Is the New Yorker on drugs? An investigation.

The following is part of an investigative series that seeks to ascertain whether various institutions and individuals are doing drugs. We appreciate reader support that makes this work possible.

The New Yorker has a reported feature on a series of fatal overdoses among teenagers in Texas. It’s very New Yorker-y. “Letter from the Southwest” the feature is cloyingly called, as if the Southwest is as distant from the New Yorker’s genteel audience as Never-everland.

It’s titled, “The Horrifying Epidemic of Teen-Age Fentanyl Deaths in a Texas County,” and it’s a compassionate deep dive into what’s driving children’s deaths from overdoses. They land on the common conclusion that we’ve “let down our children” because of social media and pandemic lockdowns. But not before the story repeats a talking point normally promoted by Fox News: