3 ms·

Not entirely baseless - opioid ODs (a good chunk of them from fentanyl) kill 100K+ Americans every year. About time someone did something with that. Why Biden d

by ein0p 2y ago

Not entirely baseless - opioid ODs (a good chunk of them from fentanyl) kill 100K+ Americans every year. About time someone did something with that. Why Biden didn't do anything about it is a mystery - it's a slam dunk issue that'd poll really well.

qwertox 2y ago
It simply isn't a weapon of mass destruction. You can bend and twist it any way you like, it simply is not. Just to ground you a little bit: > Facts About U.S. Deaths from Excessive Alcohol Use: About 178,000 people die from excessive drinking each year. https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/facts-stats/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/facts-stats/index.html
- dzhiurgis 2y ago
  Come on, this is false equivalence. How many die from a glass of wine that has 1000x more alcohol than lethal dose? How many get intoxicated just by touching a beer bottle itself? I get where you are going with this tho - decriminalized free access to drugs would be far cheaper and safer for most.
  - farrarstan 2y ago
    [dead]
bigfatkitten 2y ago
Tobacco kills around 480,000 but you don't see that on the WMD list. That's because this has nothing to do with mortality; it's all about political expedience. https://archive.cdc.gov/www_cdc_gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/health_effects/tobacco_related_mortality/index.htm https://archive.cdc.gov/www_cdc_gov/tobacco/data_statistics/...
- dzhiurgis 2y ago
  You can't OD on tobacco. Your drink can't be spiked-to-death by a cigarette. The reason I avoid America isn't fucked up border search or lack of freedom of speech for visitors or armed MAGA-heads. It's the disgusting and dangerous streets and crime everywhere.
  - ein0p 2y ago
    Technically you can OD on tobacco, too. It's just that it never happens. So stats include all sorts of "tobacco deaths". Got emphysema? Tobacco death. Got lung cancer? Tobacco death. COPD or heart disease? You've guessed it, as long as you smoke, everything is a "tobacco death". And look, I'm not saying that tobacco is not harmful, it is. I'm saying that if we're going to compare the numbers we need to understand what we're comparing.
  - jmye 2y ago
    > It's the disgusting and dangerous streets and crime everywhere. You should avoid Australia, too - those drop bears are just as likely to get you as “all the crime everywhere” in the US.
codingdave 2y ago
FYI, here is an entire page detailing what Biden did about it: https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/ondcp/the-administrations-strategy/biden-harris-administration-actions-to-address-the-overdose-epidemic/ https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/ondcp/the-administratio...
anigbrowl 2y ago
Biden threw $80 billion at the problem, in a mix of harm reduction and interdiction policies, and sought Congressional help on other proposals. https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/07/31/fact-sheet-biden-%E2%81%A0harris-administration-announces-new-actions-to-counter-the-scourge-of-fentanyl-and-other-synthetic-drugs/ https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefing-room/statement... His problem was that he kept things in perspective, worked through existing institutional infrastructure, and sought legislative authority, as opposed to proclaiming himself to be Zeus and hurling thunderbolts in random directions.
- morkalork 2y ago
  Zeus comparison is oddly apt, not just the hurtling random thunderbolts but also the inability to keep it in his pants..
defrost 2y ago
Trump appears to have put the substantial amount work done by the Biden administration in the toilet. In 2021, Mr. Biden issued an executive order imposing sanctions on individuals and companies engaged in the illicit opioid trade. His Treasury Department put sanctions on more than 300 individuals and entities, freezing entire networks of fentanyl suppliers and traffickers out of the international financial system. In 2023 and 2024 he identified China as a major illicit drug-producing country for its role in the synthetic opioid trade — a blow to the reputation of China’s chemical industry. Simultaneously, the Biden administration pushed U.S. law enforcement agencies to conduct aggressive investigations and build indictments against dozens of Chinese citizens and companies that were trafficking fentanyl precursor chemicals into the United States. [..] Biden secured a personal commitment from President Xi Jinping to restart counternarcotics cooperation in November 2023 [..] And we made progress. International fentanyl supply chains showed signs of disruption, forcing traffickers to change sources and tactics. Together with other diplomatic initiatives and an expansive public health campaign, the number of lethal fentanyl overdoses in the United States has dropped. In the 12 months ending September 2024, overdose deaths were down an estimated 24 percent from the year prior. Thousands of American lives have been saved. Now, of course, China no longer wants to play ball with the US chasing down the traffickers thanks to Trump and his tariffs. ~ https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/18/opinion/trump-china-trade-war.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/18/opinion/trump-china-trade...
- ein0p 2y ago
  That's all wonderful, but we still had 107K people die of OD last year. In part because Biden let everyone in from Mexico.
  - defrost 2y ago
    In reality Biden did more about overdoses than Trump did - the rapid increase in overdoses occurred firmly within the first Trump term, and only slowed and levelled out in response to Biden policy changes. The raw CDC stats tell the story. The age-adjusted rate of drug overdose deaths did not significantly increase from 2021 (32.4) to 2022 (32.6). In contrast, rates have significantly increased in most previous years. From 2019 to 2020, the drug overdose death rate increased 31.0% from 21.6 to 28.3, which was the largest annual increase over the period 2002–2022. ~ https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/135849 https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/135849

