsible for the deaths of countless of human beings.

secondaryacct 5y ago
What, how are they killing people exactly?
- GaryTang 5y ago
  https://fee.org/articles/lockdowns-coincided-with-record-breaking-drug-overdose-fatalities-new-cdc-data-show/ https://fee.org/articles/lockdowns-coincided-with-record-bre...
disambiguation 5y ago
didn't the lockdowns start under a republican administration?

1cvmask 5y ago

Societies have to do comprehensive societal short-term and long-term cost/benefit analysis for such extreme measures as lockdowns including measuring the increase/decrease of suicides, alcoholism, drug abuse, domestic abuse, children deprived of schooling etc... I assume most decision makers felt that lockdowns were the right measure. I think we will have to wait a decade or two to really measure the long-term results of more liberal approaches like Sweden versus say other more extreme lockdowns like Spain.

nradov 5y ago
The costs also include violation of the fundamental right of freedom of assembly.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]