3 ms·

> You have a theory that the average person will wisely assume the responsibility to vet the health effects of what they consume, but empirical reality disagree

by Veratyr 10y ago

> You have a theory that the average person will wisely assume the responsibility to vet the health effects of what they consume, but empirical reality disagrees with your theory. Right now people are injuring themselves with products at the margin of regulation. I know this is an incredibly callous opinion but isn't this natural selection at work? People even go further and knowingly partake of substances known to be harmful (cigarettes). We don't stop them from that, why should we stop them from consuming medication that hasn't yet been deemed safe? Educating and providing support for those that need it I agree with but if people freely and knowingly choose to act in a self destructive manner with a sound mind, I'm not convinced it benefits society or themselves to forcibly preserve their life.

darpa_escapee 10y ago
Isn't murder survival of the fittest? We as a society have decided that, generally, profiting from causing harm to others incentives bad things. I don't want cough medicine that might stop my breathing, but heroin was regularly sold as just that before the FDA. History has shown that without regulation the quality, efficacy, composition, safety and side-effect profile of drugs might stray from reality because of market incentives. The unfortunate truth is that sometimes it is more profitable if those five things are ignored and people get hurt or die. Hence, regulation. > People even go further and knowingly partake of substances known to be harmful (cigarettes). Tobacco products are heavily regulated. One could argue that because of lobbying and the amounts of wealth involved, that tobacco companies have been spared some of the stronger regulations they could have faced.
- Veratyr 10y ago
  > Isn't murder survival of the fittest? Murder is bad for society, as people who can benefit society through say their knowledge of medicine or physics aren't adept at self defence. A similar argument could be made that people who aren't very good at taking care of themselves are valuable to society somehow and should be protected from idiotic self-harm but I believe a person's autonomy trumps society's interest in preserving whatever value they have. > I don't want cough medicine that might stop my breathing, but heroin was regularly sold as just that before the FDA. Heroin was sold as cough medicine that might stop your breathing? If it tells you you might die and you choose to ingest it, that's on you. If you choose to play Russian Roulette, nobody's stopping you. In case it wasn't sold with a warning that it might stop your breathing, you could have chosen to verify that it did what you expected before ingesting it. The modern FDA could also warn of the dangers without forbidding the sale of the substance. > Tobacco products are heavily regulated. They may be regulated but any adult can still choose to partake of however much they like regardless of the damage to their health.
  - didibus 10y ago
    I actually agree with you. I believe all drugs, including the illegal ones, should be made accessible if I want them. Now, having said that, everyone else has great arguments, and these things can not go unregulated. I'll want officially sanctioned reviews, warnings, I want labels to be truthful, I want legitimate access to accurate and quality information, I need more then known side effects, I need propbability of each one, I need to know the amount and quality of the studies that have shown efficacy and effect, etc. I think cigarettes is actually a pretty good example of regulation that's not restrictive. I don't want to deregulate to enable business to sell more crap for higher prices with disinformation and attractive pitches. I want deregulation so that I am free to use any drug I would decide to use for myself. Granted, I would need to be guaranteed access to the correct information. Even today, there's not enough regulation around package labels. A lot of products don't mention important facts about them, or are allowed to lie on certain facts.
  - darpa_escapee 10y ago