by ein0p 2y ago

qwertox 2y ago

It simply isn't a weapon of mass destruction. You can bend and twist it any way you like, it simply is not. Just to ground you a little bit: > Facts About U.S. Deaths from Excessive Alcohol Use: About 178,000 people die from excessive drinking each year. https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/facts-stats/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/facts-stats/index.html

dzhiurgis 2y ago
Come on, this is false equivalence. How many die from a glass of wine that has 1000x more alcohol than lethal dose? How many get intoxicated just by touching a beer bottle itself? I get where you are going with this tho - decriminalized free access to drugs would be far cheaper and safer for most.
- farrarstan 2y ago
  [dead]

bigfatkitten 2y ago

Tobacco kills around 480,000 but you don't see that on the WMD list. That's because this has nothing to do with mortality; it's all about political expedience. https://archive.cdc.gov/www_cdc_gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/health_effects/tobacco_related_mortality/index.htm https://archive.cdc.gov/www_cdc_gov/tobacco/data_statistics/...

dzhiurgis 2y ago
You can't OD on tobacco. Your drink can't be spiked-to-death by a cigarette. The reason I avoid America isn't fucked up border search or lack of freedom of speech for visitors or armed MAGA-heads. It's the disgusting and dangerous streets and crime everywhere.
- ein0p 2y ago
  Technically you can OD on tobacco, too. It's just that it never happens. So stats include all sorts of "tobacco deaths". Got emphysema? Tobacco death. Got lung cancer? Tobacco death. COPD or heart disease? You've guessed it, as long as you smoke, everything is a "tobacco death". And look, I'm not saying that tobacco is not harmful, it is. I'm saying that if we're going to compare the numbers we need to understand what we're comparing.
- jmye 2y ago
  > It's the disgusting and dangerous streets and crime everywhere. You should avoid Australia, too - those drop bears are just as likely to get you as “all the crime everywhere” in the US.

codingdave 2y ago

FYI, here is an entire page detailing what Biden did about it: https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/ondcp/the-administrations-strategy/biden-harris-administration-actions-to-address-the-overdose-epidemic/ https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/ondcp/the-administratio...

anigbrowl 2y ago

Biden threw $80 billion at the problem, in a mix of harm reduction and interdiction policies, and sought Congressional help on other proposals. https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/07/31/fact-sheet-biden-%E2%81%A0harris-administration-announces-new-actions-to-counter-the-scourge-of-fentanyl-and-other-synthetic-drugs/ https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefing-room/statement... His problem was that he kept things in perspective, worked through existing institutional infrastructure, and sought legislative authority, as opposed to proclaiming himself to be Zeus and hurling thunderbolts in random directions.

morkalork 2y ago
Zeus comparison is oddly apt, not just the hurtling random thunderbolts but also the inability to keep it in his pants..

defrost 2y ago

Trump appears to have put the substantial amount work done by the Biden administration in the toilet. In 2021, Mr. Biden issued an executive order imposing sanctions on individuals and companies engaged in the illicit opioid trade. His Treasury Department put sanctions on more than 300 individuals and entities, freezing entire networks of fentanyl suppliers and traffickers out of the international financial system. In 2023 and 2024 he identified China as a major illicit drug-producing country for its role in the synthetic opioid trade — a blow to the reputation of China’s chemical industry. Simultaneously, the Biden administration pushed U.S. law enforcement agencies to conduct aggressive investigations and build indictments against dozens of Chinese citizens and companies that were trafficking fentanyl precursor chemicals into the United States. [..] Biden secured a personal commitment from President Xi Jinping to restart counternarcotics cooperation in November 2023 [..] And we made progress. International fentanyl supply chains showed signs of disruption, forcing traffickers to change sources and tactics. Together with other diplomatic initiatives and an expansive public health campaign, the number of lethal fentanyl overdoses in the United States has dropped. In the 12 months ending September 2024, overdose deaths were down an estimated 24 percent from the year prior. Thousands of American lives have been saved. Now, of course, China no longer wants to play ball with the US chasing down the traffickers thanks to Trump and his tariffs. ~ https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/18/opinion/trump-china-trade-war.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/18/opinion/trump-china-trade...

ein0p 2y ago
That's all wonderful, but we still had 107K people die of OD last year. In part because Biden let everyone in from Mexico.
- defrost 2y ago
  In reality Biden did more about overdoses than Trump did - the rapid increase in overdoses occurred firmly within the first Trump term, and only slowed and levelled out in response to Biden policy changes. The raw CDC stats tell the story. The age-adjusted rate of drug overdose deaths did not significantly increase from 2021 (32.4) to 2022 (32.6). In contrast, rates have significantly increased in most previous years. From 2019 to 2020, the drug overdose death rate increased 31.0% from 21.6 to 28.3, which was the largest annual increase over the period 2002–2022. ~ https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/135849 https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/135849