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Painkillers now kill more Americans than any illegal drug

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171–180 of 318 posts

Re: Painkillers now kill more Americans than any illegal drug

#171

If 47k deaths per year is an "epidemic" as the author terms it, the 610k that die each year from heart disease must be an all-out pandemic. It never was a war on drugs. Drugs are inert and aren't capable of fighting a war. It's a war on addiction. And good luck winning that on a national scale with "laws."

If you live long enough you eventually die of something, right?

Now, if 85% of those heart disease deaths were in the 15-28 year old cohort, that might be something quite stunning.

I agree declaring 'war' on addiction is a ridiculous concept, because it's more than likely a statistical constant (with a range) within the human species. A certain amount of people will get addicted, be it drugs, food, or the internet. It's just kinda sorta what we do, and I'd be a big fan if as a society and culture we looked toward methods to save ourselves constructively, rather than use the authority of the state to lock people away, generally speaking.

Re: Painkillers now kill more Americans than any illegal drug

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m an alcoholic. I’ve cut back on my use significantly, and I’m currently in a period of abstinence. Because alcohol is legal and socially accepted, it’s entirely my responsibility to manage my behaviour and keep my use to non-problematic levels. Not everyone has the social support to make that happen. I think legalisation would be beneficial, as you say, because the criminal justice system does not serve addicts. H…

Why should your drug use, or anyone else's, create obligations for other people to support you, treat you, and help you overcome addiction? The libertarian case for legalizing drugs falls apart if society has to take responsibility for providing support systems as a reaction to the actions of individual drug users. Frankly, most people would rather continue to ban drugs than pay for treatment for people who abuse the…

You pretty much already said it yourself... it's already a problem, it affects not just the individual but his environment, too, and generates costs unto society, too.

Now, there are cost-effective ways to solve these issues and they happen to be humane, too: support people with issues they have immense difficulty overcoming themselves, include them in society, do not stigmatise, create support structures. It's effective and carries a short-term cost.

The alternative solution to the problem is not cost-effective, not humane and in fact, not very effective: criminalise a person's problem, push him away into the worst corner of society (prison), stigmatise him (prison), fine him, take away his opportunity, and expect him to resist a drug that has a hold on his brain every waking hour without help. It doesn't work and carries a long-term cost.

And that's just the individual, let's not get into the side-effects of criminalising drugs. (I welcome anyone to look into the Mexican drug war which has taken the lives of more than 100 thousand people in the past decade, and is at least partially rooted in drug policy of various American countries including the US)

Further, I think it's important to stress the limitations of self-control. For example, we don't expect an orphan to take care of himself. We argue, because it's a kid with no level of responsibility or maturity. The libertarian case of self-responsibility does not apply here, based on the biological limitations of a kid's brain. But it's important to consider that people under the effect of drugs or addictions are also to a large extent, not a similar extent but a substantial one, emotionally/biologically limited to take adequate self-responsibility. The solution then isn't to say 'you're an adult, so get over it and take responsibility', when your brain simply has a hard time, not by choice, to act in a way that you know is rational. And in this way an addiction is similar to many other forms of disease. Similarly a depressed person can not 'just' take self-responsibility and get over it. What remains then is the argument 'but before you got addicted, you should've known better'. And that is the worst argument. For one because people don't get addicted by some clear choice, some are ignorant, some are exposed to drugs as very young children, some use it after experiencing extreme trauma. And even if you should've known better, I don't believe the solution is to withhold support as a form of punishment for the sake of punishing a bad action, that makes no sense to me.

Re: Painkillers now kill more Americans than any illegal drug

#174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't want painkillers, I want you to figure out why my body is hurting when it's not supposed to. It's surprisingly frustrating to talk doctors into looking for the cause instead of treating the symptom. To be fair, this is related to the symptom you're asking them about. Pain often occurs with no apparent cause. As an extreme example, it is normal for amputees to experience the sensation of a "phantom hand" whe…

It's interesting that the more limited your knowledge is, the more things happen 'with no apparent cause'. In middle ages, millions dies of plague 'with no apparent cause'. I guess humankind just said 'ah, these things happen, let's not investigate further'.

Pain gets investigated extensively (there's a natural abundance of demand for making it go away). If you go to a doctor complaining that you have it, they're not going to make you a research project. You'd need to go to a researcher.

If you have pain and you know why, you'll generally volunteer that information to your doctor. If you have pain and you don't know why, they will look at the area that hurts. If there's nothing obvious there, they'll give you painkillers, because all the safe money is on the idea that no matter what they try, they'll never be able to eliminate or even identify the cause of the pain. This is what you want them to do.

