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My experience of losing a friend to heroin (2020)

mattlakeman.org

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Re: My experience of losing a friend to heroin (2020)

#151

Post by asdff »

haskellandchill wrote: post #77
germinalphrase wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“ The effect on new users would be profound as well: as all the current users naturally age out of wanting to use hard drugs, the majority of drug dealers (other users themselves), won't have the capability to introduce new people to hard drugs” Why do you believe this to be true?

It's just how it works. There are diminishing returns to the common drugs of abuse. If given access to high quality drugs of abuse without negative economic and social consequences the body will adapt, use will plateau, and for the majority eventually phase out. A minority will choice to maintain. There are negative health consequences to long term maintenance but it's not like the reality of obtaining poor quaility…

Introducing friction to your ability to satiate your vice is the first step in battling addiction.

Re: My experience of losing a friend to heroin (2020)

#152

Post by _delirium »

stef25 wrote: post #124
wespiser_2018 wrote: post #24

Good write up. The US is really grappling with diseases of despair, and heroin/fentanyl addition is on of the biggest ones impacting the wellbeing of our society. A massive slice of talent and raw human resource is just dying every year, but the solutions that have worked in other countries are just impossible to implement here due because the the methods that are known to work are politically dead on arrival. I'm a…

It's a really complicated problem but one thing that just stands out to me is the role the doctors play: It's not normal to send people home with these massive prescriptions for opiates. Here in Europe doctors are very, very conservative with that stuff (and meds in general) while it seems to me that in the US if your "medical experience" even entails the slightest bit of discomfort people get all up in arms over it.…

My recent experience in the U.S. has been that, at least at major hospitals, it's flipped to the opposite extreme, and doctors are so worried about the backlash, that they will leave patients in pain and fail to prescribe analgesics sufficient for post-surgical pain control, if they don't have non-opioid options.

My partner had a post-cancer DIEP flap reconstruction last month at a top cancer center in NYC, and due to the nature of the surgery, couldn't take NSAIDs, which are typically most effective for her (they have blood thinning side effects and were banned for 2 weeks post-surgery to avoid risk of hematomas). So she was left with taking over the counter Tylenol plus prescription opioids. They prescribed opioids 2 days of pills at a time, which required me to constantly drive to pick up new prescriptions (since obviously she couldn't drive), and it felt like some kind of interrogation each time she'd call up and report her current pain levels. As if they assumed by default she was lying or was a drug addict or something, versus someone recovering from major surgery that doesn't heal in 2 days, and furthermore is not allowed to take anything else that's effective (NSAIDs). Hours spent writhing in pain trying to get some pills prescribed and picked up. It only got resolved once the two-week NSAID ban was up. Then she stopped calling about the opioid-based analgesic and just started taking large ibuprofen doses instead. Problem solved, since you can buy as much ibuprofen as you want. But a pretty shit two weeks up until that point.

As a result, I strongly dislike a number of aspects of the anti-opioid backlash. It made our lives worse and caused us more suffering.

Re: My experience of losing a friend to heroin (2020)

#153

Post by eitland »

gaganyaan wrote: post #73
SkittyDog wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given what we have observed with alcohol, cannibis, and prescription drugs, I think it's safe I expect that decriminalization, legal suppliers, and free drugs would probably not reduce recreational use & abuse of opiates in America... If anything, I would expect usage to increase. Don't get me wrong: I am absolutely in favor of decriminalization, as well as other radical changes in our society's relationships with dr…

I think legalization is the only real solution, but you bring up a good point about alcohol. The best approach there is preventative, and do things like strictly ban all advertising of all drugs, before there's a strong lobby to prevent that from being enacted. We should really ban advertising of alcohol and prescription drugs too, but there's unfortunately vested interests that make that a hard task. I think the ide…

> We should really ban advertising of alcohol and prescription drugs too, but there's unfortunately vested interests that make that a hard task.

Around here ads for alcohol has been banned since I don't know when despite having multiple producers, of which at least one classify as large on a national basis.

The last two decades we've also seen laws against tobacco coming into place and - as someone who had friends who smoked since early teenage years or in at least one case even well before that - it is kind of weird to see someone young smoking in public today so the law has obviously worked.

Re: My experience of losing a friend to heroin (2020)

#154

Post by spoonjim »

sneak wrote: post #144
wespiser_2018 wrote: post #24

Good write up. The US is really grappling with diseases of despair, and heroin/fentanyl addition is on of the biggest ones impacting the wellbeing of our society. A massive slice of talent and raw human resource is just dying every year, but the solutions that have worked in other countries are just impossible to implement here due because the the methods that are known to work are politically dead on arrival. I'm a…

> The US is really grappling with diseases of despair, and heroin/fentanyl addition is on of the biggest ones impacting the wellbeing of our society. This is a false narrative. Tobacco use kills 7-8x more every day, week, and month in the USA. That's a legitimate industry, though, so that's not pushed on the news. Opiates aren't that big an issue, they're just the one the media tells you to care about.

Absolutely ludicrous comparison. The people dying of opiate overdoses are much younger than cigarette deaths, and the smokers don't have their lives debilitated by their addiction.

