Dear Ed,

I will be 84 in less than 30 days.

68 years ago there was a bar on Waters Avenue that would sell you a beer if you were tall enough to see over the counter. Old Milwaukee Light. It tasted so bad I voluntarily gave it up after half a can! That was it for me. Things are so much more complicated now.

I watch a lot of news. I can’t quite recall the first time I heard the word fentanyl.

It’s been a few years. Then I started hearing it every day. I learned that it was the on-going cause of death for thousands in this country. Most all apparently “accidental” overdoses.

The drug comes from China. We don’t want to talk to much about that fact since China appears to be more than the present Admin. wants to try to deal with.

Second best target to hit to suspend the wave of death spreading across our country would be the cartels in Mexico. Well, maybe not. After all we do have this trade agreement with Mexico that we need to honor and we don’t want to make President Obrador or the automobile industry mad. After all, billions of dollars in revenue has to take precedence over the hundreds of thousands of people who will die from just fentanyl in time to come.

I understand, things like this take time. There have to be a few bills written and discussed and presented to congress to be eventually turned down. The President’s ability to write executive orders disappears. Don’t mix politics with tragedy? It already reeks of politics.

According to parents, kinfolk, educators, big Pharma, even some law enforcement when responding publicly, every fentanyl death was an accidental overdose. If you suggest anything else, you you touch on our national shame that a huge segment of our population, including our youth, is doing drugs, lethal drugs! If you go with anything other than “accidental”, you are suggesting that someone’s deceased child was into drugs. It’s like the skeleton in the closet for the entire National family!

The victim attends a gathering. Complains about what-ever, and asks their equally innocent host if they happen to have any pain killers around.

Are you kidding me! If you are laying in a hospital suffering from a dozen injuries, they will not give you a pain killer till a doctor prescribes it! You couldn’t get a school nurse to give you an aspirin!

Sure! Just happen to have Percocet and Oxycodone only $10. Unprescribed pills out of someone’s pocket are not for pain. They are to get high.

An interesting event has been the recent marketing of an antidote to fentanyl.

It’s also interesting that the drug comes in packages of two! Guess they figure if you are stupid enough to do it once you will try it again.

Who is going to buy it?

Buying the antidote is an admission that you may have a drug problem or are expecting one! First responders? Of course. They just have to be standing there when the kid hits the floor. Of course today’s youth are so sophisticated.

They know exactly what the deal is, just ask them. They know exactly how much they can handle. Their source is more trusted than the Pharmacy and everybody is doing it! There are many thousands of them that were dead wrong.

Loss of life, especially within your own family, especially when they are young with their deaths being so unnecessary, can be a terrible long-suffering tragedy.

We can’t cure the problem until we recognize there is one. Step one is to, quit talking about “accidental” overdoses.

Roy Hubbard, Richmond Hill