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And how did you measure that?

by stass 9y ago

wayn3 9y ago
Thats measured by the fact that we dont have 30 million opioid addicts who turn to hard opioids becaue seeing a doctor is way too expensive.
- favorited 9y ago
  Health insurance cost is not what caused the heroin flood in American streets, though the health care industry certainly played their part. People were seeing doctors who were over-prescribing opiates, making them cheap and readily available. The DEA (federal Drug Enforcement Administration) cracked down and suddenly these highly addictive prescription opiates were severely constrained, which increased demand for cheap heroin. Now heroin has replaced prescriptions as the cheap and readily available opiate.
  - wayn3 9y ago
    And why did they over-prescribe opioids? Because getting surgery was prohibitively expensive? Doctors, in general, are doctors because they wanted to be doctors. Some of them may be in it for the money, but if you are really in it for the money, you become a neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins, not a primary care physician in Buttfuck, Idaho - where all the rural heroin epidemic victims are. Sure, some countries hand out opioids more freely than others, but in spain, Codeine is prescription free. Walk into a pharmacy, say you want codeine, you get codeine. I don't see an opioid epidemic in spain. If ease of access was the driving factor behind opioid abuse, spain should be all about opioid abuse. Codeine may not be the most potent opioid in the universe, but it is what it is. I think its the surgery thing. Because if you fuck up your spine and are in perpetual pain and also cant work anymore which just makes the problem worse because then you cant even afford the morphine, maybe taking the morphine isnt such a bad idea.
    - Arizhel 9y ago
      I'm not so sure about the surgery thing. I think it's really depair: in rural places in America, the economy is devastated. It's exactly why Trump was elected: he promised to bring all the jobs back (even though he won't, and can't even if he wanted to). Poorly-educated American ruralites can no longer have a decent quality of life, and frequently can't even find a job. They're not willing to move to the cities, so they get addicted to various drugs instead. You're not seeing it in Europe because you don't have a gigantic portion of your population that's unemployed like we do. (Our official unemployment numbers are complete lies.)
      - maxerickson 9y ago
        Unemployment is higher in much of Europe than in the US.
      - wayn3 9y ago
        Rural areas are getting wrecked by globalization everywhere. Not just the US. Spain, btw, is one of the prime examples. Yet no opioid addiction. Assuming that people kinda decide to just do drugs because despair is a bit ridiculous. Theres always a reason to do drugs. Almost noone was born an addict, and if you reason that those addictions originated at doctors appointments (prescribed medicine), it was probably not some kind of recreational turned addict thing. Or are you trying to argue that its the national sport of rural folks to go to their local doctor and check the opioid menu for the flavour of the month opioid to shoot up their vein because they're out of a job and feel despair about it? That sounds a bit far-fetched.

And how did you measure that?

by stass 9y ago

And how did you measure that?

Thats measured by the fact that we dont have 30 million opioid addicts who turn to hard opioids becaue seeing a doctor is way too expensive.

favorited 9y ago
Health insurance cost is not what caused the heroin flood in American streets, though the health care industry certainly played their part. People were seeing doctors who were over-prescribing opiates, making them cheap and readily available. The DEA (federal Drug Enforcement Administration) cracked down and suddenly these highly addictive prescription opiates were severely constrained, which increased demand for cheap heroin. Now heroin has replaced prescriptions as the cheap and readily available opiate.
- wayn3 9y ago
  And why did they over-prescribe opioids? Because getting surgery was prohibitively expensive? Doctors, in general, are doctors because they wanted to be doctors. Some of them may be in it for the money, but if you are really in it for the money, you become a neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins, not a primary care physician in Buttfuck, Idaho - where all the rural heroin epidemic victims are. Sure, some countries hand out opioids more freely than others, but in spain, Codeine is prescription free. Walk into a pharmacy, say you want codeine, you get codeine. I don't see an opioid epidemic in spain. If ease of access was the driving factor behind opioid abuse, spain should be all about opioid abuse. Codeine may not be the most potent opioid in the universe, but it is what it is. I think its the surgery thing. Because if you fuck up your spine and are in perpetual pain and also cant work anymore which just makes the problem worse because then you cant even afford the morphine, maybe taking the morphine isnt such a bad idea.
  - Arizhel 9y ago
    I'm not so sure about the surgery thing. I think it's really depair: in rural places in America, the economy is devastated. It's exactly why Trump was elected: he promised to bring all the jobs back (even though he won't, and can't even if he wanted to). Poorly-educated American ruralites can no longer have a decent quality of life, and frequently can't even find a job. They're not willing to move to the cities, so they get addicted to various drugs instead. You're not seeing it in Europe because you don't have a gigantic portion of your population that's unemployed like we do. (Our official unemployment numbers are complete lies.)
    - maxerickson 9y ago
      Unemployment is higher in much of Europe than in the US.
    - wayn3 9y ago
      Rural areas are getting wrecked by globalization everywhere. Not just the US. Spain, btw, is one of the prime examples. Yet no opioid addiction. Assuming that people kinda decide to just do drugs because despair is a bit ridiculous. Theres always a reason to do drugs. Almost noone was born an addict, and if you reason that those addictions originated at doctors appointments (prescribed medicine), it was probably not some kind of recreational turned addict thing. Or are you trying to argue that its the national sport of rural folks to go to their local doctor and check the opioid menu for the flavour of the month opioid to shoot up their vein because they're out of a job and feel despair about it? That sounds a bit far-fetched.