Here's Why Vermont Has The Highest Rate Of Illicit Drug Use In America

[hunter]

9. It's silly to lump it all together as "illicit drug use."

It's silly to describe drug use as "illicit."

Weekly consumption of a few beers, a few glasses of wine, a small amount of marijuana, these are not a public health problem. Opiate prescriptions for chronic pain patients are not a public health problem.

But addictions to drugs like meth, heroin, or any number of drugs made in sketchy criminal labs, alcohol, tobacco; these are public health problems and ought to be treated as such. Anyone who suffers these addictions ought to have free clinical resources available for treatment, even free access to clean, pharmaceutical drugs if that's what it takes to keep them from destroying their own bodies and committing crimes or supporting organized crime by their addiction.