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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 8, 2024

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I feel bad for feeling this way, but I have a weird feeling about Narcan for precisely this reason. It's pretty clear there's a large group of opioid users who hate their lives, hate their existence, find extreme painkillers and euphoriants necessary to carry on, and find absolutely no reason in living a life free from their drug addiction. They become a burden to themselves and their families, sometimes resorting to theft or even killing for pennies to buy fentanyl. After years -- years! -- of desensitization, they can take even large quantities of the hyper-potent fentanyl. And then you find them lying on the floor in a mall bathroom after years of this self-destruction, overdosed on their powder of joy and headed straight for escape from this quintessence of dust.

I think we need to do what we can to prevent people becoming opioid addicts and to help people who aren't too far gone. But more and more I see these stories of people who obviously don't want to live being brought back to the life they don't want with Narcan, and I feel bad for them. Their behavior has pretty clearly demonstrated what they want and yet we insist on holding them to the life they so profoundly despise.

I don't know why Americans love drugs so much. No other country deals with this like we do. But on this issue I'd say the moment Narcan becomes involved we've already failed many times. We've got to fix the reasons why people come to hate their lives so much they want to escape by any means necessary.

But once they've decided they hate existence so much they'll risk death to feel relief, maybe they're too far gone to save them and what we're saving is a shell of a person filled to the tippy-top with white powder.

I think we should allow 2-days a year for people to use heroin. Every other day during the year it is banned and punishable by death.

I’ve heard it’s an amazing feeling before your addicted. Everyone gets high once a year and enjoys it. The rest of the year access is impossible so no addiction.

Legal tolerance breaks. I like it.