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America’s opioid epidemic is worsening

economist.com

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Re: America’s opioid epidemic is worsening

#151

Post by phkahler »

dsmithatx wrote: post #67
jbooth wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you give them free H, they'll be a lot less desperate and a lot less violent, presumably. And.. why not? I've got multiple friends in my age group prematurely dead from overdose. It's not like prohibition is accomplishing anything.

Checkout Denmark. They had a huge problem with robberies and started giving legal pure Heroin shots to users. They also helped them find jobs. No more deaths and no more black market for Heroin. Hence burglaries also went away. It looks like our current President is looking at cracking down on pot again though so, I don't imagine we'll have a sensible drug policy anytime soon. Only one motivated by profits.

The key to that is where you said they gave them jobs. That goes a long fucking way to reduce robberies.

Re: America’s opioid epidemic is worsening

#152

Post by icantdrive55 »

jbooth wrote: post #51
tptacek wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the counterargument to this to point out the Oxycontin abuse epidemic? Doctors are prescribing years worth of opiates to patients. There have been suggestions that Purdue Pharma's formulation of Oxy practically guarantees dependence, because of the way it's dosed. Are the people dying of heroin overdoses in white rural Ohio starting on heroin, or transitioning to it after prescription opioids become too expensi…

If you give them free H, they'll be a lot less desperate and a lot less violent, presumably. And.. why not? I've got multiple friends in my age group prematurely dead from overdose. It's not like prohibition is accomplishing anything.

If you gave them Bupenorpine, we might not have this problem?

Free Bupenorpine, and don't make patients just through hoops to get it.

And don't make doctors go to special classes in order to prescribe it.

Yes it's one drug for another, but I feel it might be easier to taper off Bupenorpine. And yes--there will always be those that abuse it, but nothings perfect.

Subutex is in genetic form, but is still very expensive. I don't know why. It's cheap compared to heroin though. The average person wouldn't need Suboxone, which has Nalaxone in it, but the powers at be think all addicts gave no self-control.

My bigger question is why are Americans so misserable--they would try heroin. I don't buy it's just because of the Vicodin script the doctor ordered.

I feel they were misserable before, and the opiate just made their existence a bit better--at least at first?

As Americans we need to lighten up. We need to work on making life here less stressful.

Re: America’s opioid epidemic is worsening

#153

Post by patmcguire »

tptacek wrote: post #30
padobson wrote: post #12

I live in Trumbull County in Ohio, the dark red county in North East Ohio. We recently had 23 (non-fatal) overdoses in a two-day period[0]. That's roughly .01% of the county's total population - so yeah, it's getting bad here. There were recently two shootings within a mile of my house. Several people dead. Both shootings were drug related. I can't help but look around and believe that the needs these folks are tryin…

Isn't the counterargument to this to point out the Oxycontin abuse epidemic? Doctors are prescribing years worth of opiates to patients. There have been suggestions that Purdue Pharma's formulation of Oxy practically guarantees dependence, because of the way it's dosed. Are the people dying of heroin overdoses in white rural Ohio starting on heroin, or transitioning to it after prescription opioids become too expensi…

The problem with Oxycontin is that it's supposed to have a twelve hour window of action and doesn't. Doctors prescribe larger doses rather than more frequent ones because that's what the label says. That's the language the FDA approved. Repeated cycles of high dosage wearing off a few hours too early is a bad thing, builds up more tolerance than consistency.

http://www.latimes.com/projects/oxycontin-part1/

Re: America’s opioid epidemic is worsening

#154

Post by oxide »

alva wrote: post #139
oxide wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amphetamine will be abused by college students. Alcohol will be abused by highschool kids. It's a given. The allure of stuff like cocaine, with the "what else was I lied to about, what am I missing out on" mindset goes out the window when you stop lying and start letting people make their own choices.

You can't stop all the drug abuse but the extent of use is not a given. Amphetamine use of UK students appears to be extremely rare compared to the US, its never really been a cultural thing here. I suspect it is due to very few amphetamine drugs being prescribed, especially to children. It seems to common to hear about people selling their legitimate ADHD/ADD prescriptions to friends in the US. "Speed Paste" is the…

I completely agree. My example wasn't exactly the best, but relatively applicable to the US nevertheless.

You raise many good points about drug use being different geographically and culturally. It's very much about availability, local drug culture, etc.

