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

theguardian.com

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

#301

Post by Retra »

nokcha wrote: post #205
lsmarigo wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Falsely yelling "fire" in a crowded theater is illegal because the First Amendment has exceptions for lying (i.e., asserting an objective falsehood with intent to deceive).

Yelling fire in a crowded theater after lighting a match is not lying. The problem is not lying, it is recklessness. The only problem with lying is that it is also sometimes reckless.

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

#302

Post by base698 »

unionjack22 wrote: post #211

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?

A lot more people die from heroin than die from cocaine. In fact most cocaine overdoses stem from mixing with heroin.

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

#303

Post by jsemrau »

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…

> our greatest minds

Self-driving cars actually would have a benefit for society in terms of higher durability for vehicle and optimal road selection leading to lower carbon emissions, lower traffic accidents, and less use of natural resources.

I am more annoyed by all the time and effort going into Google's and Facebook's ad-tech optimizations.

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

#304

Post by Spooky23 »

gsdfg4gsdg wrote: post #257
_acme wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did the doctor just say "Here, have these drugs" or did he/she prescribe the "potentially addictive" medication for a medical issue that should have been treated with that medication? Just not taking medication that your doctor thinks is necessary is not a good choice; you rarely know more than your doctor about the risk/reward profile of the medication.

That's not true at all. Drug companies bribe prominent doctors with multi-million dollar payments to convince other doctors that drugs are safer and more widely applicable than they actually are. If you refuse to take an opioid painkiller for fear of developing addiction, you are empirically demonstrating that you know more care more than your doctor about the risk/reward profile of the medication. http://www.nybooks…

Hydrocodone costs like $3. Drug lobbying is a problem, but not this one.

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

#305

Post by hkmurakami »

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…

Well, I've been following the GOP Senate healthcare bill closely over the last month, and several GOP Senators have stood their ground amidst pressure from party leaders as well as the Whitehouse to protect funding for their Home State's opioid epidemic. It's been a frontline issue in nearly every article I've read regarding the GOP's difficulty in getting to 50 votes.

So while the public at large may be ignorant of this crisis (and honestly, on how many issues is even the most educated of us truly knowledgeable about?) the States' representatives that have these problems back home appear to be taking it very seriously.

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

#306

Post by wmccullough »

Herodotus38 wrote: post #275
gsdfg4gsdg wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vast majority of heroin addicts today started with prescription painkillers. Many of them went into a doctor's office and took the pill that was prescribed to them by a trusted community member with a diploma on the wall. The problem was that these doctors were frequently either directly corrupt or under the unwitting influence of false advertising from Purdue Pharmaceuticals. When I had my wisdom teeth pulled an…

A just society executing the principal architects sounds similar to Italy recently prosecuting the seismologists for incorrectly predicting earthquakes. I agree that there is a problem with over prescription of opioids, but this problem isn't solely due to a simple conspiracy of drug makers. I think that sort of rhetoric is unhelpful.

What you fail to see in drawing your analogy is that seismologists aren't being incentivized to give specific readings. Pharmaceutical companies are loading the gun and they know it.

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

#307

Post by mnm1 »

fapjacks wrote: post #284
mnm1 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 af…

For sure. This is why I question the idea of for-profit businesses helping rather than hurting and say it's a mixed bag. There really are some places that care about helping (especially outside the US and in rich areas in the US), but there are also plenty of places that do more harm than good. For-profit, free market capitalism's goals are hardly ever aligned with the goals of society and humanity.

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

#308

Post by [deleted] »

phil21 wrote: post #295
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…

It's really simple. Addicts don't make good customers.

[deleted]

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

#309

Post by mnm1 »

girvo wrote: post #267
mnm1 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Incredibly spot on. That's why I went on Suboxone instead, solely because it means I only have to go in once a fortnight. Nice regular prescription, but yeah the amount of travel I do is difficult with it, despite being on the program for 5 years.

Yup. From what I've seen as a family member of an addict in recovery, you can work your way up to 28 bottles of methadone and do guest dosing, but the amount of planning, waiting, preparation, and willingness to deal with fuckups is colossal. Colossal enough that it stresses me out and I'm not even the patient. And this is traveling a few times a year. Imagine ending up in a foreign country with not enough medicine because the people handing it out are too incompetent to count the days of your vacation and rush you out of there. That's how we found out how much of a difference in compassion there is between clinics in Europe and the US. The ones in Europe really went out of their way to treat the patients with cordiality and to help them, even though the patient was a foreigner. Free of charge. While the one here took dozens of phone calls just to figure out there was a mistake. I really hope attitudes start to change. It's so hard to see a family member struggling with this and of course, that's absolutely nothing compared to their actual struggle. It's great to hear about others doing well on their path to recovery. I wish you all the best!

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

#310

Post by Herodotus38 »

wmccullough wrote: post #306
Herodotus38 wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A just society executing the principal architects sounds similar to Italy recently prosecuting the seismologists for incorrectly predicting earthquakes. I agree that there is a problem with over prescription of opioids, but this problem isn't solely due to a simple conspiracy of drug makers. I think that sort of rhetoric is unhelpful.

What you fail to see in drawing your analogy is that seismologists aren't being incentivized to give specific readings. Pharmaceutical companies are loading the gun and they know it.

I see your point with the pharmaceuticals and they have a share of blame, but I would argue that the analogy has merit as the prosecution in the seismology case would not have pushed for punishment if the scientists were merely wrong.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2013/...

From my reading (and I will admit I do not see the logical reasoning at all, which I think is why the case was later overturned) the judge thought that they were guilty not of failing to predict it, but of giving an inadequate message. Presumably, to me this implies some sort of laziness, or intent to not make more of an effort despite knowing better.

I will admit that I am biased being a doctor dealing with this daily, but I think that blaming this solely on the pharmaceutical companies is easier to do than looking at what is happening to our culture, expectations of pain, the way we deliver healthcare, how we grade healthcare (for example read about Press Ganey's Fifth Vital Sign).

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