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Expert sounds alarm on new wave of US opioids crisis

theguardian.com

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Re: Expert sounds alarm on new wave of US opioids crisis

#181

Post by elzbardico »

nonameiguess wrote: post #88
zdragnar wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A friend of mine was a mechanic in the air Force and took a wrench to the knee. The VA basically prescribed him a giant bottle of benzos and told him to take them as needed. Young man laid up at home with nothing to do but sit on the couch playing video games and drink beer. Add in a big bottle of pain pills to take "as needed" and you've got an addict.

Because people form their impressions of what the world is like by continually reading anecdotes like this, I'd like to at least throw my own experience out there. I (not my friend) got out of the Army needing three spine surgeries in the span of 16 months, after years of increasingly worthless non-invasive treatments. This involved daily percocet for a very long time along with periods of time in which I couldn't do…

Yes, a lot of the problems with drugs is probably cultural. We decided to convince people that they are absolutely powerless against addiction, that this is a disease they were born with it and there's no much they can do themselves, that they can't have absolutely no agency.

Re: Expert sounds alarm on new wave of US opioids crisis

#182

Post by hypothesis »

cprayingmantis wrote: post #96
nsagent wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My mom worked as an ER physician in Pennington Gap, VA during the early years of opioid abuse there (late nineties through through the early oughts) [1]. She would constantly complain about drug seekers there and refused to give out pain meds. According to her, she was the only doctor who would refuse to give out pain meds. Fast forward to 2022, she needed heart surgery and was in the ICU for three weeks afterward. S…

It hit this area hard. I’m from neighboring Scott County and I left in 2015 to pursue a job in a larger market. When I brought my family back in 2021 we shocked to see just how much the opioid crisis had hollowed out the community. Whatever big pharma has paid it’s not enough to repair the generations of damage it’s done to the area. I am on the local Board of Supervisors and I’m trying my best (along with the rest o…

Last I heard, culprits are arguing at SCOTUS that they should get immunity for a fraction of their gains. Also, some payouts will come from selling more of the same, which is nuts. It’s pretty hopeless…

Re: Expert sounds alarm on new wave of US opioids crisis

#183

Post by rayiner »

BoiledCabbage wrote: post #152
Loughla wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bingo. The center of this country (outside of a few major urban/sub-urban areas) is hollow. Between the loss of agriculture as a family job, loss of industrial jobs, and opioid use after decades of methamphetamine use, it's bleak. And no one really cares. As a general rule, we're told, "just move to Chicago (St. Louis, Kansas City, wherever)". That's not a solution, or a possibility for a lot of folks.

> And no one really cares. As a general rule, we're told, "just move to Chicago (St. Louis, Kansas City, wherever)". That's not a solution, or a possibility for a lot of folks. The problem is this is completely untrue. One party had been talking about coal-mining industry ending and promoting job retraining for over a decade if not longer. Federal funds were administered to pre-empt this exact problem that was forese…

> The problem is, this party never wins in Appalachia - all of their policies are ignored. Nobody takes the job training. Everyone locally votes against it and opposes those social support systems.

What are you talking about? Appalachia was a core part of the FDR coalition. From 1932 until 2000, West Virginia voted Republican just three times: Reagan, Nixon, and Eisenhower (each just once, in landslide re-elections for those candidates).

West Virginia and similar places were the base that provided the majorities for Democrats’ social welfare programs of the 20th century. Who is more qualified to conclude that whatever crumbs they get from social welfare don’t compensate for the downsides of economic change from globalism and social change from immigration?

Re: Expert sounds alarm on new wave of US opioids crisis

#184

Post by coffeebeqn »

adwi wrote: post #166
upleft wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having been a cannabis smoker myself for years, I can understand the danger of self-medicating with psychedelics. They aren’t entirely harmless. Any drug with a high is a dopamine button. It’s easy to hit that button instead of doing something else to feel good. It’s easy to stop doing other things in favor of just hitting that button all day. But the effects of that button diminish over time, so you hit it more ofte…

Do you still smoke? If not, how did you quit? Quitting is an interesting grey area for cannabis; culturally and functionally people misusing the drug are able to do so indefinitely, usually not reaching the “rock bottom” emergency state that other drugs (hopefully) convince the user to seek treatment. So it feels like “just weed” isn’t serious enough to warrant a 30 day treatment center, but the behavior patterns can…

For me after daily use for 6 months or so I just had a realization that it’s a net negative. I was always tired, cranky, forgetful, and the highs weren’t that high - more like maintaining some rather low level of life satisfaction. If you use it a lot there is probably some root cause why you think you need to get fucked up all the time.

What helped me quit was really seeing it for what it is - it was making a few hedonistic experiences “richer” but kind of draining the color out of all the experiences outside of that. I never had any negative effects while high - like anxiety so it seemed harmless. For practical tips think of something to do for the first few days at least when you’d normally toke up if youre just bored at home. Out with friends, walking, playing a new game, hobbies, etc

Re: Expert sounds alarm on new wave of US opioids crisis

#185

Post by devilbunny »

zdragnar wrote: post #176
devilbunny wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Benzos are not pain meds. Might make you an addict, but if that’s what was prescribed, it wasn’t for pain. Dunk on the VA all you like, but they’re not that bad.