For example, the speed paste. As you said, in the UK and in other European countries amphetamine is usually amphetamine in paste form, not crystal methylamphetamine like we usually see here in the states.

Culture and availability absolutely affects use massively, a point I didn't mean to gloss over, and one I'm glad you raised.

Re: America’s opioid epidemic is worsening

#156

Post by Shivetya »

ribosometronome wrote: post #52
tptacek wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the counterargument to this to point out the Oxycontin abuse epidemic? Doctors are prescribing years worth of opiates to patients. There have been suggestions that Purdue Pharma's formulation of Oxy practically guarantees dependence, because of the way it's dosed. Are the people dying of heroin overdoses in white rural Ohio starting on heroin, or transitioning to it after prescription opioids become too expensi…

Opioid prescriptions are declining: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/21/health/opioid-prescriptio... . And will hopefully continue to decline. Identifying the source of the problem is easy, though. Solving the problem for the masses who already find themselves in the midst of an addiction they might not even know they're in yet is much harder and what places like these injection sites are aimed to address.

People are harming pets in attempts to get medicines they can use to satisfy their own addictions. http://theantimedia.org/dogs-prescription-drug-veterinarians...

Re: America’s opioid epidemic is worsening

#157

Post by taurath »

cmdkeen wrote: post #124
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.

Even in the US heroin use was massively down, because it had moved on from the edgy rock and roll era to realising how dangerous it was. The list of dead celebrities rather took the edge off heroin chic. The US resurgence is tied to massive over-prescription of opiates who abusers turn to heroin if their supply is disrupted / their tolerance increases. The demographics of users is very different. There's an entire ch…

Given the amount of pharmacetical money sloshing around every single congresspeople's coffers there will not be any meaningful reform or restrictions for a long while. The easiest path is to just go full-bore law and order against drug users.

Re: America’s opioid epidemic is worsening

#158

Post by SolaceQuantum »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #34
tyingq wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure anyone really knows why the demand is so huge. Unemployment seems obvious, but it's not. New Hampshire, for example, if often cited as one of the areas hit the worst by opiate addiction. Yet, it's doing well with unemployment, in relative terms. 1 year old, but relevant: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/430841/whats-matter-new...

I'm guessing, but... technology? There was a tremendous amount of unemployment during the Great Depression - far worse than now. Sure, opioids weren't as available, so people didn't turn to them. (Alcohol, on the other hand...) But I think a lot of what people did then was turn to each other. They had deeper relationships with people than (many) people do today. Sure, you've got two hundred Facebook friends. How many…

I don't know, I see young people taking to each other about suicidal thoughts and making support groups do each other all the time. Teenagers making Discord chats where they can talk about how their families are abusive and they want to kill themselves, Skype chats where young adults discuss obscure chronic illnesses that the rest of the world can't empathize with them for.

Re: America’s opioid epidemic is worsening

#159

Post by M_Grey »

ucaetano wrote: post #48

And a potential solution to it: https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/03/tweaking-fentanyls-c... For their chemical makeover, the researchers noted that when tissue is damaged and hurting, it becomes inflamed and more acidic. The pH drops from approximately 7.4—what’s seen in normal, healthy tissue—to between 5 and 7. Fentanyl can work regardless of the pH, so it’s active throughout the nervous system no matter what.…

That's great, and there are other painkillers on the horizon too, but that's "maybe" and "later". Today we could take concrete steps to alleviate this crisis which we created in the first place. Cannabis is a good choice for people addicted to opiates, along with medical detox. You also have to manage underlying mental health, social, and medical issues.

No amount of throwing new molecules at these problems will solve them.

Re: America’s opioid epidemic is worsening

#160

Post by M_Grey »

taurath wrote: post #157
cmdkeen wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even in the US heroin use was massively down, because it had moved on from the edgy rock and roll era to realising how dangerous it was. The list of dead celebrities rather took the edge off heroin chic. The US resurgence is tied to massive over-prescription of opiates who abusers turn to heroin if their supply is disrupted / their tolerance increases. The demographics of users is very different. There's an entire ch…

Given the amount of pharmacetical money sloshing around every single congresspeople's coffers there will not be any meaningful reform or restrictions for a long while. The easiest path is to just go full-bore law and order against drug users.

That's then 'easiest' path on what planet? It's the absolute hardest path, and utterly defeatist.
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