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IAMNOTADOCTOR posted:edit: as an aside, the fear of opioids instilled in some parts of the population is so great that terminal oncologic patients painfully awaiting death still routinely refuse opioid drugs because they dont want to end their life as an addict. That's ridiculous. If I knew I was going to die, not only would I use whatever painkillers I could get, but I'd become addicted to every other substance as well, because why the hell not? You better believe I'm gonna smoke 2 packs a day if I know I'm dying in a few months anyway.
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Jan 27, 2016 00:51
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OwlFancier posted:Pride is often terminal. But what's there to be proud of? I moderate my alcohol intake and I quit smoking cigarettes because they're bad for my health and impair my ability to function in society. If those things stopped being issues, the mere fact of physical dependence on a substance and/or addiction wouldn't faze me in the least.
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Jan 27, 2016 00:58
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Broken Machine posted:Strangely enough a lot of people don't enjoy getting blasted or want to go out in a drugged out haze, and so there's no appeal to them to go on a huge bender. Also cannabis is good enough for pain management that many prefer it, as they can still be more or less lucid instead of nodding off. Yeah, cannabis leaves you totally functional  I'm a fan of it, but let's not pretend it doesn't get you really hosed up.
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Jan 27, 2016 03:33
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pangstrom posted:Seems like the H-Bomb is moving aside for the F-Bomb with all the Fentanyl deaths. Is that happening across North America now? It was a huge thing in Western Canada this year, but I didn't know it was a more widespread problem than that.
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Apr 2, 2016 00:29
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bartlebyshop posted:I'm quoting the NYT a lot today, it seems. They had a recent article about it. That's not good. Fentanyl is pretty much the perfect way to execute the "what if we just let addicts off themselves?" plan from a while back. Around here, they're saying that a lot of fentanyl is being produced by Chinese superlabs, but I don't know how accurate that is. EDIT: I've at least heard of heroin addicts kicking their habit and living normal lives. I've never heard a story of a fentanyl user doing anything but dying (and usually really loving quick).
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Apr 2, 2016 00:45
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What ended up happening with krokodil? That's what we were all freaking out about last year, I recall.
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Apr 2, 2016 00:56
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deoju posted:I don't know much about the chemistry, but I read that since one of the precursor drugs, codeine is controlled, it is not profitable to cook in the US. Codeine is, in some formulations, OTC in Canada too, and I haven't heard about krokodil being a problem here ever since the original media freakout over it.
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Apr 4, 2016 19:55
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Police and media are currently busy freaking out about something called W-18 here. http://www.vice.com/en_ca/read/everything-we-know-so-far-about-w-18-the-drug-thats-100-times-more-powerful-than-fentanyl Is this a legitimate risk, or just a case of the media trying to freak out about something?
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Apr 22, 2016 14:40
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Gail Wynand posted:Am I reading this right, is W-18 only illegal in Canada, i.e. it's legal in the US? I don't believe it's illegal in Canada, that's part of the problem. They claim to be working hard and quickly on making it so.
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Apr 23, 2016 03:27
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I just got a wisdom tooth out (normal extraction with no complications under local anaesthetic) and I was offered Tylenol 3 for the post-extraction pain. I didn't take it, opting instead for Ibuprofen, and I haven't even taken those as much as I theoretically could because there's very little pain (I'm taking it twice daily, mainly to reduce inflammation, instead of 4 times per day). If people are being prescribed opiates for this level of "pain" which amounts to a slight stiffness in my jaw, I'm not particularly surprised we have an addiction epidemic. I have a lovely pain tolerance, too. Now, if they gave me some anxiety meds to deal with my constant concerns that I'm going to be careless and dislodge the clot and get dry socket, I'd not say no. PT6A fucked around with this message at 13:58 on May 28, 2016 |
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May 28, 2016 13:56
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Why would a psychiatrist prescribe opiates? Or do you mean as part of a treatment program for someone who's already addicted?
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May 28, 2016 19:03
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pangstrom posted:He doesn't / wouldn't, but people ask. There are some fringe-y treatments for anxiety and mood disorders and yeah maintenance from an addiction specialist would be the only typical situation as far as I know. I know addiction is an illness, not a moral or personal failing, but good lord does it seem to be correlated with stupidity in a lot of cases. Will they literally ask anyone with access to a prescription pad or what?
