Raphael Warnock: Opioid Crisis Only a Public Health Emergency Because ‘the Faces of Human Tragedy Are White and Suburban’

Georgia Democrat Senate candidate Raphael Warnock said in 2019 that the opioid crisis was only treated as a “public health emergency” and not a “war” because the “faces of the human tragedy are white and suburban.”

During a sermon at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, in 2019, Warnock claimed that America treated the crack epidemic and the opioid crisis differently because the opioid primarily affected white Americans.

Warnock said, “At least it was a war when the drug was crack. And the bodies were black and brown … But now that we are talking about opioids and meth and the faces of the human tragedy are white and suburban, suddenly we have a public health emergency.”

Warnock hopes to unseat Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) during the January Senate runoffs.

Warnock’s comments were received with applause at the church.

Warnock continued his analogy, noting that the crack epidemic was treated as a “war,” with “enemy combatants, prisoners of war,” and “militarized weapons of war on civilian streets.” In contrast, Warnock said that the opioid crisis has “patients.”

“There is a spiritual sickness affecting all of America in the cities and the rural areas and the suburbs,” Warnock added.

Warnock then described the spiritual sickness in Marxist terms, contending that “there is an aching void that cannot be filled with consumeristic preoccupations filled with getting the next thing.”

The Georgia Democrat also lamented the existence of “religion garbed in the garments of capitalism.”

He added that there were “preachers even in Black churches who say that if you trust God and you’ll have a bigger house and a bigger car and getting our folk in more and more debt.”

He added that many were “consumed in more and more oppression,” you charged, “You ought to say no to the lie!”

 Sean Moran is a congressional reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.