**We have all those things.**
That’s a huge part of how we’re paying out the nose for it. It’s become a business and industry in and of itself. It’s own 'little' economy.
Drugs and the war on drugs are one means the government has been able to obfuscate the loss of real economy, either to kick the can down the road or to make money off shipping industry overseas. Paying huge sums in all these programs to control it also creates a false economy that is then endangered if the problem is ever actually solved. You know how much money the government makes controlling the problem instead of solving it? How many jobs controlling it supports? That’s the other side of your “why are we paying to support drug addicts with needles” argument.
See the trap? Drugs are a moneymaker, a revenue stream. Drugs create jobs because they create a problem to be solved. Once the problem no longer exists, you lose the revenue stream. All the people making these decisions get a piece of that revenue pie one way or another. It’s financial incentive to make sure the problem never actually gets solved.
In fact, the only thing we don’t have on your list is resilience and a means to deal with our national malaise and depression. I have my own theories about that and the sources of it, having to do with nutrition and poor gut health from a diet too high in sugar, prosperity gospel nonsense, and ideologies that have become so extreme they are unhealthy (toxic positivity, toxic masculinity, maternal martyrdom).
I disagree that correction should be on the education system though. Maybe a small part, but not predominantly. It’s the job of families and communities. Real resilience has to start there.
And that means we have to be real and get real with our kids. Tell the truth, and arm them for what’s out there honestly instead of hiding the ugliness to protect the innocence of childhood. We have to teach our children how to deal with their emotions by not labeling emotions as bad or good and letting them witness how we deal with ours. We can’t be so naive as to think it’s a one time conversation. It’s a drill that should also be practiced and that becomes a two way street.
We should also think of resilience as a perishable life skill. Use it or lose it. And get better at practicing it as adults.
