This article is part three in a series. Find the first part here and the second here. As I have already discussed in this series, opioids can have a detrimental effect on towns and communities. By now, we know the effects of opioids, but our country’s current healthcare system makes treatment options inaccessible and inefficient. The most realistic approach… Read more »
Post-truth, fake news, the failing New York Times, very fake news, and “democracy dies in darkness.” Politics has never been more obsessed with the medium through which it is reported. Since President Trump took the oath of office on the west front of the Capitol, periphery of his right eye trained on the sparse Washington Mall… Read more »
The internet is the key to providing comprehensive sex education in America. Instead of using this resource, the United States leaves sex education to its public schools. Here is a glimpse of what this curriculum looks like in the public school systems of the nation’s two most populous states, California and Texas. California requires discussion… Read more »
On December 23, 2015, the United States Senate cast a final vote, 52–47, to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The repeal bill, proposed by Congressman Tom Price, was similar to bills proposed by Republicans on a regular basis since the Affordable Care Act became law in 2009. It intended to roll back the major measures… Read more »
On the evening of November 8, millions of Californians watched their country elect Donald Trump to the presidency. Their disbelief and frustration quickly manifested into one cry that echoed across social and news media with fervor: secession. Disheartened Californian college students and San Francisco liberals shared “Yes California!” on Facebook with excitement, and Silicon Valley… Read more »
On November 8, Maine voted to switch to a ranked-choice voting system. Though overshadowed by other results of that election, the switch will create a dramatic change in the underlying structure of the state’s political institutions. Under ranked-choice voting, voters receive ballots which offer them three slots to rank candidates in any order that they… Read more »
This piece, which will focus on the dynamic of race in drug systems, is the second of three articles dedicated to the social and political aspects of the opioid epidemic. Many politicians and officials have proclaimed that opioid drug addiction is “non-discriminatory,” in that it affects people of all demographics. But before the epidemic became… Read more »
Note: This is the third piece in a series examining criminal justice in America. Read the introduction here and the second piece here. American prisoners are getting old. Harsh sentencing laws from the 1980s and 1990s mean that more inmates are reaching retirement age behind bars. These aging inmates are forcing some prisons to provide… Read more »
Over the course of a decade, the opioid epidemic has crept into our homes, schools, and neighborhoods, disrupting communities, destroying lives, and leaving users stuck in a never-ending cycle. It has contributed to the deaths of twenty-seven thousand people each year, surpassing cocaine as the leading cause of drug related deaths in the United States…. Read more »
Note: This is the second piece in a series examining criminal justice in America. Read the introduction here. The people most likely to go to prison in the United States are the ones who have been there before. It is known as the “revolving door”: over 650,000 people are released from state and federal prisons… Read more »