Stop Using A Behavioral Health Disease As A Core Justification For Tariffs

Today we return to essays about important topics in alcohol and other drug use, abuse and addiction. Our point in this essay is that using illegal drug supply as a core justification for tariffs seems disingenuous. Certainly, stopping demand is worthwhile. The problem is twofold. First, stopping opioids at the border is very difficult. Second is that demand accounts for only one-third the drug problem in America. Two thirds of the problem is driven by demand and there we are doing a terrible job at treatment — curbing demand. Until we get serious about demand let’s stop using drug abuse, a disease as defined by the AMA, as a cudgel for the larger economic and geopolitical purposes of tariffs.