171–180 of 217 posts
The sad truth is, the U.S. is a country that emphasizes punishment over rehabilitation, and we've brought this upon ourselves by isolating people and banning access to substances that they've become dependent on. The solution here is not complex: give addicts safe access to the substances they're addicted to and resources for improving their situation. It's disheartening, to say the least, that one of the main strate…
As a comparison, the road toll in the USA is 33,000 per year. Firearms kill about the same number (including 20,000 suicides). 3,000 people were killed in the 9/11 attacks. 72,000 overdose deaths is just a staggeringly large number.
> 72,000 overdose deaths is just a staggeringly large number. It's still only a drop in the bucket compared to overall drug-related deaths though. Tobacco-related deaths alone account for 500k deaths annually, and that's not even counting deaths related to third-hand smoke.
Cigs are a product for kids
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> What the patient seeks is irrelevant. The only one who decides what prescriptions a patient should take is a doctor. That kind of rubs me the wrong way, but I'm not sure why. I like having the option of overriding the doctor if I disagree.
In the NHS, that isn't possible. You either take the doctor's treatment, or you get no treatment at all. You can go around, asking different doctors, or having a discussion with your doctor, but you will not be prescribed something you don't need. The incentive being, that with a tax payer funded system, money should go to those who actually need it. It is understood here I guess that the doctor is the expert, not yo…
The idea that people, absent the profit motive, will work solely to the benefit of society is not correct. They're always selfishly motivated - career advancement, risk aversion, corruption, etc.
For example, if the doctor gets punished for prescribing to junkies, he's going to reduce his risk by avoiding prescribing to legitimate pain patients, just to be on the safe side.
Pray you don't get into a situation where you've got painful, terminal cancer and the doctor won't prescribe opiates because you might get addicted.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 72,000 overdose deaths is just a staggeringly large number. It's still only a drop in the bucket compared to overall drug-related deaths though. Tobacco-related deaths alone account for 500k deaths annually, and that's not even counting deaths related to third-hand smoke.
I'm shocked that cigs are still legal. Everyone i know got hooked when under age & many of them have tried to quit before reaching legal age. Cigs are a product for kids
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> What the patient seeks is irrelevant. The only one who decides what prescriptions a patient should take is a doctor. That kind of rubs me the wrong way, but I'm not sure why. I like having the option of overriding the doctor if I disagree.
It would be fair to make choices in the sense of picking a longer treatment that doesn't force you to stay home from work, vs a shorter treatment that would. And of course "another round of chemo" or "I can't be f*cked anymore" are valid choices. But really, when things like opiates are involved patient input is rarely useful.
Since there is no method for determining the level of a patient's pain, and opiates are for pain management, how can you conclude that?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It would be fair to make choices in the sense of picking a longer treatment that doesn't force you to stay home from work, vs a shorter treatment that would. And of course "another round of chemo" or "I can't be f*cked anymore" are valid choices. But really, when things like opiates are involved patient input is rarely useful.
> But really, when things like opiates are involved patient input is rarely useful. Since there is no method for determining the level of a patient's pain, and opiates are for pain management, how can you conclude that?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've had discussions with coworkers and friends about this issue and similar issues where there is a lot of moral ambiguity but a lot less academic ambiguity - we basically know what works and doesn't work but what does work is not morally acceptable to about half the country. It is super frustrating to a lot of us because there doesn't seem to be a way to reach them, they can change their minds but only when they ar…
This sounds exactly right to me. In discussions with a religious friend of mine some years ago, I noticed that she had a tendency to conflate law and morality, when they really have nothing to do with each other. Further, she seemed to think that because it was illegal or bad to do something, it was reasonable to expect that people wouldn't do that thing as a result. I found (and find) this ridiculous - in large enou…
This is by design. Look at any comedy movie these days, and the young adults are doing drugs. It has become as natural as eating junk food. People view being drugged and dumb to be fine these days because that's the Hollywood propaganda and it's everywhere in western society.
Blaiming peoples behaviour on entertainment products is a very weak claim. Might as well blaim the gun violence on video games.
Advertising on television was a resounding success. Some "social media influencers" can hit $1M per ad post.
Going out and buying something would definitely qualify under "peoples' behaviour"
The sad truth is, the U.S. is a country that emphasizes punishment over rehabilitation, and we've brought this upon ourselves by isolating people and banning access to substances that they've become dependent on. The solution here is not complex: give addicts safe access to the substances they're addicted to and resources for improving their situation. It's disheartening, to say the least, that one of the main strate…
> Unfortunately, his misunderstanding of some of the basic principles of scientific research — that anecdotes are not data; that a conclusion is not a fact — transforms what had been an affecting jeremiad into a partisan polemic.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/books/review/chasing-the-...
The sad truth is, the U.S. is a country that emphasizes punishment over rehabilitation, and we've brought this upon ourselves by isolating people and banning access to substances that they've become dependent on. The solution here is not complex: give addicts safe access to the substances they're addicted to and resources for improving their situation. It's disheartening, to say the least, that one of the main strate…
While I pretty much agree with everything you say, I take a bit of issue with this.
Overprescription of opioids is a major factor for creating addicts in the first place, and in that regard, the US is a rather obvious outlier. [0]
Afaik the legalization of Cannabis has already helped with this overprescription trend of opioids [1] and that's a very good thing. If done right, the US could turn this around from being the worst offender to being a world leader in pain treatment research and sensible application.
Yes, that would require a rather big paradigm shift on the political level, one many would consider unthinkable. Just as unthinkable as the legalization of cannabis had been for very long periods in the US.
[0] https://qz.com/1198965/the-surprising-geography-of-opioid-us...
[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/04/02/5987877...