Posted on 04/12/2023 1:14:26 PM PDT by nickcarraway
The ever-escalating fentanyl crisis in U.S. cities has been particularly acute in the Bay Area. It’s made for some interesting headlines as well, from reports that the head of San Jose’s police union ran an international fentanyl-dealing operation out of her home for years to Elon Musk calling for legalization.
Among supporters of harm reduction, who point to the abysmal failure of the War on Drugs to do much beyond swell the U.S. prison population, the term “drug worker” is a suggested replacement for the term “drug dealer.” A Canadian drug-policy expert’s Twitter thread went viral among certain segments of extremely online people in San Francisco.
At first blush, this response appeared tailor-made to send people through the roof; perhaps the guy who sells you cannabis could plausibly be a “drug worker,” but fentanyl is lethal. Yet “drug worker” may strike some people as a term better suited to the volunteers who educate San Franciscans about how to administer Narcan to someone who’s overdosing.
More importantly, the prevailing political winds have shifted in favor of beefing up the ranks of the San Francisco Police Department, as violent and seemingly random crimes amplify a widespread sense of public disorder.
However, as critics point out, you can’t arrest your way out of a drug crisis, and many people selling fentanyl in San Francisco are known to be victims of human trafficking.
More importantly, this type of humanizing, or “people-first,” language has grown widespread. The best analogy for “drug worker” might be “sex worker,” a term that’s far less pejorative than “prostitute” or “whore” and which acknowledges the fact that sex work is a form of labor that’s been practiced since time immemorial.
Witness, too, the transition from “illegal alien” to “undocumented person” or “unauthorized resident.” These are not quote-unquote woke euphemisms. They are technically correct, as a person cannot be illegal.
At the same time, the discourse surrounding people who sell deadly substances like fentanyl has grown quite heated, with some prominent commentators strongly implying that we should apply capital punishment, or at least look to prohibition models like Singapore’s.
Roughly 650 people died of fentanyl overdoses in San Francisco in both 2021 and 2022, with roughly 130 deaths in January and February of this year as well.
Astrid Kane can be reached at astrid@sfstandard.com
“Or Late Term Abortionists.”
I like Post Birth Abortion and Post Birth Abortionists myself.
Of course! The idea is to remove the stigma, which is the same goal as referring to whores and prostitutes as “sex workers”!
More newspeak.
The term “worker” implies income. When these people can produce a tax return showing that they pay income and self-employment taxes on the fruit of their labor in the drug industry, the claim for a new title can be considered.
Hmmm. Of all the many things I don’t like about drug dealers, not paying income taxes is not on the list. I don’t the government should profit off drugs at all.
In Vancouver, bc, the government supplies the drugs to the addicts at government run “safe” injection sites. Seattle is planning a similar program, with moveable vans, where drugs will be supplied along with free needles, pipes and other drug paraphernalia along with narcan to revive anyone who overdoses.
The people who run these government drug operations would be drug workers and if they succeed in legalizing the use of all drugs, the terminology in the lexicon would be changed, but not on the streets.
Remeber, Meghan Markel’s mother worked on an illegal marijuana farm when Meghan was young. No one seems to think anything of it.
Take it up with customer service, buddy. /s
I don't think most people know it. I didn't. But should we be blamed for what our parents' did?
Next thing you know they’ll form a union.
😆😆😆
I am not blaming Markel for what her mother did, I am saying that if Meghan is going to put her mother on a pedestal for her skin color, she should tell the. Rest of the story, as well. Her mother had a boy friend, who ran a marijuana farm in Santa Clara and used to abandon the family for months at a time while she went up there and worked with her boy friend. Meghan’s father held the family together and took her mother back every time. For this Meghan celebrates her mother and snubs her father.
bkmk
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