Re: Painkillers now kill more Americans than any illegal drug

#175
post #153

I've never taken an illegal drug in my life. I've smoked a cigarette about 5 times. I drank in college but lately I've cut that out of my life as well. I had a security clearance with drug testing requirements for a while and now I just don't like the feeling of a hangover from alcohol or the risk of ingesting random plants/chemicals made by shady people. In short: I'm the most vanilla, square, anti-drug person you c…

I truly believe that history will judge us for the current state of prohibition nearly the same way it has judged us for slavery.

I'm personally at the stage where I judge any politician that actually spends time on drug policy and still comes out against legalization as being no better than murderers. The information is there. If they're talking drug policy and still support criminalization, they are intentionally or out of an inexcusable level of ignorance helping to perpetrate a system that causes a massive number of deaths.

If I had the choice of releasing a murderer from prison and putting one of those politicians there, I would take it: The chance of a murderer carrying out another murder is extremely low, but such a politician have a history of continuing to cause massive harm to others with these policies.

Re: Painkillers now kill more Americans than any illegal drug

#176

I've never taken an illegal drug in my life. I've smoked a cigarette about 5 times. I drank in college but lately I've cut that out of my life as well. I had a security clearance with drug testing requirements for a while and now I just don't like the feeling of a hangover from alcohol or the risk of ingesting random plants/chemicals made by shady people. In short: I'm the most vanilla, square, anti-drug person you c…

"So brave."

Sorry for my dickish attitude. I mean, I completely agree with you, but this is the sentiment held by most HN and Reddit users, and isn't even that directly related to the article.

We know the War on Drugs isn't good. We know it'll take a while to eventually cut back on it and adopt harm reduction over zero tolerance. No need to bring it up every time.

Re: Painkillers now kill more Americans than any illegal drug

#177

I've never taken an illegal drug in my life. I've smoked a cigarette about 5 times. I drank in college but lately I've cut that out of my life as well. I had a security clearance with drug testing requirements for a while and now I just don't like the feeling of a hangover from alcohol or the risk of ingesting random plants/chemicals made by shady people. In short: I'm the most vanilla, square, anti-drug person you c…

Some drugs must be outlawed. Asking why heroin or cocaine need to be illegal is like asking why gambling has to be illegal. If you allow people to use addictive drugs or gamble freely then they will destroy themselves. Or huge numbers of people will, anyway.

Re: Painkillers now kill more Americans than any illegal drug

#178
post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the best choice, certainly, but I would question not useful. I suffer from chronic pain (mostly headaches), and opioids (tramadol/codeine) are the only drugs[1] that have given any relief. I've been using them for about two years; they are still useful, and when I stop using them the pain is about the same it was before. Fortunately I don't appear to find them addictive - I stopped taking the tramadol after about…

Just a suggestion because it is often missed by general practitioners: If you've not tried it already, talk to your dentist. Headaches and migraines are often related to teeth or the jaws. Particularly grinding and clenching. Often it can be reduced significantly or go away entirely with a simple night time biteguard.

My dentist did note that I seem to be grinding my teeth a little (probably at night), but didn't think the headaches were related. I'll mention it again next time I see him to see if there is anything worse trying, even as a long shot. Thanks for the advise.

Re: Painkillers now kill more Americans than any illegal drug

#179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't want painkillers, I want you to figure out why my body is hurting when it's not supposed to. It's surprisingly frustrating to talk doctors into looking for the cause instead of treating the symptom. To be fair, this is related to the symptom you're asking them about. Pain often occurs with no apparent cause. As an extreme example, it is normal for amputees to experience the sensation of a "phantom hand" whe…

But the pain isn't in the hand. Pain is in the head, caused by signals which normally come from the hand, and results in feelings that the head places onto the hand. So phantom pains in amputated limbs are caused by real things. Maybe the nerve that use to communicate the pain from the hand is sending in a false signal due to another reason. Maybe something in the brain is misfiring and some other sensation from anot…

> So while there might not be much to do if the brain is just crossing signals incorrectly for a couple of days

Chronic pain lasts for years, or forever. An incredible amount of effort has gone into understanding it. We can't blame practitioners for knowing that they don't understand pain and aren't likely to in the future, and therefore deciding to treat it with painkillers.

Re: Painkillers now kill more Americans than any illegal drug

#180
post #177

I've never taken an illegal drug in my life. I've smoked a cigarette about 5 times. I drank in college but lately I've cut that out of my life as well. I had a security clearance with drug testing requirements for a while and now I just don't like the feeling of a hangover from alcohol or the risk of ingesting random plants/chemicals made by shady people. In short: I'm the most vanilla, square, anti-drug person you c…

Some drugs must be outlawed. Asking why heroin or cocaine need to be illegal is like asking why gambling has to be illegal. If you allow people to use addictive drugs or gamble freely then they will destroy themselves. Or huge numbers of people will, anyway.

But gambling is not illegal? What about casinos and those coin operated machines you see in every bar?
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