Why Does the Drug Czar's Office Oppose Efforts to Prevent Drug Overdoses?

This has already been addressed at DrugWarRant and The Agitator, but I'd just like to echo the observation that Dr. Bertha Madras is a cruel witch whose idea of drug prevention is willfully letting drug addicts die before our eyes.

In her capacity as Deputy Director of Demand Reduction at the Drug Czar's office, Madras is speaking out against medicines that effectively treat drug overdoses. If that sounds crazy to you, well, what can I say? These people are deranged:

...Dr. Bertha Madras, deputy director of the White House Office on National Drug Control Policy, opposes the use of Narcan in overdose-rescue programs.

"First of all, I don’t agree with giving an opioid antidote to non-medical professionals. That’s No. 1," she says. "I just don’t think that’s good public health policy."

Madras says drug users aren’t likely to be competent to deal with an overdose emergency. More importantly, she says, Narcan kits may actually encourage drug abusers to keep using heroin because they know overdosing isn’t as likely.

Madras says the rescue programs might take away the drug user’s motivation to get into detoxification and drug treatment.

"Sometimes having an overdose, being in an emergency room, having that contact with a health care professional is enough to make a person snap into the reality of the situation and snap into having someone give them services," Madras says. [NPR]

Um, maybe…if you don’t die. I seriously can’t believe my eyes. This is just as cold as it gets, even by ONDCP standards. Does she know or care that lives will be lost if her vision of good public health policy prevails? How many people should we allow to die in order to spread the message that heroin is dangerous?

This is one of those moments that reveal in stark terms the complete logical bankruptcy of the drug warrior mindset. By rejecting any interest in saving lives, Madras leaves one wondering what the hell she even wants. Seriously, what are we paying these people to do if not save lives?

This is not some crackpot narc spouting off silly soundbites in a local paper. This is a spokeswoman for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. These people are supposedly the smartest, most competent drug experts, charged with drafting public health policies to protect us all, and their idea of the week is to cheer from the sidelines as people die from drugs so that the rest of us will learn to behave ourselves.

ONDCP's hateful, literally fatal contempt for the people they should be helping is just so creepy and awful that one struggles to understand the continued need to expose their behavior for what it is. Really, what could I say about this organization that is not made perfectly evident by the philosophy which its own spokespeople espouse openly in our newspapers?

If I didn't know better, I'd predict that ONDCP's open opposition to preventing drug overdoses would immediately cost them what remains of their shrinking legitimacy.