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Maintenance treatments with long-acting opioids like methadone tend to come with a withdrawal that lasts for months. Meanwhile, short-acting opiates like heroi
by oxide 10y ago
Maintenance treatments with long-acting opioids like methadone tend to come with a withdrawal that lasts for months.
Meanwhile, short-acting opiates like heroin have a withdrawal period that lasts about a week. Is it any wonder methadone patients switch back to heroin when they try to quit for good?
Mark my words, this isn't going away or getting any better. You can prosecute doctors, regulate all you want, burn fields of poppies. None of it will affect the demand nor the supply. You can't price or regulate someone out of an addiction.
If people get cut off wholesale from their prescriptions because doctors are being prosecuted for prescribing pain medication, they'll turn to heroin. Which will be available, regardless of all the opium seized, regardless of cartels dismantled.
Just like when Oxycontin went under a formulation change making it resistant to abuse, which also caused the price to spike to a dollar per milligram.
People turned to heroin because it was cheaper, more potent, and much more widely available than pharmaceuticals could ever be.
If you think pill junkies are bad, wait until you look down an alley to see a heroin junkie injecting another junkie in the jugular because all her veins are blown out. Watch your step, though, lest you get a syringe in your foot.
- ZanyProgrammer 10y agoI've had friends get fucked up by head shop and online Kratom. It's very far from benign.
- oxide 10y agoI've gone ahead and edited my comment, not because of your comment, but just because I felt like I wasn't making a clear point. Kratom is not even mentioned anymore, sorry. While kratom is habit forming and can "fuck you up" if you have no tolerance, the true value is for the person already addicted to opiates looking to get clean. If you want to keep drugs out of the hands of kids, make them all legal and watch the usage numbers fall. Banning a powdered leaf, that is quite self-regulating, albeit habit-forming, is a step backwards in the quest to put out the structure fire that the opiate crises has become.
- DanBC 10y ago> If you want to keep drugs out of the hands of kids, make them all legal and watch the usage numbers fall. Doesn't the UK experience with alcohol counter this? (I am strongly in favour of legalisation of all drugs).
- oxide 10y agoAmphetamine will be abused by college students. Alcohol will be abused by highschool kids. It's a given. The allure of stuff like cocaine, with the "what else was I lied to about, what am I missing out on" mindset goes out the window when you stop lying and start letting people make their own choices.
- alva 10y agoYou can't stop all the drug abuse but the extent of use is not a given. Amphetamine use of UK students appears to be extremely rare compared to the US, its never really been a cultural thing here. I suspect it is due to very few amphetamine drugs being prescribed, especially to children. It seems to common to hear about people selling their legitimate ADHD/ADD prescriptions to friends in the US. "Speed Paste" is the only amphetamine properly in circulation and its use is mostly restricted to the hardcore "junkie" groups, very much frowned upon from the casual drug community. None of the above is a solution, just to note the degree to which groups will gravitate towards and use a drug is not a given. Culture and availability probably affect use massively.
- oxide 10y agoI completely agree. My example wasn't exactly the best, but relatively applicable to the US nevertheless. You raise many good points about drug use being different geographically and culturally. It's very much about availability, local drug culture, etc. For example, the speed paste. As you said, in the UK and in other European countries amphetamine is usually amphetamine in paste form, not crystal methylamphetamine like we usually see here in the states. Culture and availability absolutely affects use massively, a point I didn't mean to gloss over, and one I'm glad you raised.
- TTPrograms 10y agoI've had friends get killed by grocery store alcohol. It's very far from benign. See how productive this is?
- quakeguy 10y agoIt sounds like someone profits from shipping opiates to the U.S.. Someone who also controls the juristriction. Sounds ridiculous, i know. Mhmmm. Who could it be?
- rashkov 10y agoPlease just make your point, and make it substantial
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]