The opioid crisis has reached a scary new level.
There's been a sea change in this country in how we think and talk about drug addiction. The shift was on heart-wrenching display this month in the testimony of George Floyd's girlfriend, Courteney Ross, at the trial of Derek Chauvin, the former police officer charged with murdering Floyd last May. |
"Our story, it's a classic story of how many people get addicted to opioids," said Ross. "We both suffered from chronic pain. Mine was in my neck and his was in his back." She said that she and Floyd "got addicted and tried really hard to break that addiction many times." |
She described a quotidian horror that's become relatable to so many that Chauvin's defense team knew it had to tread delicately. As the lawyers for the Floyd family said in a statement on the day of Ross's testimony, "Tens of thousands of Americans struggle with self-medication and opioid abuse and are treated with dignity, respect and support, not brutality." |
One of President Biden's best moments on the campaign trail — and one of former President Donald Trump's lowest — came when Trump cruelly mocked Hunter Biden during the first presidential debate, to which his father replied: "My son, like a lot of people, like a lot of people you know at home, had a drug problem. He's overtaken it. He's fixed it. He's worked on it, and I'm proud of him. I'm proud of my son." |
Like a lot of people you know at home. |
This morning I wrote about a lot of the people I know at home. Some of my friends, in a suburb of Philadelphia, fought hard against addiction but didn't make it. |
I graduated from high school 10 years ago, and so many of my classmates have passed away from overdosing that I'm starting to lose track. While the country has been focused on the Covid crisis, it feels like this other older crisis has reached a scary new level. |
At 28, I'm firmly of generation opioid, molded by it and used to it. One part of the story that gets caught in my throat is what it does to the mothers. Sometimes it's hard to know what's more upsetting: the death of a friend, or watching what it does to the woman who raised him. |
Here's what we're focusing on today: |
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