Remember this?
Washington’s 2-year experiment under new drug possession law
The legislative “fix” to Washington state’s drug possession laws takes effect once Governor Jay Inslee signs it. That new law makes simple drug possession a misdemeanor, and funds development of a statewide framework for treatment and recovery.
and
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Late last year, prosecutors in King County, which encompasses Seattle, and neighboring Snohomish County became the first in the nation to stop charging people for possessing small amounts of drugs — heroin, meth and crack included — in virtually all cases.
Seattle also decriminalized all psychadelics, and, being a sanctuary city, they refuse to go after illegal aliens and all the drug running they do. Plus, the whole defund the police movement has caused police officers to take a more hands off approach. So, here’s what you end with
In Seattle, the ‘shadow epidemic’ has passed COVID
COVID-19 isn’t done with Seattle and King County. But after a three-year run, it’s not the top emerging health scourge anymore. The coronavirus has been officially displaced.
Drug overdoses are now killing more people than COVID.
It started to happen last summer, in August, when more than 25 people died from drugs in a week, mostly from ingesting fentanyl, county records show. In the fall, drugs firmly dethroned COVID, when 339 people died during the quarter — nearly four per day, 70% more than were dying from COVID.
As of Friday, 100 people have already died in 2023 from drug overdoses countywide. Forty-three have died of COVID.
Drugs now are overwhelming the system, in some of the same ways that we all worked to prevent by wearing masks and socially distancing during coronavirus waves.
“A key indication of just how bad things are at the end of 2022 and likely to get worse [in] 2023, the medical examiner’s office is now struggling with the issue of storing bodies because the fentanyl-related death toll continues to climb,” Public Health Director Dr. Faisal Khan, a medical epidemiologist, said at a health board meeting this month.
Great job, hyper-leftist city of Seattle. Not too mention Democrats like Joe Biden, who has left the border wide open for serious drugs, including fentanyl, to stream in. Will this be coming to other Democratic Party run cities across the nation?
Sounds like a self-draining gene pool.
Every drug consumer is a drug dealer enabler.
End Washington state’s drug war by having drug dealers and politicians smoke a Peace Pipe fulla Fentanyl.
Surprise Teach!! Drug overdose per Capita death rates are now higher in rural counties than urban areas in North Carolin
National Center for Health Statistics
March 17, 2021
Currently the state with the
highest per Capita opioid drug overdose rate is West Virginia.
Washington state is not in the top 10
Mr H is actually right this time: drug abuse has skyrocketed in rural Appalachia.
Kentucky has a huge number of children being reared by their grandparents because the parents are too f(ornicated) up on drugs to care for their kids, or are in jail due to drugs.
I’ve said it before: if God came down, tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Dana, you can have my power to do one thing, and one thing only,” I wouldn’t hesitate: I’d use that power to make the human brain immune to recreational drugs and alcohol. That would solve almost every other problem we have.
Hey now! Let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water!
Yes, and the 10 lowest per capita states are all red states
It’s true! As of 2020, the 10 lowest death rates from drug overdoses in order are SD (lowest), NE, TX, IA, MT, ND, ID, KS, WY, Georgia (now purple).
The ten highest in order are CT, ME, PA, LA, MD, TN, OH, DE, KY, WV (highest). West Virginia stands alone having nearly twice as many deaths per capita as the next worst, Kentucky.
The contiguous northern states of Appalachia – TN, KY, WV, PA, OH – are the most affected.
Drug overdose mortality is a problem in both urban and rural areas. The recent introduction of fentanyl (it’s cheaper and 50-100 times more potent than heroin/morphine) is the main culprit. And since fentanyl binds more tightly to the opioid receptors it is harder to displace with Narcan. Opioids are responsible for some 70% of the nearly 100,000 fatal overdoses a year.
Fentanyl mainly originates in Chinese factories which produce fentanyl or fentanyl precursors; it is then trafficked to other countries. In the United States, finished fentanyl arrives primarily from Mexico smuggled by cartels, direct shipments from China into the US and through Canada.
My nephew is a fireman/EMT in eastern Kentucky, and he has told me, many times, that the majority of the ambulance calls on which he has gone are drug calls.
