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Nineteen people a week overdose in Richmond, dozens are dying, hundreds revived

richmond.com

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Re: Nineteen people a week overdose in Richmond, dozens are dying, hundreds revived

#231

Post by nickik »

UncleMeat wrote: post #226
nickik wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has nothing to do with profit driven. The problem is about intensives. The perverse US health care system with all its regulation has made it so that doctors primary make money by giving away pills. There were other models where people would basically have subscription to clinics and those would have a intensive to keep you healthy. The problem is that all alternative models are literally illegal. Check out this p…

This explains why countries with more regulation (to the point of state run medicine in England) don't have nearly the same problem with opioid addiction, right?

Well not necessarily. You can also have a stat run system that can have the same intensive problem. I don't know how Britain handles these things.

It really just depends on the individual institutional setup, and it depends on the culture of the doctors.

Re: Nineteen people a week overdose in Richmond, dozens are dying, hundreds revived

#232

Post by nickik »

corvallis wrote: post #228
nickik wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You argument that nobody decides to have cancer is true but it applies to tons of stuff. You don't decide that your car breaks down. You don't decide that a storm is coming. You don't decide the change in import controls for goods from China. There are literally millions of things that you don't decide. The very reason we have capitalism is that we have dynamic system that reacts to feedback and finds or at least mov…

I’d encourage you to read a book called Drug Dealer, MD. It details how pain was made “the fifth vital sign” and doctors could lose their board certification and license if patients filed complaints alleging that their pain was not adequately treated by their provider. Even today, surveys that are sent out following hospital encounters ask people if their pain was addressed to their satisfaction. It’s difficult to wi…

Yes. That is very much a problem.

But its not a problem with capitalism, it just depends on what your legal rights are. Any institutional setup could have the same problem.

'Dreamlands' addressed the same problem.

Re: Nineteen people a week overdose in Richmond, dozens are dying, hundreds revived

#233

Post by nickik »

miej wrote: post #229
nickik wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You argument that nobody decides to have cancer is true but it applies to tons of stuff. You don't decide that your car breaks down. You don't decide that a storm is coming. You don't decide the change in import controls for goods from China. There are literally millions of things that you don't decide. The very reason we have capitalism is that we have dynamic system that reacts to feedback and finds or at least mov…

Except this is an actual known "evil capitalist" scenario, where pharma execs literally bribed doctors to over-prescribe opioids. RICO conspiracy charges are generally reserved for the likes of the mafia, and even then are rare due to the overwhelming burden of proof required. I'm honestly not sure who I consider worse in this case: the pharma execs handing out bribes, or the doctors who accepted them. Reference: htt…

I believe this exists, but I don't think that is the majority of cases.

There was genuine movement among doctors in the US, with serious people writing about how pain was not necessary. It is also the case that legally in the US you can be accessed of not addressing peoples pain enough.

Also again, if doctors had an intensive to care for their patient they would have to be more careful about what they give to them.

Re: Nineteen people a week overdose in Richmond, dozens are dying, hundreds revived

#234

Post by kakarot »

Alex3917 wrote: post #187
kakarot wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Consumer Reports . . . guide to drugs Whoa. Care to further elaborate?

It’s free online: The Consumer Union guide to licit and illicit substances.

I will check it out today, thank you!

Re: Nineteen people a week overdose in Richmond, dozens are dying, hundreds revived

#235

Post by nkkollaw »

hycaria wrote: post #190
dep_b wrote: post #182

The greatest argument against the death penalty is that it's not applied to the people that deserve it the most. Not only did the pharmaceutical industry earn billions by pushing addictive opioids to people but they also charge people up the nose for the injections they need after they OD'ed because they got addicted. People are still getting filthy rich literally over other people's deaths. In the name of health. I…

You know this problem is not really prevalent in places with legit healthcare systems, Europe amongst all ? And that we don't pop opiods to all suffering patients, ie we can allow things to hurt a bit sometimes it's not that big a deal, and it's surely better than getting hooked to stuff. Why blame the pharmaceutical industry. Your practitionners and your patients have a problem.

It's pharma who let this happen, on purpose.

Re: Nineteen people a week overdose in Richmond, dozens are dying, hundreds revived

#236

Post by jfnixon »

lostlogin wrote: post #219
jfnixon wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting hypothesis. How does it explain the doctor in the article, or the lawyers, entertainers, and other wealthy people who wind up addicted?

It probably doesn’t and the uptick in the deaths of comparatively advantaged groups doesn’t fit the model well. Addiction and distress have well documented links with things like unemployment rates correlating well with ODs and deaths. However despite wealthy people featuring in the article the vast majority of the deaths, ODs and incarcerations aren’t in the group you describe. https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/www.the…

Fair enough. Still, I'd suggest that the wealthy group indicate opiates scratch an itch which is probably unrelated to inequality. Even if we drastically reduced inequality, that itch would likely still exist. I'd also find it interesting if there was a comparison of the per capita ratio of wealthy addicts to poor addicts. It seems entirely plausible that a causal, not simply correlative, link exists between unemployment/poverty and 'bad' addictive behaviors, but something is hooking highly functioning, wealthy humans on opioids, too.

