Vice season 6, episode 14 recap: ‘Opioid Generation and Hindustan’
By Grant Butler
On the latest episode of Vice, the show took a look at the massive heroin epidemic in the U.S.
It is a well-known fact that as of right now, the United States is experiencing a massive level of people using and dying from heroin and other types of opiates. This is a recent development, as several decades ago the levels of both usage and death regarding heroin was relatively low. But that is a thing of the past. This Vice segment looked at one specific aspect of the epidemic; the effect of heroin on newborn children.
The risks of smoking, drug use or drinking during pregnancy are much better known today then they were years ago. The concept of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome has become known to the general public. Not surprisingly, the newborn children of parents who used heroin during pregnancy are experiencing complications as a result of their parents’ addiction. Not only does this include the obvious medical complications, but sometimes the newborn child ends up with one or both parents dead from overdosing.
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In West Virginia, several of the counties hardest hit by heroin are in the middle of lawsuits over the massive death toll. The massive amount of children involved in the opioid crisis is also hitting the court system and child welfare agencies particularly hard.
The other segment was a look at Hindu nationalism on the rise in India. For most of the time since India became independent from the U.K., the dominant political force in India was the Indian National Congress. But the election of Narendra Modi as Prime Minister of India in 2014 brought the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) into power. The BJP promotes Hindu nationalism as part of its platform.
In the time since Modi and the BJP assumed office, Hindu nationalist groups have been on the rise in India, and this has led to an increase in tension between Hindus and other religious groups in India.
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Hinduism is the most popular religion in India, amounting to approximately 80% of the population. But it is also worth noting that as of right now, India has the second biggest population in the World at about 1.2 billion people. So approximately 20% of 1.2 billion, or roughly 240 million people do not practice Hinduism and might take issue with the idea of Hindu nationalism. If only a tiny fraction of those take some sort of action, things have the potential to get ugly.