S11.E11: Opioid Settlements

[Lantern7]

Another depressing topic, as money paid out by drug companies (chump change in the big picture) are sent to local governments and used for everything except fighting the ongoing crisis. We get some fun Mother’s Day and Eurovision stuff mixed in, but watching the money get spent on extraneous stuff was not fun. Well, the rope-shooting guns looked like fun. How does getting wrapped up in a second not hurt?

[Annber03]

Regarding the rope shooting gun, I just liked how John noted that police departments were spending money on that to add to their list of lethal weapons that will actually wind up being the first thing they'll use when taking someone down. Ain't that the truth. 

But yeah, using money that's supposed to be going to helping people with drug problems to further enrich police departments, who, as John also pointed out, already get a lot of financial support as it is, from governments and taxpayers, is...pretty gross on a whole bunch of levels. Especially when you consider that one of the main objectives of the whole "defund the police" mindset is to provide more opportunities for scnarios where police don't have to be the ones to respond to a 911 call, if it's a drug-related thing. Rather, those calls could be directed to people who are well-trained in how to deal with people who are overdosing or who are involved in some kind of illegal activity relating to the drugs or things of that sort. 

But of course, if we had more of those kinds of people, then that would mean police wouldn't get to be all gung ho and go in guns blazing to show how powerful and tough they are, so, nope, can't have that. 

I feel like this topic tied well into the story about the UK's response to dealing with immigrants (which sounds strikingly similar to the tactics employed by people like the governors of Texas and Florida, which is certainly..a choice in terms of which kinds of people the UK wants to emulate/align themselves with policy-wise). Cast these people aside and make them someone else's problem, or put them out of signt and out of mind. I figured the stigma issue was going to come up in egards to that woman trying to raise support for that organization she was working for, and sure enough... People still seem to think that if you're a drug user, it's all your fault and your responsibility to resolve it, and nobody eles should be involved in helping out with that. They never stop to think about all the issues that explain why someone might become a drug abuser, and why they often struggle to get sober. 

Same with immigration. People don't stop to think about the reasons why someone might flee their homeland and try and seek asylum somewhere else. In their eyes, they're just here to mess things up for other people or to commit crimes or whatever, so as far as they're concerned, those people don't deserve to be treated with any kind of respect or basic human/civil rights or things of that sort. Plus, blaming immigrants for a country's woes is a time-honored way to distract voters form the fact that the party attacking said immigrants a) caused a lot, if not all, of those problems, and b) has no actual policy or solutions to respond to or deal with those problems. And way too many voters fall for that stupid shtick every single time, and immigrants continue to suffer, and yet people are still mystified as to why this isn't working as a solution. Gee. Yeah. It's a real mystery, I tell ya. 

Moving on to lighter topics, those news clips were amazing. So many guys just..not prepared for Mother's Day at all, and so many people just...sharing a lot of really weird stories about their childhoods :p. 

Also amazing. That entire performance from that artist from Finland. Good lord. That was a trip and a half XD. 

[peeayebee]

9 hours ago, Lantern7 said:

Well, the rope-shooting guns looked like fun. How does getting wrapped up in a second not hurt?

Several of the men flinched when the bolo went around them. They also seemed to be wearing thick or padded clothing. I wonder how these bolos would feel to a person wearing a t-shirt (or no shirt) and shorts. Frankly, this tool looks like it would be fun to use, and I assume many police officers would enjoy deploying this new toy. A modern-day lasso. Yee haw.

So extremely frustrating and infuriating that the money is being used as a slush fund in many states and localities. 

8 hours ago, Annber03 said:

I feel like this topic tied well into the story about the UK's response to dealing with immigrants (which sounds strikingly similar to the tactics employed by people like the governors of Texas and Florida, which is certainly..a choice in terms of which kinds of people the UK wants to emulate/align themselves with policy-wise).

Yes, I immediately thought of DeSantis's and Abbott's actions. I'm assuming the UK Prime Minister (or whoever came up with plan) was inspired by them. 