Re: My experience of losing a friend to heroin (2020)

#155

Post by spoonjim »

short12 wrote: post #43
8bitsrule wrote: post #29

My condolences to anyone who's lost a friend or relative to addiction - thanks to the human vultures who reap the rewards. It's possible that by vigorously pursuing and prosecuting the people who can afford to purchase and disseminate hard narcotics - instead of the users and a pusher or two - most of the problem would dry up. I'm not optimistic about that happening. The little guys are easier to catch, and caps are…

After talking to a recovering addict regarding heroin, fentanyl and the such. I did some research and found I could get half a kilo of iso (stronger than fentanyl) by the end of the week. It took me 20 minutes My point is that stuff is so widely available and easily accessible that no sort of enforcement against the higher ups will do a damn thing Treating the addict with compassion and diligence will be far more eff…

The US has never tried hardcore drug enforcement against drug dealers (i.e, execution, as many other countries do). It would categorically not solve drug addiction as a whole but it would likely have some effect.

Re: My experience of losing a friend to heroin (2020)

#156

Post by Ansil849 »

My view on drug use has been described as uncompassionate, and I legitimately want to change my perspective, but I haven't been able to.

I view drug use as a choice. Yes, there are tons of social, economic, even genetic predisposing factors...but the decision to try drugs or alcohol or smoking or gambling or any other strongly addictive behavior is in the end the user's own choice.

It's like it is someone's choice to jaywalk. It's of course extremely sad when they end up getting hit by a car...but they made a very poor decision and as a result suffered the consequences. At some point, personal responsibility for individual decisions also needs to be taken into account when discussing users. If people don't learn that poor decisions lead to poor results, then they will continue making poor decisions.

Re: My experience of losing a friend to heroin (2020)

#157

Post by spoonjim »

beebmam wrote: post #45
8bitsrule wrote: post #29

My condolences to anyone who's lost a friend or relative to addiction - thanks to the human vultures who reap the rewards. It's possible that by vigorously pursuing and prosecuting the people who can afford to purchase and disseminate hard narcotics - instead of the users and a pusher or two - most of the problem would dry up. I'm not optimistic about that happening. The little guys are easier to catch, and caps are…

It's not popular here on Hacker News due to its libertarian bent, but I'm of the opinion that we should even more brutal to illegal drug production, trafficking, and selling than what we currently are. I've lost 2 friends to fentanyl poisoning in the last 3 years, and I lost my brother 10 years ago to chronic meth use. I'm so utterly sick of this.

I'm not sure that executing drug traffickers would have a strong impact on consumption, but I think it would a more just outcome nevertheless.

Re: My experience of losing a friend to heroin (2020)

#158

Post by asdff »

standardUser wrote: post #90
TimTheTinker wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we seem to have this huge moral hang up in the US about giving addicts drugs For many people, what you're describing all comes down to the law of love. It is not loving to give a person more of the thing that is destroying them. Perhaps free methadone would be a better option? EDIT: care to comment? I'd like to know why people disagree.

More often than not, lives are in greater threat of being "destroyed" by the consequences of drug prohibition than the drugs themselves. Addiction is a serious health problem, but impure drugs that lead to overdose deaths, spreading disease through needle use, avoiding medical care for fear of legal consequences, going to jail and having a criminal record, and becoming involved in black market violence are all vastly…

The long term mental damage from stuff like meth induced psychosis is not something that the state should be furthering, especially when the state isn't even picking up the ball for mental health treatment facilities. If we were serious about addiction, we would heavily crack down on users and send them to detox facilities where they will remain until they are clean and well rather than maintaining the status quo of tolerating increasing levels of open hard drug use on our streets.

Re: My experience of losing a friend to heroin (2020)

#159

Post by hackyhacky »

Ansil849 wrote: post #156

My view on drug use has been described as uncompassionate, and I legitimately want to change my perspective, but I haven't been able to. I view drug use as a choice. Yes, there are tons of social, economic, even genetic predisposing factors...but the decision to try drugs or alcohol or smoking or gambling or any other strongly addictive behavior is in the end the user's own choice. It's like it is someone's choice to…

If someone is hit by a car while jaywalking, the jaywalker is typically viewed as a victim, not a reckless hooligan who got what they deserved.

Re: My experience of losing a friend to heroin (2020)

#160

Post by Ansil849 »

hackyhacky wrote: post #159
Ansil849 wrote: post #156

My view on drug use has been described as uncompassionate, and I legitimately want to change my perspective, but I haven't been able to. I view drug use as a choice. Yes, there are tons of social, economic, even genetic predisposing factors...but the decision to try drugs or alcohol or smoking or gambling or any other strongly addictive behavior is in the end the user's own choice. It's like it is someone's choice to…

If someone is hit by a car while jaywalking, the jaywalker is typically viewed as a victim, not a reckless hooligan who got what they deserved.

Jaywalking is illegal in several jurisdictions. So no, the jaywalker is not just viewed as a victim. But yes, socially, of course like I said it is extremely sad to see, but also like I said...If someone made a choice to recklessly endanger themselves, then at some point personal responsibility needs to be taken into account.
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