At noon Tuesday, November 7 (Election Day) I will talk about the drug war, reviewing Johann Hari’s book Chasing the Scream, at the Albany Public Library, 161 Washington Avenue. This will be a wide-ranging discussion of the whole addiction problem, its history, and the public policy response.
(I previously posted a brief review of the book, click here.)
The Rational Optimist 
October 31, 2017 at 9:54 am
I was happy to see that President Trump’s reaction to the opioid epidemic was not “more arrests, longer sentences, confiscate the children of the drug addicted, etc.” Instead he declared the war on drug addicts to be over, in effect, and is proposing, egads, treatment! If only he would back up those words with some resources then we could call this an achievement of the Trump administration.
October 31, 2017 at 10:01 am
As always, Trump is a liar, because as your comment recognizes, there is no “there” there with this supposed policy, no resources or follow-through, just hot air. And meantime, Attorney General Sessions had instructed federal prosecutors to seek the harshest possible sentences in all drug cases (reversing prior policy). That remains in effect.