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

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

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–290 of 396 posts

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

#281

Post by pavel_lishin »

weberc2 wrote: post #280
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…

Your mistake is believing that people invest in self-driving cars as a sort of charity or social service in the same way as drug clinics. Even if that were the case, I think there's a reasonable case to be made that solving self-driving cars would be a better lives-saved/$ investment than opioids. Even if it was a comparable investment, it wouldn't make addicts as socially-productive a group as crash victims--this wo…

> while overdose victims largely make an informed choice to roll the dice

Don't most people develop an opioid addiction after being prescribed insufficient pain medication by their doctor? After that, sure, once they realize that getting more opioids - much more than they ought to, medically or legally - is literally the only way to stop the daily pain?

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

#282

Post by segmondy »

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…

Why don't you go solve it? Who are you waiting for? Maybe some of us wanna work on self-driving cars. I often see people lamenting about the world's problem. Waiting for someone else to solve it. If you find it so disappointing, go for it! You can do it!

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

#283

Post by fapjacks »

solatic wrote: post #125
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…

> I'm curious whether the disproportionate concern has more to do with the perception of drug addicts as weak and deserving of their fate This. The AIDS epidemic in the 1980's was the same. Tens of thousands of people dying every year, with more than forty thousand per year at jts peak, and more than 600,000 dead to date. Because of homophobia, the public at large didn't care about the victims - most people, if they…

This is dead on, no pun intended. And it's made worse by the fact that even people who are personally affected by the overdose epidemic usually are culturally conditioned to shun the addicts (e.g. friends or family), and so instead of coming out and saying in public, "Yes, I have been personally affected by this horrible thing, we need to do something about it," you find that people keep this kind of thing quiet, because addiction and addicts are looked down upon. I think the analogy with HIV/AIDS is very succinct and relevant.

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

#284

Post by fapjacks »

mnm1 wrote: post #177
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…

A lot of money is being spent on this, but the obvious solution--providing addicts with known, tested opiates and safe places to use--is illegal. Addicts are most certainly a group that can be profited off. We have entire industries that do that, sometimes exclusively: sugar, alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, big pharma, etc. In fact, it's this intention of our laws to encourage such profiting off of the suffering and dea…

Interestingly, when the DEA was trying to emergency schedule kratom late late year, one of the biggest groups lobbying for the scheduling were addiction recovery clinics. These groups also lobby heavily for kratom scheduling on the state level. They were instrumental, for example, in the effort to schedule kratom in Alabama (which incidentally saw a 30% increase in the number of opiate overdose deaths in the weeks after kratom was scheduled). It takes no imagination to understand why they would want to eliminate a cheap, accessible, safe competitor that works, like kratom.

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

#285

Post by FooHentai »

pyre wrote: post #219
unabridged wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 dea…

>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.

Agree, but to return to the topic of depressed rural/ex-industrial areas and Appalachia specifically - That's not the sentiment. The sentiment is '8 years of Obama delivered no improvement and only a continuation of the decline' and the response to that isn't 'hitch a horse to Trump' it's 'At this point what harm is there in a risky gamble? Spin the wheel and roll the dice'.

Appalachian fatalism is a thing. It's not helped by American elections being rigged as a two-party affair. Combine these and it should be no surprise that many end up pushing their chips all-in and taking what might be a 50/50 chance.

But the odds aren't even that bad, from the perspective of these people. What do these people have to lose from this gamble? Economically? Already fucked. Socially? Reproductive Rights/LGBT Rights/Foreign Relations are nowhere near the top of their list if they are on the list at all.

You're spinning an enormous segment of the population as irrational actors, but they are not.

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

#286

Post by paulddraper »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #281
weberc2 wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your mistake is believing that people invest in self-driving cars as a sort of charity or social service in the same way as drug clinics. Even if that were the case, I think there's a reasonable case to be made that solving self-driving cars would be a better lives-saved/$ investment than opioids. Even if it was a comparable investment, it wouldn't make addicts as socially-productive a group as crash victims--this wo…

> while overdose victims largely make an informed choice to roll the dice Don't most people develop an opioid addiction after being prescribed insufficient pain medication by their doctor? After that, sure, once they realize that getting more opioids - much more than they ought to, medically or legally - is literally the only way to stop the daily pain?

