President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed that China would crack down on the production and exporting of fentanyl and the precursor chemicals used to make it, according to media reports.
But while Biden is painting the agreement as a win that will “save lives”, drug policy experts told VICE News they’re skeptical the measure will curb the overdose crisis—and it may make the drug supply worse.
Biden and Xi met Wednesday in San Francisco, where both leaders were in town for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. According to the New York Times, China will go after the exporting of illicit fentanyl into the U.S. and the manufacturing of precursor chemicals, which are being used to make fentanyl and smuggle it into the country from Mexico.
Except they’re not equal. One is objectively causing more harm. He’d be doing the exact same bad things, and other additional bad things, too.
If voting for the lesser of two evils is the one thing you could do to stop the greater of two evils, not voting means making it easier for the greater evil to win.
Vote for evil or more evil and next time you get super evil or mega evil.
Don’t vote for either and good may end up back on the menu.
Here, let’s try another aptly American food metaphor.
Last month, the High School cafeteria was offering chicken nuggets and tacos. The tacos were FIRE.
The chicken nuggets are lumps of disgusting pink slime kind of rolled around in flour and dunked for way too long in old unchanged hot oil, not even dried. Just tossed into an immediately soggy paper tray.
The tacos are tortilla, admittedly low quality beef that is browned in a giant frying pan then thoroughly drained, lettuce, tomato, shredded cheese, and a squirt of sour cream.
Half the cafeteria (somehow) prefers the pink slime Grease balls, the other love the tacos.
Half line up to pay 2.50 each for the slime balls, Half line up to pay for the tacos.
This month, the offerings are chicken nuggets and pork nuggets.
The pink slimeball food workers had a much easier time of it.
Pink slime ball. Flour. Unchanged Grease. Paper tray.
So the other line said "why should I wait for the beef to drain? Why should I prep the lettuce. Why should I prep the tomato? Why should I prep the cheese? Why should I learn to ration the sour cream?
That’s so much more effort and the Principal is on our asses because the pink slime Grease balls were cheaper.
The Principal took $50k for the school lunch program then made another 2.5k off the students. the pink slime balls cost 5k and the tacos cost 7k, but here we are busting our asses and the Principal is praising the slime ball brigade because they are a better asset in his “Pay for the Principals golf trips” campaign.
As a result, instead of offering those amazing tacos, line 2 is now offering pink PORK slime, prepared exactly the same as the pink CHICKEN slime.
As a hungry student with two dollars and fifty cents, do you buy the slimy chicken balls or the slimy pork balls?
You buy neither.
You go hungry. You go through the line and ask for tacos as loudly as possible, get to the cashier, leave your empty tray, and pocket your 2.50.
Next month, your option will be pink chicken slime balls or tacos.
You get 5 bucks worth of them amazing tacos.
(Metaphor based on a true story. If you were eating lunch at highland high school in 2003, you can vouch).
Your metaphor isn’t a good one.
There are millions of people voting for chicken nuggets and porkchops. Given the trajectory, tacos are not going to be on the menu.
You need to pick a poison, and if one poison is worse than the other, you need to pick the less bad one to help keep the worse one away.
Like choosing alcohol to keep fentanyl off the streets.
Okay, we had a conversation going, then you just shut down and went “nuh uh”.
Whatever bro.
If you don’t want to hear it, don’t ask it.