alt Hacker Newswhats wild is this was a solution to a problem that was directly caused by neoliberal capitalism.
in the 90s and 2000s when meth first began to spike, the rural economy was changing. Jobs weren't paying as well or were going away altogether. Meth found a niche as a kind of performance enhancement drug for people working long hours at physically demanding jobs. journalist Nick Reding found this in the pork industry in Iowa, and anthropologist Jason Pine found in general in Missouri.
neoliberalisms solution was a ham fisted market based restriction that turned a normal cold drug into a rarity. we didnt start working to treat methamphetamine addiction as a disease until it began to spread into more affluent white-collar neighborhoods.
this could have been avoided with competent market reforms and regulation, as well as stronger labor protections and minimum wage law.
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I blame Progressivism™ and the expansion of the role of government. Laissez Faire is the ideal policy for a force-monopolist to perform by. It is better to have a weak government precisely because it's way easier to fell a badge-less gangster than a badged one.
> whats wild is this was a solution to a problem that was directly caused by neoliberal capitalism.
Did you pull a muscle stretching that argument into place?
People like meth. People in capitalist countries and non-capitalist countries alike.
It was in fact a hamfisted government regulation that drove this.
Neoliberals believe in free market and deregulation, not market restrictions.
Nixon was the one that started the war on drugs and also enacted price controls. I would not call him a neoliberal. He also primarily interested in foreign policy and not the economy.
Also, Sudafed was only banned from being purchased easily in 2006. The bill was introduced by a random congressman from Indiana, a congressman was also easily offended by an offensive joke written on someone’s else cake.
And it's much more profitable to scrape every ounce of working life out of the poor, then use them as slave labor in a prison once their addictions get them into a critical situation or farm them out to a rehabilitation facility that pays councilors 20 bucks an hour and gets a large chunk of it's funding from taxpayer subsidies. If there's any issue, blame the overworked poor for turning to drugs, then sell them energy drinks.
You mean caused by the war on drugs.