Pubdate: Sat, 06 Feb 2016
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2016 The Washington Post Company
Contact:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v16/n063/a03.html
Author: David Simpson

WHEN THE WHO OF DRUG ABUSE SKEWS THE RESPONSE TO IT

As a middle-age white man of comfortable means and right-of-center 
views on many issues, Imay have been oblivious to certain things 
longer than others. Recent headlines make it impossible to ignore 
disparities, however.

An armed man in open revolt against the law of the land is killed by 
law enforcement officials ["Bundy patriarch shows no regrets," 
Politics & The Nation, Feb. 1]. There is hand-wringing and second 
guessing, even though his death occurs only after a month of 
confrontation and not-very-veiled threats. Contrast this with the 
deaths of unarmed African American males whose fates are decided by 
police officers in a matter of seconds.

Presidential candidates campaigning in the rural Northeast express 
sympathy for the plight of drug addicts and profess an eagerness to 
provide treatment ["Congress jumping on opioid-abuse crisis," The Fed 
Page, Feb. 1]. Drug abuse among white Americans in small towns is a 
public-health emergency. But drug abuse among minority populations 
was a crime addressed by filling the prisons with hundreds of 
thousands of nonviolent offenders.

It is a terrible thing that anyone dies needlessly. It is a terrible 
thing that lives are ruined by drugs. It's an even more terrible 
thing, though, that we seem to decide how terrible these things are 
based on whom they're happening to.

David Simpson, Vienna
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom