Every part of this is made worse by capitalism. We start with over-prescription of opioids. Pharma companies make money selling them. Doctors may even make mon

Every part of this is made worse by capitalism. We start with over-prescription of opioids. Pharma companies make money selling them. Doctors may even make money in kickbacks (a practice that should be illegal). The disastrous War on Drugs that made opioids cheaper and easier to obtain (eg black tar heroin) than cannabis. Those who became addicts from a legal prescription turn to illegal products. Illegal pills are expensive. Street heroin is much cheaper. To feed this habit, it eventually leads to crime. And what do we do with petty criminals including those charged with drug posession? Whey we incarcerate them of course. That's expensive and ineffective but prisons create jobs. Some private prisons have a direct profit motive to fill their prisons as they're paid by the state per-inmate. Oh and convict labor is yet another profit opportunity. A lot of people self-medicate because of unresolved trauma, just as a coping mechanism or whatever. If you're an average worker this might be just going to a bar and having a few drinks. But that's relatively expensive. Poorer folks would once sit out on the streets or in a park, often in a group, and do the exact same thing except it would be a bottle in a brown paper bag. If you're homeless, you're even more likely to self-medicate. Yet police harass the second groupo. We criminalize all sorts of things, including feeding people [1]. Fentanyl makes all of this worse because it's so cheap to produce that it laces other drugs to give them a kick. The amount can wildly vary so you may accidentally get a lethal dose. We have a societal failure by robbing people of basic hope and dignity and then profiting off incarcerating them. [1]: https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/2014/11/05/90-year-old-florida-man-faces-jail-giving-food-homeless/15642578007/ https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/2014/11/05/90-year-o...