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America’s opioid epidemic is worsening

economist.com

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Re: America’s opioid epidemic is worsening

#101

Post by devopsproject »

ocschwar wrote: post #80

I'm going to comment here with a plug for the March For Science, on April 22. Why? Because the opioid epidemic started with a simple matter of scientists not being allowed to science. Purdue Pharmaceuticals marketed oxycontin as a drug that lasts for 12 hours. The evidence indicated it only lasted for 8. If Purdue's scientists were allowed to act on the evidence, i.e. to be actual scientists, the whole world would ha…

You forgot the best part: It made Purdue rich. Instead of changing the frequency of doses, they told doctors to up the strength which made the company more money. The owners of Purdue are billionaires now: http://www.latimes.com/projects/oxycontin-part1/

Re: America’s opioid epidemic is worsening

#102

Post by glangdale »

Clubber wrote: post #88
glangdale wrote: post #65

The only thing that is good about this epidemic is that it seems to have moved harm reduction onto the agenda after decades of militarized and/or "lock 'em up and throw away the key" responses. Hopefully the result will be a more rational response for all of America's drug problems regardless of the color of the users.

Where do you see any evidence of that?

Everywhere. I don't know if you were around in the 80s and 90s but the contrast in rhetoric about drug use is amazing. Both sides of politics were tripping over themselves to be tougher on drug crime back when it was perceived as a non-white problem.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/there-was-no-wave-of-compassi...

This not to say that harm minimization is now successfully mainstream, but the shift in attitudes and rhetoric is huge.

Re: America’s opioid epidemic is worsening

#103

Post by lr4444lr »

I say this mostly tongue-in-cheek because I hate to apply one bad policy to fix another, but I bet if narcotic overprescription could more readily trigger medical malpractice, you'd see doctors thinking more judiciously about their use.

Even if exaggerated by an order of magnitude, stats like this are just indefensible: http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/addiction/news/20160325/n...

Re: America’s opioid epidemic is worsening

#104

Post by MaxfordAndSons »

ocschwar wrote: post #80

I'm going to comment here with a plug for the March For Science, on April 22. Why? Because the opioid epidemic started with a simple matter of scientists not being allowed to science. Purdue Pharmaceuticals marketed oxycontin as a drug that lasts for 12 hours. The evidence indicated it only lasted for 8. If Purdue's scientists were allowed to act on the evidence, i.e. to be actual scientists, the whole world would ha…

I totally agree with the spirit of your argument, but I think you're somewhat overstating the significance of the marketing/data mismatch here. You can't simply point to that and say "thus the epidemic began". There's a whole nexus of contributing factors at play: overprescription, socio-economic malaise, the ready availability of black market opioids, etc.

Re: America’s opioid epidemic is worsening

#105

Post by nyolfen »

cryptarch wrote: post #44
the-dude wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In The Netherlands, supervised injection sites exist for ~30 years now. Also, The Netherlands provide methadone. It seems to have worked / be working. Our heroine epidemic is far behind us, the addicts are dying out.

The Netherlands also have a few legal highs: weed, kratom and psilocybin.

i have a friend (in the US) who used kratom to kick heroin. he still has an addiction to service but it's legal, relatively cheap and not debilitating. i know he's not alone in this use of it, though it's also a useful anxiolytic ime, and i had no issues with addiction or withdrawal after experimenting with it a little.

i was very hopeful about the obama dea backing off the kratom ban last autumn after the public backlash but i'm worried about steps the current administration may take.

Re: America’s opioid epidemic is worsening

#106

Post by tbrownaw »

DougN7 wrote: post #19
pnathan wrote: post #10

So what is the answer here? Like another poster said, there's a demand problem. How do we as a society address this? I've seen a lot of mumbles about dealing with supply problems, dealing with overdose problems, but it'd be good to head the problems off at the pass before they descend into major trouble. I should also note, this is a burgeoning problem in the Puget Sound/Seattle region. It's not just rural people dyi…

Preventing that first time is probably the secret. It's got to be so much harder to resist once you know what you're missing. And it's not like you're rational about it and considering long term consequences when you're confronted with a second opportunity. Unfortunately, we live in a society where it's all good, live free, don't judge, do what feels good, etc. That leads to things that feel extremely good... I'm gra…

I remember reading somewhere about how a decent chunk of drug users just plain grow out of it as they grow into life roles that it doesn't quite work for.

Nothing to do with theoretical long term consequences, just "this is more trouble than it's worth".

Re: America’s opioid epidemic is worsening

#107

Post by kilroy123 »

troisx wrote: post #53

I know the United States will never do it, but Singapore barely has a drug problem because they execute dealers and have mandatory treatment for users. I'm not advocating the ridiculous policy that the Phillipines has, but Singapore doesn't mess around if they find distribution levels of illegal drugs on you. There also needs to be much stricter control of new prescriptions for opioids, which lead to addiction.

I've been to Singapore, there is still plenty of drug use there. Those policies aren't exactly 100% stopping drug use.

Re: America’s opioid epidemic is worsening

#108

Post by soundwave106 »

AaronFriel wrote: post #35
devopsproject wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Fighting the "epidemic" at the supply level seems like a losing battle Kermit, West Virginia. Population 392. They received over 9 million hydrocodone pills in a two year period. In a 6 year period, the entire state of WV received 780 million pills. Over 400 pills for every man, woman, and child living in WV. Seems like attacking the supply is great place to start. WV doesn't need this many pills.

I agree with the substance of your comment - opioid over-prescription is a huge problem. The stat though about Kermit, West Virginia example has to be due to fraud and illegal sales, though? Or include vastly more people within the area covered by its pharmacies and/or doctors, which ever the data source used? Otherwise each person in that town is receiving (on average) 31 pills/day. Maybe I wildly misunderstand hydr…

The Kermit example absolutely was due to fraud and illegal sales from a "pill mill", from what I can Google. Several people were thrown in jail for that. (https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/pittsburgh/press-releases/...).

I agree that opioid over-prescription is an issue, but I imagine some of these numbers are being inflated by similar "pill mills" run by unscrupulous doctors.

Re: America’s opioid epidemic is worsening

#110

Post by cryptarch »

dep_b wrote: post #54
cryptarch wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Netherlands also have a few legal highs: weed, kratom and psilocybin.

They're not legal in The Netherlands. Magic mushrooms have been banned a while ago (but at the same truffles still are not, clueless), weed was never legal. Also all production is illegal. Coffeeshops don't pay taxes. They're just.....there? We used to think it was the crazy US forcing the Dutch to have such a bipolar approach to drugs but pot is more legal in Colorado now than in Holland and still the Dutch laws are…

Magic truffles have the same effects as magic mushrooms and are legal. Magic mushroom products are still sold at some smartshops, but not legal. Weed is not legal, but you can buy it in dispensaries ("koffieshops") and carry up to 5 grams without being fined or arrested. You can smoke publicly as long as you're not bothering anyone (like with alcohol). I think that's pretty sweet.

You can have up to 5 plants at your home, but if the police asks you to destroy them you have to, or you can get fined, so again: as long as you're not bothering anyone or dealing you're fine.

There are is also a proposed law to decriminalize the mass-production of weed (while introducing QC regulations, like those for food) and the delivery to the dispensaries.

With that full legalization can't be far off. The idea that legalization is just the right thing to do is pretty mainstream here, and a progressive political party, GroenLinks, supports legalization and is currently 3rd in the polls.

Edit: caps

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