To the Editor,
I don’t disagree with Larry Penner that this country is facing some of the greatest challenges in its history and Biden is perhaps not the person to handle those challenges. But how is fentanyl abuse Biden’s fault?
If people are stupid enough to get addicted to fentanyl, it is nobody’s fault but their own.
Approximately 27 years ago a woman had a letter posted in the Daily News, lamenting the death of her brother and blaming the drug dealers congregating on a corner somewhere in Southeast Queens. The woman referred to him as “a great guy caught in the horrible world of drug addiction.” Again, if someone chooses to get addicted to heroin, knowing how addictive it is, is that the fault of the drug dealers? Did any drug dealer stick a gun at her brother and force him to take heroin? Did Mr. Biden go to any victim of fentanyl overdose, point a gun at them, and force them to take fentanyl?
Mr. Penner has an opinion piece making the rounds about government staying out of people’s business. Mr. Penner’s words are to the effect of whatever consenting adults consume, inhale, view or perform in the privacy of their own homes is not the government’s business. Wouldn’t this include the right to overdose and die on fentanyl if that is what they choose to do? So which is it? Mr. Penner’s opinions have all the permanence of an ice cube on the sidewalk in the middle of July. Yet again, it is whatever will momentarily satisfy his insatiable addiction to seeing his name in print.
One can infer from Mr. Penner’s opinion piece that he blames Biden for the fentanyl deaths because Biden has no control over the border and the drug gangs. And while Mr. Penner does make a point that is debatable, if not valid, the fact is without the users to supply the need then there would be no drug dealer.
The only real solution to the drug problem is that of the island nation Singapore. The death penalty for those caught with drugs. Good luck implementing that here.
Nat Weiner
Editor’s note: The majority of drug overdoses in the U.S. today are a result of illicitly manufactured fentanyl, a process by which fentanyl is mixed with drugs like heroin, cocaine or methamphetamine, in labs in Mexico or China where they are synthesized and then sold, oftentimes, to unsuspecting users. Fentanyl, which is classified as a controlled substance, is roughly 100 times more potent than morphine. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, during May 2020-April 2021, the estimated number of drug overdose deaths in the U.S. exceeded 100,000 over a 12-month period for the first time, with 64% of deaths involving synthetic opioids — mainly illicitly manufactured fentanyls.
