5 ms·
It's amazing the US started a trade war over 74,000 deaths from Fentanyl when heart disease causes 10x more deaths.
by jf22 2y ago
It's amazing the US started a trade war over 74,000 deaths from Fentanyl when heart disease causes 10x more deaths.
- bigdict 2y agoHave you seen the RFK confirmation hearing?
- knowaveragejoe 2y agoIt was never about a perceived moral crusade against fentanyl and addiction at large. It's only ever been about throwing our weight around to disrupt alliances and institutions with the goal of destroying American soft power.
- wavefunction 2y agoit's just political theater mostly to provide the appearance of "doing something" while also providing a new excuse for why high prices are still high and continue to rise certain political figures and their supporters just need a story to tell, it doesn't have to be particularly accurate or even coherent for their purposes
- moate 2y agoAhh yes, that was definitely the core reason and not just something sensational to put out as the cause. We definitely care about drug deaths in this country wink. Feels like the main reasons you institute tariffs, historically, is to 1- control the production/flow of goods and 2- to raise money for other endeavors. As tariffs are a much more difficult form of taxation for a payer to track (they're not getting a bill the way they do on income/real estate taxes, it's being hidden in the cost of the good) they're also a great way to obfuscate "raising taxes" if you're running on a platform of, say "I'm going to institute the largest tax break in American history".
- robertlagrant 2y agoPeople voted for fewer drug deaths, and it looks as though the looming tariffs have stirred a drug-death-preventing response, which has paused the tariffs[0]. It seems as though people are getting what they voted for so far? [0] https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-discuss-tariffs-canadian-mexican-leaders-mexico-readies/story?id=118390520 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-discuss-tariffs-canadi...
- leptons 2y ago> As tariffs are a much more difficult form of taxation for a payer to track (they're not getting a bill the way they do on income/real estate taxes, it's being hidden in the cost of the good) Oh no, it's very easy. When I sell my product, I will be including the exact amount the buyer is paying above what is normal due to tariffs. The tariffs are very well expressed on the purchase price of the parts that go into the product, so it's very easy for me to add up the tariffs and tell the buyer how much more trump is demanding they pay for the product.
- mvdtnz 2y agoYou may not care about drug deaths, but many people do.
- sashank_1509 2y agoA bad comparison. Fentanyl deaths are fully avoidable, heart diseases have existed forever.
- BudaDude 2y agoThey are also for the most part avoidable
- lnxg33k1 2y agoIf you start to ban cigarettes, mcdonalds and similar, also many heart diseases can be avoided
- dboreham 2y ago[flagged]
- slothtrop 2y agoTobacco consumption has plummeted in the West and continues to. If anything it shows that sin taxes and messaging work. A ban leads to a black market and would be a gross overstep. Alcohol consumption has also fallen. For one we could stop subsidizing suspect products (e.g. HFCS) and create other incentives.
- bluGill 2y agoThere are things we can do that people are not doing. However plenty of people who do eat well and exercise die of heart diseases and we don't know how to stop that.
- culi 2y agoPoint taken, but archeologists and anthropologists have known for a while now that cardiovascular disease is virtually absent in non-industrial societies. And we also know there's a ton more that could be done to lessen how common heart disease is
- slothtrop 2y ago
- coderc 2y ago74,000 is the approximate number for just 2023. The number was even higher in 2022. It's not "just" 74,000 deaths.
- nomel 2y ago~180k from 2015-2022 [1]. If the fraction of fentanyl is similar for 2023 and 2024 [2], then the number would be over 300k (I don't see direct numbers for 2023 or 2024). [1] https://usafacts.org/articles/are-fentanyl-overdose-deaths-rising-in-the-us/ https://usafacts.org/articles/are-fentanyl-overdose-deaths-r... [2] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/overdose-deaths-are-finally-starting-to-decline-heres-why/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/overdose-deaths-a...
- Der_Einzige 2y agoBut that war (against metabolic syndrome) is already won because of Ozempic/Wegovy/Zepbound. Give it 20 years.
- ge96 2y agoIt seems bad to fix a problem that can be addressed by self control. It's like making a bulky un-aerodynamic car go farther by adding a bigger engine/more fuel. But I understand too when you're 100s of lbs overweight it can seem impossible to change. I work out myself but my motivation is to get laid vs. actually embracing health I still binge eat for fun. I think Ozempic doesn't have crazy side effects other than the face? Could be wrong Edit: Regarding the topic at hand, I either don't drink or binge drink so I'm no saint same with driving fast.
