121–130 of 139 posts
Wow, just wow. As someone not affected by the heroin epidemic, this was very hard to read. I was almost brought to tears at how many stories involved children of heroin users and how their lives are affected.
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Funny how addicts are always pro legalization.
Would you expect something else? I'm not seeing anything funny about it. The vast majority of harm comes from the illegality, not from the drugs themselves. Do you want to reduce harm, or do you want to impose your morality on other people?
You say that the vast majority of harm comes from the illegality of drug use. I don't see any reason to believe that is true. You haven't presented an argument or evidence to persuade me one way or the other. On the contrary, I think addiction is itself harm. It removes the ability to choose.
It attacks the very organ that makes your choices.
You have access to resource, so you can mitigate the consequences of your actions more than others. Remove your resource, or replace it with a $40,000/year salary and a tough service industry job, and the consequences will find you. I think eventually the consequences will find even you, however much resource you have amassed. You should make a pact with yourself to see if in 20 years (assuming you make it that long) you still think your life is as good as it could have been without your addiction.
Do I want to reduce harm or impose my morality on other people?
My answer is YES.
I want to reduce harm by imposing my morality on other people. Any time you vote you are imposing your views on ethical issues onto society. Let's all agree that everyone imposes their own views on morality onto others. You are doing it to me right now, and for that I thank you. Let's duke it out in the public square. If you convince more people with your arguments, your views will be codified into law. If I convince more people with my arguments, then my views will be codified into law. This form of reasonable discourse is how we avoid solving our issues with violence.
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Would you expect something else? I'm not seeing anything funny about it. The vast majority of harm comes from the illegality, not from the drugs themselves. Do you want to reduce harm, or do you want to impose your morality on other people?
Well since you asked, no, I would not expect something else. Their (your) addiction has affected the organ that they use for making decisions. I would expect an addict to find any way he or she can to find access to more of the addictive substance their now compromised brain demands. Being smart or high functioning only means they can find even more clever and inventive ways of achieving their desires. You say that t…
Let's not forget who to blame for this. Pharmaceutical companies and Doctors. West Virgina is the most effected - http://www.pulitzer.org/winners/eric-eyre These articles shouldn't make you sad but MAD. "In six years, drug wholesalers showered the state with 780 million hydrocodone and oxycodone pills, while 1,728 West Virginians fatally overdosed on those two painkillers" That's 433 pills for every man, woman and ch…
"a study shows that drug manufacturers paid more than $46 million to more than 68,000 doctors over a 29-month period." https://news.brown.edu/articles/2017/08/opioids-influence "Most recently, the FDA announced that it will begin reviewing prescription opioid products that contain hydrocodone or codeine to treat children's coughs." http://exclusive.multibriefs.com/content/fda-turns-attention... When they are writing…
McKesson paying $150 million in prescription drug probe, halting sales from Colorado center. https://www.bizjournals.com/denver/news/2017/01/17/mckesson-...
Several pharmaceutical executives and managers, formerly employed by Insys Therapeutics, Inc., were arrested today on charges that they led a nationwide conspiracy to bribe medical practitioners to unnecessarily prescribe a fentanyl-based pain medication and defraud healthcare insurers. https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/pr/pharmaceutical-executives...
Galena Biopharma Inc. to Pay More Than $7.55 Million to Resolve Alleged False Claims Related to Opioid Drug https://www.justice.gov/usao-nj/pr/galena-biopharma-inc-pay-...
National Health Care Fraud Takedown Results in Charges Against Over 412 Individuals Responsible for $1.3 Billion in Fraud Losses. "Of those charged, over 120 defendants, including doctors, were charged for their roles in prescribing and distributing opioids and other dangerous narcotics."
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/national-health-care-fraud-ta...
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What country are you in? In most Western countries, embryos are pretty much fair game.
I think it's a dig at the US Republican Christian Right, whom are "Pro-life" but anti-"taking care of that, or the mother's, life." Considering Republicans control the majority of all three branches of government, they have an opportunity to ram through their unpopular ideological agenda. Disclaimer: Neither party is currently relevant to the average US citizen. People ought to seek post-partisanship and post-identit…
Horseshit. Both parties are NOT the same and one is quite relevant to the common citizen.
For example: One party has been attempting to fix healthcare; one party is attempting to dismantle it.
That's REALLY FUCKING RELEVANT to the average citizen--especially in red states--especially in states with an opiate epidemic.
One party is attempting to legalize some drugs; the other continues to want to throw everybody in jail. I can go on.
There is no such thing as "post-partisanship" until the Republican party starts operating on truth and fact, again.
Could the Democrats be a lot better? Sure. However, I don't see Democrats assaulting people and still hanging onto their office. Weiner and Spitzer got chucked out of office for far less.
