> 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 wor

> 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.