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The issue here was not caused by the actual substance. It was caused to due to terrible social and legal attitudes that encourage mislabeled medicines to be sol

The issue here was not caused by the actual substance. It was caused to due to terrible social and legal attitudes that encourage mislabeled medicines to be sold. If anything else in our society was mislabeled by a factor of 50, there'd be outrage over the vendor, regulators, etc. But with drugs, it's always "user error". Opiates are extremely well tolerated, with basically no upper bound on use. They are incredibly cheap, black market aside. There's probably a fair amount of libertarian-leaning people here that see the harm as caused by things other than drugs. The "toll" it takes on people is almost 100% caused by the legal status. Hence why millions of people in America alone enjoy prescribed opiate usage without dying or having their life spin out of control.

sremani 10y ago
As much as I want to agree with you, the story of the two dudes losing their jobs and constantly being broke says otherwise. I know there are lot of functioning addicts, and I have seen them in life. But the two guys in the article are anything but functioning. Their education suffered, their job prospects suffered.
- MichaelGG 10y ago
  The issue of being broke is directly related to having to buy off a black market. Opiates are stupidly cheap - for a naive user, they are cheaper than Tylenol. A lot of the problem almost certainly stems from this broke/steal/intervention/etc. cycle. Do legally sanctioned opiate users suffer from a high rate of financial and employment issues?
  - mindslight 10y ago
    To be fair, users that are sanctioned under the current legal regime are forced to keep up appearances, which likely includes holding down a job. If they do run into financial issues, their legal supply likely gets cut off when the prescriber sees them deteriorate. At which point they're no longer legally sanctioned. (FWIW I do agree with your general viewpoint. Not because I have much of an interest in drugs, but because if somebody purports to tell you how and how not you can affect your own body, that person is an enemy of your freedom. Freedom necessarily must include the option to harm yourself, otherwise you are actually just picking from preordained choices.)

sremani 10y ago

As much as I want to agree with you, the story of the two dudes losing their jobs and constantly being broke says otherwise. I know there are lot of functioning addicts, and I have seen them in life. But the two guys in the article are anything but functioning. Their education suffered, their job prospects suffered.

MichaelGG 10y ago
The issue of being broke is directly related to having to buy off a black market. Opiates are stupidly cheap - for a naive user, they are cheaper than Tylenol. A lot of the problem almost certainly stems from this broke/steal/intervention/etc. cycle. Do legally sanctioned opiate users suffer from a high rate of financial and employment issues?
- mindslight 10y ago
  To be fair, users that are sanctioned under the current legal regime are forced to keep up appearances, which likely includes holding down a job. If they do run into financial issues, their legal supply likely gets cut off when the prescriber sees them deteriorate. At which point they're no longer legally sanctioned. (FWIW I do agree with your general viewpoint. Not because I have much of an interest in drugs, but because if somebody purports to tell you how and how not you can affect your own body, that person is an enemy of your freedom. Freedom necessarily must include the option to harm yourself, otherwise you are actually just picking from preordained choices.)