Celebrity Death: Mac Miller, 26

[Suxnet]

The drug dealer should have just changed his last name to Sackler.

 

[Xelebes]

Nothing like standing on the tracks watching the light of the train coming knowing what it is but not thinking to get out of the way.

This drug epidemic is getting ridiculous, and given how far flung it is the fact this country can't do more than wring its hands at it is frustrating. We need to go back to basics - drug use plunged in the 80s with Nancy Reagan's "Just say no" campaign. It was so simple it was a target for ridicule, but it stuck with kids and worked. Clinton comes in saying he "didn't inhale" while laughing about it, the anti-drug messages largely dried up, and drug use (according to government statistics at the time) tripled within 2 years of him taking office. So the powers that be need to look at EVERYTHING that changed in those two years to cause that spike and start finding ways to address it to put a lid on this problem that's negatively affecting almost everyone in the country at this point, either because they're addicted, have a loved one who is (or was and died from it), or have been a victim in some way of an addict.

Drug use didn't go down. The drugs changed. Cocaine use peaked under Reagan because it was being trafficked by the military. Many of the anti-drug songs of the time (Grandmaster Flash "White Lines") were calling out this trafficking majority black neighborhoods and how it was tearing apart their communities. MDMA breaks out roughly around in 1984-1985, especially in the Dallas disco scene is another example.

The deadly toll of the opioid epidemic has much to do with legal distribution of these opioids (oxycontin, fentanyl) and the illegal distribution of their derivatives (carfentanyl), and the mismanagement and lack of oversight with that distribution. These potent opioids are being laced into more regularly consumed drugs such as cannabis, cocaine and mdma which can turn otherwise safer drugs into lethal drugs. This is what happened with Mac Miller and he died as a result.

 

[The Nemesis]

This thread is getting off topic and political (those posts have since been removed.) The death was over a year ago and in spite of the bump to note an arrest, most of the discussion since was only very mildly tangentially related, instead largely focusing on the issue of drugs and a bunch of other stuff that didn't need to be here.

So with that in mind, this thread is now closed. If/when there's other relevant news on the arrested party, it can have its own thread and see if it'll stand up on merit.