“There is a tendency, among those lucky enough to not be personally affected, to speak about the opioid epidemic in sweeping cultural and political language, declaring it a symptom of all that ails the country. People invoke shuttered factories and jobless towns, turning nationwide addiction to a deadly chemical into another front in the culture wars.”
“Opioid addiction isn’t a metaphor for the ills of modern life. It is not a medieval morality play. It is an affliction that leads to real people — about 42,000 a year in the US — dying because of the brutal biochemistry of the drugs they’re addicted to: the opioid compounds found in painkillers, heroin, and fentanyl.”