JD Vance had a lot to say about immigrants at Tuesday night’s debate. They’re to blame, he suggested, for the high cost of housing, inaccessibility of childcare, and even fentanyl. Asked about Donald Trump’s plans for mass deportation, Vance pivoted quickly to blaming immigrants —for the opioid epidemic.
I lost my mother to this epidemic. In the early 2000s she was prescribed OxyContin during recovery from a surgery. We all know what happened: Purdue reps were trained to tell doctors that the medicine had an addiction rate that was less than 1%, and they could essentially prescribe as much as they wanted without risk to their patients. Pill farms popped up, the cash started flowing, and hundreds of thousands of Americans—my mother included—died. Nary an immigrant was to blame.
Sen. Vance could have suggested a real solution to the epidemic, having first-hand experience as the son of a recovering addict. Instead he blamed the immigrants, simply hoping that the problem solves itself.