Over prescription, not under perception is more often blamed.

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

#287

Post by WaxProlix »

alikoneko wrote: post #190
WaxProlix wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

t_d is different because they actively organize to interact with other subs, whereas TRP, mensrights, etc mostly operate in their own worlds. T_D is sort of like /pol/ in that they see themselves as propagandists and influencers more than just participants in a movement.

That makes more sense, less like the hate subs, and more like SRS. I guess I'm less exposed to it than the average Redditor.

Mmm not really like SRS either, from what I know of it. SRS will link to things and mock them, but t_d is more interested in actively swaying peoples' minds. So they astroturf, race-bait, "just asking questions!" and concern troll pretty assiduously outside of their own home sub.

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

#288

Post by lostlogin »

nostrademons wrote: post #210
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…

I'm reminded of this Twitter exchange, in which Alan Kay graffiti'd YCombinator's "Make something people want" poster to say "Make something people need " and Paul Graham retorted that "making something people need but don't want kills startups". https://twitter.com/sama/status/656892679817527296 The point of business is to create a customer. For that to happen, there has to be someone out there who has voluntarily d…

> making something people need but don't want kills startups.

And this is what government and regulation are for in my view.

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

#289

Post by TheLilHipster »

dionidium wrote: post #154
tigershark wrote: post #152

If you ask me I'd rather spend money to save a child killed by a car, financing self driving cars, than waste money trying to save people that don't want to be saved and that, even after being revived tens of times, continue to abuse drugs until their death, as per the other thread last week.

If you really understood addiction, you'd understand that this is like saying that you don't want to treat someone with cancer, since they seemingly insist on recurring time and time again even after chemo and radiation, continuing to have cancer until their death. But, of course, you're not thinking of addition as a medical issue. You're treating it like a moral failure .

I usually wouldn't post this sort of stuff, as it is a pretty taboo opinion that just gets buried.

But If I don't get any discourse, I can't learn anything or have my opinion changed, anyway here we go...

> If you really understood addiction.

I hear this dismissive retort a lot in the addict community. It's nonsense.

If you can't empirically analyze, measure and explain "what its like", or defend your view-point rationally - then you've lost.

The attitude of "You just don't get it man! you need to be an addict to understand what its truly like" is complete and utter self-victimization bullshit.

> But, of course, you're not thinking of addiction as a medical issue. You're treating it like a moral failure.

I treat is as both. I guess it depends on your virtues and morals, but in my eyes; logic and rationality comes first. Responsibility lies in the human being behind the labels.

Within the journey of addiction, there are many moral struggles and choices that you'll need to make (avoiding taking action on a difficult choice, is still a choice).

Sure, physical addiction is fucked and withdrawals are fucked. But the second you commit an evil deed to feed your addiction, I lose all sympathy.

I'd rather spend my time helping those that deserve it, than those that need it - I guess that's the crux of my perspective.

Maybe its a little harsh as there are (assumption) a lot of quiet, functioning addicts that just meld into society. I don't have enough information to form a legitimate opinion on that specific subset. My distaste for addicts are purely those that have run the gauntlet and have traded in their morals, decency and humanity in ugly ways to satiate their vice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ao8L-0nSYzg

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

#290

Post by zkms »

burger_moon wrote: post #218
Chardok wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> At some point you'll be giving someone a dose so high they are guaranteed to die.

This is not how opioid pharmacology works. Tolerance to the desired effects (analgesia) increases but so does tolerance to the problematic effects (respiratory depression).

Opioid use -- even chronic and long-term use -- is not a death sentence. The phenomenon of so many opioid-related deaths referred to as the "opioid epidemic" is an extremely recent one (compared to the timescale that humans have been using opiates for pain relief) and is a product of drug policy/enforcement, not of the inherent evil of opioids.

Post reply on HN