The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Priorities: Plastic Straws or Fentanyl?

Posted on | January 11, 2024 | Comments Off on Priorities: Plastic Straws or Fentanyl?

Homeless drug addicts on Pike Street, Seattle

Did you know that the idea of banning plastic straws was inspired by a nine-year-old boy’s science project? After reading that startling fact, I found myself going down a research rabbit-hole, during which I discovered that in 2018, Seattle became “the first major U.S. city to ban single-use plastic straws and utensils in food service.”

Then I began researching Seattle, which led me to this video by Jonathan Choe of the Discovery Institute:

In Seattle, one of the richest cities in the world, entire blocks of downtown streets have become open-air drug markets, but — BUT! — you can’t get a plastic straw in a restaurant there.

After further research, I started writing:

Seattle is in King County, Washington, where Joe Biden got 75 percent of the vote in the 2020 election. King County had more than 1,000 drug overdoses involving fentanyl in 2023. These two facts are almost certainly related, but which is the cause and which the effect? Or could it be that both (a) the tendency to vote for Democrats and (b) the addiction to dangerous drugs are caused by some unknown factor? Without a careful analysis of the available data to identify that unknown background factor, is it wrong to hazard a guess that the overdosing dopeheads and Democratic voters in King County are just plain stupid?
Beyond sarcastic put-downs, it behooves those interested in public policy to take a look at what’s going on in places like Seattle, where Democrats dominate and “progressive” ideas therefore advance unhindered by any effective opposition. In the case of King County’s skyrocketing drug overdoses — which increased nearly 50 percent in just the past year — local officials have declared the problem “a public health crisis.” However, fentanyl is illegal, which means that the overdoses are also indicative of a crime problem, and progressives are against putting criminals in prison. . . . .

Read the rest of my latest column at The American Spectator.



 

Category: American Spectator, Crime, Democrats, Washington State

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