>rural and suburban Americans haven't been murdering anyone
Those drugs are brought into the US by very violent gangs and I certainly can grow pot peacefully in my home. Ignoring the trafficking of these drugs is morally inexcusable. How many of these addicts make their own opioids or meth? Meth linked crimes are a huge number and almost always violent. Opioid withdrawal brings in a great deal of crime too. Those rural towns that have fallen into opioid addiction are crime hellholes for this very reason.
Heavy opioid use is linked to crime, unlike some drugs:
>(2) heavy opioid users committed crimes significantly more frequently than did moderate opioid users, non-opioid polydrug users, cannabis users or alcohol users
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2790266
Also:
>Methamphetamine was the only drug use variable that was strongly correlated with homicide.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18936516
I'd much rather work with "urban pot" users than rural meth and opioid addicts, and so would you. Why the former is more under attack than the latter shows our systemic problems with race in this country. Remember sentiment like this is why pot is illegal, from Harry J. Anslinger, the founder of the war on drugs:
“There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the U.S., and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others.”
“Reefer makes darkies think they’re as good as white men.”Certainly, more ruled-as-murders per population unit happen in urban areas, but I'm aware of no statistics by urban/rural residence of killer (where a crime happens doesn't tell you where the criminal is from, and people who live in rural areas obviously can commit crimes in cities.)
And rural areas have higher death rates and it's at least plausible that the decreased population density makes it easier for evidence of homicide to be concealed and murders to be passed off as death by other causes, so the relative rates of ruled-as-murders may not accurately reflect the relative rate of actually-is-murder.
The idea that so many rural deaths could be covered-up murders is simply fanciful.