Trump’s border war won’t stop overdoses. In fact, it might make things worse

I am an addiction and emergency doctor in South of ArizonaIt is a region that is strongly politicized by the war on drugs. Both my home and hospital are less than 100 miles from Mexico, and one of our firefighting sections is presented in a border wall. Although I love the ways that enriches the cultural milieu of the border lands our society – the marginal gangs, the colored Adobe homes in the Parius, the Saguaro Cactus in a surprisingly green desert, some of the best bike infrastructure in the country, and even delicious foods – Toxon UNESCO was the first costume in the art of cooking in the United States – we still have our challenges.

Although Arizona has no higher Excessive dose rates of opiates In the country, our lowest rates are not, either: we are a little higher than average. almost One in four Arzonan depends on Medicaid for health insurance, and these prices are even Top in rural areas Societies along the border. Based on the repeated Trump administration Visits to the border and Promises to help usIt may be optimistic that the proposed policies would reduce excessive doses and improve health results.

Unfortunately, the administration also threatens to cut the same programs that already reduces excessive deaths from the excess dose, both in the border areas or throughout the country in general. If employees and financing – from health and humanitarian services, drug use and mental health services, health resources and services management, diseases and prevention control centers, and perhaps even medicaid – as well as our most effective tools to prevent a fatal overdose: Naluxon and Addiction treatment medications.

Instead of focusing on evidence -based health methods, the Trump administration provides punitive policies: the arrest of migrants, Treen on the borderImplementing definitions against Mexico, and building more walls. During it Opening titlePresident Trump has promised to deport “millions and millions of foreigners, and since then he commissioned the shares Arrests from the application of immigration and customs. According to America’s first prioritiesHis administration will take a “bold action to secure our borders” by “building the wall” and deploying the armed forces.

In April, Trump signed an executive order to impose Definitions On Mexico and signed a note The declaration of the deployment of thousands of National Guard forces on the southern border. Currently, the administration seeks to submit offers to obtain a contract to Extension of the border wall Between Nogales and Naco, Arizona. But without also strengthening the drug demand, any of these aspects of the display will work-we know this from previous errors. Worse, these policies will cause meaningless harm in our societies.

Although the current redemption ram is a Mexican people, this is not the first time that our country has used drugs as an excuse to target the minority population. When an economic shrinkage struck San Francisco in the 1970s, the eggs blamed Chinese immigrants for theft of their jobs and began to do so Opion villainA substance associated with Chinese society. Even many eggs believe that Chinese society was trying to connect them to opium for that Underpin American society. Thus, the city criminalized it, passing through our country The first drug control law.

In the early twentieth century, the goal became black society. Although influential eggs such as Sigmund Freud and the former American army surgeon have publicly praised the benefits of cocaine, many believe that the drug will lead to “black men” forgiven their described borders and attack the white community. “Some police stations at that time believe that cocaine made African Americans already have recorded bullets that already increased from The caliber of their pistolsWrong idea that still has an echo today.

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During the era of “Refeer Madness” in the 1930s, officials rename the cannabis by the Spanish name “Marijuana” to link it to Mexican immigrantsBeginning a Advertising campaign To link its use of corruption and crime. Within a few years, hashish was criminalized, and the mandatory rulings imposed by the Boggs law included that the people who were arrested for possession faced at least two years to ten years of prison. Although eggs and people of colors use drugs in The same rates, Compulsory judgment It is not fairly targeted by colored societies and is one of the greatest shareholders in the collective prison.

Perhaps the most famous, Narcotics Acts of 1986 Determine the mandatory minimum, which was a hundred times larger for crack cocaine, associated with black users, of crushed cocaine, associated with white users. Crack is just a more focused composition for cocaine – the drug is the same. Enforce has become the main way to fight a drug war, with more than a million detention of simple drug possession every year. as a result of, One in five People live behind bars now in the United States. Not only that, but the prison actually increases the risk of a person with a fatal dose: the drug is present, effective treatment is rare, and people Often relapse Once they were released. Although we definitely tried to arrest our way out of drug problems in our country, it has never succeeded. You will never do it.

