201–210 of 302 posts
Also interesting and related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15241874 "Psychedelics Help Reduce Opioid Addiction, According to New Study"
Have you also read "Abstinence Helps Reduce Opioid Addiction, According to New Study"?
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I have a couple of friends on methadone, they are cordial, relatively together and in a totally safer place than prior. I would rather that than the other so it's legitimate approach in my eyes, they have the rest of their lives to figure out when they can stop. "Detoxifications and drug free modalities, although appealing to an understandable desire for recovery without medications, produces only 5-10% success rate.…
We now have a methadone clinic in our local shopping center, right next to a large childcare facility. Since then, crime has gone way up. The grocery store now has armed guards. This is not what a solution should look like.
I'm not necessarily a supporter of suboxone / methadone / whatever , but this NIMBY rhetoric isn't helpful, either.
It's rare for the down-turn of an area to have one extraordinary cause.
I guess that the suggestion is that methadone clinics create crime where there otherwise wasn't -- but I don't see it that way in my community.
What I see these clinics provide is a centralization of potentially bad actors for authorities to keep tabs on while they seek guidance or pay court-ordered time to the system otherwise.
What's the alternative here? Cease these communal style clinics? If one believes in these treatment options whatsoever then it must be realized that cessation of these clinics would take that care option away from many people who may find legitimate use.
I don't have alternatives to the clinics , but I do have insight into what one should pay attention to when an area begins to struggle:
Income, education, and general upward mobility within society.
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.
> any non-profits ... working to increase people's sense of community at a mass scale You're describing most religions that I'm aware of. Say what you will about their beliefs, but most of them (definitely not all) work hard to have an inclusive and supportive community.
With the condition that you abide by the rules. It's the assurance that everyone adheres to more-or-less the same values that glues the community together.
Also, if I may venture slightly off-topic, the modern western definition of "inclusive" seems to imply "without requiring people to adhere to anything", which is the opposite of what you need to build a community.
No shared set of values ("do whatever you want" does not really count as a value) means less trust and more suspicion.
Simplest example: group A values sexual restraint and have a philosophical framework that justifies why this value is necessary for the preservation of society, group B values sexual freedom and is dismissive of the philosophical framework of group A.
Members of group A will be extremely weary of members of group B, and will be concerned about how they might start influencing their children, for example. So they will avoid them. Vice versa, members of group B will be suspicious of group A members, because when you see people being suspicious and avoidant towards you, you tend to become suspicious of them as well.
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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.
That 'this is your brain on drugs' thing with the egg and the skillet was heroin, not crack. I believe they did do a crack update later where the woman took the skillet afterward and destroyed the kitchen with it. To conflate humor and lampooning of those PSAs as not taking the actual drug issue seriously is not wise, though. Many people simply realize how useless, hyperbolic, and ultimately insulting those PSAs were…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AKXN6Vdr3g0
Spoiler: same actress.
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.
the cynical amongst us would respond that this need is being "filled" by FB and social media ... I for one hope that doesn't turn out to be true in the long term.
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Alcohol != opioid. As I said in another comment, alcohol is an odd drug. It's mechanisms work very differently from opioids and needs very different behaviors and strategies to combat.
In my opinion you can't simply discard the debate as comparing apples to oranges... There are many similarities. It's a drug addiction at the end of the day.
Going cold turkey from alcohol can be fatal.
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No one is judging no one. And you should keep supporting them any way you can. But I am just stating facts. > at some point methadone might get de-prioritised But that is wishful thinking, not reality. Open-ended programs do not work. Period. By far most people in such programs relapse multiple times. You can't expect from the addict to kick the drug off out of sheer will and good intentions. > took intelligent pro-a…
You're talking in absolutes, with no references, do you have any supporting evidence, did you read the linked article, I seem to some good science on my side. "For opioid addiction itself, however, the best treatment is indefinite, possibly lifelong maintenance with either methadone or buprenorphine (Suboxone). That is the conclusion of every expert panel and systematic review that has considered the question — inclu…
One has to wonder why would we not choose a treatment(3-12 months, depending on the person/situation) since it can demonstrably help people recover completely from opioids and instead choose life-long dependence on particular drugs.
Are these the same scientists that think prescribing Vicodin, as if it's aspirin, is a good thing?
OK, if someone wants to be an opioid addict, why not just let them? The "driving heedlessly into the abyss" aspect seems mainly due to opioids being illegal and expensive. I mean, do we use such language about diabetics? Do we expect them to manage their diabetes through diet alone?
I'm not aware of solid evidence for health risks associated with chronic opioid use alone. Excluding opioid addiction, I mean. But please do share.
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You're talking in absolutes, with no references, do you have any supporting evidence, did you read the linked article, I seem to some good science on my side. "For opioid addiction itself, however, the best treatment is indefinite, possibly lifelong maintenance with either methadone or buprenorphine (Suboxone). That is the conclusion of every expert panel and systematic review that has considered the question — inclu…
I'm talking with more than 20 years of experience being close to people who follow these treatments. One has to wonder why would we not choose a treatment(3-12 months, depending on the person/situation) since it can demonstrably help people recover completely from opioids and instead choose life-long dependence on particular drugs. Are these the same scientists that think prescribing Vicodin, as if it's aspirin, is a…
Who cares? Nobody talks this way about a person who has to take heart medicine every day to survive, and not that many talk this way about me when I take Lexapro every day to not get depressed. What makes methadone so different?