Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

America’s opioid epidemic is worsening

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 321 posts

Re: America’s opioid epidemic is worsening

#231

Post by wutbrodo »

parr0t wrote: post #198

I'll never understand locking people up for having an addiction and treating them like criminals. I'm not too educated on how it's handled in America but in Australia you can go to your doctors and get signed up to a methadone program without worrying about any legal repercussions. My fiancé works at a pharmacy in Melbourne, Australia and says some of the most lovely and friendly people who just want to get themselve…

I believe you can do the same here, but the (huge, purpose-defeating) difference is that you need to be able to afford the rehab in a country that isn't so keen on providing a safety net (somewhere upthread someone mentions his sister ruining her life with heroin, wanting to go to rehab, but unable to afford the cost, which is uncovered by Medi-Cal).

Re: America’s opioid epidemic is worsening

#232

Post by hvidgaard »

interfixus wrote: post #133
dsmithatx wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Which Denmark is this? Doesn't resemble the one I live in. Neither the robberies problem nor the legal pure heroin, and most certainly not the disappearance of burglaries - not statistically, not anecdotally, and not according to the several people of my acquaintance who have had it happen to them.

The number of burglaries is the lowest in 20 years (http://www.dst.dk/da/Statistik/nyt/NytHtml?cid=20879), so you're just trying to make an argument you have no basis for.

But robberies and pickpocketing are on the rise.

Re: America’s opioid epidemic is worsening

#233

Post by hvidgaard »

pfortuny wrote: post #227
peteretep wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the healthcare is free and high-quality > Pretty much like the rest of fantasy > Europe. Isn't high-quality healthcare that's "free at the point of use" available in most of real Western Europe too?

Well, as long as you are willing to wait about six months for knee surgery, yes, it is free. Or for any other type of intervention.

There is a 3 month gurantee. If they have not diagnosed you, and started treatment within that periode, you're free to go to a private clinic or hospital, free of charge.

Re: America’s opioid epidemic is worsening

#234

Post by wutbrodo »

hackuser wrote: post #186

Is a war on drugs a good response? Hyper-aggressive policing? Lock up even minor participants for decades? Consider why people thought that was a good response when drugs struck other communities.

This is hardly news: the same dynamic played out in a different chronological order between alcohol and marijuana prohibition. Alcohol was so ubiquitous that Prohibition turned all of society (including "decent" people) into criminals, so the response was that it's clearly an unworkable solution; we can't lock up _everybody_. It's only simplifying a bit to say that marijuana shared much the same ubiquity in certain _other_ communities, so the response was.....let's just lock up everybody.

Re: America’s opioid epidemic is worsening

#236

Post by programmarchy »

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…

Have you heard of the Rat Park study?

It attributed addiction to living conditions (e.g. rats in "Rat Park" had less addicts than rats in laboratory cages) rather than addictive properties of the drug.

For humans, I think it goes beyond physical living conditions, and into the mental realm.

A perhaps related topic is Attachment Theory [2] which models interpersonal relationships imprinted on children by primary caregivers.

With the two income trap shunting child rearing to daycares and schools, the theory would predict less secure attachments in children, leading to various maladies including identity crises and drug abuse.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attachment_theory

Re: America’s opioid epidemic is worsening

#237

Post by interfixus »

hvidgaard wrote: post #232
interfixus wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which Denmark is this? Doesn't resemble the one I live in. Neither the robberies problem nor the legal pure heroin, and most certainly not the disappearance of burglaries - not statistically, not anecdotally, and not according to the several people of my acquaintance who have had it happen to them.

The number of burglaries is the lowest in 20 years ( http://www.dst.dk/da/Statistik/nyt/NytHtml?cid=20879 ), so you're just trying to make an argument you have no basis for. But robberies and pickpocketing are on the rise.

I am responding to the "burglaries went away" statement. Nowhere have I claimed that the numbers couldn't have fallen. Your downvote (my assumption) is uncalled for.

Re: America’s opioid epidemic is worsening

#238

Post by vidarh »

tptacek wrote: post #92
_jal wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't the counterargument to this to point out the Oxycontin abuse epidemic? I don't see the origins of addiction relevant to arguments about containing current addiction when it moves to the illegal market. But I agree that supply-side targeting when talking about legal industry makes a lot of sense. Being legal, they also have lobbyists, which reduces the impact, same as other legal drug suppliers. > If violence…

I'm not sure I was arguing that opiate addicts are violent when they're high . I'm not making a moral argument about legalization or even (as is being repeatedly suggested on this thread) subsidization of opiates. I'm saying that if the cause of the epidemic is prescription opioids, and the ultimate problem is "too many people are non-functional opioid addicts", then deregulation won't fix the problem .

> "too many people are non-functional opioid addicts"

Part of the issue with things like heroin is that unlike many weaker drugs the highs are brief. Heroin addicts are as a result very often highly functioning if they don't have to worry about where to get their next high and can get highly consistent doses.

I worked with one years ago, and we only realised when a series of large busts drove prices through the roof and he started spending his time looking really nervous and on the phone until suddenly disappearing for two days once prices normalised and he "made up" for the stress by staying high most of those two days before checking himself into a hospital (which was when we finally found out). He was married and had kids, and neither his family or his co-workers had noticed a thing through years of addiction prior to that, despite having to struggle with an illegal supply.

There are lots of problems with heroin, but many of the worst ones are a direct result of addicts inability to meet their needs in a quick and "safe" way.

Re: America’s opioid epidemic is worsening

#239

Post by hvidgaard »

interfixus wrote: post #237
hvidgaard wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The number of burglaries is the lowest in 20 years ( http://www.dst.dk/da/Statistik/nyt/NytHtml?cid=20879 ), so you're just trying to make an argument you have no basis for. But robberies and pickpocketing are on the rise.

I am responding to the "burglaries went away" statement. Nowhere have I claimed that the numbers couldn't have fallen. Your downvote (my assumption) is uncalled for.

That is entirely dependent on interpretation. Taking a comment saying "burglaries went away" at face value to mean ALL burglaries for all causes is just... diametrically opposed to any meaningful debate.

Its obvious that it means drug related burglaries went away, which is a claim we have fairly good evidence to support.

Re: America’s opioid epidemic is worsening

#240

Post by vidarh »

djrogers wrote: post #168
delhanty wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't there something in common there: drug dealers make money pushing heroin etc. and (some) doctors make money pushing Oxycontin? Maybe if all these drugs were freely available at least some of the violence would go away and the incentives to push them would go away too ...

The same argument could be made for bank and home invasion robbers - if money were freely available she of the violence would go away. The question is, what costs (both financial and societal) are we willing to bear to support addicts?

The cost of medical grade heroin is a tiny fraction of the costs to society of the crimes to support illegal heroin.

So if the issue is money, then the case is even more strongly in favour of legalisation.

We don't even need to give it away for free - just giving addicts the opportunity of buying medical grade heroin at cost would massively improve things.

Even better: Heroin addicts can generally function relatively well when they don't have to chase their next high constantly. Giving them a secure supply would let many of them hold down jobs and pay taxes and cover their own costs.

The economics are all in favour of shutting down the "war on drugs" for all but the very worst drugs. Incidentally, though, most of the truly nasty drugs are not drugs people tend to want, but synthetics introduced to circumvent drug laws. Most of them will largely have demand evaporate overnight if people could legally get safer alternatives.

Post reply on HN