Legal marijuana is taking a bite out of drug cartels' profits • Hacker News Board

Re: Legal marijuana is taking a bite out of drug cartels' profits

#221

Post by wycx » Mon, Mar 07, 2016, 9:22 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #213

wycx wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the attitude of doctors to chronic pain for which they cannot provide a solution to be very frustrating. Why is it that opiate addiction is seen as far far worse than debilitating chronic pain? Why can't the patient make that choice?

For most people with long term pain an opiate prescription is the wrong choice. The patient ends up with an addiction of opiates; while taking dangerously large quantities of opiates; while still being in pain . They've still got the pain; they now have two additional problems. Most people with long term pain need access to pain management services which include other stuff (exercise, physiotherapy, weight loss, psyc…

Except that the primary focus of pain management services seems to be overwhelmingly about reducing opiate intake, rather than helping the patient deal with pain.

Maybe there are no good choices for some long term pain.

Re: Legal marijuana is taking a bite out of drug cartels' profits

#222

Post by emiliobumachar » Mon, Mar 07, 2016, 10:24 PM UTC

ssmoot wrote: post #42

anon987 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's to hoping people realize and deal with the real gateway drug: Prescription opiates

These days it's hard to get a handful of Vicodin to get you through a few days of pain after hurting your back. It's being "dealt with" for sure. I'm not sure the amount of inconvenience and needless suffering imposed is an improvement on anything. I've never abused drugs. Opiates after back pain, minor surgery or a root canal aren't a "gateway" to anything for the vast vast majority of people. I don't know about rec…

"I'm going to err on the side of caution and suggest that they're probably something I don't want to see legalized."

Beware of status quo bias. Why do you think restrictions are the cautious choice, as opposed to the daring choice?

Re: Legal marijuana is taking a bite out of drug cartels' profits

#223

Post by emiliobumachar » Mon, Mar 07, 2016, 10:24 PM UTC

ssmoot wrote: post #42

anon987 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's to hoping people realize and deal with the real gateway drug: Prescription opiates

These days it's hard to get a handful of Vicodin to get you through a few days of pain after hurting your back. It's being "dealt with" for sure. I'm not sure the amount of inconvenience and needless suffering imposed is an improvement on anything. I've never abused drugs. Opiates after back pain, minor surgery or a root canal aren't a "gateway" to anything for the vast vast majority of people. I don't know about rec…

"I'm going to err on the side of caution and suggest that they're probably something I don't want to see legalized."

Beware of status quo bias. Why do you think restrictions are the cautious choice, as opposed to the daring choice?

Re: Legal marijuana is taking a bite out of drug cartels' profits

#224

Post by emiliobumachar » Mon, Mar 07, 2016, 10:24 PM UTC

ssmoot wrote: post #42

anon987 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's to hoping people realize and deal with the real gateway drug: Prescription opiates

These days it's hard to get a handful of Vicodin to get you through a few days of pain after hurting your back. It's being "dealt with" for sure. I'm not sure the amount of inconvenience and needless suffering imposed is an improvement on anything. I've never abused drugs. Opiates after back pain, minor surgery or a root canal aren't a "gateway" to anything for the vast vast majority of people. I don't know about rec…

"I'm going to err on the side of caution and suggest that they're probably something I don't want to see legalized."

Beware of status quo bias. Why do you think restrictions are the cautious choice, as opposed to the daring choice?

Re: Legal marijuana is taking a bite out of drug cartels' profits

#225

Post by DanBC » Mon, Mar 07, 2016, 10:42 PM UTC

wycx wrote: post #221

DanBC wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For most people with long term pain an opiate prescription is the wrong choice. The patient ends up with an addiction of opiates; while taking dangerously large quantities of opiates; while still being in pain . They've still got the pain; they now have two additional problems. Most people with long term pain need access to pain management services which include other stuff (exercise, physiotherapy, weight loss, psyc…

Except that the primary focus of pain management services seems to be overwhelmingly about reducing opiate intake, rather than helping the patient deal with pain. Maybe there are no good choices for some long term pain.

I don't know where you are, but in England most pain control clinics are mostly about helping the patient deal with pain, and using appropriate medication to do so.

Here's the English guidance for managing pain in non-specialist settings, so this is what people should be getting from a regular doctor. (For neuropathic pain).

http://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg173/chapter/1-recommendati...

Re: Legal marijuana is taking a bite out of drug cartels' profits

#226

Post by eru » Mon, Mar 07, 2016, 10:46 PM UTC

conceit wrote: post #186

eru wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In a more serious tone, I was alluding to the Domestically grown weed that casual weed smokers buying from passionless business will never get to see. Are you using `Domestically grown' with a meaning that's different from `grown in the same country as the consumer'?