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May 29, 2016 01:50
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Ratoslov posted:When you're addicted, access to your drug is right at the bottom of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs for you. If you're out of your drug, you don't particularly care about not looking stupid. Asking for money from a friend/acquaintance would seem to be a more effective way of getting drugs than to ask a doctor to do something outright illegal, though. I'd rather give an addict money than risk my own freedom by actually supplying the drugs. Of course, I'd probably try to avoid either one.
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May 29, 2016 03:00
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I don't think there's anything wrong with keeping opiates as an option, but I do see a problem with handing them out as desired before the patient even knows what level of pain they're dealing with. The local anaesthetic didn't come out until a few hours after I was asked what kind of pills I wanted. If the pain was so bad that Ibuprofen wasn't enough, I'd have gone right back to the dentist to have him give me something stronger, of course, and that's perfectly reasonable, I'm just saying that opiates shouldn't be a default option.
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May 29, 2016 05:26
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bitcoin bastard posted:There's at least a bit of a logistics issue here. A person who has been discharged from the hospital might not have someone who can take them back to the drug store if Tylenol/Advil doesn't work, so it at least makes sense to prescribe for worst case scenario. Hadn't thought of that, I was just in a dental office so I would've had to go to a pharmacy to fill an actual prescription anyway.
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May 29, 2016 19:40
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Albino Squirrel posted:Even in an outpatient situation, the general rule is to prescribe the painkiller that is usually required; although your patient could come back to ask for more powerful painkillers, it's an inconvenience for both them and the prescriber (also, they're in pain until they get the new drugs). Makes sense, I guess I got lucky with my extraction too (I had one other tooth pulled before I got braces, and it was about the same, but I guess other people have a more painful experience), so I'm not sure what painkiller would usually be required. It's way less painful than having my braces adjusted was, and they never gave me anything for that. I think age is an issue too. If I were in my late teens or early 20s, before my cousin died from an overdose and such, I probably would've requested opiate-based medication just to see what it's like. Now I realize it's just another thing I could become addicted to, so it's an option I'm perfectly happy to decline.
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May 29, 2016 21:21
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dethkon posted:What's kind of funny about the wisdom teeth talk is that I actually consider that my first experience with IV drugs. When my dentist was talking to me, I expressed some interest in the IV cocktail they were planning to put me under with. My dentist offered to give me the IV Fentanyl first, so I could feel it before whatever benzo they use to actually put you to sleep kicked in. I said hell yes. The rush was insane, and I didn't experience anything like it again until the first time I shot Oxy. That, uh, seems really irresponsible.
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May 30, 2016 05:22
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dethkon posted:It was. What teenager is going to turn down a free high, Doctor approved? It was the most profound drug experience I ever had at that point. Looking back, I wouldn't be surprised if he was a drug "enthusiast" himself. And to think I was a little concerned with the enthusiasm with which I was offered nitrous (which I had every intention of requesting anyway, even though I didn't really NEED it).
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May 30, 2016 15:23
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Are they more prone to causing addiction without the user trying to use them recreationally? Like, if you're committed to not becoming addicted and just using them to treat pain or anxiety, are the faster acting variants better or worse in terms of causing long-term addiction?
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Jun 7, 2016 22:56
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Ytlaya posted:One thing I'm curious about is the percent of addicts who are unwilling or unable to seek out opiates illegally. I imagine the percent is pretty small, but speaking from my own experience I probably would have never become addicted if I didn't have access to legal opioids like kratom and poppy pod tea (no idea if these are still legal, I used them years ago). I don't know a single other addict in my personal life and don't remotely fit the image of what most people consider addicts to be like (though from my experience this is true of more addicts than most people would think). I'm guessing a huge percentage, at least to start, which is why the overprescription of pain pills precipitated such an explosion in opioid addiction rates. Now, are there lots of people who will avoid seeking illegal or semi-legal opioids once the addiction has taken hold? I'm guessing a lot fewer.
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Dec 13, 2016 16:20
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Danknificent posted:So two people OD, one dies, the other lives. The one who lived admits to being the one who acquired the heroin, so the police are going to get her for murder, since she provided it to the guy that died. That's some sick poo poo. These laws are obviously targeted towards drug dealers to discourage them, but what kind of a sick gently caress prosecutor would apply these laws to a case where two addicts injected from the same batch?