Quote

People still seem to think that if you're a drug user, it's all your fault and your responsibility to resolve it, and nobody eles should be involved in helping out with that. They never stop to think about all the issues that explain why someone might become a drug abuser, and why they often struggle to get sober.

Yup. And I'm sure many people think it's no great loss if a drug user dies. 

I don't remember seeing that clip of Trump talking about the best way to deal with the drug problem. A really stable genius indeed. 

I wouldn't think it would be a good idea to flush opioids.

Quote

People don't stop to think about the reasons why someone might flee their homeland and try and seek asylum somewhere else. In their eyes, they're just here to mess things up for other people or to commit crimes or whatever, so as far as they're concerned, those people don't deserve to be treated with any kind of respect or basic human/civil rights or things of that sort. Plus, blaming immigrants for a country's woes is a time-honored way to distract voters form the fact that the party attacking said immigrants a) caused a lot, if not all, of those problems, and b) has no actual policy or solutions to respond to or deal with those problems.

Amen to all your points. The US can actually use immigrants in the workforce. We all know that many businesses are short-staffed. Plus immigrants would add to the Social Security fund as well as spending their money here. 

The guy in the Eurovision contest... Why was his Windows 95 shirt pixelated? Anyway, that was some crazy sh*t.

[DoctorAtomic]

10 hours ago, Annber03 said:

People still seem to think that if you're a drug user, it's all your fault and your responsibility to resolve it, and nobody eles should be involved in helping out with that.

Same with being poor. "WHy nOT puLL yourself up by your BooTStrapS?!" That mentality has been pervasive for over 40 years; I don't see it changing anytime soon. I'd also suggest that the voter ID laws and such aren't so much racist (though there is some element to some of them), as much as they are socio-economic, of which there certainly is a racial component. 

American Idol is cool and all, but I wish we had something like Eurovision. Everyone talks about being so polarized. Give us a Eurovision.

tbh, I actually think the fancy lassos are a good non lethal option *if* the police are trained to use them. I wouldn't suggest using them if someone was armed, but even if they're just running away slower, you can still catch them easier. 

[Annber03]

11 hours ago, DoctorAtomic said:

Same with being poor. "WHy nOT puLL yourself up by your BooTStrapS?!" That mentality has been pervasive for over 40 years; I don't see it changing anytime soon. I'd also suggest that the voter ID laws and such aren't so much racist (though there is some element to some of them), as much as they are socio-economic, of which there certainly is a racial component. 

As someone who's on the poer/lower class end of the spectrum, ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, yes. Absolutely. It's incredibly maddening. 

[SnideAsides]

16 hours ago, peeayebee said:

The guy in the Eurovision contest... Why was his Windows 95 shirt pixelated? Anyway, that was some crazy sh*t.

It's run by a consortium of public broadcasters with different national laws about advertising on their channels (the BBC for example is so strict that they have to cutaway to precorded skits every year while the hosts are pimping the contest's own CD and DVD), so there's a blanket rule against product placement in order for every act to be shown in every country for people to vote on.

If anyone's wondering, Finland finished 19 out of 25 in the final. (Given how obvious it was that Redacted Country was going to try and rig the vote for the PR boost - and they STILL finished second in the public vote to Baby Lasagna - there was a concerted effort to try and unite support around other acts that could do well enough with juries to prevent them from winning, which led to a whole bunch of songs like Finland's doing surprisingly terribly.)

[JustHereForFood]

On 5/13/2024 at 5:53 PM, DoctorAtomic said:

American Idol is cool and all, but I wish we had something like Eurovision. Everyone talks about being so polarized. Give us a Eurovision.

Ooh, boy. If you don't like polarization, you do NOT want Eurovision 😅.

[IvySpice]

On 5/13/2024 at 8:53 AM, DoctorAtomic said:

Same with being poor. "WHy nOT puLL yourself up by your BooTStrapS?!" That mentality has been pervasive for over 40 years; I don't see it changing anytime soon.

