[FruityCoconut]

“Nobody cares, because of who is affected”

My respect to the author for this careful and courageous article. Writing about the problems affecting working class white men in today's climate might warrant censure in some circles.

To the matter at hand, one of my concerns is that the Sackler family will enjoy long, peaceful lives. I hope justice intervenes.

[monoideism]

I agree with you about how taboo it is among a certain type of journalist to write about the considerable problems of poor and working class whites.

But in light of your comment about the Sackler family, I'll add another opinion that is unpopular these days: people with severe chronic pain deserve appropriate treatment. And they shouldn't be denied access to that treatment (like they are now) because addicts and corrupt doctors misused the product. Addicts deserve sympathy and compassionate treatment, but we shouldn't ban an entire class of useful medications because of the addicts' misuse (eg, we don't ban cars because some people drive drunk).

If you've never known serious chronic pain, all I can tell you is that it's a different world than the one I knew before I got sick.

[glangdale]

You've got to be kidding me. I don't think I've ever seen such a sudden wave of compassion for the victims of drug addiction in the US before the recent opioid epidemic - my jaw was on the floor seeing the number of politicians, including conservative ones, who started embracing the language of "sickness" rather than "moral failure" for drug addiction at this time. Compare and contrast the reportage on the crack epidemic.

To be clear, I'm not calling for a return to the bad old days, but it's in incredibly poor taste to pretend that there's some kind of conspiracy against "working class white men". Sure, we can weasel out with "in some circles" - I'm sure there's some nutter somewhere who thinks somehow this is all just desserts for being white or voting for Trump, etc. But that's a fringe viewpoint.

re Sackler family, although I wish them long, peaceful lives, I would like a considerable portion of those long, peaceful lives to be spent in some sort of Federal facility.