That's starting to be real money.
From MarketWatch/Opinion, October 6:
It’s a health and economic crisis hiding in plain sight
The U.S. economy is being battered on all sides: Inflation, snarled supply chains, severe labor shortages. The pandemic, which has contributed to all three, rolls on; there are still 40,000-plus new cases and about 400 deaths per day, according to current federal, state and local government data.
But as if all this isn’t damaging enough, here’s another big one that for all the damage it is inflicting, still doesn’t get enough attention: The economic toll of opioid addiction and drug overdoses.
That toll is massive. A new report by Congress’s Joint Economic Committee (JEC) puts it at a staggering $1.47 trillion in 2020 alone, a 49% increase from 2019.
Data for 2021 hasn’t been finalized yet, but the report suggests it will be even worse.
“The rise in fatal opioid overdoses in 2021 suggests the total cost is likely to continue to increase,” the JEC says. “In addition, the methodology used to produce the totals involves some uncertainty that likely makes the national cost estimate a lower-bound on the true economic cost of the epidemic in a given year.”
This has been going on for decades. More than a million Americans have died of drug overdoses since the year 2000, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) says, the majority of which were due to opioids. It began with the over-prescription of legal pain medications, but has gotten worse, much worse, in recent years with the smuggling of cheap heroin and synthetic opioids, particularly fentanyl. The crisis has reached such a scale, the CFR says, “that it has become a drag on the economy and a threat to national security … not only in health-care expenses but also in the form of a weakened workforce.”
Here’s some additional context. For all the attention that gun deaths get (nearly 49,000 Americans died from gun-related injuries in 2021), opioid-related deaths that same year, including from the powerful synthetic painkiller fentanyl, accounted for about 107,000 fatalities (both data points via the Centers for Disease Control)....
....MUCH MORE
How dangerous is the current generation of opiates?
This isn't the opium the Chinese in San Francisco were smoking or the laudanum the homesteader housewife kept handy because the damned wind just wouldn't stop howling until the stupor set in. No, this current stuff makes the 1870's version look like candy.
Here's a story from Oak Hill West Virginia about an incident on September 27:
....The Officer caught the subject who began to physically be combative. At this time, a second Officer arrived to assist. During the struggle, the subject reached into his pocket and ripped open a bag, believed to be opiate narcotics in powder form, and threw it into the officers' faces. The officers were able to get the subject in custody, at which time one of the officers collapsed and began actively overdosing. Shortly after the second officer began to exhibit symptoms of the same. Thankfully an off-duty nurse was passing by at that time and helped render aid and administer NARCAN, which ultimately saved the lives of these officers.....