This country is so divided that we even seek to divide the drug addicts

[Horse with no Name]

I honestly am for providing healthcare for ALL addicts.
I don't think that only giving credence to "opioid addiction" as the only addiction that deserves help is credible.
Why can't we treat everyone who wants to be treated?
Why do some addicts get sympathy for their plight but some addicts are scorned and jailed?
Is it because this is basically a "white working class" issue?

[ismnotwasm]

1. What a social worker told me

Is one the factor is suburban kids getting into their parents oxy stash, getting addicted, turning 18 and turning to the street and to heroin with no street mentorship--they started dying.

The "opioid crisis" has been happening for a while. Can't say that it's worse than meth or alcohol or other addictions so your point is well taken.

[LonePirate]

2. I think you're very close with that last line of speculation.

I think the true answer is "white middle class" because "white working class" includes many poor people. Republican politicians like the ones in charge now will never do anything to help poor people regardless of color; but they will give lip service to helping white middle class people.

[Warpy]

3. Pill addicts have always considered themselves a cut above anyone

who uses powdered drugs in little envelopes, even when both are buying from the same dealer. It's a kind of denial that says they're using clean drugs (often organized crime knockoffs with horrible things in them) and that affords them the opportunity to look down their noses at anyone who doesn't use pills.

The division has always been there, I remember it in the late 60s.

However, yes, it has only been noticed now because white people who would be working class if there were any jobs around, are now engaged in the sale and use of opiates in pill form.

It wasn't a crisis for anybody else, I suppose they're expendable while white folks in "real America" need to be held in a clean and sober Utopia in case jobs come back.