41–50 of 246 posts
All drugs should be legalized. That is the only solution. You should be able to buy cocaine, heroin, fentanyl at the local grocery store. No question asked. Maybe even subsidize it for poor people who can't afford market prices. The local pharmacy should provide training on how to inject/consume them safely and give for free the associated consumables.
The phrase "leading cause of death" has circular reference there. Each article is pointing to the other. I wanted to see where they got that figure. At the bottom of the current article it says "in a provisional tally seven months ago, [The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] calculated the overall number of drug overdoses at 107,622. Two-thirds were due to fentanyl." So fentanyl is the drug most people overd…
The numbers for other types of fatalities are available so you could do a quick comparison:
42,000 motor vehicle fatalities in the US for 2021 (all ages), so way above that
Heart disease is more unclear, I mostly found age-adjusted risks/etc. It looks like at best I could find, around ~400,000 americans in that age group have heart attacks (eg. MI) each year, though the death rate is obviously going to be lower than that.
So, it's definitely possible. IIRC "death by misadventure" and the like are super high on the list of causes of death for young people (18-25), so very possible fentanyl is way up there if not at the top.
All drugs should be legalized. That is the only solution. You should be able to buy cocaine, heroin, fentanyl at the local grocery store. No question asked. Maybe even subsidize it for poor people who can't afford market prices. The local pharmacy should provide training on how to inject/consume them safely and give for free the associated consumables.
All drugs should be legalized. That is the only solution. You should be able to buy cocaine, heroin, fentanyl at the local grocery store. No question asked. Maybe even subsidize it for poor people who can't afford market prices. The local pharmacy should provide training on how to inject/consume them safely and give for free the associated consumables.
Your argument is intriguing but you haven’t explained why this would help keep people from dying of fentanyl overdoses?
My proposal would sell pharma-grade drugs of known quality/dose in grocery stores at affordable prices. The illegal market would die overnight.
Sort-of-related, for Americans reading this, from a Brit, when I watch US TV programmes, the inclusion of drugs (prescription and illegal) in scripts is so matter-of-fact, it's actually shocking. Comparing like-for-like programs (police dramas, hospital dramas, thrillers), the UK version will invariably have entirely different plots. Sure the US != UK, but it's so weird. Isn't the USA the only country other than NZ t…
The US and particularly online cultures seem almost obsessed with drugs and I have a hard time believing it is only due to the taboo aspect of it.
Lots of content that should be 90min or 2 hours at most is now 4 hours or more.
I simply stop watching or fast forward through that nonsense. If I wanted to see people get high and drunk over and over, there are more entertaining venues.
Sort-of-related, for Americans reading this, from a Brit, when I watch US TV programmes, the inclusion of drugs (prescription and illegal) in scripts is so matter-of-fact, it's actually shocking. Comparing like-for-like programs (police dramas, hospital dramas, thrillers), the UK version will invariably have entirely different plots. Sure the US != UK, but it's so weird. Isn't the USA the only country other than NZ t…
All drugs should be legalized. That is the only solution. You should be able to buy cocaine, heroin, fentanyl at the local grocery store. No question asked. Maybe even subsidize it for poor people who can't afford market prices. The local pharmacy should provide training on how to inject/consume them safely and give for free the associated consumables.
We already tried that, it doesn't work. Hint: tobacco and alcohol deaths didn't decrease when tobacco and alcohol sales were decriminalized. What does work is making the cost of drugs prohibitive by placing great transaction costs on the drug trade. (See: taxes and tobacco.)
The phrase "leading cause of death" has circular reference there. Each article is pointing to the other. I wanted to see where they got that figure. At the bottom of the current article it says "in a provisional tally seven months ago, [The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] calculated the overall number of drug overdoses at 107,622. Two-thirds were due to fentanyl." So fentanyl is the drug most people overd…
It looks like the authors are comparing numbers from different methodologies and then claiming a quantitative rank order can be deduced and it can't unless you can demonstrate the methodologies yield equivalencies especially when you're looking at small population percentages...
I had a good friend lose a multi-year battle with opioids about 7 years ago who ended up sleeping on my couch for months when his family had abandoned him. It's a life changing and terrible thing and I've never been through anything more difficult than helping someone struggling with opioids but I don't think these claims in the article are well supported.
I wish nothing but the best for others going through these troubles. I wish compassion worked as better medicine
The phrase "leading cause of death" has circular reference there. Each article is pointing to the other. I wanted to see where they got that figure. At the bottom of the current article it says "in a provisional tally seven months ago, [The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] calculated the overall number of drug overdoses at 107,622. Two-thirds were due to fentanyl." So fentanyl is the drug most people overd…
> So fentanyl is the drug most people overdose on, or is it killing more people than heart diseases, traffic accidents, etc do? The numbers for other types of fatalities are available so you could do a quick comparison: 42,000 motor vehicle fatalities in the US for 2021 (all ages), so way above that Heart disease is more unclear, I mostly found age-adjusted risks/etc. It looks like at best I could find, around ~400,0…
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fentanyl-overdose-death/
Interesting that Google searches for this info return RT results