Stigma gives rise to absurd situation where it is far easier to prescribe addictive drugs than drugs that treat addiction.

Doctors need no special training to prescribe OxyContin, but for buprenorphine, an opioid substitute which facilitates safe recovery, "doctors must fill out a pile of paperwork, get a special waiver from the Drug Enforcement Administration, and undergo an eight-hour training session. After all that, they’re only permitted to prescribe to a limited number of patients."

Bias and stigma also influence who gets access to buprenorphine. Doctors are 35 times more likely to prescribe it to white people than to black people.

This even though overdoses among black people are rising faster than overdoses among white people.

Singer writes: "In accidents, stigmas stack up, and race trumps them all."

Singer describes a vicious cycle wherein Black people are more likely to be harmed or killed in accidents due to systemic causes (manufactured vulnerabilities) but are then more likely to be blamed for it, as individuals and as a race.

According to scholars Barbara Fields and Karen Fields, this is a form of "racecraft": when racism itself makes race seem more real.

Fields & Fields wrote a book about Racecraft, which is now on my reading list: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/233136/racecraft-by-barbara-j-fields-and-karen-e-fields/