NO MERCY: Everything I think I know, I learned while walking the dog. Translated into plain English, I listen to podcasts. That makes me just like every other member of Santa Barbara’s warm-bag brigade. It makes my head explode.
A couple of cases. About a month ago, I listened to an interview with Washington Post reporter Scott Higham, who just wrote a book likening the American drug industry to the Medellín drug cartel. Where I lost it was when he explained how the drug companies fueling America’s opioid epidemic passed a law that effectively stripped the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) of its single most effective enforcement tool.
At that time, in 2016, the death toll from opioids was 42,000, nothing compared to the mushroom cloud of death that would subsequently engulf us. For context, we waged war against Iraq for its nonexistent role in 9/11, in which 3,000 people were killed. I never supported the death penalty — not an effective deterrent, among other reasons — but if a few drug company executives were to meet the same fate as Saddam Hussein, justice would be served.