Yeah, I was trying to find a place to point out that there are different opioid epidemics going on [0]. Fentanyl and derivatives are part of the epidemic that's found in NH.
[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/12/13/where...
When I mention Trump, it's because it's almost like there is a sense of disbelief of why he won. It encapsulates the lack of empathy and perspective people have for rural America. Having people understand why people voted for him may at least spark a dialog towards understanding their issues and coming up with solutions.
IMHO, you're doing a terrible job in this thread. You seem convinced that urbanites hate rural folk for who they are, and not what they have done and said.
And you are cherry picking facts and giving tenuous explanations for rural support for issues. It's laughably disingenuous to suggest that rural america supported Trump's wall because of heroin. TBH, you sound like part of the rural problem - too willing to fish around for a more palatable explanation when a fact doesn't reflect favourably on your in-group.
The fentanyl and fentanyl analogues that have spiked opioid overdoses in the past few years are coming via mail from China and Canada. Literally hundreds of people have died in the span of two nights from batches of heroin laced with cheap internet fentanyl derivatives. The people selling cheap internet fentanyl laced heroin aren't cartels or minority run gangs, they tend to be in the 16-28 demographic of white-bread drug dealers with access to a computer. The margins make sense (a dose of fentanyl can be as cheap as 1/100 of a penny when dealers pick it up in bulk vs the more expensive gang-sourced heroin) and attract people without many opportunities nor the education/ qualifications to make sure they can accurately sell people micrograms of a powder and not kill them. People like our friends might be or might have been.
Different gangs and supply chains bring heroin into different areas of the country. Some areas still have Afghan heroin coming in, perhaps from the same fields we protected from destruction while we were over there.
I lean left and come from a background very similar to yours. There is a difference between acknowledging the importance of ignored issues in these areas and saying "this is why Trump won".