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Bleak New Estimates in Drug Epidemic: A Record 72,000 Overdose Deaths in 2017

nytimes.com

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Re: Bleak New Estimates in Drug Epidemic: A Record 72,000 Overdose Deaths in 2017

#71

Post by Uberphallus »

justsomedude43 wrote: post #61
phito wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being addicted is not a weakness. Some drugs are stronger that any willpower. When your doctor prescribes it to you like candy, it's really not the person's fault if he becomes addicted to it. Please don't be ignorant and blame the victims.

Being addicted is not, but becoming addicted is. Nobody is physically forced into addiction.

Actually there are genetic factors that predispose you to addictive behaviors and substances. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2715956/

Re: Bleak New Estimates in Drug Epidemic: A Record 72,000 Overdose Deaths in 2017

#72

Post by optionsguy »

austincheney wrote: post #57

I have always wondered how pain killers could be so addictive. Stimulants are physically addictive. They modify signals in your physiology to increase signal performance, in some way, and the body reacts to the temporary performance boost. There is a craving for the stimulant the body has becoming reliant upon and a withdrawal in the absence of that chemical. This manner of physical addiction isn't a choice and every…

Actually, amphetamines and cocaine do not cause physical dependence, while opioids and GABA agonists (alcohol, barbiturates, benzodiazepenes) do cause physical dependence.

‘Depressant’ addiction occurs because they’re physically and psychologically addictive.

You may want to do 5 minutes of quick research before writing posts about subjects you are unfamiliar with in such an authoritative tone.

Conversely, as a former heroin addict and alcoholic who also used cocaine and amphetamines without developing addictions to either, I wonder how people develop addictions to substances with no physically addictive qualities.

Re: Bleak New Estimates in Drug Epidemic: A Record 72,000 Overdose Deaths in 2017

#73

Post by yters »

3x wrote: post #67
yters wrote: post #45

Interestingly, this all is happening through legal routes. What would happen if hard drugs are fully legalized? Another weird thing, there are already loads of deaths through overdoses in the inner city, but only now it is an epidemic? What changed?

Overdoses would decrease. Nearly all recreational drugs should be legalized with regulation to promote safe drug use. These substances should be sold in single individually-packaged doses, with clear and explicit labeling. Taxation can be used to selectively promote the use of safer alternatives to the hardest drugs, for example making marijuana, opium, and mushrooms cheap compared to drugs with a high risk of overdo…

The prior question is: what is causing overdoses?

My understanding is the opioids are already regulated, controlled, and dosed appropriately, since most are acquired through medical prescription. Why so many overdoses, then?

My hypothesis is the drugs are addictive, and it takes more to get the same high each time, which eventually leads to accidental overdose.

Additionally, drug use can lead to feeling trapped and hopeless, and that might cause people to either carelessly or intentionally overdose.

Re: Bleak New Estimates in Drug Epidemic: A Record 72,000 Overdose Deaths in 2017

#74

Post by sctb »

justsomedude43 wrote: post #40

Natural selection.

We've already asked you to please use the site as intended and post substantively, so we've banned the account. We're happy to unban accounts if you email hn@ycombinator.com and we believe you'll start following the guidelines.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Bleak New Estimates in Drug Epidemic: A Record 72,000 Overdose Deaths in 2017

#75

Post by felix_nagaand »

justsomedude43 wrote: post #62
PiggySpeed wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong attitude. I think you would benefit from meeting more people from different socioeconomic backgrounds.

No thanks, I see junkies on the street every day, I don't feel like getting to know them.

You almost certainly interact with fully functioning addicts every day and don't realize it. If not you must be an agoraphobe. Anyways, I hope you realize the arrogance and cruelty of your beliefs before you lose someone to this epidemic.

Re: Bleak New Estimates in Drug Epidemic: A Record 72,000 Overdose Deaths in 2017

#76

Post by Kurtz79 »

justsomedude43 wrote: post #61
phito wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being addicted is not a weakness. Some drugs are stronger that any willpower. When your doctor prescribes it to you like candy, it's really not the person's fault if he becomes addicted to it. Please don't be ignorant and blame the victims.

Being addicted is not, but becoming addicted is. Nobody is physically forced into addiction.