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Mar 30, 2017 03:54
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Nissin Cup Nudist posted:One of my coworkers died of a heroin OD on April Fools Day. He had a habit in the past but managed to beat it and was clean for a decade. He ran into money/marital problems late last year and cracked. He was 49. Honest question: do you think if heroin was legal and available at standardized dosages no-questions-asked, it could save lives? On one hand, I think there would be more addicts, which is unquestionably bad. On the other hand, I think there would be fewer accidental ODs, which is good. I'm conflicted as to what the goal of opiate policy should be: is it better to have more addicts who don't die, or fewer addicts with the risk of death for addicts massively increased? Is there a right answer? My cousin died of a heroin overdose about 7 or 8 years ago now -- similar to your story, he was clean and relapsed and OD'd shortly thereafter -- and it seems like the problem has only gotten worse. It's such a lovely drug, and it kills far too many people.
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Apr 18, 2017 01:11
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Nissin Cup Nudist posted:Someone at work theorized that coworker went to the dosage he used when he was an addict, but his body couldn't adjust after being clean for so long. That's exactly what happened with my cousin, too. Apparently it's a depressingly common thing -- relapses are probably deadlier than continued use. At least with legal standard doses, you'd have a more precise idea of what you were using before, and what a standard tolerance is now that you're clean (in theory, of course; in practice, you could still easily OD). I think harm reduction is also important: safe, supervised injection sites are a great thing, and I think there should also be more messaging about relapse, because I think the unfortunate fact is that a lot of people do relapse, especially in lovely, stressful conditions: if you relapse, you aren't a lovely person and you don't deserve to die -- but you need to be careful. You need to know your tolerance has decreased. You need to know that you aren't a failure or a hopeless case; you hit a speed bump, not a wall. As a society, we get focused on complete sobriety/abstention (because it's the only way to fully eliminate the negative influence of these addictions on your life), but I think it's at the cost of making people feel even worse about a relapse, which impairs their ability to recover in a lot of cases. Guilt is a negative feeling, which can lead to further use. All in all, it's just a very lovely situation and I hope we find a way of dealing with it.
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Apr 18, 2017 02:31
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tetrapyloctomy posted:Edit: We should make members of Congress shadow our nurses every day for twelve hour shifts until they pass single-payer healthcare. It might take two weeks. Except they obviously don't care if people literally die -- especially poor people or addicts.
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May 12, 2017 16:09
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Fried Watermelon posted:It is crazy when the economic system is the cause of the addiction. Let's separate the addiction problem and homelessness problem for a moment. I've heard a lot of conjecture about the feeling of "hopelessness" that just leads people to shooting heroin, but if that were the case, surely we would've seen these epidemic levels of drug addiction and overdoses in the black community while they were being treated as property, lynched, systematically discriminated against, told where they can and cannot live (redlining/sundown towns) and everything else. I wonder how "economically anxious" that made them? Yet it would seem that, although addiction is a problem that exists within every social group to some degree, the White Working Class is being hit disproportionately hard by the current opiate epidemic, which suggests to me that there are significant causal factors beyond "capitalism bad."
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Jun 30, 2017 15:00
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call to action posted:This was fantastic and perfectly encapsulates what I believe about the opioid epidemic, RT being poo poo normally notwithstanding. Yeah, what the gently caress is the actual endgame for Putin? Fund an "alternative" news source in the US, then use it to criticize the puppet president that his own government, under his orders, helped during the election, using (accurate) rhetoric against the billionaire class of which he himself is a prominent part? Is he basically Petyr Baelish, trying to gently caress everyone over and create chaos so he can do his best to scamper to the top of the rubble afterward?
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Jun 30, 2017 21:47
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ToxicSlurpee posted:You think that there wasn't? Mind that was also before the War on Drugs started and also before the massively deadly drugs we have now really hit the market. Not as many statistics were kept and drug use was just kind of a thing that existed. It didn't get as much press because it wasn't as deadly and we didn't hear about drug smugglers every other day in the news. Of course there was addiction! Let's face it though, even severe alcoholism won't kill you that fast. I know a guy that drinks every morning and keeps going until he passes out, unless he runs out of booze first. He's 68, and though his mind is hosed and he can barely walk there's nothing that's going to physically kill him. My cousin died of a heroin overdose when he was 24. We've had opiates and patches of despair for hundreds of years and white people, especially working class, are bearing the brunt of the increase even though black people go through all the same poo poo and also have to worry about economic discrimination and Officer Honky getting an itchy trigger finger at a traffic stop. I think it's fairly safe to say economics and despair aren't primary causal factors, though I will say they might exacerbate the problem. Overprescription of opiates makes so much more sense, because it explains exactly the patterns we're seeing.
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Jul 1, 2017 00:20
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I thought Narcan works on fentanyl overdoses but not carfentanil.
