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

fivethirtyeight.com

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

#31

Post by liveoneggs »

gozur88 wrote: post #24
kchoudhu wrote: 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…

>Contrast to the crack cocaine epidemic in the 80s: fuck'em, throw them all in prison. That's overly reductive to the point of being wrong. There was never a particularly strong feeling that crack addicts should be thrown in prison any more than other types of addicts. People were strongly in favor of throwing crack dealers in prison because they were turning neighborhoods into war zones as they fought for lucrative…

crack vs cocaine sentencing doesn't agree with you. It was clearly making the "black" crime of crack possession worse than the "white" crime of coke possession.

Obama got a whole law passed in 2010 to address it!

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

#32

Post by intopieces »

If there were one article this year I could force my family to process adequately, it's this one. Addiction is still seen in our group as a failure of character -- not raised right, not religious enough, not following the right path. This kind of advice is seen as 'soft', and that's a shame.

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

#33

Post by seabta »

kchoudhu wrote: 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…

Interesting, I hadn't thought of it that way. I wonder if white people are the only racial group that demonstrate some kind of a preference for other members of their racial group, and if not, what the implications would be if one racial group stopped having such a preference and other racial groups did not follow suit.

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

#34

Post by Xylakant »

Justsignedup wrote: post #3

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…

Maintenance drugs are usually legal and tend to have less side-effects. This allows the addicted to focus on the underlying issue and then, once that is solved go through withdrawal. There has been a fairly interesting experiment in northern Germany a few years ago that handed out medical grade heroin to heavily addicted people. The results were pretty good, people were highly functional. Often the side effects of the addiction- having to organize drugs (and money for drugs), infections from used needles, additives in the drugs, breakdown of the social support network etc. are much worse than the actual drug. Giving substitutes, even allowing legal access to drugs helps removing those hindrances. Drug policy is just weird.

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

#35

Post by otakucode »

betenoire wrote: post #26
sharpercoder wrote: post #25

An addiction tries to replace a void in someone's life. Chances are big the environment of the addicted played a role in cerating the void.

That's not helpful at all. Yes, addiction is "filling" "something" "broken". Now what?

It is extremely helpful. It is very incovenient, to be sure, but it is very helpful. If you want people to not use drugs, then you have to provide them with a fulfilling life or the opportunity for such. If your desire is to operate a society that grinds people down, restricts them in ways that feel burdensome to them, insults them, and also does not have people using drugs? You might as well wish to fly. Because your wish is as realistic, and as worthy of ridicule.

It comes down to whether you want to stop people using drugs because you don't like that they get happy so easy, or whether you want people to stop using drugs of their own accord and have happy lives. If it's the second - help.

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

#36

Post by kchoudhu »

TearsInTheRain wrote: post #19
kchoudhu wrote: 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

I hope you see that this is a problem? Why is our society incapable of doing the right thing when there is a market failure?

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

#37

Post by beebmam »

flachsechs wrote: post #9
kchoudhu wrote: 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.

Class and race undeniably intersect in the US, so there's basis for both perspectives, imo

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

#38

Post by biggerfisch »

I think the saddest part of this article is perhaps the glancing statement it makes about how prison isn't a place of recovery and rehabilitation. The prison system here really is too focused on punishment and locking people up forever rather than helping them get back on their feet and being productive members of society

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

#39

Post by peteretep »

Justsignedup wrote: post #3

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…

    > but in the end the person still
    > needs to go through withdrawal
Why?

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

#40

Post by javajosh »

betenoire wrote: post #26
sharpercoder wrote: post #25

An addiction tries to replace a void in someone's life. Chances are big the environment of the addicted played a role in cerating the void.

That's not helpful at all. Yes, addiction is "filling" "something" "broken". Now what?

Now you address the environmental factors that created the void in the first place, such that the drugs are no longer desirable. See: Rat Park.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park

Also, downvoted for needlessly confrontational pedantry.

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