- Izikiel43 2y agoWhy are you assuming it can always be fixed by self control? Some people have complete bad standards for eating compared to a regular person, both in quantity and quality. The drugs help deal only with the quantity.
- ge96 2y agoYeah different approaches to a problem, drugs, physical changes (surgery to stomach size), maybe something like CBT. When I get bored I binge eat so I get it.
- bhaney 2y ago> It seems bad to fix a problem that can be addressed by self control. This argument applies similarly to the fentanyl crisis, since people could simply have the self control to not take fentanyl recreationally. Do you have a similar belief that the government shouldn't be trying to stop the mass import of fentanyl and other harmful drugs?
- ge96 2y agoSure if the drugs aren't there to begin with can't take em. But also depends where you are/who you associate with which again if you're in the bad areas probably exposed more to drugs/less hope of getting out having a better life. I guess I'm fortunate I've only ever been exposed to/try the weaker stuff.
- bhaney 2y agoIf we could put tariffs on heart disease we would
- gberger 2y agoWe can, though? A sugar tax.
- from-nibly 2y agoWe don't profit from fentanyl deaths.
- hammock 2y agoWe grow that at home. (Corn, soy and sugar) In fact the tariffs will help fund the farm bills.
- culi 2y agoUS agriculture is already arguably the most heavily subsidized in the world
- readthenotes1 2y agoWhy don't we ban automobiles since they cause 41,000 deaths per year?
- bluGill 2y agoA lot more people use automobiles. Hard drugs are used, but very few people use them, many have never tried them.
- michaelt 2y agoIf you think that's a surprise, consider the fact the US responded to 3000 deaths on September 11th with a 20 year, multi-trillion-dollar pair of wars that killed far more than 3000 people. It turns out there are a lot of concerns beyond than the number of bodies.
- jollyllama 2y agoWhat's the YLL stats on fent vs heart disease?
- scythe 2y agoGenerally we are more concerned when people die at 40 than at 80. The latter is considered "normal". There are a few ways that the epidemiologists try to quantify this notion — DALYs or QALYs. Fentanyl takes people young. And it's new. Those characteristics make it a serious concern.
- invalidOrTaken 2y agowait til you hear what they did in 2001!
- polotics 2y agoOne usually measures years of life-expectancy lost. Your heart attacks victims may well be 80 year old with 5 average years left, you need more than ten of those to account from one 20 year old incautious party girl...
- fngjdflmdflg 2y agoLast I looked at this (in a different context, a few years ago,) I read that most heart disease deaths are essentially natural deaths. Someone has to die from something and heart disease is one of those things. (Eating worse could perhaps be making people die earlier by one or two years on average.) Some data (not exactly the same I found last time, but seems to still be accurate as I recalled it): >About 82% of people who die of coronary heart disease are 65 or older[0] See also the CDC's list of deaths by cause by age group: For 65 years and over, Diseases of heart is ranked 1st (531,583 deaths in 2019). For 45–64 years, it is 1st in 1980 and second in 2019 (111,975). For 25–44 years it is 4th (13,994) and 15–24 years it is 5th (1,223 and 872 total deaths for 1980 and 2019 respectively).[1] I'm also pretty sure many (most?) drug overdoses manifest as cardiac arrest and are probably included in "Diseases of the heart:" >Drug overdose is a leading cause of cardiac arrest and is currently the second leading cause of overall injury-related fatality in the United States.[2] [0] https://memorialhermann.org/services/specialties/heart-and-vascular/healthy-living/education/heart-disease-and-age https://memorialhermann.org/services/specialties/heart-and-v... [1] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/2020-2021/LCODAge.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/2020-2021/LCODAge.pdf [2] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3399948/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3399948/
- inglor_cz 2y agoIf victims of Fentanyl die much younger than victims of heart disease, the total # of lost years of life can be of the same order. I remember reading that elimination of heart disease would increase life expectancy by some 5,5 years. Not nothing, but it indicates that most people die of heart disease at a relatively old age, when something else would kill them quite soon. OTOH if a Fentanyl victim loses 40 or 50 years of potential life, that is a major loss for society as a whole. Kids may not be born etc.
- dragonwriter 2y ago> If victims of Fentanyl die much younger than victims of heart disease, the total # of lost years of life can be of the same order. It can be even without that if you are looking at quality-adjusted life years and not just raw life years.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- binary132 2y agoIf killdrones were murdering 74,000 random Americans a year during their morning commute, you’d better believe people would be prioritizing it over heart failure.