Regions With Highest Opioid Use Strongly Backed Trump In 2016, Study Finds

[packman]

Source: Huffington Post (updated)

A new study has reported that in those parts of the nation with the highest rates of chronic opioid prescription, Donald Trump won overwhelming support in the 2016 presidential election

In 693 counties with “significantly higher” than average rates of opioid prescriptions, Trump won about 60 percent of the vote, according to the study published Friday in the medical journal JAMA Network Open.

In 638 counties with “significantly lower” than average opioid prescription rates, Trump won only about 39 percent of the vote, according to the study.

The areas with the high rates of opioid use were largely concentrated in the South and Appalachia with high unemployment rates and lower median incomes



Read more: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/highest-use-opioid-regions-voted-trump_us_5b2f1d28e4b0040e27438855

---

In other words, Trump voters had impaired judgment - Perhaps ALL future voters need to be drug tested before they vote?? Wouldn't that be something.

[CountAllVotes]

1. duplicate thread from yesterday

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=10777159

Duplicate!!

[EricMaundry]

2. Two different kinds of addiction coming together

Opioids and fascism.

[yallerdawg]

3. Number One reported qualification of Republican presidential candidate in November 2016:

[cheyanne]

4. I think that the trump voters are desperate.

When people are desperate and see no way out, they will believe anyone who gives them hope and enemies to blame such as immigrants, Mexicans, Muslims. All dictators rise on the false hopes and fears that they create and spread. Trump is no different.

It's not impaired judgment. They've been lied to for 2 generations to believe that everything that goes wrong is due to democrats. And the recession "proved" it: just as the republicans had prophesied there was a catastrophe and it was the democrats' fault.

[malthaussen]

5. Too easy.

The sarcastic comments just write themselves.

-- Mal

[NewJeffCT]

6. Isn't Kellyanne Conway the opioid czar now

or something like that? How is she doing in the role?

[IronLionZion]

7. She looks like she's been high as a kite the whole time

Trump’s ‘Opioid Czar’ Kellyanne Conway Has Found the Solution to the Opioid Crisis: Ice Cream!
https://www.theroot.com/kellyanne-conway-is-trumps-opioid-czar-and-shes-found-t-1824022942

“On our college campuses, you folks are reading the labels,” she said, HuffPost reports. “They won’t put any sugar in their body, they won’t eat carbs anymore, and they’re very, very fastidious about what goes into their body. And then you buy a street drug for five or 10 dollars, it’s laced with fentanyl and that’s it.”

Her advice: “Eat the ice cream, have the french fry, don’t buy the street drug. Believe me, it all works out.”

[riversedge]

19. Is Conway still the drug czar???

[Hugin]

8. I called this trend more than a year ago...

Last edited Sun Jun 24, 2018, 02:09 PM - Edit history (1)

Nice to have it backed up with a little science.

Large sample, too. Pretty significant. 60-40.

No saying if it's some other social factor than actually taking opioids which causes this trend, but, I'm beginning to believe it may be so.

I have noticed opioid addicts tend to justify in their minds their abuse by saying they are better than other 'druggies', because, 'it's prescription'.

I'm also wondering if long term opioid abuse deadens empathy in chronic users.

[BaronChocula]

12. I've been using this fact...

as a counter to the "Democrat cities and states are in disarray, look at Chicago" bullshit argument we hear from the MAGA Goppers. They aren't used to hearing "MAGA states and cities are completely devastated with opioids."

[riversedge]

20. I am going to start using it. Lots of evidence....

The revenge of the 'Oxy electorate' helped fuel Trump's election upset

http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-vote-results-drug-overdose-deaths-2016-11




Harrison Jacobs
Nov. 23, 2016, 9:39 AM


............... In an interview with the Columbia Journalism Review, Arnade described the prototypical "white working class" community that he visited: Prestonsburg, Kentucky, a coal town of 3,500 residents, most of them white. Here's how he described its turn toward Trump:

"There's a real strong sense of community, but the entire community is feeling humiliated. The whole town feels like it's suffering, and with the economic decline has come a large increase in the things that follow: addiction, breakup of families. The place feels very hurt."

