60 journalists all spend one week covering Cincinnati's battle with heroin

Ah, that explains it. In Germany, it's split - 110 calls the cops, and 112 medical/fire services.

> And, sadly, jail is often the only existing place to send them if you can't have them in your house.

It's a short-term fix, unfortunately. People suffering from addiction issues should not be in jail, they should be in a medical facility or whatever, as long as it does not appear on background checks.

I’m not in favour of punitive measures, but the state providing it? Really? I’d also like to see data on providing a milder form of an opiate working better to wean people off a dependency.

So far, all I’ve seen is the dependency switching to the replacement.

I'm here in Cincinnati now, for family stuff. And I'm concerned. Cincinnati still has a large industrial component (P&G has their HQ here), but many factories are gone. A lot of the east side of the city has been converted into microbreweries, homes, and shopping. My Mom works at a biomedical company that's growing. Gigabit FTTH for residences is available.

I'm still concerned. Property taxes have grown beyond reasonable limits. There are so many areas that are not benefiting from the improvements being made. There is culture being destroyed by rising rents and gentrification. And the pain killer/opioid epidemic gives a perfect path to "release".

Case in point: Today I met some relatives at a brewery for lunch. But my Aunt had a problem ordering: They send a text message when your order is ready to pick up, and she doesn't have a mobile phone. The place was all stools and tables; if we had invited my grandfather, he wouldn't have had a place to sit.

There are good places and people though. I'm here to attend my grandmothers funeral. In addition to my boss, two of my relatives also had flowers sent by their place of work. On the day we were doing planning, my uncle suddenly shows up: My uncle builds furniture; he was sent by his place of work to pick up some big sandwich & pasta platters, and drop it off to my grandfather. All paid for.

I'm rambling. The point is: There is so much good here, and it is so at risk. And sometimes I think that if I moved back here (either working remotely, or finding a similar job locally), that I would just exacerbate the problem.

I think if people like us moved back there to work for other tech companies, we'd exacerbate the problem.

If we moved back and started companies that employed low skilled labor, we'd make things better. If we could end the pointless war on drugs, and spend that same money repairing infrastructure, we'd be way better off.

Our old system is breaking down. Unfortunately i think it'll have to get worse before it gets better.