I can't recall a similar degree of concern and push for treatment during the crack/cocaine epidemic in the 80-90's and the meth epidemic of the 00's. What is it about the opioid/heroin epidemic that differentiates it from those prior?
How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US
211–220 of 396 posts
Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US
#212What 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…
There are a number of factors at work. One of them is existing factions. There are existing political power blocks that stand strongly against "solutions" to "the gun problem". What do you want to see? What would you consider an ideal world here? I know how you feel. It's utterly ridiculous that a society should so heartlessly abandon the most vulnerable among us who struggle so needlessly. We should do better! We ca…
> We can do better! We MUST do better!
"..and we will do better, and we will start this moment today!"
Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
Along those same lines, how about our modern day obsession with LGBT and racial issues. Yes, those are important, but I feel like the amount of time that is put into them is completely disproportionate relative to other very troubling issues(such as the opioid epidemic)
I agree to some extent. Many times when discussing these other societal issues we point to the levels of violence and conditions that affect one group proportional to other groups. Young black males are disproportionately the victims of gun crime, pretty sure that is a well-known fact that I don't need to look up. I also believe the data is in on young white males disproportionately being the victims of opioid overdo…
>If anything I'd say it's an economic and community issue
And nobody with political power will admit it because it will make them the enemy of both camps on both issues.
Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's amusing that they describe kratom replacement of opiates as days sober, though. Or maybe I'm misreading it -- maybe he used kratom to wean off opiates, and then stopped using kratom as well. My experience of kratom did not feel like being sober (and in fact felt a lot like opiates).
Where did you purchase your kratom? If you bought it from a head shop or another shady vendor selling very expensive products, you were probably taking more than kratom.
Online, from a reputable vendor. Long ago.
Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US
#215What 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…
Who would win and lose by addressing the Opioid crisis or not? Consider their relative power (wealth) and organization/unity.
It's the same for basically every issue. Humans can be altruistic, but organizations rarely are.
Simply: change happens when expending power leads to a greater expected increase in (relative) power than doing nothing for a sufficient amount of power-brokers to overcome costs of change and opponents(those who expect to lose from the change). This is a structural issue, not human nature.
Blaming the addicts helps to reduce the cost of doing nothing. The good(?) news is that this is tending to hit wealthier people than past epidemics and so is getting correspondingly greater attention.
Rejoice! The problem is far worse than these sad, bullshit excuses.
Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US
#216>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…
> This is the road to censorship I think it's dangerous to conflate government sanctioned censorship with moderation on a privately owned website.
There's a pretty direct parallel between local mods and a local government official when the online community and local government are semi-democratically run.
If you're constantly posting threads highlighting successes of the market in /r/communism you will quickly find yourself kicked out of there. If you are constantly writing letters to the editor about conflicts of interest and unethical dealings in local government then local government will screw you at every turn until you leave town.
In places where local governments have little control over people (e.g. the middle of nowhere Montana) there isn't much of a parallel. In places where you need a building permit for a garden shed you had better not "piss off the mods".
Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are a number of factors at work. One of them is existing factions. There are existing political power blocks that stand strongly against "solutions" to "the gun problem". What do you want to see? What would you consider an ideal world here? I know how you feel. It's utterly ridiculous that a society should so heartlessly abandon the most vulnerable among us who struggle so needlessly. We should do better! We ca…
Resources are not limited. It is plentiful, except that society sees the resource of human labor and love as only valuable when it is profitable. If corporations found it profitable to ensure everybody was happy and living well, I can guarantee you that the vulnerable would be taken care of very well. It is just a matter of perception. By graviating towards money and profit, we undermine the worth of all humans and h…
> Resources are not limited. It is plentiful, except that society sees the resource of human labor and love as only valuable when it is profitable.
You're right! Resources are unquestionably plentiful! However, it's possible that plentiful might be slightly different from unlimited. If I wanted a billion PhD-educated engineers to colonize Mars tomorrow, I might run into limits, no?
It is just a matter of perception. By thinking about how to best utilize plentiful-but-limited resources, considering the value and independence of all humans, we think about how best to create a system in which all these wonderful and infinitely valuable humans self-organize for what's best for them. That way we can gravitate towards happiness and wellness!
I'd glad we agree on the value of humanity. I see human labor, human love, and human affection as valuable at all times and places. I also see that humans are plentiful-but-limited, time is plentiful-but-limited, and resources are plentiful-but-limited.
> Of course nobody would be happy! :)
Yeah. That's because it's obviously a bad way to distribute plentiful-but-limited resources like human labor and human love and human-run biochemical production facilities to make the greatest number of people as happy and well as possible.
Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US
#218Earlier 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, 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.
Every time I bring this up people look at me like I am insane for suggesting such a thing. What people don't think about is the extra societal costs associated with drug addition: thefts/violent crimes, prison costs, unproductive time from seeking the next high, etc. Cutting out the middleman would solve a great deal of these issues, and save the taxpayer money too. It seems the moral issue of giving "free drugs" to…
How much do you give out then? At some point you'll be giving someone a dose so high they are guaranteed to die. Obviously no one can do that because of legal justifications. However now you have to set an arbitrary limit to what someone can receive. The user may not agree with this amount and will seek to acquire more. Thereby resorting to the same tactics as before it was given away. I don't think it's as simple as you want it to be.
Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You can only fight ideas with better ideas. The problem with this is that human beings will reject ideas that don't agree with what they want to hear, like the populations of coal towns in Appalachia that want to blame "Liberals" for their lot in life because they've hitched their wagon to the (dying) coal industry and don't want to change. It's like the Simpsons Principal Skinner meme. "Could I be wrong about some…
Empty charismatic leaders only work when there is no good alternative offered. People are rational, they rejected Clinton because her policy was a continuation of Obama's 8 years. And in those 8 years the quality of life in Appalachia has not improved. Coal to them is a dream, its the last time people in their family and towns had money to spend and were happy. Telling them their glory days ruined the planet is not a…
(Focusing just on Appalachia is going off on a bit of a tangent, but in any case...)
This is the issue. There are no good solutions for Appalachia, but they don't want to hear that because the reality isn't as good as the fantasy that people like Trump want to sell them (that the "good ole days" are coming back).
Placing blame on "Liberals" and hitching their horse to Trump is living in a fantasy land rather than dealing with their situation rationally. The reality, is that those towns are basically dead. They are slated to become modern-day ghost towns unless someone can figure out a way to bring a new industry to those areas. "Liberals" didn't bring about this situation, the realities of coal did. Maybe the "Liberals" didn't do anything of note to help them, but that's different than saying that this situation wouldn't exist if only the "Liberals" hadn't been in power.
To bring this back to the topic at hand, it's an example of how it's easier to sell a positive fantasy than a negative reality (or even a long-term positive reality that has an unpalatable -- e.g. need to move away, retrain -- short-term reality). So this idea that we need to "fight ideas with ideas" fails in the face of realities like this. The best ideas don't always win. People will fling themselves off of a cliff just because someone convinced them that the landing will be soft (even if it doesn't make any logical sense).
Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> I'm interested in what ideas others might have though. I'm not from the US, but I think there is enough people already, all pointing out in the same direction: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/09/opioid-lobbying-... Over the past decade, pharmaceutical companies have spent more than $880 million on lobbying and political contributions at the state and federal level. That’s more than eight times what the gun…
That, and criminalizing drug use. When people can no longer get access to or afford pharma drugs, they shift to illegal drugs. Once they are hooked on that, they are criminals, and they hide their problem, out of shame and fear or prosecution.