"And in comes Trump with a message of restoring pride — partly through white identity — that resonates there, because from Prestonsburg, Kentucky, America does not seem great."

Trump's attack on immigration and globalization was the perfect "one-two punch" in a place like Prestonsburg, Arnade said. It "punches downward" by scapegoating others, like immigrants and minorities, and upward at what the working class views as a "rigged system" pushed by politicians with "fancy educations." ............................................

[lark]

15. Based on my experience and what I've seen in clinic,

long term opioids abuse fries people's decision making ability and really changes them radically. No wonder so many of these asses voted for him, they were targeted by russia and weren't able to figure out the lies due to their addictions' effects!! This is a big insight into the deplorables.

[Hugin]

16. It is a profound insight.

Most of the time in the social sciences a trend is a big deal if it's +/- 1%.

But, here we're talking 20%! It's unheard of... Statisticians and sociologists only dream of seeing numbers like those.

[meadowlander]

17. Has anyone done a study on opioid addiction and veterans?

I wonder if we're looking at some of the social consequences of nine years in Iraq and seventeen years in Afghanistan.

These are also poorer counties, poorer kids disproportionately go into the military, experience combat stress or injuries, may get hooked on opioids in the service, and then are dumped back into their poor communities where there are still no jobs and no support structure for them.

The military also tries to brainwash people to make them more conservative via 24/7 Fox News and Rush Limbaugh.

[mr_lebowski]

29. Good insight ... I don't subscribe to the idea that opioid use MAKES one 'conservative' ...

But a lack of economic opportunity and trauma in ones life such as with military service ... certainly can make people prone to addiction to ... anything.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

9. Before it was meth. Now it is opioids. Not that meth went away, just abated down to a dull roar. nt

[packman]

10. And our stoned pot generation let it all slip away

We were too mellow to catch on what was happening

[Bernardo de La Paz]

14. No.

[AlexSFCA]

11. i knews those crazies from trump rallies must be on drugs

opiods or most likely meth. if alt right militias get access to meth it won’t be pretty

[mr_lebowski]

30. They already have access, man ... white supremacist gangs and meth go hand in hand (n/t)

[BumRushDaShow]

13. Probably overlaps with areas with the highest use of meth too. nt

[riversedge]

18. *** The revenge of the 'Oxy electorate' helped fuel Trump's election upset 2016***

The revenge of the 'Oxy electorate' helped fuel Trump's election upset


http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-vote-results-drug-overdose-deaths-2016-11
Harrison Jacobs
Nov. 23, 2016, 9:39 AM
trump Jonathan Drake/Reuters
President-elect Donald Trump won several states that had long been Democratic, like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan, as well as swing states, like Ohio and Florida, on his way to a seemingly improbable electoral victory earlier this month.

Chris Arnade, an independent journalist who has spent the past four years traveling the US to document the opioid crisis, was one of the few who weren't surprised. After traveling tens of thousands of miles in working-class communities along the Rust Belt and elsewhere, he found one constant.

"Wherever I saw strong addiction and strong drug use," Arnade told Business Insider, he saw support for Trump.

Official voting data has suggested a similar correlation. Since the November 8 election, Shannon Monnat, a rural sociologist and demographer at Pennsylvania State University, has dug into the results. She found that counties that voted more heavily for Trump than expected were closely correlated with counties that experienced high rates of death caused by drugs, alcohol, and suicide.

Two other factors were strongly correlated with Trump "overperformance," Monnat found: the percentage of white voters in the county and its ranking on Monnat's "economic distress index." The index, which Monnat has used in her research for years, combines the percentages of people who are in poverty, unemployed, disabled, in single-parent families, living on public assistance, or living without health insurance.

Monnat wasn't surprised by the correlation.

"I expected to see it because when you think about the underlying factors that lead to overdose or suicide, it's depression, despair, distress, and anxiety," Monnat told Business Insider. "That was the message that Trump was appealing to. ...........................................

[FakeNoose]

22. How many of these people sold their vote for drugs?

That's what I'm wondering.

Anybody who's addicted to meth or opioids is already lacking good judgment, so there could have easily been some kind of private trade set up. Or maybe the GOP got their local drug dealers to campaign for them, which is equally possible.

