Radley Balko on the White House Office on National Drug Control Policy’s opposition to giving overdose rescue kits to drug users:
Digest that for a sec. Better to let a heroin user die than administer a product that, in some cases, may remove the threat of overdose death from people who use heroin to excess. This is the mentality of your modern drug warrior. We’re fighting drug use not because it’s dangerous or harmful, but because they believe drug use is, in and of itself, immoral.
Today’s drug war isn’t about saving lives, it’s about saving souls. it’s the same mentality that led some family values types to oppose the marketing of Gardasil. Remove the threat of cervical cancer from premarital sex and, golly, some girls might have more premarital sex. If a few have to learn an important lesson by dying of cervical cancer, so be it.
Balko also sends word about a kid arrested for smelling hand sanitizer.