U.S. surpasses record 100,000 overdose deaths in 2021

[maxsolomon]

7. My unsupported theory based on anecdotal observation:

a lot of Seattle's drug-abusing urban campers are not FROM Seattle; they are from the exurban and rural PNW, where they acquired their taste for opiates and methamphetamines, lost their jobs, burned their bridges with family, and made their way to the big city in their broken-down motor homes.

In the big city they can get SOME services: clothing, food, camping equipment, city parks with functioning toilets, and drugs. Lots more drugs, and then they OD. Regularly.

Then we get 2 reactions from the general public:
1. Conservatives point at Seattle and say it's dying because there are junkies and tweakers everywhere stealing anything that's not nailed down, and things that are nailed down - because Seattle Librul Gubmint is too soft on the homeless. Push em out; push em anywhere but here.
2. Well-meaning Progressives point at the squalor and say sweeping the camps out of parks and highway shoulders is intolerable and cruel and why can't Seattle just wave a magic wand and create 1,000s of units of free housing.