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What Science Says to Do If Your Loved One Has an Opioid Addiction

fivethirtyeight.com

11–20 of 302 posts

Re: What Science Says to Do If Your Loved One Has an Opioid Addiction

#13
post #2

Now that the opioid crisis is a problem for white people, science makes an appearance in the policy discussion. Contrast to the crack epidemic in the 80s: fuck'em, throw them all in prison. Edit to add: I wish the best of luck to those who have been caught up in this crisis: I'm rooting for you, and I hope every last one of you find the treatment you need. For those of us who aren't affected, it's time for some deep…

I'm not saying you're wrong. But turning this into a platform for calling out racial inequality is probably just asking for backlash. Yes, in the future we can apply science more equally to all regardless of race. Yes, we failed in this area in the past. But does that somehow invalidate science, or this research? No.

Re: What Science Says to Do If Your Loved One Has an Opioid Addiction

#14

Interesting question: The replacing opioid addiction with maintenance drugs... I could understand that drug being an okay interim solution, but in the end the person still needs to go through withdrawal, the drug just replaces withdrawal with another drug. Withdrawal is hard. Yes. But at least the person is in the right mindset to go through it once they are off the compulsory addiction, even if it takes a year to ge…

I'm physically dependent on caffeine. Why bother fixing that when it is cheap legal and available?

Re: What Science Says to Do If Your Loved One Has an Opioid Addiction

#15
post #2

Now that the opioid crisis is a problem for white people, science makes an appearance in the policy discussion. Contrast to the crack epidemic in the 80s: fuck'em, throw them all in prison. Edit to add: I wish the best of luck to those who have been caught up in this crisis: I'm rooting for you, and I hope every last one of you find the treatment you need. For those of us who aren't affected, it's time for some deep…

to be fair when meth was ravaging poor/rural white people nobody really seemed to care much either. in fact it was something of a joke i.e. the "not even once" memes etc. i think the real issue is opiates seem to be heavily affecting affluent suburban and urban people, who are predominantly white, and make up a huge amount of the tax base.

Doesn't the fact that the "not even once" ads existed in the public consciousness saliently enough to have a meme show that people did really seem to care?

Re: What Science Says to Do If Your Loved One Has an Opioid Addiction

#17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

to be fair when meth was ravaging poor/rural white people nobody really seemed to care much either. in fact it was something of a joke i.e. the "not even once" memes etc. i think the real issue is opiates seem to be heavily affecting affluent suburban and urban people, who are predominantly white, and make up a huge amount of the tax base.

Doesn't the fact that the "not even once" ads existed in the public consciousness saliently enough to have a meme show that people did really seem to care?

well you could say the same thing about 'this is your brain on drugs' when crack was going around. that was also a PSA that entered into the public consciousness and then turned into a joke.

Re: What Science Says to Do If Your Loved One Has an Opioid Addiction

#18
OP here.

An interesting takeaway I had was the importance of community. Does anyone know any non-profits or startups working to increase people's sense of community at a mass scale? It seems this is missing from large parts of the western world and has many consequences.

Re: What Science Says to Do If Your Loved One Has an Opioid Addiction

#19
post #2

Now that the opioid crisis is a problem for white people, science makes an appearance in the policy discussion. Contrast to the crack epidemic in the 80s: fuck'em, throw them all in prison. Edit to add: I wish the best of luck to those who have been caught up in this crisis: I'm rooting for you, and I hope every last one of you find the treatment you need. For those of us who aren't affected, it's time for some deep…

Imho i would guess it is more a markets thing than a racial thing. There probably wasn't a whole lot of money to be made in curing an epidemic to a poor minority in the 80s whereas the opioid crisis is hitting a larger middle class population

Re: What Science Says to Do If Your Loved One Has an Opioid Addiction

#20

Interesting question: The replacing opioid addiction with maintenance drugs... I could understand that drug being an okay interim solution, but in the end the person still needs to go through withdrawal, the drug just replaces withdrawal with another drug. Withdrawal is hard. Yes. But at least the person is in the right mindset to go through it once they are off the compulsory addiction, even if it takes a year to ge…

I'm not sure it is a race issue. Times were different. People are now accepting that drug consumption doesn't make you a criminal. At some point Britain thought that wealthy highly-educated people were incapable of being criminals, until time proved them wrong. Science is always evolving.

I would agree with this perspective. Over the last few decades there has definitely been a change in how people view addiction and more importantly how to address it. Harm reduction has much more traction then 20 years ago.
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