Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Painkillers now kill more Americans than any illegal drug

vox.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–318 of 318 posts

Re: Painkillers now kill more Americans than any illegal drug

#311

Post by aminorex »

ArkyBeagle wrote: post #236
leeleelee wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another interesting thing about the war on drugs is that during prohibition, the constitution was amended for the government to legally be able stop the sale of alcohol. On the other hand, for other "hard" drugs, there is nothing in the constitution that supports the criminalization of drugs. Unless I am missing something. Completely aside from that fact, I do agree that it should be treated as a public health issue.…

The drug schedule is an act of executive fiat. But there are various legislative supports for it. Not all law has to take root in the Constitution, it merely has to have never been challenged or, having been challenged, stood the test. The 18th was a different sort of action. If I recall correctly, it was reasonably well known that nothing short of an Amendment would suffice. Either that or Wayne Wheeler just wanted…

The 9th and 10th amendments tell me that the courts are corrupters of the law rather than faithful judges of it.

Re: Painkillers now kill more Americans than any illegal drug

#313

Post by woliveirajr »

twblalock wrote: post #64
evincarofautumn wrote: post #44

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…

That's the point I always consider: I'm also inclined to think that anyone, to be able to take drugs freely, should be responsible for the consequences, including support, treatment, medical cares in case of overdoses...

But then I begin to think about consequences of car crashes (be it to me or to someone else), about cigars. Some countries already treat that, assuming it's a thing that the society wants. And it easily goes to bed eating habits, and I think that the line goes too much to the other extreme.

Then I conclude that people from each country, each nation, or even each state/city, has a common sense on what is acceptable or not: the society from that circumscription decides when to pay for individual damages (treatment, support, etc), and for which source of damages.

If cars provide more benefits than costs, decide to support it. Drugs? No. Cigars? Yes. Nuclear power plants ? Yes. And so on....

Re: Painkillers now kill more Americans than any illegal drug

#314

Post by MichaelGG »

mtreis86 wrote: post #292
MichaelGG wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are not 100 issues bigger than price. There might be a few, depending on the user. Legality, sure. Access to IV equipment, perhaps. Other than that, opiates have little side effects outside of respiration depression and constipation. Implicit in proper pricing is that it'd be legal and easy to use. Which issues are you thinking about?

Where do you get your information from? >opiates have little side effects outside of respiration depression and constipation Maybe with proper dosage and medical supervision, maybe. But I think the biggest side effects of regular opiate abuse are addiction and a loss of productivity. I don't think those effects can be discounted. The biggest "waking" factor I have heard ex-junkies state as why they wanted to sober up…

I've talked to users and tried to lookup information on actual harm. Unlike, say, benzos, I didn't find anything showing, say, decreased intelligence or severe health issues. (There might be some immune suppressant effect, though.) Everything, as you noted, seems to look at users buying uncontrolled medicine and using unhygienic methods of administration. I dunno about studies of productivity. Anecdotally, plenty of people seem to find it helpful (they say out held them through the day).

>I killed someone for it

I can't see how this is anything but a pricing/accessibility issue. Otherwise there's just no incentive -- it's about as expensive a habit as alcohol if bought legally.

Re: Painkillers now kill more Americans than any illegal drug

#315

Post by fapjacks »

Igglyboo wrote: post #158
cik2e wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kratom is a great and currently legal alternative. It works on opioid receptors and cannot be fatally overdosed. Unfortunately, many sates are already moving on banning it. Big pharma lobby for the win.

Kratom still comes with risks of withdrawal. Pure leaf kratom would be difficult to OD on, but extracts and tinctures could easily be overdosed on.

What are you talking about? Link to any case of death that has been attributed exclusively to an overdose of kratom. You can't, because it doesn't exist.

Re: Painkillers now kill more Americans than any illegal drug

#316

Post by disposeofnick9 »

ihartley wrote: post #152
thaumasiotes wrote: post #66

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…

Phantom limb is actually an interesting case that may reveal more about idiopathic pain as we study brain/body mapping better. If anyone is interested check out the work of VS Ramachandran, here's a somewhat old article about his work with phantom limb patients: http://www.npr.org/2011/02/14/133026897/v-s-ramachandrans-ta... His latest work has been investigating body integrity identity disorder which is sort of the…

Interesingly, there are antidepressant-like drugs used for pain like phantom limb and neuropathy (like demyelinated nerves due to Shingles)... because it can "ignored" to varying degrees. As someone who's been both deeply major depressed, where tiny pains become an all-consuming focus and not depressed where a hand sliced open is not a big deal... Pain definitely interacts with mental well-being, and can lead to a spectrum of suffering between all-consuming focus or compartmentalized item. More research needs to be done on the functional perception of pain, because it could radically reduce pain prescriptions by instead controlling the suffering of non-survival-beneficial pain at its ultimate destination rather than carpetbombing patients with addictive substances.

http://www.webmd.com/pain-management/tricyclic-antidepressan...

Re: Painkillers now kill more Americans than any illegal drug

#317

Post by disposeofnick9 »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #174
tomaskafka wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Exactly. Pain evolved as a guide to improve survival but it also can also create deadly stress when it gives chronic, false positives. If suffering is life-altering, it's on the patient or their advocate/s to keep on their medical providers to eliminate causes and manage pain, hopefully without causing more problems like addiction or surgery complications.

Looking at it from the doctor's viewpoint: Does this patient complain a lot? Is this complaint important? Hard to answer, expensive to find out with current technology and discoverability of relevant knowledge, techniques and advances is an everyday battle that hasn't been addressed consistently.

Some patients, like my grandmother, avoided complaining to not seem "fussing" when she dismissed heart disease as indigestion, ultimately had to have a quintuple bypass and coded three times in the OR. Slowly, she came back but it gave her back more energy than the previous decade and she's still alive.

Re: Painkillers now kill more Americans than any illegal drug

#318

Post by anonaoeu »

over wrote: post #308
nikdaheratik wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Because your addiction is also your wife's problem, your parent's problem, your company's problem. Or your children's problem in the case of one of my close relatives. Addicts do stupid stuff, they don't have any money because they spend all of it on drugs. They then aren't able to pay for things like rent, food, diapers, etc. and turn to family or theft (or both) to deal with that problem. They don't take care of t…

In an ideal world, vice (sex, drugs, alcohol, tobacco, gambling, gaming, other?) profits could be funneled into addiction research, education, and treatment. But I don't really have any hope that this will materialize, especially not with private industry calling the shots.

Not only vice profits - we could also funnel the 10s (100s?) of billions spent on the drug war each year into the same.
Post reply on HN