    > Heroin was sold as cough medicine that might stop your breathing? If it tells you you might die and you choose to ingest it, that's on you. If you choose to play Russian Roulette, nobody's stopping you. Yes, heroin was sold as children's cough medicine by Bayer [1]. It stops coughing because it slows breathing. Take enough and you stop breathing, then die. This how 30k+ Americans die from (non-)prescription opioid overdoses each year. No, it did not indicate that it could harm or kill you. Why? Because regulations didn't exist that mandated purchasers were informed of all potential side-effects. Regulations didn't exist that mandated testing to determine those side-effects or the safety profile. > In case it wasn't sold with a warning that it might stop your breathing, you could have chosen to verify that it did what you expected before ingesting it. It does exactly what it says: stops coughing. You might be able to take 10 bottles over time, but the next time you dose from the 11th bottle, you don't wake up. It could be a multitude of reasons: lack of quality assurance means different batches have different concentrations of the active ingredient, your tolerance for heroin lowered after disuse and you take the same dose you're used to taking and die, what's in the bottle isn't the product you thought it was or you happened to have a drink of alcohol before taking it and overdose from a normal dose. These are the same problems heroin users face in the unregulated black market for drugs. How does "verifying that it did what you expected" help in any of those cases? Why offload the responsibility to ensure a product's safety, side-effect profile and drug interactions on the user when it could just as easily be done at the source by knowledged professionals and save laymen lives from being needlessly ruined? How does one verify the medicine they bought does what they expected and not give them cancer in a couple of years? Also, this is a children's medicine. They aren't consenting adults. How can you suggest in good faith that a child verifies the medicine they're given by a doctor, parent, nanny, babysitter, teacher or friend does exactly what it should? What if they're old enough to buy it themselves, but still a minor with underdeveloped decision making processes? What if the child finds the medication? Child proof packaging and bottling exist because of regulation. But here's the thing: > History has shown that without regulation the quality, efficacy, composition, safety and side-effect profile of drugs might stray from reality because of market incentives. The unfortunate truth is that sometimes it is more profitable if those five things are ignored and people get hurt or die. Hence, regulation. With or without regulation, you will have a market of desperate people who need treatment so that they don't end up in pain, injured or dead. Snake oil salesmen took advantage of this. The world doesn't need a Pfizer that, instead of making the investment to develop drugs that treat diseases, pushes a variety of unproven harmful cures because it is immediately profitable to do so. Before you say the market will ensure that drugs are safe, effective, etc: this wasn't the case at all until the FDA. The market didn't incentivize these things and we all suffered for it. Later we got dextromethorphan: technically an opioid and morphine derivative, like heroin, that suppresses a cough but doesn't completely stop breathing at any dose. Heroin is cheaper to produce. The market would decide that a certain number of dead children are acceptable because people will buy the cheaper, deadlier medication. Unknowingly, because they lack the necessary information to make an informed decision due to the lack of regulation. The type of information needed for a market to function. They might not even have the option of purchasing DXM, as it was developed by the government as an non-addictive alternative to codeine. Years later it was brought to market as an antitussive because the market was lacking cough suppressants. The market was lacking because the FDA banned morphine and heroin as OTC cough suppressants. >They may be regulated but any adult can still choose to partake of however much they like regardless of the damage to their health. Anyone that purchases cigarettes in America is not purchasing the cigarettes Philip Morris et al want to be selling in their ideal world. Cigarette composition, manufacturing, marketing and price are all heavily regulated by decades of legislation in response to more toxic, addictive cigarettes being introduced and the advertising campaigns behind them. Without regulation, cigarettes would be more toxic and deadly; and they would cause more damage to someone's health. [1] http://www.businessinsider.com/yes-bayer-promoted-heroin-for-children-here-are-the-ads-that-prove-it-2011-11 http://www.businessinsider.com/yes-bayer-promoted-heroin-for...