Partially, because addiction is not a crime, but it can be treated, chronic disease It was defined primarily by continuous use despite the damage. Thus, increasing the severity of the sanctions – such as those that were assigned through Stop the fentanel law or Fantanel murder laws Do not make people stop using it. He will not be arrested or sent immigrants to immigrants Prisons in El Salvador. Instead, we have to remove someone’s desire to use it through medical treatments; Economically for supply and demand, we have to reduce their request to fentanel.

Although it seems easy to fix an overdose crisis in our country by removing the width, it is not very clear. In the middle of the twentieth century, some politicians believed that we could end an overdose of heroin forever by buying (and destroying) all opium in BurmaIt is now known as Myanmar. But whenever one area reduces the production of heroin, the operations just turn elsewhere. during NinetiesThe described opium replaced by the Heroin as the main driver of the fatal excess doses, and many believed that we could end addiction by forcing doctors to prescribe pain relievers. Although we have significantly reduced our opioid recipes wave From illegal heroin rose to fill the demand. And when the law enforcement faded on heroin, merchants turned to fentanel, which is very strong, and easier to produce (and transmitted) of heroin, a crop that requires sufficient land and good weather.

As one Mexican Cartel Overlooking “The request will never end, the product is still consumed. Addiction means that the demand never ends,” the New York Times told March. With the right ingredients, fentanel can be manufactured almost anywhere, even locally – in small kitchens or rudimentary mountain laboratories – and as long as Americans want fentanel, it will be made, even if that requires Increase violence To do this.

Fortunately, we have a very effective way to prevent people from death – Naluxon and Excess dose prevention centers. To reduce the demand for illegal medications, we have addiction treatment. The Food and Drug Administration agreed Three medicines For the treatment of an opioid -use disorder: methadone, poprinorphine and nalterxone. These medications are not only alive by preventing excessive doses, but also reduce the transmission of hepatitis C and HIV. In fact, these medications are some of The most effective treatments We have any chronic disease, more than those that many Americans take daily for cases such as coronary artery, high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity. Unfortunately, Less than one in five People with a disorder of the use of opioids receive these life -saving drugs, and threatens the suggested financing to reduce this number more.

Here in the south of Arizona, Trump’s policies will directly weaken many of our most effective tools in combating the opioid material crisis. When the Ministry of Health and Humanitarian Services suddenly canceled more than 12 billion dollars In federal scholarships in March, a program for Pregnant women With the use of unstable materials and housing it was immediately closed in Tuxon. At Arizona University, our addiction fellowship is receiving Financing From a federal program It is scheduled to be cut off. If we lose our addiction fellowship, we will lose our addiction doctors in university hospitals – and Hundreds of patients Every year you will miss the savior of life. All over the state, a Naluxon distribution program It is largely funded by the SAMHSA grant that is now at risk of termination.

Although it is clear that the ways in which federal general discounts and employees affect addiction to the Earth, I am concerned that my patients will be affected negatively. Several health departments depend greatly Federal financingAs it does Non -profitable Love Cochise damage to reduceAnd that directly helps people who use drugs along the US -Mexican border. With each pieces, such organizations may face decreased priority, disrupting the program, and the comprehensive reduction of services.

Likewise, the Trump administration talked about the pieces The relevant spending. In the border provinces in the south of the state of Arizona in which I live and work in it, 30 % to 41 % The residents depend on Medicaid to cover their insurance, and it is almost estimated 90 % of medical treatment For fentanel addiction all over the country it is provided by medicaid. If that will disappear, they are risking Cover loss To treat their addiction.

But regardless of any of these proposed changes that have already passed, they will end with the same result: more lost lives of fentanel and excess dose. If the administration is actually concerned with Borderland societies and reducing excessive doses as much as they claimed, then the priority will be placed to reduce damage and treatment in Arizona, not to dismantle them. Instead of repeating previous errors of penal policies – arrests, militarization, walls that aim to reduce the supply – we will enhance the current health methods to reduce demand and save lives. But perhaps saving lives was not the real goal.