Come talk to me about "post-partisanship" when Gianforte isn't in office anymore. Until then, I am quite free to assume that Republicans actually SUPPORT the current level of corruption.
Let's not forget who to blame for this. Pharmaceutical companies and Doctors. West Virgina is the most effected - http://www.pulitzer.org/winners/eric-eyre These articles shouldn't make you sad but MAD. "In six years, drug wholesalers showered the state with 780 million hydrocodone and oxycodone pills, while 1,728 West Virginians fatally overdosed on those two painkillers" That's 433 pills for every man, woman and ch…
Shocking to read. But what really shocks me is the amount of arrests mentioned for possession of heroin or syringes. When will the US (and the rest of the world) finally learn that locking users up just perpetuates the problem - you won't get a job with a criminal record, same for housing. All this arresting does is fill the coffers of (private) jails and creates needless suffering. Also, why do people keep calling t…
I’m surprised that drug use is normalised to the extent that you can say with a straight face that the state should provide heroin. I’m not in favour of punitive measures, but the state providing it? Really? I’d also like to see data on providing a milder form of an opiate working better to wean people off a dependency. So far, all I’ve seen is the dependency switching to the replacement.
Wonder if anyone will see this, but I have a general question I might as well ask here. What if, you put an addicted person in a padded cell, and supply progressively decreasing doses of the drug(s) the person is addicted to? The dosage gradient could be mathematically computed to find the lowest possible harmful withdrawal effects. The person would stay in the cell environment until completely past the hardest phase…
One weird thing: even with my much lower dose, the acute withdrawals every morning are mostly the same. A little less bad, sure, but still rather terrible. I just put up with it, because it's better to be productive and able to move forward with my life after 6 years of heroin addiction than go back to where I was.
Interestingly, opiate replacement therapy done with heroin itself has had quite good results. The downsides to buprenorphine and methadone is that the withdrawals are rather "drawn out" compared to heroin and morphine. The upside is that the fact they last so long in terms of binding is what makes them excellent at stopping a user from bouncing back and forward between the two (in theory anyway; a given users metabolism means this isn't always true. I could've easily used heroin any time during my treatment as I metabolise bupe and methadone extremely rapidly -- I just chose not to. It wasn't worth it.)
Does anyone know of anyone using the drugs listed here (ibogaine was one) to help addicts? Because of the FDA, is this something illegal? It would be fascinating if cryptocurrencies permitted a black market for drug trade that allowed concerned citizens to buy these drugs and distribute them to addicts without fear of interference by the federal government. A silk road that we could all stand behind.
Wonder if anyone will see this, but I have a general question I might as well ask here. What if, you put an addicted person in a padded cell, and supply progressively decreasing doses of the drug(s) the person is addicted to? The dosage gradient could be mathematically computed to find the lowest possible harmful withdrawal effects. The person would stay in the cell environment until completely past the hardest phase…
I am doing a version of this myself (minus the padded room), using buprenorphine under the supervision of an excellent case worker and doctor. It's taken 5 years, but I'm down to 1.6mg from 32mg at the start, and 24 works in the future I'll be off it entirely (and taking a month off to go down to my family's holiday home on the beach here in Australia, for the final withdrawal symptoms). One weird thing: even with my…
Wow, that's absolutely awesome.
> It's taken 5 years, but I'm down to 1.6mg from 32mg at the start, and 24 works in the future I'll be off it entirely (and taking a month off to go down to my family's holiday home on the beach here in Australia, for the final withdrawal symptoms).
Niiice. (I'm actually in .au too (Sydney area), I agree that some of the beach environments are really nice. Cool.)
> One weird thing: even with my much lower dose, the acute withdrawals every morning are mostly the same.
Hah. I figured it might be like that! (Unfortunately!)
> A little less bad, sure, but still rather terrible.
Mmm.
> I just put up with it, because it's better to be productive and able to move forward with my life after 6 years of heroin addiction than go back to where I was.
Indeed. And kudos for having the strength - as I said in my previous comment, not everyone has the willpower to strong-arm a rewired reward center into doing things completely differently.
Survival of the fittest :D
> Interestingly, opiate replacement therapy done with heroin itself has had quite good results. The downsides to buprenorphine and methadone is that the withdrawals are rather "drawn out" compared to heroin and morphine. The upside is that the fact they last so long in terms of binding is what makes them excellent at stopping a user from bouncing back and forward between the two (in theory anyway; a given users metabolism means this isn't always true. I could've easily used heroin any time during my treatment as I metabolise bupe and methadone extremely rapidly -- I just chose not to. It wasn't worth it.)
I see. Yeah, buprenorphine isn't heroin. It's very good to distance oneself.
So... when you say buprenorphine works great in terms of binding, I get the impression that you mean that the effect lasts longer, and that it is needed less frequently? That would have helpful practical ramifications, yeah.