this is my impression as well regarding nicotine. however, i have noticed people are not interested in examining that and continue to conflate nicotine with cigarettes (high risk) and vaping (misconstrued risk).
i also believe many view a nicotine addiction through a sort of moral lens they don't apply so readily to caffeine.
i choose to continue living each day because a) i am still enjoying myself enough to stick around, b) i'm a chicken and nothing has motivated me to voluntarily face quicker death just yet, c) i am committed to not fucking up my kids in that particular way if i can continue to avoid it, and d) i do work that matters and eases the suffering of others to create meaning for myself.
you're either terribly uninformed or willfully ignorant. lack of transportation, accommodation, childcare, time off work, current identification all contribute. gerrymandering minimizes the effects of successfully voting as well.
i would add that housing-first approaches increase the likelihood that mental health and substance use treatment even work long term.
hard to wanna get sober when you're being harassed by police or other people. hard to stay sane when you're barely surviving and putting drugs on top to cope.
right now, many people experiencing homelessness and severe mental illness/addiction are hospitalized for a few days or a week and then they go back to the street. which doesn't do much except get an individual out of immediate crisis. many will repeat this pattern over and over until incarceration or death.
we can attack and punish each other as the few would like or work together. that requires us to acknowledge common humanity and rally together for our shared well-being.
there are bad and good people everywhere. i do not endorse painting millions as deserving suffering; there's plenty of that already.
ordinary americans can find their way out of this mess together or tear each other apart. which do you imagine suits those in power?
you are no longer here. stop trying to sow further hatred and division. i don't want my children, my friends, my colleagues, my clients to suffer because they live on the wrong side of an arbitrary line.
there are a lot of nice people in the south. there are a lot of brown people in the south. you think everyone needs to suffer brutality for what the worst do?
i find it kind of creepy that this meme makes a joke of strangulation.