John Cole digests the striking report by the WaPo of how parts of the country were flooded with prescription narcotics. They found that 76 billion pills (billion with a "b") were distributed over a six year period from 2006-12.
The map at the bottom of the post shows the saturation points for the pills. Cole notes - and I have to agree with him - that we simply addressed poverty by doping up the working poor. Notice, for instance, how few pills per person were being distributed in Arizona and Florida. Are you telling me that those aging populations aren't in pain? Or maybe Medicare took better note of how opiods were being distributed? Or maybe they just decided to flood Appalachia with mind numbing narcotics in lieu of actually helping those communities?
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