JACOB SULLUM: America’s War on Pain Pills Is Killing Addicts and Leaving Patients in Agony.

Contrary to the impression left by most press coverage of the issue, opioid-related deaths do not usually involve drug-naive patients who accidentally get hooked while being treated for pain. Instead, they usually involve people with histories of substance abuse and psychological problems who use multiple drugs, not just opioids.

Conflating those two groups results in policies like the pill count that left Craig without the pain medication he needed to get out of bed in the morning, go to work, and lead a normal life. The rationale is that cutting people like him off will stop them from ending up dead of an overdose in a Walmart parking lot next to a baggie of fentanyl-laced heroin.

But the truth is that patients who take opioids for pain rarely become addicted. A 2018 study found that just 1 percent of people who took prescription pain medication following surgery showed signs of “opioid misuse,” a broader category than addiction. Even when patients take opioids for chronic pain, only a small minority of them become addicted. The risk of fatal poisoning is even lower—on the order of two-hundredths of a percent annually, judging from a 2015 study.

Despite such reassuring numbers, the government is responding to the “opioid epidemic” as if opioid addiction were a disease caused by exposure to opioids, a simplistic view that ignores the personal, social, and economic factors that make these drugs attractive to some people. Treating pain medication as a disease vector, the government has restricted access to it by monitoring prescriptions, investigating doctors, and imposing new limits on how much can be prescribed, for how long, and under what circumstances. That approach hurts pain patients by depriving them of the analgesics they need to make their lives livable, and it hurts nonmedical users by driving them into a black market where the drugs are deadlier.

None of this should come as a surprise to anyone who has studied history’s various prohibitions.

NARRATIVE-MAKING, SELECTIVE FACTS AND BIAS: The Los Angeles Times has an overview about billionaire Vinod Khosla’s legal battle to prevent public access to the beach on his California property. The paper notes that “The California Coastal Act for decades has scaled back mega-hotels, protected wetlands and, above all, declared that access to the beach was a fundamental right guaranteed to everyone.”

The newspaper goes on to point out that:

He has defended a number of conservative positions, such as arguing against same-sex marriage and leading the legal challenge against President Obama’s Affordable Care Act.

So, perpetuating a popular narrative, obviously this is yet another conservative fatcat being greedy, denying fundamental rights and just generally being a bad, bad man. What Rosanna Xia, who covers the environmental beat for the paper forgot/missed/hid from the public (take your pick) is something that took literally 2 minutes to find out: Khosla and his companies have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to a wide range of Democratic PAC’s and candidates over the years, including Al Franken, Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Party of Virginia and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, according to Federal Election Commission records.

It’s not uncommon for the wealthy to hedge their bets and throw money at both parties, but the Times does a disservice by not including this fact. Laziness, rush of the deadline, or purposeful avoidance: you be the judge. But it’s clear in whatever excuse is applied that what you leave out is often as important as what you say.

COMMIES HATE WOMEN (AND OTHER LIVING THINGS): Campus Commies at the University of Texas Vandalize Fountain to Celebrate International Women’s Day.

NASSIM TALEB: “I hope for Goldman Sachs’ bankruptcy.”

SO NOW IT’S MADE THE ATLANTIC: The Women’s March Has a Farrakhan Problem: The group refuses to be accountable for a high-level alliance with an open anti-Semite.

LAW WINS OVER POLICY:  Congress and the Human Settlement of Space.

GOOD NEWS:  Competing with NASA.

THE LEFT’S MAKE BELIEVE WORLD:  The Real Reason We Need ‘Fahrenheit 451’ Now More Than Ever.

I JUST WANT TO NOTE THAT FREITAS IS A PORTUGUESE LAST NAME.  AND YOU THOUGHT THERE WAS NO VAST CONSPIRACY!  Nick Freitas of Virginia on gun control.

BODIES AS WEIRD AS OUR MINDS:  And a Mystery is Solved.

LONG TIME PASSING:  Where has all the sanity gone?

AND THERE IT IS AGAIN:  Inside the Ring: Pentagon Steps Up North Korea Military Planning.

THIS IS MY SHOCKED FACE:  Russian Spy Ship Off Georgia Coast.

INSPIRATION (HE READ “THE RIGHT STUFF”) AND HARD WORK? THAT’LL NEVER WORK!  I went from bad student to NASA astronaut.

MAYBE THEY’LL HAVE KIDS ONCE THEY GET THERE?  Childless couples are moving to the suburbs — for their dogs.

TEACH WOMEN NOT TO ENGAGE IN DOMESTIC VIOLENCE:  College student beat up boyfriend over breakup: cops.

THE INSTAWIFE: Stop Using the Word “Mansplaining.”

AT AMAZON, save in Arts, Crafts, and Sewing.

Plus, deals in Grills and Outdoor Cooking.

JOHN HAWKINS: Why More Men Than Ever View Marriage as a Bad Deal.

WELL, WHAT DID YOU EXPECT? No hugging: are we living through a crisis of touch?

21ST CENTURY EMPLOYMENT: Banker quits finance job to become a sex toy tester. “A former banker who quit her high-powered finance job to become a professional sex toy tester says she halved her salary but is now ‘having twice as much fun.'”

WHY IS THE DEMOCRATIC LEADERSHIP SUCH A CESSPIT OF HOMOPHOBIA? Which Democrat is obstructing confirmation on Trump’s openly-gay nominee for Ambassador to Germany?

TECHNOLOGY REVIEW: Tech companies should stop pretending AI won’t destroy jobs.

DENUCLEARIZATION NEWS: Based on what we’ve learned tonight, this column –written Tuesday– seems to be informative.

Note the column stresses “skepticism.” So stay tuned.

FARHAD MANJOO: For Two Months, I Got My News From Print Newspapers. Here’s What I Learned. Key take: “After reading newspapers for a few weeks, I began to see it wasn’t newspapers that were so great, but social media that was so bad.”

Well, I haven’t gone that far, but I got a new phone a couple of weeks ago, didn’t reinstall the Twitter app, and didn’t even use my phone log in to Web Twitter. That alone has been relaxing.

Related: Social Media As Social Disease.