Yesterday it was Oxy, tomorrow it’ll be something else. We’ve been through this with heroin, meth, crack and the list never ends. When will we realize we lost the war on drugs? This approach doesn’t work…
@Vin53 so sorry to hear. Some of us have tried for years to approach drug abuse as a medical, not legal problem. The war on drugs has been our costliest and least effective of any war this country ever fought.
@samueltyler2 you can do as you wish but don’t assume that you know everything especially when you don’t do your own research and yes you should always “see” if something is real before you do anything.
I agree the war on drugs is a total failure and mostly a war on the poor.
That being said the opiate crisis is a bit different. It was entirely manufactured by so called legit fortune 500 pharma companies who got off with a fine.
@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow This reminds me of a comedian I think it was Bill Hicks who said that basically there’s a war on drugs and the drugs are winning but it was far more funny when he said it. This was the only clip that I could find [media=https://youtu.be/29KVuxEwlRM] Still funny. But not the exact one I was thinking of. (All the best people are dead)
The future seems to be Carfentanyl I guess. Hope not but it’s human nature to surpass the past high marks or low marks depending upon how you see things.
@2cool4school You're dead-on about the downward spiral trouble with the law as a result of homelessness, mental health or drugs can start. I've known a man arrested for sleeping off a bender in a parking lot who was triggered into a hole whether the only rungs available out are all broken. I've seen men come out of prison as a result of a crime related to their addiction who will never again get a decent chance at housing, official documentation, employment, etc. Once you fall out of society, it's nearly impossible to make it back in any meaningful way.
@Graylight I think about it every time I see someone living in a tent on the side of the freeways and I’m sad that it’s becoming so common. I still recall my first experience with becoming aware of homelessness. And I can’t help but tear up still. I was going to see a performance of Swan Lake as a field trip. I went to a very hippie-ish private hands-on learning parent participation school. Everyone was from a comfortable and often affluent family. My parents were not as well off but we were comfortable enough. I got out of one of the cars in the carpool of mostly moms and students and our teacher who organized the trip. There were about 12 students in my class and I knew what everyones parents did for work. My mom was a teacher still on leave after having my sister and I my dad was a police officer. We had a nasa scientist and a navy pilot and a few computer industry workers. I noticed a man was just sitting against the wall of a building and he had a sleeping bag and his belongings in a backpack. I asked my mom what he was doing he may have had a sign. My mom explained once we got some distance and were out of earshot that he was probably homeless and he was just trying to get by living on the street. I don’t remember how much information she gave me I was in 1st grade but I do recall that I felt like the group that we had should stop and help him find a home and a job and I just didn’t understand how we were going to walk away and go see a play when there was a person in need of help. (I’m already in tears now just recalling this) My mom tried to explain that it wasn’t that simple and I felt like it wasn’t that hard and we had so many smart parents and they had resources and certainly we could solve his problems and then he wouldn’t have to sleep on the sidewalk. I’m told that I would not put the topic down all day and when we returned to the cars to drive back to the suburbs he was nowhere in sight and I got even more upset that we had not done anything to help him when I knew we had done things like food drives to help around the holidays and rummage sales to raise money for the school. Certainly we could find a way to get help him. And I’ve never been comfortable in my life just ignoring someone that needs help. I usually have something to give with me in my car. Food and water is my usual go to. My parents still worry about me putting myself in an unsafe situation while trying to help someone because I feel best when I get a chance to talk to someone who’s homeless because I know they often get ignored and treated like they are invisible. I know now it’s a complex problem but it’s still a highly upsetting fact of life in society. Now I’m too upset to be able to see what I’m typing. 😭 so I’m going to have to stop and get back to this. Sorry
@2cool4school Your heart is expansive and empathetic; never apologize for that. I had a similar situation at 13 when I realized the kid right around my age that I'd struck up a conversation with while waiting for my parents was, in fact, homeless and living on the street in all likelihood. It set me on a peculiar edge for a long time.
In my adult life, I've come to work with at-risk and post-prison populations. These are men who've killed their manager to see what it feels like, helped dismember bodies, robbed banks, beat their wives. And they cry, and reflect, and work at getting up earlier in the morning and learn to navigate the DMV and are in every other respect just like you an me. Most of them - certainly the ones that come my way - are addicted. We are not the worst things we've ever done. We're not our worst failures. We're so much more than that and to view another human in black and white or to step by as they die out of the corner of your eye is less human than the lack of humanity those walking on by complain about.