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Jul 23, 2017 16:29
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"I know last time we said one of our drugs wasn't addictive, it started an epidemic that ravaged the country, but this time we're super doubleplus sure this one's not addictive! Why won't anyone trust us on this???"
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Sep 18, 2017 16:27
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Safe injection sites should be as small as possible and extremely widespread, to avoid as much of the effect of concentrating drug addicts in one place as possible. Obviously vulnerable populations like addicts and the homeless need services provided to them, but putting all those services in one place is a terrible idea. These people are part of our community -- instead of concentrating them into skid row, which separates them from their support structures and creates what ends up being an environment full of negative reinforcement, we need to treat them as part of our communities.
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Jan 24, 2018 16:11
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BarbarianElephant posted:He is a huge hypocrite in all sorts of ways so he might be a user of every substance APART from booze and still think of himself as teetotal. Also, he may be an occasional drinker who just lies about it, because he's a giant loving liar who lies about literally everything.
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Feb 8, 2018 14:33
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It depends how you define 'loser' too. Is it a term that carries a moral judgement, or just an observation of the facts of someone's current life situation?
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Feb 8, 2018 18:30
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shame on an IGA posted:If they'd just let every doctor cut bupe scripts it wouldn't matter but no we are a nation of retards Or just for any opiate that someone's already addicted to. Is there any reason why heroin addicts are better off being switched to some drug they don't like, rather than a clean supply of heroin they can afford and dose properly? The main problems I see with the opiate epidemic is people overdosing, the crime involved with distribution, and people committing crimes to fund their habits. I couldn't give two fucks if someone gets high safely.
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Feb 9, 2018 01:34
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OwlFancier posted:raa raa my money going to pay for junkies raa raa. Better that they use a little bit from my taxes than break into my car or house. Anyone who wouldn't make that trade is dumb as all gently caress.
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Feb 9, 2018 01:40
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OwlFancier posted:Some people just absolutely seethe at the possibility that someone might be doing something they don't approve of, or having fun with even a fraction of money they might once have handled. “Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”
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Feb 9, 2018 01:43
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Ytlaya posted:Legitimate reasons could include 1. buprenorphine is safer than heroin for anyone with a strong addiction (for anyone with a high tolerance it's basically impossible to OD on by itself) and 2. it's easier to live a semi-normal life on buprenorphine due to its long half-life than it is on something like heroin. It also helps psychologically to know that taking more won't really give you a high (if you're on a higher dose, that is; if you're taking, say, 2mg you actually will notice if you take an additional 1-2mg, but if you're taking 8+ you're unlikely to notice anything from higher doses). Speaking from personal experience, it helps just to know that it's pointless to even try. If I knew taking more would have an effect, I would constantly have to be fighting against that urge. Good to know, thank you for taking the time to explain.
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Feb 9, 2018 04:01
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KingEup posted:My gist, based on changes to benzo prescribing - it will have no impact: Yeah, I got fentanyl during a surgery, and although I didn’t feel a goddamn thing pain-wise, it made me feel awful and the side effects were terrible. My first thought was “how the gently caress is this addictive?” but then my second thought was “imagine how bad the physical addiction must be if this is preferable.” That’s what convinced me that life must be absolutely hellish for opiate addicts, where that feeling is better than the alternative. If you told me I could safely use alcohol and tobacco with zero health risk, I’d smoke two packs a day and binge drink any time it wouldn’t interfere with work. If you told me I could have clean, legal opiates with zero risk, I’d still not touch that stuff.
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Mar 28, 2018 13:25
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Yeah, it's pretty gross and really loving ignorant. That being said, I do have a problem with safe injection sites in their current form. They should be widespread and inconspicuous, because otherwise the social ills associated with drug use become more concentrated in one place. As we must come to accept that opiate abuse is not something that only affects "the other," we should have places to safely use these drugs widespread, in rich areas and poor; in urban, suburban and rural locations, etc. Ideally we'd also supply clean drugs to addicts, so there's no problem with unknown dosages, adulterated drugs, theft and other crime associated with drug trade, but first things first.
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Aug 31, 2018 02:59
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King Possum III posted:You mean something other than methadone? Yep. Whatever they want, honestly. We need to stop looking at substance addiction as some kind of moral failing. If giving people their drug of choice keeps them from dying, contracting serious illnesses, or committing crimes to fund their habit, we should give it to them.
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Aug 31, 2018 15:01
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Safe injection sites, while helpful, are not enough because if you're forced to obtain the drugs illegally, they're still of an unknown strength, and expensive enough that you'll likely need to resort to bad things in order to obtain them.
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Dec 3, 2018 00:31
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