There is a special kind of darkness in the way a bureaucracy decides who lives and who dies. Usually, it is hidden behind big words and stacks of paper. But sometimes, the mask slips off, and we see the ugly truth underneath. The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, has seemingly decided that saving lives is too messy. According to recent reports, officials are telling health groups to stop using the phrase "never use alone."

Let us pause and think about that simple phrase. "Never use alone." It is not a magic spell. It is basic advice for survival. It is the "look both ways before crossing the street" of the addiction crisis. When people use drugs together, someone is there to help if things go wrong. Someone can call for an ambulance. Someone can use medicine to reverse the overdose. It is a small act of community that keeps a human being breathing. But in the theater of the absurd that is American politics, keeping people alive is apparently now against the rules.

Why would a health agency want to block a message that saves lives? The answer is as stupid as you might expect. It is all about paperwork and pleasing the boss. The report says this change is to comply with an executive order called "Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets."

I have to laugh, or else I might scream. "Ending Disorder." Consider what that means in this context. To the people in charge, an overdose survivor is "disorderly." They are a problem. They are a statistic that needs support and care. But a dead person? A dead person is very orderly. A dead person does not commit crimes. A dead person does not loiter on the street. By this twisted logic, the best way to clean up the streets is to let the people on them disappear into the morgue.

This is not a plan to help people stop using drugs. It is a plan to make the problem invisible. When you tell people to use alone, you are telling them to hide. You are driving the crisis back into the shadows, behind locked doors and into dark alleys. You are ensuring that when tragedy strikes, there are no witnesses. It is the ultimate act of washing your hands of the problem. If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? If a citizen dies in a locked bathroom because the government told them not to have a friend nearby, does it count as "crime and disorder"?

It is fascinating to watch these public health officials scramble. These are people who went to school to learn how to stop diseases and save lives. Now, they are sitting in meetings, looking at funding charts, and deciding that their budget is more important than their mission. They are terrified of losing money, so they are willing to throw away the most basic tool they have: the truth. The truth is that using alone kills. Everyone knows it. But the new rules say we must pretend otherwise.

This is the problem with treating human beings like numbers in a spreadsheet. To the government, "harm reduction" sounds like letting people get away with bad behavior. They want punishment. They want "law and order." But you cannot punish a corpse. You cannot bring order to a graveyard. By blocking this message, the government is essentially saying that the life of a drug user is not worth saving. They are saying that moral judgment is more important than a beating heart.

Think about the level of cynicism required to do this. We are not talking about giving out free drugs. We are talking about a simple sentence. A few words of advice. "Don't be alone." It is the most human advice possible. It is what we tell children who are scared of the dark. It is what we tell swimmers in the ocean. And now, the government wants to ban it. They want to strip away the buddy system and replace it with a game of Russian Roulette.

The irony is thick enough to choke on. The executive order claims it wants to fix the streets. But by removing safety nets, they are guaranteeing more death, more grief, and more chaos for the families left behind. But perhaps that is the point. Grief is private. Grief happens inside the home. It doesn't look like "disorder" on the nightly news. It is a clean, quiet tragedy.

So, welcome to the new era of public health. The experts have checked their moral compass at the door to keep their funding secure. The message is clear: You are on your own. If you fall, no one should be there to catch you. Because if someone catches you, it might look like "disorder." And in this sophisticated, modern world, appearance is the only thing that matters.