Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

In pandemic, drug overdose deaths soar among Black Americans
The Associated Press ^ | June 24, 2021 | by CLAIRE GALOFARO

Posted on 06/24/2021 3:15:28 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer

... The portrait of the opioid epidemic has long been painted as a rural white affliction, but the demographics have been shifting for years as deaths surged among Black Americans. The pandemic hastened the trend by further flooding the streets with fentanyl, a potent synthetic opioid, in communities with scant resources to deal with addiction.

In the city of St. Louis, deaths among Black people increased last year at three times the rate of white people, skyrocketing more than 33%. Black men in Missouri are now four times more likely than a white person to die of an overdose.

Dr. Kanika Turner, a local physician leading the charge to contain the crisis, describes the soaring death rate as a civil rights issue as pressing and profound as any other. The communities now being hit hardest are those already devastated by the war on drugs that demonized Black drug users, tore families apart and hollowed out neighborhoods by sending Black men to prison instead of treatment, she said. Even today, Black people in the United States are more likely to be in jail for drug crimes and less likely to access treatment.

Last year, George Floyd died in Minneapolis under a police officer’s knee. He had fentanyl in his system and some of the officer’s defenders tried to blame the drugs for his death. The world exploded in rage.

“That incident on top of the pandemic rocked the boat and shook all of us. It ripped the Band-Aid off a wound that has always been there,” said Turner, who grew in the same neighborhoods where Elazer lived, beset by addiction, poverty and one of the highest murder rates in America. “We’re undoing history of damage, history of trauma, history of racism.”

(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: blackculture; blacks; chat; culture; dissociatedpress; drugs; fentanyl; gangs; georgefloyd; getofftheplantation; journalism; notnews; overdose; press; victimculture
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-28 next last

1 posted on 06/24/2021 3:15:28 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: Oldeconomybuyer

<< describes the soaring death rate as a civil rights issue >>

Right, it’s never a cultural issue with these professional victims.


2 posted on 06/24/2021 3:18:41 AM PDT by Mr. Mojo
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Oldeconomybuyer

Perhaps not directly attributable to COVID-19 Wuhan virus, but certainly the response of humanity to the onslaught of the virus.

Can we also include the death of George Floyd as due to a drug overdose? That would exonerate Officer Chauvin as well.


3 posted on 06/24/2021 3:21:58 AM PDT by alloysteel ( Cows don't give milk. You have to work for it.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Oldeconomybuyer

My message to the black community — Go Fix Yourself.


4 posted on 06/24/2021 3:24:08 AM PDT by ClearCase_guy ("I see you did something -- why you so racist?")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ClearCase_guy

Wrong F word.


5 posted on 06/24/2021 3:26:59 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Oldeconomybuyer
The pandemic hastened the trend by further flooding the streets with fentanyl, …

Does that sentence make sense to any of you?

6 posted on 06/24/2021 3:28:10 AM PDT by gitmo (If your theology doesn't become your biography, what good is it?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Oldeconomybuyer

not good


7 posted on 06/24/2021 3:28:43 AM PDT by PGalt (Past Peak Civilization?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: gitmo

I get the impression that this journalist has been hiding in some cave for five years minimum.


8 posted on 06/24/2021 3:33:14 AM PDT by pepsionice
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: gitmo

Modern journalism strings words together to create some vague implication of cause and effect or other relationship. Most public school graduates never catch on that the sentences often make no sense. It’s a mind trick.


9 posted on 06/24/2021 3:33:22 AM PDT by ClearCase_guy ("I see you did something -- why you so racist?")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Mr. Mojo

I live in a rural Kentucky county, ground zero for opioid deaths. What about my neighbors’ civil rights, the rights they lost when the Uniparty opened up the opioid super highway across the border?


10 posted on 06/24/2021 3:36:16 AM PDT by hardspunned (former GOP globalist stooge)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Oldeconomybuyer
When the Ruling Establishment tells people of color that their country is systemically racist (i.e., offers them nothing but discouragement, failure, and pain), it encourages drug and alcohol use as a means of escaping or, at a minimum, numbing that reality.

This is THE side effect of getting Woke in America.

11 posted on 06/24/2021 3:36:49 AM PDT by RoosterRedux
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: gitmo
”The pandemic hastened the trend by further flooding the streets with fentanyl, …” Does that sentence make sense to any of you?

China sent us the virus and then they sent the fentanyl as a cure. So thoughtful, the Chicoms.

12 posted on 06/24/2021 3:39:28 AM PDT by Flag_This
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: gitmo
The pandemic hastened the trend by further flooding the streets with fentanyl, …

Does that sentence make sense to any of you?

--------------

Makes perfect sense to me. The Propaganda Media is lying about the cause of fentanyl flooding the streets, blaming it on a Scamdemic. Jao Bai-Din's criminal support of the invasion over our southern border has enabled his Communist Chinese masters to send their fentanyl shipments among the illegal aliens.

13 posted on 06/24/2021 3:52:52 AM PDT by T.B. Yoits
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Oldeconomybuyer

In pandemic, drug overdose deaths soar among Black Americans
Does include the covid vaccine? /s


14 posted on 06/24/2021 3:53:05 AM PDT by maddog55 (The only thing systemic in America is the left's hatred of it!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: gitmo; Oldeconomybuyer
Yeah, the whole article is BS.

Everything is racist against black people and everything bad that happens in the black community is Whitey's doing.

Only factual thing in the article is the fentanyl is coming from China.

Unrestricted Warfare.

15 posted on 06/24/2021 3:57:12 AM PDT by Eagles6 (Welcome to the Matrix circa 1984.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: central_va

Go Fix Yourself

…….I understand his meaning quite well, actually.

And as long as there is no LEO anywhere near , there can be no mistaking the cause of death. Fentanyl is not your friend.


16 posted on 06/24/2021 4:06:46 AM PDT by drSteve78 (Je suis deplorable. WE'RE NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: Oldeconomybuyer

Trump had brought back jobs for minorities. That made the democrats choke - they couldn’t let minorities get out of the plantation, and so they inflated the virus and shut down millions of businesses, putting them out of work.

Democrats are responsible for this.


17 posted on 06/24/2021 4:17:56 AM PDT by I want the USA back (The government is the biggest criminal of them all.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: gitmo
No, it doesn’t, unless they’re referring to the expanded use of drugs when folks were bored.

But this in communities with scant resources to deal with addiction. doesn’t make sense.

18 posted on 06/24/2021 5:26:15 AM PDT by NativeSon ( )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: ClearCase_guy

You spelled F**K wrong.


19 posted on 06/24/2021 5:30:16 AM PDT by DCBryan1 (Delete FB, TWTR, GOOGL, AMZN, YHOO, Gmail/chrome. Use Gab, Brave + DDG, VPN, Freerepublic )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: RoosterRedux
drug and alcohol use as a means of escaping or, at a minimum, numbing that reality

That's an unhelpful excuse used by druggies to take the heat off the real reason: they love getting ripped. It's all about the momentary pleasure, disregarding all the consequences that are certain to follow. They want to behave like psychopathic wild animals rather than civilized responsible adults. Buying into their well practiced lies just enables them.

20 posted on 06/24/2021 5:50:04 AM PDT by Reeses
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-28 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson