How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US • Hacker News Board

Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US

#191

Post by jkimmel » Wed, Jul 19, 2017, 6:44 PM UTC

danans wrote: post #84

gooseus wrote: post #62

What I find fascinating and disappointing is how much the opioid crisis isn't being talked about or addressed proportional to other societal issues. Billions of dollars of private research being poured into self-driving cars by our greatest minds and millions of dollars in lobbying against gun laws all in the name of preventing unnecessary human deaths... yet according to Ben Bernanke (and his references), opioid ove…

While I agree that a lot more funds for treatment are needed to fight the opioid epidemic, it is really a fundamentally different problem that road fatalities. The only thing they really have in common are the fatalities. The opioid crisis seems like a symptom of our social problems (hopelessness in the rust belt, unscrupulous over-prescribing of pain meds) that has fatal consequences. Short of a drug that provided a…

> Short of a drug that provided a permanent cure for opioid addiction itself, I'm not sure what sort of solutions can be pursued by scientific/tech research, as opposed to addressing the root social causes.

People have actually been trying vaccine approaches to opioid addiction for a while, but it's tricky since opioids are small molecules which inherently don't give you a lot to work with as far as antigen presentation.

Apparently there has been some promising evidence recently though. See Derek Lowe's blog below for details.

http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2017/06/26/a-h...

Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US

#192

Post by taylorswift_ » Wed, Jul 19, 2017, 6:44 PM UTC

EStudley wrote: post #112

vinhboy wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bunch of really hateful, and racist people came to reddit because of /r/the_donald. Unfortunately they did not keep to their subreddit. You can see influences of their hateful ideology in other subreddits. They also game the reddit voting system so their stories and comments are constantly being featured in /r/all -- so much so reddit had to take action. Their purpose is to troll, and they are damn good at it.

Also, Reddit can't ban them because of the inevitable "LIBERAL WEBSITE BANS PRO-DONALD FORUM" headlines. So, even though a massive amount of their userbase pushes for genocide against "M dslimes" or "K babs", Reddit admins let them exist.

Really? I've been an avid TD reader since it's inception and I've never seen an active call for genocide ever, in fact quite the opposite. This is the same made up twisted liberal rhetoric that fuels trump supporters and resulted in a Trump Presidency in the first place. Donald === Hitler! He's going to kill all the Muslims and Mexicans! Hmm I don't know, tell me how he's doing that now that he's been in office for a bit?

Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US

#193

Post by unabridged » Wed, Jul 19, 2017, 6:47 PM UTC

lsmarigo wrote: post #150

unabridged wrote: post #97

>The obvious counter-argument is silencing them strengthens their argument and makes them a martyr. I don't buy that argument at all, it's far more dangerous to allow them to indoctrinate and appeal to all the fringe disenfranchised youth which they've become frighteningly effective at. In any case it's clear reddit can be used for good like in this article, I'm just not so sure it's a net positive to society as anot…

Then why is yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre illegal? With your reasoning you should just be able to 'fight that idea with saying "No there is NOT a fire" but it's too late, the damage is done.

This is only because we live in imperfect bodies that can die before the discussion can be finished. This is not an argument against free speech, this is an argument about the speed of human communication.

Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US

#194

Post by icebraining » Wed, Jul 19, 2017, 6:49 PM UTC

bittercynic wrote: post #93

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Violent, hateful, disgusting speech has no place in civil discourse but it's irreplaceable in public discourse. That's kinda the problem. As a species, our entire communications spectrum can't be forced into either bucket. It has to exist in both. The kind of things I wouldn't tolerate at all around my family I'm fine tolerating around my friends. And the kind of things I wouldn't tolerate from a friend I'm fine tole…

It's a difficult spot because social networks try to maintain a fiction that they're a public forum where free speech must be respected. As far as I know there is no legal precedent that this is so, and they're free to ban users/cull posts from their web sites as they see fit. Additionally, I'd say they have a responsibility to prevent their site from being used for certain purposes, though the boundaries of what's a…

though the boundaries of what's acceptable are tough to define.

After denying it, you just explained why it's a difficult spot.

By the way, website are in fact not legally responsible for that traffic, under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act[1], which the courts have upheld against sites like eBay, Google, Craigslist, Backpage and MySpace.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communicati...

Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US

#195

Post by saint_fiasco » Wed, Jul 19, 2017, 6:52 PM UTC

pyre wrote: post #116

rhizome wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Short of a drug that provided a permanent cure for opioid addiction itself, I'm not sure what sort of solutions can be pursued by scientific/tech research Along with its therapeutic cousins Cannabis and MDMA, look what else we have on the list of substances for which federal research funds are banned (Schedule I): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibogaine

> Ibogaine causes long QT syndrome at therapeutic doses, apparently by blocking hERG potassium channels in the heart. Yea. That doesn't necessarily sound good: > Clinical studies of ibogaine to treat drug addiction began in the early 1990s, but concerns about cardiotoxicity led to termination of those studies. There is currently insufficient data to determine whether it is useful in treating addiction. I'm not really…

Is the cardiotoxicity worse than the side effects of the drugs they would replace?

I'm not sure there is an ethical way to find out.

Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US

#196

Post by saint_fiasco » Wed, Jul 19, 2017, 6:55 PM UTC

lsmarigo wrote: post #150

unabridged wrote: post #97

>The obvious counter-argument is silencing them strengthens their argument and makes them a martyr. I don't buy that argument at all, it's far more dangerous to allow them to indoctrinate and appeal to all the fringe disenfranchised youth which they've become frighteningly effective at. In any case it's clear reddit can be used for good like in this article, I'm just not so sure it's a net positive to society as anot…

Then why is yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre illegal? With your reasoning you should just be able to 'fight that idea with saying "No there is NOT a fire" but it's too late, the damage is done.

Is that really illegal or just a cliche?

Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US

#197

Post by taylorswift_ » Wed, Jul 19, 2017, 6:55 PM UTC

pcnix wrote: post #30

zeep wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

/r/politics is similar to /r/the_donald but it is the exact opposite (it could have been called /r/the_hillary)

/r/politics does not outright run itself as a safe space for a particular group though, unlike /r/the_donald. Any criticism on /r/the_donald gets you a ban, whereas any criticism on /r/politics just gets you downvotes, which are entirely consistent with how the sub should be run.

not true, anything even remotely considered anti-hillary or pro-trump gets you banned on r/politics, it's just as extreme as TD.

Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US

#198

Post by breakbread » Wed, Jul 19, 2017, 7:03 PM UTC

lsmarigo wrote: post #150

unabridged wrote: post #97

>The obvious counter-argument is silencing them strengthens their argument and makes them a martyr. I don't buy that argument at all, it's far more dangerous to allow them to indoctrinate and appeal to all the fringe disenfranchised youth which they've become frighteningly effective at. In any case it's clear reddit can be used for good like in this article, I'm just not so sure it's a net positive to society as anot…

Then why is yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre illegal? With your reasoning you should just be able to 'fight that idea with saying "No there is NOT a fire" but it's too late, the damage is done.

The origin of that phrase is a supreme court case where the court ruled that the First Amendment didn't protect you from passing out pamphlets encouraging men to resist conscription during World War 1. The "fire in a crowded theater" line was just a metaphor used to underscore a ruling I imagine most people today disagree with, and wasn't legally binding in any way.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States#The_C...

Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US

#199

Post by fapjacks » Wed, Jul 19, 2017, 7:05 PM UTC

ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #155

fapjacks wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, some people seem to go overboard no matter what the chemical. There are some sad stories in there of people that can't control themselves. Sort of highly, highly addictive personalities. There are some similar stories for people quitting caffeine, for example: https://www.reddit.com/r/decaf/

That doesn't really fit with my experience. I was a heavy user of alcohol, cigarettes, and occasionally even tried cocaine. Quitting all of those had extremely minimal effects on me physically or mentally. Getting off Kratom resulted in something like a flu that lasted 2-3 weeks. And I wasn't taking an especially high dose, and I had only been using for 3 months.

Where were you getting your kratom? Were you buying it from a vendor that also provides documentation from a testing facility to demonstrate that there were no adulterants? There are people participating in the kratom supply chain that adulterate the kratom that passes through their hands. Testing has shown kratom sprayed with opiates, or kratom adulterated with opiate potentiators (both herbal and not), and even stuff like kratom with green tea added to give it a better smell and flavor. For example, those teenagers that died in Sweden were found to have been taking kratom that was sprayed with O-desmethyltramadol (ODT) [0].

I purchase all of my kratom from a vendor that also provides documentation to prove that they're selling unadulterated kratom. Lots of vendors are resisting this, because they know the lengths some unscrupulous southeast Asian distributors will go to to get "the most fire kratom" to sell to American vendors (and lie about what they're selling). And there are known instances of American vendors realizing that they've been sold an adulterated batch, and then continuing to sell that kratom in order to not be holding a loss. I appreciate your recounting your experience, and I'm sorry to hear it was troublesome, but having used kratom for going on ten years now, and regularly taking extended breaks to keep my tolerance from building, my own anecdote is the opposite from yours: I experience little to no withdrawals whatsoever, and I take a relatively high dose. I understand kratom affects people differently, but the testing that's been done, and things added to kratom by the Indonesian or Vietnamese distributors' own admission shows that what people are buying could be anything.

As more vendors realize that regular testing and publication of the results is what consumers want, I believe we'll see fewer and fewer of these kinds of stories.

[0] http://www.emcdda.europa.eu/publications/drug-profiles/krato...

Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US

#200

Post by aianus » Wed, Jul 19, 2017, 7:07 PM UTC

danans wrote: post #84

gooseus wrote: post #62

What I find fascinating and disappointing is how much the opioid crisis isn't being talked about or addressed proportional to other societal issues. Billions of dollars of private research being poured into self-driving cars by our greatest minds and millions of dollars in lobbying against gun laws all in the name of preventing unnecessary human deaths... yet according to Ben Bernanke (and his references), opioid ove…

While I agree that a lot more funds for treatment are needed to fight the opioid epidemic, it is really a fundamentally different problem that road fatalities. The only thing they really have in common are the fatalities. The opioid crisis seems like a symptom of our social problems (hopelessness in the rust belt, unscrupulous over-prescribing of pain meds) that has fatal consequences. Short of a drug that provided a…

> Short of a drug that provided a permanent cure for opioid addiction itself, I'm not sure what sort of solutions can be pursued by scientific/tech research, as opposed to addressing the root social causes.

Just give them the opiates for free in supervised facilities and let them have otherwise normal, albeit constipated lives. It works and costs very little.