One point many don’t consider about the high overdose death rates in Appalachia is the relatively sparse ambulance service, the winding, two-lane roads, and the distance to hospitals. Lee and Owsley counties are contiguous, and neither one has a hospital. The closest hospital is in Estill County, and it’s a small facility; more serious cases have to be transported to Richmond or Lexington. An OD in Lexington can be treated quickly, at any of several emergency rooms; an OD in Lee County means an ambulance ride of 30 to 45 minutes.
Foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy Philadelphia has been debating a ‘safe’ injection center, but, [insert slang term for the anus here] that I am, I ask the obvious question: do we really want to save the lives of junkies who are nothing more than a drag on society, and who will continue to consume emergency resources?
Junkies who are saved will continue to shoot up, continue to waste resources, continue to commit crimes to finance their habits, continue to need ambulance calls and emergency room services. While they may not actually intend to commit suicide, is it really that wise an idea to save someone from suicide?
Yes, that’s pretty hard-ass, but at a certain point we have to admit that some things are just lost causes.
That is a pretty hard attitude to take. Some religions still believe that we ARE indeed our brothers’ keepers and that we all bear some responsibility for their well-being. The Calvinist in me reminds me of universal depravity and that it is not just the junkies who are not worth saving. The comments on various places like Yahoo remind me that democrats would still like to euthanize anyone who ever supported Trump as a “drain on society”. Fortunately for us all, we have a constitution that limits the powers of government so that 51% temporary majority never has the power to kill off the 49%. History has shown that when that 51+% is Christian, this system works pretty well and all are tolerated and permitted to thrive. We have lots of examples of countries run by militant atheists where the results are strikingly different. Even atheists living here should agree that living in a dominantly Christian nation is a pretty sweet deal for them.
I do suspect a lot of deaths from all causes are related to how long it takes to get to competent medical treatment. In places like California, emergency rooms are overrun by Illegal migrants so even if you are already in the waiting room when you have a heart attack or stroke, you are probably still going to die before anyone notices and can help you.
Mr Dana points out a problem that exists in most of rural America and appears to be worsening. In Missouri rural hospitals are closing. Rural Americans are underserved.
Many of the same problems afflicting urban ghettoes are also found in rural America – residents tend to be older and suffer from poverty, unemployment, lack of education and fewer social resources. In some ways, rural citizens have it worse. Grocery stores, clinics, pharmacies, fire and police protections, doctors, state-of-the-art medical equipment, even internet access (although Missouri just approved four poor rural counties in SE MO for Rescue Act funds for internet) are few and far between.
A good friend of mine, a farmer in Missouri’s poorest county, doesn’t have a service station or store within ten miles, and the nearest supermarket and also acute care hospital is 25 mi north. He had to travel 115 mi north to St Louis multiple times for cancer chemo and bypass surgery.
We need to do better for a rural neighbors.
That’s out of date by two years. Try again moron..
Perhaps you could supply the up-to-date information rather than just slurring others.
Perhaps you could do your own due diligence before spouting your up-to-date ignorance.
Thanks Chubby.
#TrustUs
#LetsGoBrandon
Bwaha! Lolgfy
Not out-of-date by too much. While the 2021 figures might be out, 2022 just ended, and I doubt that anyone will find reliable numbers for that year.
Commenter:
Silly nonsense. We suspect many conservatives agree that drug addicts should just be allowed to die.
Commenter:
Are there examples where this is untrue? Jews in Nazi Germany may take issue. Victims of the Roman, Spanish and Portugal Inquisitions too! Much of sub-Saharan Africa is over 90% Christian – Rwanda, Democratic Republic of Congo, Namibia, Gabon, Uganda, Ethiopia, and much of South and Central America, Brazil, Mexico, Venezuela, Nicaragua etc. One gets the idea.
On the other hand, Japan, Nepal and Israel have hardly ANY Christians. And many advanced nations have a clear minority of Christians – Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and the UK.
Christians in the secular US fare pretty well.
You mean they didn’t die of climate change, but drugs? This can’t be…