“But as a result, an increasingly large swath of the public is exposed to the critical responsibility and trauma of attempting, and at times failing, to save someone’s [an overdosing opioid addict’s] life.”
This is an abusive and enabling take. If you are not a trained first responder, it is not your “critical responsibility” to do anything in such a situation other than perhaps call 911 if you have a cellphone. It is not in any sense your responsibility, moral, psychological or otherwise, to respond to the situation with direct intervention.
You can personally choose to prepare to act, and actually intervene, as your personal choice. Some people choose to ski, some choose chocolate ice cream. To place a psychological/societal expectation, and personal guilt if it fails, on passersby (or librarians, store staff, etc.) to directly intervene is a form of abuse that society should not be promoting.
If we only cared about lives saved, perhaps a law should be enacted so that the non-first-responder intervenor should be required to become the legal guardian of any addict they save (with concomitant loss of personal liberties and rights from the addict). Guardianship delegated to whomever the savior chooses. Might incentivize the proselytizing members of various sects to get more proactively and aggressively involved with outreach to addict communities, and thus more addict lives saved. Win-win.
Some journalists should try attending a few Al-Anon/Nar-Anon meetings.
Somehow the Denver Post hates Denver. From meth sales in the main branch of the Denver Public Library (which I went to and never saw) to Union Station as a "lawless hellhole" (I walked through it a few days after that headline. Grandmas and kids and dogs) to this.
As soon as the Rocky Mountain News folded, the Post took a very conservative turn. That includes hating everything urban, apparently.
This is an abusive and enabling take. If you are not a trained first responder, it is not your “critical responsibility” to do anything in such a situation other than perhaps call 911 if you have a cellphone. It is not in any sense your responsibility, moral, psychological or otherwise, to respond to the situation with direct intervention.
You can personally choose to prepare to act, and actually intervene, as your personal choice. Some people choose to ski, some choose chocolate ice cream. To place a psychological/societal expectation, and personal guilt if it fails, on passersby (or librarians, store staff, etc.) to directly intervene is a form of abuse that society should not be promoting.
If we only cared about lives saved, perhaps a law should be enacted so that the non-first-responder intervenor should be required to become the legal guardian of any addict they save (with concomitant loss of personal liberties and rights from the addict). Guardianship delegated to whomever the savior chooses. Might incentivize the proselytizing members of various sects to get more proactively and aggressively involved with outreach to addict communities, and thus more addict lives saved. Win-win.
Some journalists should try attending a few Al-Anon/Nar-Anon meetings.