You're right, I got my wires crossed for some reason. Pretty sure it was either for Percocet or the generic equivalent. When he recounted this to be, he was frustrated that they didn't give him a small prescription to start with, but more or less gave him a large quantity up front and let him dose himself. He managed to beat the addiction, and when I'd met him it was in a software development gig so it's not like it…

That makes more sense. As for why, just look at the responses to my other comment saying that opioids aren’t generally warranted for weeks after a dental extraction.

Re: Expert sounds alarm on new wave of US opioids crisis

#186

Post by zackangelo »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #126
fifteen1506 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well yes, because OxyContin was oversold and the company's behaviour was unethical. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/29/health/purdue-opioids-oxy...

I cannot read the article. What is the pharmacy’s role? OxyContin requires a prescription, so did the pharmacy sell without prescriptions? Bottom line is, do you want pharmacies to be making non medical judgment calls on which prescriptions to fill and not fill? If so, then don’t complain when they exercise judgment. I, for one, would rather not deputize everyone I interact with.

Prescription drugs are dispensed by a pharmacist for a reason. In the US, they are legally required to report any unusually large, frequent or suspicious orders to the government. Many pharmacies were found to have neglected that responsibility so they could sell more drugs.

Re: Expert sounds alarm on new wave of US opioids crisis

#187

Post by armitron »

nobodyandproud wrote: post #80
devjab wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Scandinavian I find this an odd take on the situation. To me it seems like the US has a very, very, broken healthcare system that you’ve chosen to have by electing politicians who aren’t going to reform it into something reasonable. My wife and I presently had twins, and we spent 7 days living in the hospital with a lot of help from nurses and so on, and it cost us $130. Which was me paying for 3 days of living…

Yes, every reason why we don't have universal healthcare comes down to voting in politicians that are against it, but what outsiders and party hardliners fail to appreciate is where the resistance comes. When the Democrats controlled the presidency and both houses, we failed to push out any reasonable form of universal healthcare and that is due to several specific interests that have a hold on the Democrat party the…

Universal healthcare is a disaster in every country similar to the US (UK, Canada). The Scandinavian model is an exception, and would never work here given social factors such as population makeup and numbers.

I'll keep my reasonable tax rates and absolutely top notch health care I receive through my employer, thank you very much.

Re: Expert sounds alarm on new wave of US opioids crisis

#188

Post by badpun »

devjab wrote: post #43
nobodyandproud wrote: post #10

I see this as analogous to the Dust Bowl, where the politicians and coastal elite ignored or dismissed the growing problem until it was too big to ignore. - https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/1000-mile-long-sto... - https://mallhistory.org/items/show/274 100 years and more information than ever, yet we have’t figured out this out-of-sight, out-of-mind problem.

As a Scandinavian I find this an odd take on the situation. To me it seems like the US has a very, very, broken healthcare system that you’ve chosen to have by electing politicians who aren’t going to reform it into something reasonable. My wife and I presently had twins, and we spent 7 days living in the hospital with a lot of help from nurses and so on, and it cost us $130. Which was me paying for 3 days of living…

Also, since USA is a Union of States, it's weird that no single state managed to set up a state-wide socialized health-care. Is there some reason why it hadn't happened?

Re: Expert sounds alarm on new wave of US opioids crisis

#189

Post by badpun »

jterrys wrote: post #114
devjab wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Scandinavian I find this an odd take on the situation. To me it seems like the US has a very, very, broken healthcare system that you’ve chosen to have by electing politicians who aren’t going to reform it into something reasonable. My wife and I presently had twins, and we spent 7 days living in the hospital with a lot of help from nurses and so on, and it cost us $130. Which was me paying for 3 days of living…

>But maybe I just don’t understand your country well enough? You really don't. You live in a country that is either 11 million or 6 million people with fully enforceable border controls and immigration controls. You can control who comes into you country. You can control the goods that come into your country. Your population rivals one of the larger metropolitan areas of the USA. Problems don't scale linearly. At 6 m…

> You live in a country that is either 11 million or 6 million people with fully enforceable border controls and immigration controls.

It's the opposite, actually. Denmark is a part of Shengen zone, which means it has no border controls at all. When you enter neighboring country, you'll only know this because a sign on the road will tell you so. Similarly, migrants are free to roam entire Shengen zone and get in and out of Denmark as they please (unless emergency measures are introduced to stop them).

Re: Expert sounds alarm on new wave of US opioids crisis

#190

Post by badpun »

shrimp_emoji wrote: post #144
jterrys wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But maybe I just don’t understand your country well enough? You really don't. You live in a country that is either 11 million or 6 million people with fully enforceable border controls and immigration controls. You can control who comes into you country. You can control the goods that come into your country. Your population rivals one of the larger metropolitan areas of the USA. Problems don't scale linearly. At 6 m…

The US is a massive, new, mostly empty frontier nation. It's ridiculous to expect the same level of social support as one has in relatively small, old, well-developed European nations. The GDP difference seems more than enough to counter it, maybe, but socially, geographically, and historically, the US is a relatively libertarian project where "high taxes and free healthcare" are anathema.

> the US is a relatively libertarian project where "high taxes and free healthcare" are anathema.

Isn't that just the last 4 decades though? Before that, US had very high taxes and was not against spending on social programs. That all changed with Reagan and after, but it's not some set of core American values, but rather just the current, and relatively recent, dogma.

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