Heroin, opioids have become a ‘disease’ thanks to white people

You know, if it weren’t for white people, I don’t think Gov. Chris Christie is in Washington, D.C. the other day, heading up a commission dedicated to eradicating the heroin and opioid problem facing America.

I mean, we now call heroin addiction a “disease.” Just like booze, another white man’s pleasure.

I don’t remember anyone referring to crack addicts in America’s inner cities in the 1980s as people suffering from a “disease.” They were just addicts. And heck, back then, when heroin wasn’t en vogue, people who used were simply called junkies.

Today, though? Different story. Deaths related to heroin and opioid abuse have been skyrocketing in America, and the one group of people who have seen the greatest rise is white people.

Per 100,000 population, 22 whites died last year from heroin or opioid overdose, compared to (roughly) 10 African-Americans and five Hispanics, this according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

Why has heroin become a predominantly white person problem? Who knows, but at least one researcher believes it’s because doctors are less likely to prescribe opioids to people of color for fear they will either get addicted or sell them. So in a very real way, racism has saved minorities from the worst of the problem, according to this study done by Dr. Andrew Kolodny of the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University.

In the end, though, it doesn’t really matter. It’s a problem. Is there anyone out there who doesn’t know someone who’s addicted, was addicted, or dead from addiction? I have plenty of those people in my world, I can tell you that.

And as we say today, as Christie himself says, these people are suffering from the “disease” of addiction. Yeah. About that. From Merriam-Webster: “Disease: a condition of the living animal or plant body or of one of its parts that impairs normal functioning and is typically manifested by distinguishing signs and symptoms.”

I have to say it: To my ears, drug addiction is not a disease; it’s a just an addiction. It has to be. Otherwise every addiction becomes a disease. Is baseball card collecting a disease? Is eating french fries every day a disease? The list goes on.

While I feel bad for people who either become addicted or who are touched by addiction — and there but for the grace of God go I— I can’t call it a disease. Cancer, now that’s a disease. Heart problems, a disease. ALS, a disease. Somebody who willfully decides to put heroin into their body? Not a disease. It’s not like it’s a big secret that heroin is addictive.

Having said all that, the next definition of disease does capture the issue: “a harmful development (as in a social institution)”.

In that regard, we are all suffering from the disease of heroin and opioid addiction. It needs to stop. How to do so? I don’t have the answer, and that scares me. I’m glad to see politicians taking it seriously, I’m glad to see laws passed that limit what doctors can prescribe, I’m glad to see an effort is underway.

If it’s because white people are addicted, so be it. If it means we call it a disease, so be it.

I’ve got kids. They’ll be teenagers before too long. I don’t want them to have to make choices about whether or not to try heroin. I want to see it gone.

(OK fine, I have an answer: Legalize it short-term, let all the addicts safely crawl out from under their rocks, get them treatment, death penalty for anyone caught dealing off the books. As for the opioids, they should be prescribed as last resort for people who truly need them, and they should be monitored a lot closer than they are now.)

Needles litter the ground along train tracks in the city of Philadelphia’s largest open air drug market in the Kensington section of the city’s. largest open air drug market.