And the fentanyl "from Canada" story is because there was a seizure up north in the US and was attributed to come from Canada (but may as well be going the other way) and amount was like 0.1% of total apprehensions. Most of the illegal guns in Canada come from the US though.

It was never believable.

Not really since addictions are not breakable with money. Most likely 95% of that money was going to very wealthy NGO owners.

What do you mean by 'addictions are not breakable with money'? Are you saying that medical intervention and healthcare are not effective for people suffering addiction?

Do you know it works? I’d be curious to know your prior—do you think medical interventions for behavioral problems typically work?

We know, for example, that medical interventions to address obesity typically don’t work (without surgery). https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8427732/

> We know, for example, that medical interventions to address obesity typically don’t work (without surgery).

This seems like a wild example to use given the runway success of GLP-1 drugs

Sorry, I’m old and sometimes forget GLP-1 drugs exist now. But that’s kind of my point—those drugs seem like magic because medical interventions for obesity control were so extremely ineffective until just a couple of years ago.

We don’t have anything akin to GLP-1 drugs for opiate addiction, or alcohol addiction, etc.

> We don’t have anything akin to GLP-1 drugs for opiate addiction, or alcohol addiction, etc.

Surprisingly, there's some evidence that GLP-1 drugs may also help with drug and alcohol cravings!

https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/news-events/research-update/semagl...

Why do people relapse so often if medical intervention works?

A doctor can set 1000 broken legs. Can they cure 1000 addicts?

well the goal of treating addiction is generally not to 'cure' it but to 'manage' it. If you can come up with a way of systematically helping populations of people manage their addictions without using money, I am all ears.

Doesn’t the show My 600 lb Life show many serious food addictions being broken by expert medical care, which is not free?

Doesn't the show demonstrate lots of people who don't lose weight and lie about their intake?

Those people will break an addiction for fame. When the show is over, they'll be back to eating.

So you believe these people can break their addiction, and that medical science has no way to leverage that chink in the armor?

The carrot, which is massive fame, is not present when it's just a psychologist.

"very wealthy NGO owners."

Can you name a very wealth NGO owner that's not working with this administration. Or describe what you see as a problematic NGO?

It's wild to me that people think NGO owners might be a problem when the richest man in the world is working with this administration to slash this budget arbitrarily.

But I guess "deflect, deny, depose".

Why? I can understand the argument that this administration is wrong and will make things worse, but I don't think they are inconsistent arguments.

The right seems to be of the view that a policy closer to Singapore is smarter than that of, say, San Francisco.

In other words, increase penalties/enforcement of drug importation and treat drug dealers harshly, instead of spending lots of money on services for drug users, which arguably just leads to enabling them to continue to lead the life of a drug addict.

From my perspective, there's pros and cons to both approaches, but it's not unreasonable to look at a place like San Francisco and come away with the view that some of this funding is making things worse, not better, even for the addicts themselves.