[_game_of_life]

>"Perhaps the best defense against epidemics like this one lies in choosing to look more closely and more sympathetically at the people in those hoods—to put a higher priority on community than we’ve done in recent years. America has made itself more vulnerable to scourges, even as those scourges grow more potent. But scourges are also an opportunity: They call on us to reexamine how we live. Until we begin to look out for the most vulnerable among us, there’s no reason to expect them to abate."

That's a great quote. When I worked at a harm reduction site (pre pandemic), I also noticed the meth users seemed to be deteriorating more rapidly than usual, and this was in Canada.

Whatever the solution to this problem is, I worry something has become broken in our societies. You can even see it in this thread, with people quoting a goddamned podcaster (Joe Rogan) and spreading a ton of misinformation about addiction (eg. disputing that addiction is strongly linked to socio-economic status).

Google scholar exists and this crowd is supposed to be educated. This quote from the article says it better than I could:

>"Crystal meth is in some ways a metaphor for our times—times of anomie and isolation, of paranoia and delusion, of communities coming apart. Meth is not responsible for these much wider social problems, of course. But the meth epidemic is symptomatic of them, and also contributes to them."

[xendo]

Rogan already discussed the problem of homelessness with several experts, and the topic is something he cares a lot about. I wouldn’t dissmiss his opinions basen on the fact that he is „goddamn podcaster”. I don’t think he ever disputed that there is correlation between socio-economic status and addition. What he however questioned is the idea that giving addicted money and housing will solve the problem. San Franciso spends more money than any other city and gets the worst outcome so it seems he may have a point after all.