Drugs Are Everywhere

Nick Welsh’s recent column about a family suing a rehab facility because their son overdosed under their care caught my attention. I have a very close relative, an addict, who was active in his addiction for over a decade and has recently been sober, for 18 months now. I asked him about the case and this was his response:

“The first thing I can think of is someone’s family suing McDonald’s because their obese loved one ate there all the time, and claiming that the dbl mcfatburger was the final straw that did their family member in. We all know how unhealthy fast food can be for you. Is McDonald’s liable? Shouldn’t the obese person hold some personal accountability? Same with addiction.

Yeah, sure, heroin dealers are far from a great social asset. And sure, they do sell poison. But ultimately I don’t find them liable. I don’t agree with giving drug dealers 10-20 years for Death by Delivery charges. I don’t agree with holding them liable for someone’s death. They provide a service, an illicit one, but they are just a middleman ultimately. If our government wants to play righteous, how about bucking up and shutting down the narc market instead of openly funding it.

Should the parents be able to sue the facility? I say, sure, go for it. But I wouldn’t give them a dime. Drugs are literally everywhere. Rehabs. Prisons. Jails. Everywhere. Trying to hold a facility accountable is misplaced. An addict will find any way possible to us if they want to. No one, nothing would stop them. There is nothing more important to an addict than that drug. It is why addiction is so very destructive.

No drug dealer wants to kill their clientele. In fact, 95 percent of drug dealers are just trying to pay the bills or are users themselves supporting their own habit. I’ve always laughed at the thought of drug dealers making their drugs lethal on purpose Drug dealers want one thing: Money. Killing people is counterproductive.

Many addicts seek fentanyl. They want to most potent shit they can get their hands on, and trust me, many dealers won’t even sell that shit to you if they think you’re gonna kill yourself with it. You think they want that headache? Wondering if the addict deletes their text messages or any trace back to them? Dealers hate how lethal the shit is now because it complicates business. Heroin was safe, more or less. Fentanyl has been a huge monkey wrench. You can buy pounds of the shit in Philadelphia for fractions of the price of actual heroin.

So ask yourself: How, within the last five or so years, has so much of this lab-synthesized opiate become available to the street gangsters in Philly? Our government knows. We have satellites that can read your newspaper as you look at it on your own front lawn. But we can’t figure out how tons and tons and tons of this lab-made drug is coming into the country? I don’t buy it for a second.

The only responsibility a drug dealer has is to sell what he says he’s selling. The rest of the responsibility lies with the addict.