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The Addicts on Main Street

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Daniel M. Becker
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Abstract

Mortality rates for middle-aged whites in the U.S. are rising due to drugs, alcohol, and depression. Unique to our country, these “deaths of despair” disproportionately occur among the under-educated, who are at particular risk for dying young. At one time, less-educated persons aspired to work in the same factory as their parents, at union wages, with benefits. Those jobs, and the sense of community and prosperity and security they allowed, are evaporating. Many former workers suffer from chronic pain, which underlies America's ongoing opioid overdose epidemic. The pain is not only physical. It is psychic, spiritual, and economic.

Type
Symposium 1 Articles
Information
Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , Volume 46 , Issue 3: The Medicalization of Poverty; Perspectives of Alzheimer's Disease: Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues , Fall 2018 , pp. 610 - 614
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 2018

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