By Mary Lou Masters
Daily Caller News Foundation
A Seattle public health official on Tuesday blamed “racism” for an “exponential” rise in drug overdoses that the city is currently experiencing.
After the institution of several permissive drug policies, Seattle is suffering from an ongoing drug crisis, with King County seeing a total of 1,018 overdose deaths in 2022, up from roughly 700 in 2021, according to county data. Sharon Bogan, public health spokesperson for King County and Seattle, said the area saw a dramatic 40% rise in drug overdoses from 2021 to 2022 due in part to “structural racism” and economic factors.
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“The underlying root causes that have resulted in the current overdose crisis are, unfortunately, not ones that will be reversed overnight. Structural factors, including lack of economic opportunities, social isolation, structural racism, criminalization of substance use disorders, housing stability, and stigma, are just some of the factors that will require long-term, systematic changes and resources at all levels, from federal to state to local,” Bogan told KIRO 7.
In 2022, King County averaged 17 deaths by overdose per week, with 70% driven by fentanyl, according to county data.
“Since 2019, the number of overdose deaths has grown on an exponential scale, jumping by 20% between 2019 and 2020 and jumping by an additional 39% between 2020 and 2021,” the county wrote in its report on overdose deaths.
NEW: Seattle-King County Public Health says the fentanyl overdose crisis is due to “structural racism” and “criminalization of substance use disorder.”
How? Public Health refuses to explain.
More whites have died and drugs are legalized in the county. https://t.co/VZdpmsPSVO
— Jason Rantz on KTTH Radio (@jasonrantz) February 2, 2023
“Needle exchange programs provide new, sterile syringes and clean injection equipment in exchange for used, contaminated syringes,” according to the county.
In 2021, the state of Washington temporarily decriminalized drug possession, making it a misdemeanor rather than a felony, according to Axios.
King County declined to comment further.
This story originally was published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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EDITOR’S NOTE: What is behind the current war against America’s children? Why are so many adults killing their unborn children right up to the moment of birth, or even after? Why are millions of kids sexualized virtually from birth, and injected with an experimental “vaccine” proven to be both ineffective and dangerous, then as toddlers transported to events glorifying mentally ill, demonically possessed men dressed as women?
Why are America’s children systematically sexualized at school, and by transgender recruiters on social media platforms like TikTok, seducing many into “identifying” as the opposite gender, or a brand-new imaginary gender, then encouraged to take powerful drugs and hormones and have their healthy breasts amputated or undergo chemical or surgical castration?
Why are our children simultaneously indoctrinated with toxic Marxist ideologies like “critical race theory” intended to condition them to hate and reject their own country, parents, faith, race, gender and themselves? Why are they simultaneously being frightened of the future by being fed lurid, terrifying – and groundless – apocalyptic tales of the imminent destruction of the world due to global warming?
No wonder youth suicides have skyrocketed, as have depression, anxiety, addiction and drug overdoses. Indeed, fentanyl, the No. 1 cause of death of younger Americans 18 to 45, destroys multitudes of children annually.
Make no mistake: The harm being done to America’s children in this multi-front war is not accidental: Children are the primary target.
WHY? How can all this be happening in the greatest nation on earth? Who and what is behind it? And HOW CAN IT BE STOPPED?
Find out in the explosive January issue of WND’s critically acclaimed monthly Whistleblower magazine, “WINNING THE WAR AGAINST AMERICA’S CHILDREN,” available in both print and state-of-the-art digital editions.
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