But there are always steps forward, and good people are always thinking about those in need. And we'd do well to remember they're not just "in need." They need our assistance, our advocacy, our attention. It's a heartbreaking situation but it's workable, and the work won't stop until there's a solution.
One thing is for certain: legit chronic pain patients with legit opioid prescriptions (even high dosage prescriptions, if a patient has been taking them for a decade and their body has developed a tolerance) should never, ever, ever, ever, ever be punished because some other people abusing illicit street fentanyl (or even initially legit prescriptions).
The pendulum swung waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too far because of all the opioid hysteria people in the US have adopted (many of whom don't even have any standing in the matter at all, not being pain patients nor users of or knowledgeable about opioids).
When chronic pain patients are committing suicide because doctors won't take new pain patients, or are cutting back doses on existing patients, are afraid to prescribe anything to anyone, or the pharmacy chain a patient's Medicare Part D covers now refuses to stock opioids, you've really, really, really, really, really f-cked up. It is a very, very precarious situation now for chronic pain patients. If they have a doctor who is helpful to them, but the doctor retires, or gets hit by a bus, they may very well be f-cked. If they accidentally move to a state or part of their existing state that is more draconian, they may be f-cked.
It sucks that some street junkies OD on on illicit street drugs, but that doesn't have a damn thing to do with legit pain patients who have been taking 100% responsibly THE ONLY treatment that actually WORKS on there pain in any degree at all (and they know this, because they have tried and exhausted ALL OTHER OPTIONS).
Opioids still have a legit medical use FOR MANY PEOPLE. Everyone's body is different. You can't generalize with this stuff. Stop the hysteria, and stop punishing pain patients, who have no other alternative that WORKS.
The CDC is currently in the process of updating its 2016 update to opioid prescribing guidelines, realizing they f-cked up in 2016, but it may not mean much if the states don't have to undo draconian laws they enacted based on the 2016 guidelines. It shouldn't matter what state you live in, you should have unfettered access to medicine that works for you, and it should be affordable, doctors should not be able to shun pain patients, and pharmacies should not be allowed to opt not to carry medication x, or medication x in dosage y.
And when I say it should be affordable, I don't mean a state should be able to decide to take you off of safer oxycodone, and put you on cheaper but less safe methadone, which has very little room for error in dosing and is far easier on which to overdose.
And by all means, legalize cannabis across the board so we can stop discussing anecdotes, start conducting real research, and get real clinical research data on it as an analgesic. If the science does not show it to genuinely help, we can stop peddling CBD snake oil, and if it does work beyond some placebo effect, then insurance, Medicare, et al. should cover it, because current regulatory schemes where it has been legalized in the US make it unaffordable, and only feasible to large corporate growers, and still don't work to offset the environmental impact of very thirsty non-native plant and/or a plant that is still being grown indoors with electricity even in states that have legalized it, which is insane, ostensibly to prevent a recreational pothead from stealing the crop. And if cannabis really is beneficial medically, using it should be legalized around the world, but growing it should probably be legally confined to monsoonal climates, not perennial drought-stricken regions with native plants competing for the same groundwater. This is just one more thing that comes back to the fact that this is one planet, the whole nation-state arbitrary borders nonsense has limited utility with things like keeping agriculture sustainable.
@SW-User But here's the issue with opioids. We knew that when used properly and for the prescribed pain and duration, opioids generated withdrawal-like symptoms in patients, meaning these compounds were never safe at therapeutic levels. Moreover, opioids used long-term actually amplify pain. Lastly, In 2016, the CDC released guidelines for prescribing opioids for chronic pain. Although these guidelines have been useful for many clinicians, they've been misapplied by individual prescribers, institutions, and agencies, too often causing the kind of pain they were meant to address.
The fact is, pain is manageable by the vast majority of people. There are more than a dozen alternative techniques to pain management that've been shown to be effective. People also tend to badly overstate their pain, often calling back pain an 8/10 while they're still shopping, walking distances and moving about normally.
Carfentanil is on the horizon, but the compound is hardly important. Drug seekers find drugs. When they can't find drug, they make drugs. And the US in general is absolutely addicted to prescription medication of all kinds. I've had three knee surgeries, I have dental work, I have all the aches and pains of living, but I can't take pain relievers stronger than Advil, and only then about once a month if ever. Pain is manageable.
