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Yep, you guessed it! Donald Trump's solution to the drug crisis in America is to institute a death penalty for drug dealers. Hey, it's how they do it in China, right, so why not here? ("President Xi in China controls 1.4 billion people, with an iron hand, no drug problems, you know why they have no drug problems? Death penalty for the drug dealers.") Of course, as president, The Donald was all too literally a drug dealer of sorts. During the Covid crisis, he repeatedly recommended that people use hydroxychloroquine, which, in studies, showed no benefits for Covid (as even members of his administration made clear), while possibly increasing the number of deaths.
Thought about a certain way, though, Donald Trump is himself both a drug dealer and distinctly an addictive drug. People don't just support him. They're addicted to him. As James Kammel, Jr., a lecturer in psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine, suggested years ago, Trump's fixation on his grievances and his ways of exacting retribution for them fit well with "the hallmark of addiction" compulsive behavior despite harmful consequences."
Worse yet, for his followers, he could be considered a drug of choice -- and it does seem that, once you start down his path, it's very hard to stop. So, as the 2024 election approaches and in the context of today's piece by TomDispatch regulars Mattea Kramer and Sean Fogler, it might be worth thinking about how, in the kindest fashion imaginable, to reach out to Trumpfan(atic)s and help those who have taken the drug Trumpocotin deal with both its dangerous highs (and lows). While thinking about Donald Trump as a drug, let Kramer and Fogler offer you some distinctly up close and personal thoughts on this country and drugs, both how those who take addictive ones are dealt with and how they should be handled. Tom
When in Doubt, Strip Search and Restrain the Unwell
"Helping" People by Shaming Them -- and Canceling Their Civil Rights
By Mattea Kramer and Sean Fogler
Amid ongoing emergencies, including a would-be autocrat on his way to possibly regaining the American presidency and Israel's war on Gaza (not to mention the flare-ups of global climate change), the U.S. has slipped quietly toward an assault on civil liberties as an answer to plummeting mental health. From coast to coast, state lawmakers of both parties are reaching for coercive treatment and involuntary commitment to address spiraling substance use and overdose crises -- an approach that will only escalate despair and multiply otherwise preventable deaths while helping to choke the life out of America.
In December, we wrote about how loneliness has become a public-health crisis, according to the Surgeon General, and the ways in which it drives widespread substance use. We reach for substances to ease feelings of isolation and anguish -- and when the two of us say "we," we mean not just some hypothetical collective but the authors of this article. One of us, Sean, is a doctor living in long-term recovery from a substance-use disorder and the other, Mattea, is a writer who uses drugs.
And we're anything but unique. Disconnection and loneliness aren't just the maladies of a relatively few Americans, but the condition of the majority of us. Vast numbers of people are reaching for some tonic or other to manage difficult feelings, whether it's weed, wine, work, television, or any mood- or mind-altering substance. These days, there's scarcely a family in this country that's been unscathed by problematic drug use.
Not surprisingly, under the circumstances, many elected officials feel increasing pressure to do something about this crisis -- even as people who use drugs are widely considered to be social outcasts. In 2021, a survey of thousands of U.S.-based web users found that 7 in 10 Americans believed that most people view individuals who use drugs as non-community members. It matters little that the impulse to use such substances is driven by an urge to ease emotional pain or that the extremes of substance use are seen as a disease. As a society, we generally consider people who use drugs as rejects and look down on them. Curiously enough, however, such social stigma is not static. It waxes and wanes with the political currents of the moment.
"Stigma has risen its ugly head in almost every generation's attempts to manage better these kinds of issues," says Nancy Campbell, a historian at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the author of OD: Naloxone and the Politics of Overdose. Campbell reports that she finds herself a target of what she calls "secondary stigma" in which others question why she even bothers to spend her time researching drug use.
Perhaps one reason to study such issues is to ensure that someone is paying attention when lawmakers of virtually every political stripe seek to answer a mental health crisis by forcing people into institutionalized treatment. Notably, such "treatment" can increase the odds of accidental death. Allow us to explain.
"Treatment" Can Be a Death Sentence
Across the country, the involuntary detainment and institutional commitment of people with mental illness -- including those with a substance use disorder -- is on the rise. Deploying the language of "helping" those in need, policymakers are reaching not for a band-aid but a club, with scant or even contradictory evidence that such an approach will benefit those who are in pain.
"The process can involve being strip-searched, restrained, secluded, having drugs forced on you, losing your credibility," said UCLA professor of social welfare David Cohen in a 2020 statement about his research on involuntary commitment. He co-authored a study that found its use rose nationwide in the decade before the pandemic hit, even as there was a striking lack of transparency regarding when or how such coercion was used.
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