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It’s not the chemicals that cause addiction (2017)

dancesafe.org

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Re: It’s not the chemicals that cause addiction (2017)

#41

Post by fires10 »

antonvs wrote: post #38
zoklet-enjoyer wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sucks about your friend. But how did anyone think there was no abuse potential? I was in highschool in the early to mid 2000s and even I knew there was massive abuse potential. There's a reason it was called hillbilly heroin

Yeah. Oxycodone was always known to be addictive, like any other opiate. The claim from the company was that Oxycontin , which was a slow release form of oxycodone, was less addictive because of the slow release. That turned out to be largely BS, but it wasn’t helped by the fact that addicts would crush the tablets, eliminating the slow release aspect.

I had this told to me and had family members told this by doctors. A large number of addicts started from medical prescriptions for legitimate pain. I have been scolded for not taking pain meds.

Re: It’s not the chemicals that cause addiction (2017)

#42

Post by stan_kirdey »

johnea wrote: post #39
stan_kirdey wrote: post #36

I strongly disagree with the article. I work in the space and been involved in this topic for the last 20 years. While the article claims that jails only worsen addiction, correctional facilities in the U.S. provide medically-supervised drug rehabilitation programs that have high success rates. Folks with substance use disorder are given medication for withdrawal and co-occurring mental health issues. There are withd…

And if every addict had good opportunity for a prosperous life, do you think the number of overdoses would increase or descrease? The brain highjakcking still occurrs in a context. While some people simply use for kicks, many others are trying to escape some intractable situtaion. Improving life opportunities would only help reduce extreme addiction and overdose...

I think opportunities might help people avoid taking the drug in the first place, but from observations, even folks with seemingly great jobs and families often fall to opioids once they try them.

Re: It’s not the chemicals that cause addiction (2017)

#43

Post by pstuart »

stan_kirdey wrote: post #36

I strongly disagree with the article. I work in the space and been involved in this topic for the last 20 years. While the article claims that jails only worsen addiction, correctional facilities in the U.S. provide medically-supervised drug rehabilitation programs that have high success rates. Folks with substance use disorder are given medication for withdrawal and co-occurring mental health issues. There are withd…

We should not treat drug addiction as a crime -- it's a medical condition and should be addressed in that context.

That said, we need to find a way to institutionalize and treat those that have become non-functional from their addiction(s). And that power needs to be wielded with extreme transparency and accountability.

Re: It’s not the chemicals that cause addiction (2017)

#44

Post by cstejerean »

benreesman wrote: post #21
SoftTalker wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds trite but just do it. Go out. Go to bars, go to the gym, go to the coffee shop, go to wherever people are congregating. Living cooped up in a box is no way to live. Unsurprising that the study in TFA found that creatures living in unhappy circumstances seek mood-altering substances more than those living more freely and naturally.

As I said: maybe I’m an outlier and my N=1 study is one of those dots in the corner. But historically I’m a rabid extrovert on paper in terms of coffee shops and bars and comedy clubs and music shows. Before the risk was that I’d meet some cool people and talk until I had to race to the morning’s first meeting. And when I say “empty-seeming” I don’t mean there are no people exactly, but rather that walking up to some…

Try traveling to other parts of the world if you can. For example I was just in one of the greek islands for a week and everyone was incredibly friendly. Meeting cool people and chatting late into the night is precisely how I'd describe my time there.

Re: It’s not the chemicals that cause addiction (2017)

#45

Post by MavisBacon »

These are interesting studies mentioned, no doubt, but the assertions made feel very heavy-handed to me. We have to take into consideration things like bipolar disorder, depression, obsessive compulsive disorder when dealing with humans. Also a bit skeptical of their conclusion based on the Vietnam vet studies, where we need to consider access to heroin in Vietnam vs wherever soldiers went home to.

Worth keeping in mind that this is a non-profit organization that sold fentanyl test strips at ridiculous markup for years (they have some novel strip now that i'm unsure of bulk pricing on). These were the same exact BTNX strips most fellow harm reductionists were handing out for free or at low cost. I was paying 75 cents per strip as a fairly small harm reduction organization, DanceSafe sold them for $2 (their novel strips are same price) and I can only imagine they got significantly better pricing through the biotech company we all were going through due to how many strips they must move.

