Pubdate: Sat, 06 Feb 2016 Source: Washington Post (DC) Copyright: 2016 The Washington Post Company Contact: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491 Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v16/n063/a03.html Author: David Simpson WHEN THE WHO OF DRUG ABUSE SKEWS THE RESPONSE TO IT As a middle-age white man of comfortable means and right-of-center views on many issues, Imay have been oblivious to certain things longer than others. Recent headlines make it impossible to ignore disparities, however. An armed man in open revolt against the law of the land is killed by law enforcement officials ["Bundy patriarch shows no regrets," Politics & The Nation, Feb. 1]. There is hand-wringing and second guessing, even though his death occurs only after a month of confrontation and not-very-veiled threats. Contrast this with the deaths of unarmed African American males whose fates are decided by police officers in a matter of seconds. Presidential candidates campaigning in the rural Northeast express sympathy for the plight of drug addicts and profess an eagerness to provide treatment ["Congress jumping on opioid-abuse crisis," The Fed Page, Feb. 1]. Drug abuse among white Americans in small towns is a public-health emergency. But drug abuse among minority populations was a crime addressed by filling the prisons with hundreds of thousands of nonviolent offenders. It is a terrible thing that anyone dies needlessly. It is a terrible thing that lives are ruined by drugs. It's an even more terrible thing, though, that we seem to decide how terrible these things are based on whom they're happening to. David Simpson, Vienna - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom