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

#381

Post by pyre » Thu, Jul 20, 2017, 5:53 PM UTC

rhizome wrote: post #162

pyre wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I'm not really sure this is some sort of miracle drug that the establishment just doesn't want us to know about The thing is, it doesn't matter if you're "sure" or not, because while it's on Schedule I there can be no federal funds used for research into whatever degree it may be a "miracle" (nirvana fallacy) drug. I hope we can agree that therapeutic substances have been derived from harmful ones.

I don't necessarily agree with it being Schedule I, but at the same time it's not "one weird trick" that the establishment doesn't want you to know about either. It's not something that's only waiting to be packaged up and sent to drug trials to start getting used (but is held back because "the man" thinks it will upset the status quo).

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

#382

Post by pyre » Thu, Jul 20, 2017, 6:02 PM UTC

FooHentai wrote: post #285

pyre wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(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 respons…

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

From their frame of reference, maybe. On the other hand, if the only industry supporting your town is a dying industry, then you have a couple of possibilities:

1. Move elsewhere that has economic prosperity.

2. Get another industry to move in that will help prop up the town's economy.

3. Repair the dying industry.

Option #3 is likely the hardest, and the most likely to fail, yet it seems to be the only option that people in Appalachia want to hear about.

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

#383

Post by Karunamon » Thu, Jul 20, 2017, 6:10 PM UTC

eregorn wrote: post #359

Karunamon wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is +73 positive enough? No, because that indicates the post didn't resonate with the user base there. Front page the_donald posts usually start at 5000 points and up. That tells me that the sentiment isn't really shared all that much. On much smaller communities with much lower average scores, this would be more significant. On top of that, unless you install a third party addon or disable CSS (most users will not)…

There is a third exception: being on mobile reddit. Admittedly, while the average user in general is more likely on a phone than a desktop nowadays, I don't know if the average The_Donald user is. I very much would doubt it, but I'll let it stand and stand by my admission I wasn't in the greatest position to post a link. So instead, How about +4614? https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/6o7qas/reminder_12_of_th... Whil…

Apparently deleted - your link goes to a 404.

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

#384

Post by hectorr » Thu, Jul 20, 2017, 6:27 PM UTC

averagewall wrote: post #317

In the HN-popular utopian future where automation has made most people unemployed and living on UBI, we're supposed to be able to pursue our dreams without the pressure to feed ourselves. But in reality, many people don't have dreams or the motivation to pursue them and end up as drug addicts/alcoholics/gangsters which is just easier. I used to laugh at the idea that people need jobs to feel fulfilled. I thought thos…

Fulfillment is a hard thing to quantify. Maybe unemployed people feel bad because they aren't doing anything, or maybe they feel bad because there is nothing for an unemployed person to do when everyone is working. Maybe they feel bad because other people make them feel bad for being unemployed, through their pity or indifference or even well meaning attempts to help.

You are completely right that it sucks to not have a job, but its possible that's a reflection of how social life is structured and not some biological Protestant work ethic. Right now "I work at X company" is shorthand for "I am a a productive member of society". That certainly benefits companies and certain types of people. But it's not the only imaginable value system. And I suspect that people who feel valuable are a lot less likely to find solace in bottle of pills.

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

#385

Post by ghostbrainalpha » Thu, Jul 20, 2017, 7:04 PM UTC

fapjacks wrote: post #279

_acme wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unadulterated kratom still affects mu-opioid receptors, just as other opioids, and so stopping taking it will cause opioid-like withdrawal symptoms.

Yes, but the point I'm making is that we can't know if he was taking some potent opiate along with his kratom. Kratom is used by many specifically because of its quick and mild withdrawal symptoms, which is why people on strong opiates use kratom to come off of their hard opiates. That's why it's suspect when people talk about lengthy, strong withdrawals, which are very uncharacteristic of unadulterated kratom. And b…

That's a great point. I just bought it on Etsy from a supplier with high reviews, but they supplied no documentation of any kind.

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

#386

Post by closeparen » Thu, Jul 20, 2017, 7:25 PM UTC

averagewall wrote: post #317

In the HN-popular utopian future where automation has made most people unemployed and living on UBI, we're supposed to be able to pursue our dreams without the pressure to feed ourselves. But in reality, many people don't have dreams or the motivation to pursue them and end up as drug addicts/alcoholics/gangsters which is just easier. I used to laugh at the idea that people need jobs to feel fulfilled. I thought thos…

Do you think people will feel fulfilled in jobs that they know are make-work or easily automated, and know that they are employed solely because someone in power believes that people ought to be required to work, even if the work is useless?

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

#387

Post by interestingemu » Thu, Jul 20, 2017, 7:26 PM UTC

slfnflctd wrote: post #363

_acme wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's no longer 'very little effort' to get a doctor to write for an opioid.

Every single one of these threads or news articles blathers on and on about how all these clueless/evil doctors are hand-in-hand with Big Bad Pharma just tossing opiate prescriptions at everyone who walks in the door. At this point it's ridiculous, because the few outfits who did anything like this stopped or were shut down years ago. The pendulum has swung in the other direction-- doctors have been inundated with th…

> It was once routine for me and others I know to be prescribed hydrocodone for conditions like painful seized muscles, root canals or severe strep throat. We were apparently all in the ~80%+ who used it as intended and stopped. It worked great!

I think this is exactly the kind of drug abuse people want to get away from. Some people also used heroin or meth and managed to stop. This doesn't mean it's OK to abuse opiates for things like "seized muscles, root canals or strep throat" ... WTH? Opiates are used to manage severe pain, not this I've-torn-my-nail-a-bit-I-need-opiates-now.

Pain is a part of life, stop being a princess and deal with it.

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

#388

Post by ucarion » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 2:53 AM UTC

Consultant32452 wrote: post #148

ucarion wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The commenter you replied to may have a point. Just because vile speech has a place in public discourse, doesn't mean it is good to present that speech in a very public way. Reddit is among the most widely-used websites in the world -- 7th, by Alexa's rankings. Reddit lives up to its motto of being the front page of the internet. Imagine one of the top-10 newspapers in the United States were occasionally publishing s…

>Imagine one of the top-10 newspapers in the United States were occasionally publishing stuff from /r/The_Donald on its front page, and had content from various hateful sub-reddits a few pages back. You could argue that this imaginary publication harms society. CNN and Infowars have the same number of subscribers on Youtube. Now, I'm no fan of CNN, but Infowars is a unique kind of gross in my opinion. To the extent t…

YouTube subscribers is not a good measure of the reach, nor the social value, of a publication. YouTube is rife with crazy, conspiratorial, and provocative stuff, so you'd expect fringe outlets like InfoWars to do well there; people who like InfoWars are more likely to be active on YouTube than fans of CNN.

Most people view CNN through TV or CNN.com; I suspect a much greater proportion of InfoWars's content is viewed through YouTube.

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

#389

Post by aesclepius » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 5:51 AM UTC

nullc wrote: post #181

aesclepius wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would kindly ask you to review how most opiate addicts in this current wave are created. Unfortunately, opiate medication is really the only 'easy' solution we have for many patients who have chronic, debilitating pain. I speak of patients suffering from malignancies, chronic back pain, post-traumatic injuries like motor vehicle collisions or workplace-related injuries. While there are novel attempts at cognitive b…

From your description of tolerance buildup it sounds like you are describing a drug which is functionally ineffective for chronic pain (eventually tolerance will overtake the maximum does you can safely administer) except where the patient wont live long enough for the tolerance. It sounds like a drug family that would be mostly useful for non-chronic pain, where the patient can be weaned off before the dosages becom…

You're 100% correct. However, we really don't have many other non-opiate options for chronic pain, and a lot of the other therapies (alternate modalities, adjusting perceptions/expected amounts of pain/etc) are things that require more money and time. As many providers are overworked and patients lack insurance, opiates become unfortunately a crutch in many plans.

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

#390

Post by NumberCruncher » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 9:11 AM UTC

uiri wrote: post #366

sangnoir wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're comparing a measure in dollars with a measure in people. I'm not parent, but I'm sure this is intentional as the consequences of such a scenario are easy to extrapolate... > The US market is where pharmaceutical companies expect to recoup their R&D costs. They could do this in two ways - having high margins on their drugs, and/or selling a lot of drugs. It is no surprise to see pharma lobbying against tight…

I think that they have both high margins on drugs (my gut estimate would be ten times what the rest of the world pays, but it looks like it is ordinarily only 2-5 times [0]) and they're selling a lot of drugs. It is disingenuous to claim that the US consumes 9 times more prescription drugs than the world average. The reality is probably closer to 2-5 times more drugs and that these drugs are 2-5 times more expensive…

Price difference may be a valid argument.

On the other hand in my home country we had some big pharmaceutical companies (compared to the size of the country) exporting drugs world wide. I thought that for example the pain killers I knew as I child would be used everywhere on the world. When I moved to Germany I realized that I was wrong. There are tons of different drugs for the same purpose with the same ingredients sold by different producers. Therefore only becasue you in the US buy some expensive - and highly addictive - pain killers you are not automatically financing the R&D of pain killers sold in Europe by Europian companies to the Europian people.

Let me be a smart ass and improve your calculation:

45% of drug revenue is generated by 5% of earth's population:

45% / 5% = 9

but you do not compare this number to 1 but to

55% of drug revenue is generated by 95% of earth's population:

55% / 95% = 0.58

So a US citizen spends 9 / 0.58 = 15.54 more on drugs as a non US citizen. Even if price difference is a valid argument, this number is still too high.