Re: It’s not the chemicals that cause addiction (2017)

#46

Post by ThePhantom »

xrd wrote: post #29
xrd wrote: post #13

I've got a friend who recently was hospitalized for fentanyl addiction. Twenty years ago he was my first investor in my first startup. He was the guy that taught me about mediation. He was the first vegetarian I knew. He owned four cab licenses in Portland. Then Uber came in and shredded his retirement plan. The cab company forced him out so he wouldn't even capitalize on the partial ownership of the land they owned.…

Also, my friend is in the hospital and apparently will be there for a week or two. So he will leave with several hundred thousand dollars of debt, which will probably be shackled around his mom's neck. This is a medical crisis that will never get solved because our medical system doesn't want to handle people with these addictions. No one does of course. But that's the only way to solve it in my opinion.

Sorry to hear about your friend. What was he hospitalized for? Several hundred thousand dollars is an exorbitant amount of money even with how high the cost of healthcare is in the US.

Re: It’s not the chemicals that cause addiction (2017)

#47

Post by retrac »

antonvs wrote: post #38
zoklet-enjoyer wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sucks about your friend. But how did anyone think there was no abuse potential? I was in highschool in the early to mid 2000s and even I knew there was massive abuse potential. There's a reason it was called hillbilly heroin

Yeah. Oxycodone was always known to be addictive, like any other opiate. The claim from the company was that Oxycontin , which was a slow release form of oxycodone, was less addictive because of the slow release. That turned out to be largely BS, but it wasn’t helped by the fact that addicts would crush the tablets, eliminating the slow release aspect.

> The claim from the company was that Oxycontin, which was a slow release form of oxycodone, was less addictive because of the slow release.

A similar claim is now made about Vyvanse, a pro-drug for amphetamine. Like a slow release formulation, but needs to be metabolized first. The slower onset, less sharp peak, makes it less euphoric for a similar effective dose, which is supposedly one of the mechanisms involved with the reward-feedback addiction cycle. Less likely to experience (intentionally or accidentally) the intense euphoria of a bit too much instant-release amphetamine on an empty stomach, and so less likely to seek out the experience again. It also frustrates injection, since it needs to be metabolized first so injecting it doesn't make it work any faster. I'm not sure the premise is wrong, and it is probably fairly similar with opioids. But slightly less abuse risk is certainly not the same as non-addictive.

Re: It’s not the chemicals that cause addiction (2017)

#48

Post by Kalium »

loeg wrote: post #4

Another rehashing of Rat Park, a dubious study which has never replicated. I’m pro legalization, but this isn’t a good angle for arguing that case. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park

Rat Park is an excellent example of how people pick studies that show the things they're looking for. When people point to it uncritically, it says more about them than about the world.

Re: It’s not the chemicals that cause addiction (2017)

#49

Post by stan_kirdey »

pstuart wrote: post #43
stan_kirdey wrote: post #36

I strongly disagree with the article. I work in the space and been involved in this topic for the last 20 years. While the article claims that jails only worsen addiction, correctional facilities in the U.S. provide medically-supervised drug rehabilitation programs that have high success rates. Folks with substance use disorder are given medication for withdrawal and co-occurring mental health issues. There are withd…

We should not treat drug addiction as a crime -- it's a medical condition and should be addressed in that context. That said, we need to find a way to institutionalize and treat those that have become non-functional from their addiction(s). And that power needs to be wielded with extreme transparency and accountability.

"we should not treat drug addiction as a crime" - I don't think anyone is saying otherwise

Re: It’s not the chemicals that cause addiction (2017)

#50

Post by bufio »

arcanemachiner wrote: post #27
refurb wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oxycodone was always known to be addictive. It’s right on the label from day one. “Also at the time of OxyContin’s approval, FDA product labeling warned of the danger of abuse of the drug and that crushing a controlled-release tablet followed by intravenous injection could result in a lethal overdose. There was no evidence to suggest at the time that crushing the controlled-release capsule followed by oral ingestion…

People are often taken in by the Big New Thing. That's why I have a default policy of skepticism towards pretty much everything.

The Big New Thing at the moment seems to be a moral panic about oxycodone.
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