Yes, I am. Domus means house or home. You know, homegrown. False friend right there. I guess when corporations are people, nations are houses and nationally grown crops may just as well be domestic. Still stands to reason, as with other industrialized crops, that the selection does still not favor taste over yield, speed and looks, nevermind health factors with regard to the fertilizers and pesticides used. Contrary…

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”

[LEWIS CARROLL (Charles L. Dodgson), Through the Looking-Glass, chapter 6, p. 205 (1934). First published in 1872.]

If you talk with people in public, is it much better to either use commonly accepted meanings of words, or at least mention your your own definitions before you use them.

> I guess when corporations are people, nations are houses and nationally grown crops may just as well be domestic.

If you want to play the etymology game (for at least as far as a Google query for ` etymology' does), `corporations' are some kind of bodies; nations have something to do with being born; and `industrially grown' would mean grown with diligence.

Why stop at domus?

Re: Legal marijuana is taking a bite out of drug cartels' profits

#227

Post by cnp » Mon, Mar 07, 2016, 10:55 PM UTC

golergka wrote: post #188

cnp wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's to hoping people realize and deal with the real gateway drug: Alcohol, that great destroyer of worlds, marriages, cultures, physical health and particularly the brain, time (hangovers, boredom), coping strategies (emotional pain), real pain (coping strategies), poor decision making (you know it), and so on. Start here, and come into it with a few entrenched problems, and sure enough you'll find yourself elsewh…

> Here's to hoping people realize and deal with the real gateway drug I think they already tried a certain approach, about hundred years ago

Point isn't to ban it, just to be honest about what we're dealing with so as to better understand the dangers and / or benefits of other drugs and approaches.

Re: Legal marijuana is taking a bite out of drug cartels' profits

#228

Post by dinkumthinkum » Mon, Mar 07, 2016, 11:45 PM UTC

Snackchez wrote: post #207

dinkumthinkum wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are borders silly? I guess it's fun to say but what does that mean? Is it silly that people that live in Vermont have access to the kind of legal due process and protections afforded by the U.S. government that people in Colombia do not?

From the perspective of a humanist, borders are kind of arbitrary. Simply because you had the shit luck of being born maybe a few kilometers South of the most southern states, you end up getting a way worse experience in life and your ticket is almost entirely predetermined. I agree on law and order, but again, isn't it a little crazy that in one state you have one set of laws and then once you cross an imaginary lin…

Oh, I think the "states" are unnecessary in the US. I agree with that. But borders between nations are, outside of a worldwide utopia, are rather necessary.

Re: Legal marijuana is taking a bite out of drug cartels' profits

#229

Post by DigitalJack » Tue, Mar 08, 2016, 12:18 AM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #213

wycx wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the attitude of doctors to chronic pain for which they cannot provide a solution to be very frustrating. Why is it that opiate addiction is seen as far far worse than debilitating chronic pain? Why can't the patient make that choice?

For most people with long term pain an opiate prescription is the wrong choice. The patient ends up with an addiction of opiates; while taking dangerously large quantities of opiates; while still being in pain . They've still got the pain; they now have two additional problems. Most people with long term pain need access to pain management services which include other stuff (exercise, physiotherapy, weight loss, psyc…

None of those are alternatives that make sense with fibromyalgia. I could see them for lower back pain.

The thing with fibro is that pain causes reactions that make fibro worse, such as sleep deprivation.

Opiates can break this cycle through a short term course.

Re: Legal marijuana is taking a bite out of drug cartels' profits

#230

Post by sanderjd » Tue, Mar 08, 2016, 2:05 AM UTC

Zigurd wrote: post #141

sanderjd wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've made the argument with lots of strongly pro-legalization folks that they should be investing in efforts to develop a reliable test for current intoxication. A lot of the strongest (in my view) anti-legalization arguments stem from the current difficulty to detect things like driving and coming to work under the influence.

Why? It would only feed a new industry of expensive arrests and trials for no good reason.

Because it isn't safe to drive under the influence of marijuana, or to do many jobs. For driving, there just currently isn't a great solution, and that freaks a lot of otherwise open-minded people out. For jobs, the solution is often to disqualify anyone who has used it in the last few weeks (or even months, maybe?). Neither is a good solution.

Do you believe that breathalyzers result in expensive arrests and trials "for no good reason"? I don't. I don't believe people high on marijuana are as dangerous as drunk people, but I also don't believe they're harmless.