[Turbineguy]

21. Makes sense.

I'd have to be spaced out on some serious drugs before I voted for that fuck.

[flibbitygiblets]

23. Um, pause for a reality check. How many addicts are actually voting?")

I don't see them getting up and hanging out in a line, ("hey bro, can you hold my spot? Gotta smock some rock) .


I don't see them digging out their ID, getting in the car and driving to the polls.



I don't think it's the addicts who are voting for Trump. I think it's their parents, grandparents, etc. who see the scourge increasing, and believe Mr. Law and Order President is going to "lock 'em up" and stop the crime, drugs, etc. Whereas those hippie libruls want to LEGALIZE drugs, (and they're all the same donchaknow, pot is a "gateway drug".

That sounds WAY more likely.

[appalachiablue]

24. Agree, most hard addicts are so dysfunctional the last thing

they'd pull it together for is to bother going to vote. Maybe if somebody paid and drove them, like a poster above mentioned.

[mr_lebowski]

31. Yup! (np)

[Xolodno]

25. Interesting. Anecdotal, but I know someone...

...who is full blown Trump, Repub, etc.....but of course he calls himself "independent".

Not long ago he was asking on facebook if anyone knew of a doctor that would prescribe opioid medication due to his back problems. Stated, since Obama, Doctors were too afraid to prescribe it. This alarmed me, I've herniated a disk four times and there are times I can barely move....but the only meds I take for that is Naproxen....sparingly. Oh and I still hike. So I don't fully comprehend his issue, I can relate with lot of experience where my back issues probably originated from...but he never can. Not a doctor, but it is suspicious.

Add to that, his wife recently left him along with the kids. Plus one of his two businesses recently failed, the other isn't a major cash generator... Seems like a whole lot more going on than what he's letting on. Plus, even his close family members have seemed to distanced themselves from him. However, crazy right wing evangelicals have "come to his aid" which I won't elaborate on.

So, right winger whose "activities" made himself worse off... runs to the arms of those... who are right winger and making him worse off... Only, they tell him what he wants to hear... "It's not his fault."

[doc03]

26. Proves you have to be on some kind of mind altering substance to

vote from tRump.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

28. Sure, 'cause you gotta be high out of your damn mind to support this

shit show.

[TheFrenchRazor]

32. yay!! more opioid hysteria! nt

[Kittycow]

33. Ain't that the truth!

[DeminPennswoods]

34. There's quite a bit of opoid problems in my area

Everyday, obits in my local newspaper have people dying "unexpectedly" or "suddenly" and at relatively young ages (30s thru 60s). To me, that indicates these Trump voters don't have a long life expectancy.

[24601]

35. This shouldn't be surprising. There won't be data showing if the voters in these areas are taking

opiates or not. People living in a community where family, friends or neighbors have a high rate of use probably would be more disaffected and disconnected across the board. Don't know what info there is on correlation vs cause & effect but my gut says theis environment resulted in the higher opiate use more than the use caused the decline in their communities.

I also believe that policies moving Hydrocodone from Schedule III to II contributed significantly to the problem.

[The Drumwalker]

36. Hey Mikey they're junkies

Hey Mikey they're junkies🤮🤧😭

[lagomorph777]

37. Darwin at work.

I only hope their efforts don't end up the extinction of our entire species, not just the ill-adapted mutants in our midst.

[Talitha]

38. I don't think it's coincidence...

that the high opioid-use areas voted for BLOTUS, I think the GOP intentionally targeted them.

They located the hardest hit counties, and then sent their fatassed 'golden boy' in to play Savior. It's logical that anyone related to, or friends with, an opioid addict might desperately listen to the bullshit and vote for him. As easy as shooting fish in a barrel (or putting babies in jail).

[haele]

39. Dreaming of golden days in a golden haze.

And of course, Opioids tend to create anxiety and irritability if one has to actually do anything that could chase away that pleasant stupor they create. It's a dark beast that easily leads to fear or hate of taking any efforts necessary to actually move forward.

It would be pitiable if the delusions of the addicts weren't so toxic to their community and rest of the country.

Haele