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I caught a snippet of this on @NPR this morning, and was immediately disappointed. This sort of framing is irresponsible. Here’s the hook: the pandemic is causing a rise in overdose deaths (obv true) partially because people have unemployment money (!!!). https://www.npr.org/2021/01/26/960492035/deaths-of-despair-how-the-pandemic-may-be-fueling-lethal-drug-overdoses?utm_campaign=storyshare&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social
https://www.npr.org/2021/01/26/960492035/deaths-of-despair-how-the-pandemic-may-be-fueling-lethal-drug-overdoses?utm_campaign=storyshare&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social
From an overdose story: "He was lonely. He was depressed. He didn't have a reason any more to get up and keep going. And then, all this money flows in because of unemployment. So you're isolated, you have lots of money, and your coping skill has always been drug use."
The focus on the money here is wild. The idea seems to be that stimulus differentiates the current recession from others in which OD mortality didn’t increase. But you know what else is different? EVERYTHING. Because fucking COVID. It’s a recession defined by isolation.
And if you ever actually talk to people who use drugs, you’ll quickly learn that when they want to use drugs, they typically find a way to pay for it. That’s the hustle. What money actually does is allow people who use drugs to eat and pay rent—things that may drug use *safer*.
So there’s a formal problem with this argument, since the conclusion simply isn’t justified. But there’s also a serious *moral* problem with this frame, since it seems to suggest a policy solution: don’t give increased unemployment, since people will use it on drugs.
That’s some seriously stigmatizing shit. And it’s precisely the kind of thing that politicians will pick up—whether because they believe it, or because it serves their ends—and wield as a weapon against poor people.
Giving struggling people (during a pandemic!) money doesn’t cause overdose. We know plenty of what leads people to use drugs and plenty about what factors lead drugs to be more deadly. This analysis overlooks both and is dangerously misleading.