On a tangent, while I've never had chronic pain, I've had friends who have, and I know it can destroy anyone's life. I don't want to see the abuse of effective pain meds by some lead to difficulties in obtaining pain relief for those who really need it. Someone in chronic pain has enough to handle without worrying about maintaining access to appropriate medication.

Re: Nineteen people a week overdose in Richmond, dozens are dying, hundreds revived

#237

Post by lostlogin »

jfnixon wrote: post #236
lostlogin wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It probably doesn’t and the uptick in the deaths of comparatively advantaged groups doesn’t fit the model well. Addiction and distress have well documented links with things like unemployment rates correlating well with ODs and deaths. However despite wealthy people featuring in the article the vast majority of the deaths, ODs and incarcerations aren’t in the group you describe. https://www.google.co.nz/amp/s/www.the…

Fair enough. Still, I'd suggest that the wealthy group indicate opiates scratch an itch which is probably unrelated to inequality. Even if we drastically reduced inequality, that itch would likely still exist. I'd also find it interesting if there was a comparison of the per capita ratio of wealthy addicts to poor addicts. It seems entirely plausible that a causal, not simply correlative, link exists between unemploy…

Thanks for that.

One of the traps with pain is the assumption that medication is the answer. It isn’t unfortunately and chronic pain should not be treated with medication alone - at least thats what I took away from discussion with a pain specialist who I happened to be working with on something unrelated. Source required.

Re: Nineteen people a week overdose in Richmond, dozens are dying, hundreds revived

#238

Post by cjhanks »

krisives wrote: post #185
oliwarner wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Opiate ODs are given naloxone in hospital. It's really effective but they feel like shit. If it's still in their system when they leave, and they try to use, they're more likely to double-dose to get the feeling back. The problem with opiates (esp in the US) is they ones that are available are too strong and completely unforgiving. Fentanyl is an elephant gun but it's supplanting heroin on streets due to its prevalen…

That sounds like a really complicated issue without a clear solution and no benefit to whoever solves it. By comparison I think it would be easier to make a self driving car or automated robot that does most of what a heroin addict does. Sounds terrible don’t care I’m out of sympathy for addicts in society.

You're going to have to teach that automated robot to rob cars, prostitute, shoplift, neglect children, and beg for money on the streets too, if you want it to be realistic.

Even if you gave up on sympathy for addicts (and I understand, I was in Portland and have been along that hellish amtrak line) - the problem affects all of us, whether we like it or not.

Re: Nineteen people a week overdose in Richmond, dozens are dying, hundreds revived

#239

Post by firebones »

refurb wrote: post #159
firebones wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it is factually true that it would be illegal for Purdue to promote off-label, they also need to be held accountable for playing fast and loose with the research studies (even altering the definitions used in the trials) in order to be able to claim 12h coverage when nearly half the patients weren't getting 12h coverage. This, combined with the recommendation to push higher doses to achieve 12h coverage, combin…

Shouldn't the FDA be held accountable? They approved the trial design and overall application.

I wish regulators could be perfect, and if they were, we'd reduce harm a lot. But since we know they're not, we can, as participants in society, be as Caesar's wife--above suspicion--and avoid these situations entirely.

A lot of capitalism's woes would be overcome should that standard be applied.

Re: Nineteen people a week overdose in Richmond, dozens are dying, hundreds revived

#240

Post by JudasGoat »

iambateman wrote: post #33

Serious questions...if you’ve used an opioid more than once for recreational purposes, I’d like to hear (1) what prompted you to try it (2) how old you were (3) cost (4) where did you get them (5) why did you stop Treat me like an idiot, I don’t understand this stuff and I’d like to know more. * obviously feel free to use a burner account if you’d rather not speak publicly.

I took opiates and other drugs to mask emotional pain. No doctor prescribed my first dose. No peer pressure was needed. My life had been absent of happiness, the first time I took a drug, it was as though the world rendered itself in colors other than black and gray. I haven't done any drugs other than weed for at least 5 years now. But there was a good 40 plus year period in which I did opiates daily. My biggest mistake was getting on a methadone program, that was a twenty year addiction that made heroin withdrawal look easy. It took 2 years of incarceration to end my methadone addiction.

I first used heroin when I was seventeen in 1972. It was the first time I had tried an opiate. At the time Heroin was pricey at $30 a bag/dose in the Boston area. Around 3 years later, I went to Phoenix where Heroin was $10 a bag. Taking a ride across the border to Nogales lowered the cost to $5. Making approx. $100 a week back then, a habit wasn't possible until I found lower cost drugs. These days I feel happier than I could have imagined. While opiates never really made me happy, They decreased my misery at times. As bad as all this sounds, I thank drug addiction for allowing me to survive until I learned how to live.

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