As OP says, many became addicted because of normal painkillers prescriptions from their doctors, not because they wanted to act cool in front of their friends.

You don't generaly second-guess your doctor's prescription.

Re: Bleak New Estimates in Drug Epidemic: A Record 72,000 Overdose Deaths in 2017

#77

Post by aedron »

adventured wrote: post #56
pjc50 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My own preferred hypothesis is that this is the result of despair : https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/04/joblessne... Someone will no doubt reply that US unemployment is falling, and therefore so should the opiates crisis, but it's not a simple matter of economics and statistics, it's a question of what people believe about the world and their future in it. Someone who gets a bad, painful job with no ag…

Manufacturing jobs are booming in the US. The very people that you're implying are hopeless, that specific demographic, have access to blue collar jobs in a way they haven't in nearly a generation. The US hasn't seen this kind of sustained manufacturing job growth since the mid 1990s. The US has drug problems, and has for 50 years, that other first or second tier nations in worse structural condition never picked up.…

A nitpick:

> Does wealthy Europe have among the highest rates of suicide on earth

Certainly not: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r...

Only your two examples are in the somewhat upper bound of that list, the rest of Europe are among the lowest suicide per capita countries in the world.

Re: Bleak New Estimates in Drug Epidemic: A Record 72,000 Overdose Deaths in 2017

#78

Post by pjc50 »

adventured wrote: post #56
pjc50 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My own preferred hypothesis is that this is the result of despair : https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/04/joblessne... Someone will no doubt reply that US unemployment is falling, and therefore so should the opiates crisis, but it's not a simple matter of economics and statistics, it's a question of what people believe about the world and their future in it. Someone who gets a bad, painful job with no ag…

Manufacturing jobs are booming in the US. The very people that you're implying are hopeless, that specific demographic, have access to blue collar jobs in a way they haven't in nearly a generation. The US hasn't seen this kind of sustained manufacturing job growth since the mid 1990s. The US has drug problems, and has for 50 years, that other first or second tier nations in worse structural condition never picked up.…

This is a reply to my "it's not a simple matter of economics and statistics"?

> Or is it more likely these cultural issue are in fact complex rather than simple

Yes, I'd agree with that. I said it was a "question of what people believe about the world and their future in it", which goes beyond the economic.

I don't think all these drug overdose deaths are counted in the plain definition of suicide, but they're clearly a manifestation of self-destructive behaviour.

Re: Bleak New Estimates in Drug Epidemic: A Record 72,000 Overdose Deaths in 2017

#79

Post by RGamma »

austincheney wrote: post #57

I have always wondered how pain killers could be so addictive. Stimulants are physically addictive. They modify signals in your physiology to increase signal performance, in some way, and the body reacts to the temporary performance boost. There is a craving for the stimulant the body has becoming reliant upon and a withdrawal in the absence of that chemical. This manner of physical addiction isn't a choice and every…

Please watch this before making other plainly wrong and unsubstantiated comments like this: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL150326949691B199

The stimulant/depressant dichotomy doesn't hold by the way. For instance alcohol's effect on the brain is not only very non-specific but also not very well understood whatsoever (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_(drug)#Pharmacology or the lecture). Or more precisely it (dose-dependently) acts directly or indirectly inhibitory or excitatory simultaneously in various parts of the brain.

And whatever mess mixed intoxication causes in your head...

Re: Bleak New Estimates in Drug Epidemic: A Record 72,000 Overdose Deaths in 2017

#80

Post by dredds »

bumholio wrote: post #8
dasil003 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The appetite for drugs or the criminalization that creates the black market? Heavy drug users have more immediate concerns than second and third order effects of their lifestyle choices. The politicians and lobbyists responsible for maintaining the status quo on the other hand, should probably pull their heads out of their asses.

I am sure a widescale decriminalization of hard drugs south of the US border will be applauded in Washington. It would solve a large part of the drug crime problems in these countries, while raining down industrial quantities of pharmaceutical grade heroin on the US streets.

It was tried, was a success, and wasn't applauded.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17608261

It's been effective in the countries that have tried it since. Overdose is the failure of dose management. Harm reduction is less profitable than addiction. Wars create jobs and huge profits. Collateral damage is the human cost. Success wasn't the goal.

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