9 ms·

A lot of money is being spent on this, but the obvious solution--providing addicts with known, tested opiates and safe places to use--is illegal. Addicts are mo

by mnm1 9y ago

A lot of money is being spent on this, but the obvious solution--providing addicts with known, tested opiates and safe places to use--is illegal. Addicts are most certainly a group that can be profited off. We have entire industries that do that, sometimes exclusively: sugar, alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, big pharma, etc. In fact, it's this intention of our laws to encourage such profiting off of the suffering and deaths of addicts that I think is the reason no one is really trying to fix much. The other reason is, likely, that this is a rather unfixable cultural problem stemming from poverty, loneliness, and other cultural factors. Methadone clinics, rehabs and other places like that, however, do profit off of addicts' recovery and may even have genuine intentions of helping (it seems to vary from place to place). Those profits are minor compared to the profit off of addicts' misery and death, however, and their efforts are not usually talked about much in the press. Laws also hold back such institutions from providing good treatment and dehumanize the addicts trying to stay clean. In many places, addicts are treated horribly and made to suffer intentionally by the staff, often having to wait around sick for hours just to see a doctor before getting a dose of methadone even though they've been on the program for years. They are made to line up daily or weekly for a dose when a regular prescription would do just fine, even after they've been on methadone for years. At many of these clinics, it's a wonder that anyone stays clean. There is no professionalism. Doses are messed up when addicts travel and they are left without their methadone. Staff end up stealing either money or methadone. There is no accountability. Not all clinics lack compassion and treat addicts badly, but many do. It's no wonder these places try to fly under the radar while the good clinics and rehabs are too busy helping addicts to be in the press or make much noise. If cancer or heart patients were treated this way, you can bet your ass there'd be a national backlash, but our society has been conditioned to have no compassion for addicts. This is the result. It's ugly and nasty.

girvo 9y ago
Incredibly spot on. That's why I went on Suboxone instead, solely because it means I only have to go in once a fortnight. Nice regular prescription, but yeah the amount of travel I do is difficult with it, despite being on the program for 5 years.
- mnm1 9y ago
  Yup. From what I've seen as a family member of an addict in recovery, you can work your way up to 28 bottles of methadone and do guest dosing, but the amount of planning, waiting, preparation, and willingness to deal with fuckups is colossal. Colossal enough that it stresses me out and I'm not even the patient. And this is traveling a few times a year. Imagine ending up in a foreign country with not enough medicine because the people handing it out are too incompetent to count the days of your vacation and rush you out of there. That's how we found out how much of a difference in compassion there is between clinics in Europe and the US. The ones in Europe really went out of their way to treat the patients with cordiality and to help them, even though the patient was a foreigner. Free of charge. While the one here took dozens of phone calls just to figure out there was a mistake. I really hope attitudes start to change. It's so hard to see a family member struggling with this and of course, that's absolutely nothing compared to their actual struggle. It's great to hear about others doing well on their path to recovery. I wish you all the best!
fapjacks 9y ago
Interestingly, when the DEA was trying to emergency schedule kratom late late year, one of the biggest groups lobbying for the scheduling were addiction recovery clinics. These groups also lobby heavily for kratom scheduling on the state level. They were instrumental, for example, in the effort to schedule kratom in Alabama (which incidentally saw a 30% increase in the number of opiate overdose deaths in the weeks after kratom was scheduled). It takes no imagination to understand why they would want to eliminate a cheap, accessible, safe competitor that works, like kratom.
- mnm1 9y ago
  For sure. This is why I question the idea of for-profit businesses helping rather than hurting and say it's a mixed bag. There really are some places that care about helping (especially outside the US and in rich areas in the US), but there are also plenty of places that do more harm than good. For-profit, free market capitalism's goals are hardly ever aligned with the goals of society and humanity.

by mnm1 9y ago

girvo 9y ago

Incredibly spot on. That's why I went on Suboxone instead, solely because it means I only have to go in once a fortnight. Nice regular prescription, but yeah the amount of travel I do is difficult with it, despite being on the program for 5 years.

mnm1 9y ago
Yup. From what I've seen as a family member of an addict in recovery, you can work your way up to 28 bottles of methadone and do guest dosing, but the amount of planning, waiting, preparation, and willingness to deal with fuckups is colossal. Colossal enough that it stresses me out and I'm not even the patient. And this is traveling a few times a year. Imagine ending up in a foreign country with not enough medicine because the people handing it out are too incompetent to count the days of your vacation and rush you out of there. That's how we found out how much of a difference in compassion there is between clinics in Europe and the US. The ones in Europe really went out of their way to treat the patients with cordiality and to help them, even though the patient was a foreigner. Free of charge. While the one here took dozens of phone calls just to figure out there was a mistake. I really hope attitudes start to change. It's so hard to see a family member struggling with this and of course, that's absolutely nothing compared to their actual struggle. It's great to hear about others doing well on their path to recovery. I wish you all the best!

fapjacks 9y ago

Interestingly, when the DEA was trying to emergency schedule kratom late late year, one of the biggest groups lobbying for the scheduling were addiction recovery clinics. These groups also lobby heavily for kratom scheduling on the state level. They were instrumental, for example, in the effort to schedule kratom in Alabama (which incidentally saw a 30% increase in the number of opiate overdose deaths in the weeks after kratom was scheduled). It takes no imagination to understand why they would want to eliminate a cheap, accessible, safe competitor that works, like kratom.

mnm1 9y ago
For sure. This is why I question the idea of for-profit businesses helping rather than hurting and say it's a mixed bag. There really are some places that care about helping (especially outside the US and in rich areas in the US), but there are also plenty of places that do more harm than good. For-profit, free market capitalism's goals are hardly ever aligned with the goals of society and humanity.