All of this is right, and the mentality is much older than that. Here in the US during the depression, the food that came in relief boxes was designed to be bland and monotonous to ensure that no one would take a relief box unless they were desperate. They deliberately did not include things like mustard and vinegar lest someone enjoy eating that food. And this was also part of the idea of workhouses in Victorian Britain; they were intended to be so hellish that no one would ever go there unless they were literally lying in the gutter. There was an absolute terror of providing one penny's worth of help to someone who didn't need it quite badly enough, which would make them dependent and lazy.

So there's a looooong history behind Rishi Sunak's policy of shipping undesirables far away. After all, that's how Australia came to be.

[DoctorAtomic]

21 minutes ago, JustHereForFood said:

Ooh, boy. If you don't like polarization, you do NOT want Eurovision

That's the good kind though. 

3 minutes ago, IvySpice said:

All of this is right, and the mentality is much older than that.

I was thinking of Reagan and his speech about the fictional 'welfare queen' (his words). It's basically affected social policy since. 

[Lugal]

29 minutes ago, IvySpice said:

So there's a looooong history behind Rishi Sunak's policy of shipping undesirables far away. After all, that's how Australia came to be.

And America. See the Transportation Act of 1718.

[purist]

On 5/14/2024 at 12:18 AM, peeayebee said:

Yes, I immediately thought of DeSantis's and Abbott's actions. I'm assuming the UK Prime Minister (or whoever came up with plan) was inspired by them. 

Alas, he and his government were more inspired by Australia's shameful recent/current practice of sending asylum seekers to offshore islands and leaving them there to rot. John's anger and disgust at the UK Government's Rwanda policy mirrors my feelings about the Australian policy (I'm Australian).

[Annber03]

Yeah, it seems like there's just a new wave of politicians across the globe in general lately that are basically like, "What's the most assholish response we can have to a serious issue/cricis? Let's do that." 

Obviously that sentiment is nothing new in politics in general, of course, just...the last few years have only further shone al light on that and a lot of currrent poltiicans are clearly taking the most wrong lessons possible from history. 

Edited May 15 by Annber03

[iMonrey]

I'm not sure I understand how the opioid settlement money was allocated in the first place. So, the federal government sued all these drug companies? And the drug companies paid all this settlement money and then the federal government funneled the money to the states? What criteria was used for who got how much and who did it initially go to before it was funneled down to local governments? 

[DoctorAtomic]

iirc, state attorneys general sued Sackler. A federal court may have ruled to take all the cases together and there was a huge settlement rather than having 100s of court cases. I don't know how the money is allocated though. It seemed from here that it goes to each state. 

[wknt3]

22 hours ago, IvySpice said:

And this was also part of the idea of workhouses in Victorian Britain; they were intended to be so hellish that no one would ever go there unless they were literally lying in the gutter.

Or in other words - "Many can't go there; and many would rather die."

[Annber03]

Was rewatching this episode 'cause my mom was catching up on it, since she'd missed it the other night, and it had me thinking about another issue with this opiod settlement money being used for things like potholes, or other government spending...isn't that stuff what our taxes are supposed to be going towards? 'Cause if they need to be dipping into settlement money that's been earmarked for a specific purpose to help cover things that would normally be covered by taxpayer money, then either they're blowing through that taxpayer money awfully fast, or, more likely, that taxpayer money is clearly not going towards the stuff that it's supposed to be going towards. Which just adds to the shittiness of the whole situation. 

[DoctorAtomic]

Not if you live in red states where they won't raise taxes to cover basic services like road repair. Additionally, if the plows get wrecked it's a cool million to get a new one. The news always publishes stories about not passing the plows on the roads every winter. 

 

[andromeda331]

Is anything going to where it should? Any settlement money? Any tax money? Welfare money, etc.? Doesn't seem like it.

[heatherchandler]

Shouldn’t the settlement money go to the people who took the drugs and ya know, had their lives ruined?