A recent letter criticizing opioid lawsuits (“Against opioid suits,” Feb. 12) demonstrates a common psychological bias, emphasizing the person over the situation to explain an event.
The event is the opioid epidemic ravaging our county at a higher-than-average rate.
The author of the letter insists that illegal users are the cause of the crisis, not the overproduction and marketing of opioids by the drug manufacturers.
He blames the person, not the situation.
The author does not offer a solution to this problem, but people often encourage responsibility and self-control.
We should all cultivate responsibility and self-control, but we should also remember that humans are animals that respond to those features of our environment that generate predictable consequences for our behavior.
Slick, ever-present marketing hijacks cognitive shortcuts to persuade us to consume these drugs.
The pain-relieving, pleasure-giving effects combine positive and negative reinforcement to reward this behavior.
A mountain of opioids awaits the eager animal in pain.
We are more likely to solve a social problem when we remove our attention from the person and their mental lives and place it instead on the situation that has led to those mental lives.
The problem is not the opioid addict and his lack of virtue but the situation that allows — in fact, encourages — him to behave in that way.
The behavior of the drug manufacturers is a small but significant part of that situation, and our county should do what it can to alter that situation now for the future benefit of all.
Jordan Huzarevich,
Port Angeles