by Veratyr 10y ago

darpa_escapee 10y ago

Isn't murder survival of the fittest? We as a society have decided that, generally, profiting from causing harm to others incentives bad things. I don't want cough medicine that might stop my breathing, but heroin was regularly sold as just that before the FDA. History has shown that without regulation the quality, efficacy, composition, safety and side-effect profile of drugs might stray from reality because of market incentives. The unfortunate truth is that sometimes it is more profitable if those five things are ignored and people get hurt or die. Hence, regulation. > People even go further and knowingly partake of substances known to be harmful (cigarettes). Tobacco products are heavily regulated. One could argue that because of lobbying and the amounts of wealth involved, that tobacco companies have been spared some of the stronger regulations they could have faced.

Veratyr 10y ago
> Isn't murder survival of the fittest? Murder is bad for society, as people who can benefit society through say their knowledge of medicine or physics aren't adept at self defence. A similar argument could be made that people who aren't very good at taking care of themselves are valuable to society somehow and should be protected from idiotic self-harm but I believe a person's autonomy trumps society's interest in preserving whatever value they have. > I don't want cough medicine that might stop my breathing, but heroin was regularly sold as just that before the FDA. Heroin was sold as cough medicine that might stop your breathing? If it tells you you might die and you choose to ingest it, that's on you. If you choose to play Russian Roulette, nobody's stopping you. In case it wasn't sold with a warning that it might stop your breathing, you could have chosen to verify that it did what you expected before ingesting it. The modern FDA could also warn of the dangers without forbidding the sale of the substance. > Tobacco products are heavily regulated. They may be regulated but any adult can still choose to partake of however much they like regardless of the damage to their health.
- didibus 10y ago
  I actually agree with you. I believe all drugs, including the illegal ones, should be made accessible if I want them. Now, having said that, everyone else has great arguments, and these things can not go unregulated. I'll want officially sanctioned reviews, warnings, I want labels to be truthful, I want legitimate access to accurate and quality information, I need more then known side effects, I need propbability of each one, I need to know the amount and quality of the studies that have shown efficacy and effect, etc. I think cigarettes is actually a pretty good example of regulation that's not restrictive. I don't want to deregulate to enable business to sell more crap for higher prices with disinformation and attractive pitches. I want deregulation so that I am free to use any drug I would decide to use for myself. Granted, I would need to be guaranteed access to the correct information. Even today, there's not enough regulation around package labels. A lot of products don't mention important facts about them, or are allowed to lie on certain facts.
- darpa_escapee 10y ago
  > Heroin was sold as cough medicine that might stop your breathing? If it tells you you might die and you choose to ingest it, that's on you. If you choose to play Russian Roulette, nobody's stopping you. Yes, heroin was sold as children's cough medicine by Bayer [1]. It stops coughing because it slows breathing. Take enough and you stop breathing, then die. This how 30k+ Americans die from (non-)prescription opioid overdoses each year. No, it did not indicate that it could harm or kill you. Why? Because regulations didn't exist that mandated purchasers were informed of all potential side-effects. Regulations didn't exist that mandated testing to determine those side-effects or the safety profile. > In case it wasn't sold with a warning that it might stop your breathing, you could have chosen to verify that it did what you expected before ingesting it. It does exactly what it says: stops coughing. You might be able to take 10 bottles over time, but the next time you dose from the 11th bottle, you don't wake up. It could be a multitude of reasons: lack of quality assurance means different batches have different concentrations of the active ingredient, your tolerance for heroin lowered after disuse and you take the same dose you're used to taking and die, what's in the bottle isn't the product you thought it was or you happened to have a drink of alcohol before taking it and overdose from a normal dose. These are the same problems heroin users face in the unregulated black market for drugs. How does "verifying that it did what you expected" help in any of those cases? Why offload the responsibility to ensure a product's safety, side-effect profile and drug interactions on the user when it could just as easily be done at the source by knowledged professionals and save laymen lives from being needlessly ruined? How does one verify the medicine they bought does what they expected and not give them cancer in a couple of years? Also, this is a children's medicine. They aren't consenting adults. How can you suggest in good faith that a child verifies the medicine they're given by a doctor, parent, nanny, babysitter, teacher or friend does exactly what it should? What if they're old enough to buy it themselves, but still a minor with underdeveloped decision making processes? What if the child finds the medication? Child proof packaging and bottling exist because of regulation. But here's the thing: > History has shown that without regulation the quality, efficacy, composition, safety and side-effect profile of drugs might stray from reality because of market incentives. The unfortunate truth is that sometimes it is more profitable if those five things are ignored and people get hurt or die. Hence, regulation. With or without regulation, you will have a market of desperate people who need treatment so that they don't end up in pain, injured or dead. Snake oil salesmen took advantage of this. The world doesn't need a Pfizer that, instead of making the investment to develop drugs that treat diseases, pushes a variety of unproven harmful cures because it is immediately profitable to do so. Before you say the market will ensure that drugs are safe, effective, etc: this wasn't the case at all until the FDA. The market didn't incentivize these things and we all suffered for it. Later we got dextromethorphan: technically an opioid and morphine derivative, like heroin, that suppresses a cough but doesn't completely stop breathing at any dose. Heroin is cheaper to produce. The market would decide that a certain number of dead children are acceptable because people will buy the cheaper, deadlier medication. Unknowingly, because they lack the necessary information to make an informed decision due to the lack of regulation. The type of information needed for a market to function. They might not even have the option of purchasing DXM, as it was developed by the government as an non-addictive alternative to codeine. Years later it was brought to market as an antitussive because the market was lacking cough suppressants. The market was lacking because the FDA banned morphine and heroin as OTC cough suppressants. >They may be regulated but any adult can still choose to partake of however much they like regardless of the damage to their health. Anyone that purchases cigarettes in America is not purchasing the cigarettes Philip Morris et al want to be selling in their ideal world. Cigarette composition, manufacturing, marketing and price are all heavily regulated by decades of legislation in response to more toxic, addictive cigarettes being introduced and the advertising campaigns behind them. Without regulation, cigarettes would be more toxic and deadly; and they would cause more damage to someone's health. [1] http://www.businessinsider.com/yes-bayer-promoted-heroin-for-children-here-are-the-ads-that-prove-it-2011-11 http://www.businessinsider.com/yes-bayer-promoted-heroin-for...