Too many people see drug addiction as a moral failing rather than a sickness that can be treated. Since Nixon started the War on Drugs to lock up as many black voters as possible, we have spent billions upon billions to no effect. That money has served to split many black families because black drug users are targeted over white ones, and many more black people are in jail for drug use.
We have enriched the Mexican drug cartels beyond belief to supply the illegal drug market while not policing big pharmaceutical companies that supplied legal drugs to create generations of opioid addicts. And we are still spending that money today, essentially throwing it to rich people instead of legalizing drugs and putting the money into treatment programs. One would think that we would have learned from the utter failure of Prohibition that the government trying to regulate what people see as moral behavior is useless and only leads to worse outcomes.
Not only do we not learn, though, we’re doing it again with abortion because the right wants the government to regulate women’s moral behavior and punish them for what they see as immorality. Abortion in some areas will be sent underground, especially in poor communities where women have few choices. Many of them will not be able to spend days traveling to another state for an abortion because they lack the money, can’t take the time off work, or have no one to take care of the kids they already have. Such women are also less likely to have access to the Internet to order abortion pills.
The cruelty toward fellow humans of many in this country never ceases to disgust me. So many of them claim that they love God and God loves us all, and in the next breath they purposely condemn some to death or to lives of poverty and misery. We as a country embrace violence and cruelty, and I blame much of that on white supremacy and privilege.
= new reply since forum marked as read