Back in February, George Packer wrote an article in the New Yorker that I talked a lot about at the time. It was about real estate in Florida and it's part within the grander scheme of the financial collapse. Packer's conclusion (unfortunately a subscription is required to read the article now) was that Florida's entire real estate industry was a scam, one that Florida's economy was completely dependent upon to exist. As the scam unraveled and foreclosures started to pile up, so too did Florida as a whole. Not knowing much about Florida other than its special place in the hearts of Cubans, Jews, and Brooks Brothers rioteers, I felt that this was an interesting yet maybe overreaching conclusion. Could one entire state really live or die solely on the greed, stupidity, and suffering of its own residents?
Then I watched this documentary, which I very strongly recommend you guys watch, on Florida's painkiller addiction epidemic and the effect its lax regulation of these drugs has had on other states. These are serious drugs, with serious effects: as is pointed out repeatedly, 11 Floridians a day die from painkiller overdoses. I know that this blog already traffics in heavy doses (ha-ha) of scorn and anger towards weak regulation and the crass exploitation that inevitably accompanies it, but this is absolutely mind-blowing. Please watch.
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That movie sure was a downer.
ReplyDeleteToo soon?
The segments I found to be most discouraging were those interviews at the women's prison and then the arrest scenes that immediately preceded and followed them. Concentrating the police action at the bottom of the food chain seems to be the M.O. of the war on drugs, but to point out the obvious, this whole situation seems a particularly grotesque manifestation of that mindset.
On the other hand, with Kentucky's demand being met by Florida's seemingly limitless supply, we have yet another success for the free market.