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What Science Says to Do If Your Loved One Has an Opioid Addiction

fivethirtyeight.com

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Re: What Science Says to Do If Your Loved One Has an Opioid Addiction

#41

Post by kchoudhu »

yosito wrote: post #13
kchoudhu wrote: post #2

Now that the opioid crisis is a problem for white people, science makes an appearance in the policy discussion. Contrast to the crack epidemic in the 80s: fuck'em, throw them all in prison. Edit to add: I wish the best of luck to those who have been caught up in this crisis: I'm rooting for you, and I hope every last one of you find the treatment you need. For those of us who aren't affected, it's time for some deep…

I'm not saying you're wrong. But turning this into a platform for calling out racial inequality is probably just asking for backlash. Yes, in the future we can apply science more equally to all regardless of race. Yes, we failed in this area in the past. But does that somehow invalidate science, or this research? No.

I think we will find that suburban white folk are backlash-proof. And a good thing too, because they need all the help they can get.

That doesn't mean I'm not allowed to feel regret for society's past (and indeed ongoing) failures.

Re: What Science Says to Do If Your Loved One Has an Opioid Addiction

#42

Post by otakucode »

anythingnonidin wrote: post #18

OP here. An interesting takeaway I had was the importance of community. Does anyone know any non-profits or startups working to increase people's sense of community at a mass scale? It seems this is missing from large parts of the western world and has many consequences.

It reminds me of things Mother Teresa (who was at times a horrendous person, her Nobel acceptance speech is pretty disturbing and cruel) said about American/western society. She remarked that although a person in India might be radically more poor, even if they were starving in the street, they knew people would reach out to them and cared for them. In America, no matter how rich you are, you feel far more alone than that.

Re: What Science Says to Do If Your Loved One Has an Opioid Addiction

#43

Post by dogruck »

liveoneggs wrote: post #31
gozur88 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Contrast to the crack cocaine epidemic in the 80s: fuck'em, throw them all in prison. That's overly reductive to the point of being wrong. There was never a particularly strong feeling that crack addicts should be thrown in prison any more than other types of addicts. People were strongly in favor of throwing crack dealers in prison because they were turning neighborhoods into war zones as they fought for lucrative…

crack vs cocaine sentencing doesn't agree with you. It was clearly making the "black" crime of crack possession worse than the "white" crime of coke possession. Obama got a whole law passed in 2010 to address it!

Y'all realize that black legislators and community organizers pushed for and voted for those "racist" crack sentences? They were trying to save their own communities.

Edit: for the uninformed down voters: https://www.google.com/amp/amp.slate.com/articles/news_and_p...

Re: What Science Says to Do If Your Loved One Has an Opioid Addiction

#44

Post by grasshopperpurp »

0x27081990 wrote: post #6
Justsignedup wrote: post #3

Interesting question: The replacing opioid addiction with maintenance drugs... I could understand that drug being an okay interim solution, but in the end the person still needs to go through withdrawal, the drug just replaces withdrawal with another drug. Withdrawal is hard. Yes. But at least the person is in the right mindset to go through it once they are off the compulsory addiction, even if it takes a year to ge…

I'm not sure it is a race issue. Times were different. People are now accepting that drug consumption doesn't make you a criminal. At some point Britain thought that wealthy highly-educated people were incapable of being criminals, until time proved them wrong. Science is always evolving.

In a fair system, black and white defendants who score the same number of points under this formula would spend the same time beyond bars. But The Herald-Tribune found that judges disregard the guidelines, sentencing black defendants to longer prison terms in 60 percent of felony cases, 68 percent of serious, first-degree crimes and 45 percent of burglaries. In third-degree felony cases — the least serious and broadest class of felonies — white Florida judges sentenced black defendants to 20 percent more prison time than white defendants.

The war on drugs weighs particularly heavily on black defendants. The police target their neighborhoods, herding people into a court system where judges are demonstrably harder on black offenders. The report found that nearly half of the counties in Florida sentenced African-Americans convicted of felony drug possession to more than double the jail time of whites — even when their backgrounds were the same.

This may just be a Florida problem, but I doubt it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/17/opinion/sunday/unequal-se...

Re: What Science Says to Do If Your Loved One Has an Opioid Addiction

#45

Post by otakucode »

Justsignedup wrote: post #3

Interesting question: The replacing opioid addiction with maintenance drugs... I could understand that drug being an okay interim solution, but in the end the person still needs to go through withdrawal, the drug just replaces withdrawal with another drug. Withdrawal is hard. Yes. But at least the person is in the right mindset to go through it once they are off the compulsory addiction, even if it takes a year to ge…

Withdrawal is stupid and unnecessary. You don't go through withdrawal if your doctor were to say 'ok, you are no longer injured, but your medication is one which has dependence as a side effect. Here is your 12 month schedule for reducing your dosage very gradually.'

Re: What Science Says to Do If Your Loved One Has an Opioid Addiction

#46

Post by ianai »

TearsInTheRain wrote: post #19
kchoudhu wrote: post #2

Now that the opioid crisis is a problem for white people, science makes an appearance in the policy discussion. Contrast to the crack epidemic in the 80s: fuck'em, throw them all in prison. Edit to add: I wish the best of luck to those who have been caught up in this crisis: I'm rooting for you, and I hope every last one of you find the treatment you need. For those of us who aren't affected, it's time for some deep…

Imho i would guess it is more a markets thing than a racial thing. There probably wasn't a whole lot of money to be made in curing an epidemic to a poor minority in the 80s whereas the opioid crisis is hitting a larger middle class population

That doesn't make it any better. It's also not a simple A/B. Maybe society had to drag it through the aforementioned stages to reach a point of consciousness.

I don't really buy that though. Honestly, I think the problem is simply being on opioids for a week due to post surgery pain or similar is enough to hook people.

My write in ballot would include various forms of legalization and treatment. I've heard DMT can make people quit heroin over night. While a little radical, that's better than the alternatives.

Re: What Science Says to Do If Your Loved One Has an Opioid Addiction

#47

Post by ianai »

kchoudhu wrote: post #36
TearsInTheRain wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imho i would guess it is more a markets thing than a racial thing. There probably wasn't a whole lot of money to be made in curing an epidemic to a poor minority in the 80s whereas the opioid crisis is hitting a larger middle class population

I hope you see that this is a problem? Why is our society incapable of doing the right thing when there is a market failure?

Because the moneyed interests have altogether too much power.

Re: What Science Says to Do If Your Loved One Has an Opioid Addiction

#48

Post by spraak »

otakucode wrote: post #27

Great article, but if your loved one has an opioid addiction and wants to quit without suffering the devastating withdrawal, I would strongly recommend investigating kratom. It is a non-opiate tree which grows primarily in Thailand and similar regions. It contains an alkaloid called mitragynine. This alkaloid is a selective opioid receptor agonist. Specifically, research shows that it is an agonist to several opioid…

Thank you for your detailed and educating post. I came into the comments here after Ctrl+F "kratom" on the article and finding no results. Kratom is life saving for opioid/opiate addictions, but as well as for chronic pain. My wife has been in constant chronic pain for the past few years, to the point of mostly being bedridden the entire day and not working. But doctors haven't found anything wrong with her. Perhaps it is a rare autoimmune disorder, but it remains yet undiagnosed. In the meanwhile, we're grateful to have discovered kratom, where with it she can actually get through the day nearly normally.

Re: What Science Says to Do If Your Loved One Has an Opioid Addiction

#49

Post by dogruck »

TearsInTheRain wrote: post #19
kchoudhu wrote: post #2

Now that the opioid crisis is a problem for white people, science makes an appearance in the policy discussion. Contrast to the crack epidemic in the 80s: fuck'em, throw them all in prison. Edit to add: I wish the best of luck to those who have been caught up in this crisis: I'm rooting for you, and I hope every last one of you find the treatment you need. For those of us who aren't affected, it's time for some deep…

Imho i would guess it is more a markets thing than a racial thing. There probably wasn't a whole lot of money to be made in curing an epidemic to a poor minority in the 80s whereas the opioid crisis is hitting a larger middle class population

It wasn't a "markets thing". Crack hit black communities. Then, black leaders within those communities responded by passing tough laws.

Re: What Science Says to Do If Your Loved One Has an Opioid Addiction

#50

Post by glibgil »

dogruck wrote: post #43
liveoneggs wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

crack vs cocaine sentencing doesn't agree with you. It was clearly making the "black" crime of crack possession worse than the "white" crime of coke possession. Obama got a whole law passed in 2010 to address it!

Y'all realize that black legislators and community organizers pushed for and voted for those "racist" crack sentences? They were trying to save their own communities. Edit: for the uninformed down voters: https://www.google.com/amp/amp.slate.com/articles/news_and_p...

Have you heard the theory that racism might be institutionalized?
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