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This reads like something big pharma would write to shift the blame away from themselves for causing the opioid epidemic and killing hundreds of thousands of pe

This reads like something big pharma would write to shift the blame away from themselves for causing the opioid epidemic and killing hundreds of thousands of people. > Although most users still get their first taste from one of several prescription pills, heroin is now the single most common individual opioid taken by people first trying this class of drugs, the study found. Or said another way: there are so many prescription opioids on the market that lead to addiction that no single one wins. I don't buy the idea that the opioid epidemic was some natural and inevitable consequence of the economy or stress or whatever. "Oh look, some people addicted to opioids never took prescription drugs. See, it wasn't our fault after all! Now let us go back to the good old days where we bribed doctors to prescribe our stuff to everyone."

nyolfen 9y ago
not every story has a bad guy
- AndrewUnmuted 9y ago
  This story does.
chrissnell 9y ago
Can we stop with the Big [insert capitalistic entity] already? I'm a regular listener of Dr. Drew Pinsky's podcasts. Aside from his celebrity doctor status, he's an addiction medicine specialist and has treated addicts for decades. He knows a lot about opiod addiction and talks about it frequently; he's in the middle of making a documentary on it. One thing I've learned about the epidemic from him is that it is not primarily the result of a big pharma marketing push. The biggest factor was the right-to-be-pain-free movement of the 1990s. This was a movement initiated by lawsuits against doctors on the behalf of patients who wanted pain management via medication and happened back when it was very rare to get an opiod prescription. Doctors started getting sued for not providing their patients with enough pain relief and this resulted in a sea change in medicine. Pain management clinics emerged and the number of opiod prescriptions skyrocketed and the epidemic kicked off. Sure, the pharmaceutical companies benefitted from this, but they didn't create this, attorneys did.
wand3r 9y ago
I find rehabs to be super dodgy and really only to be used in extreme situations for really short term timelines. of course they are better than literal prison but they are fraudulent and exploitative. I am in a quasi program currently and a drug test is billed to insurance at 595.00. I also failed a drug test for opiates even despite being sober. My councilor said it was possibly from eating a bagel although I doubt I even had a poppy bagel. The concentration of chemicals in my system was higher than it was when I really did fail because I took a half gram of heroin several hours before a test. This seems like a pretty big margin of error for a clinical laboratory, or they swapped samples or something. Either way I find rehab and drug counciling to prey on addicts worse than drug dealers and I find the industry disgusting.
jamesblonde 9y ago
I agree completely that the opioid epidemic was inevitable either. I'm from Dublin (Ireland) where heroin just 'appeared' in the 1980s. But it didn't just appear, a few criminal families introduced it, got richer selling it in deprived parts of Dublin, then with the increased wealth, spread the drug around the larger cities in the country. I live in Stockholm and there is pretty much no heroin here. Don't let people say "there is", there's not. Compared to any large european city, you never see strung out junkies anywhere. I would love to know how much of the crime difference between a city like Dublin and Stockholm can be explained by heroin (just heroin - we don't have much crack or breaking-bad stuff). I expect it's the majority of crime and definitely the majority of homelessness. Heroin is like a viral infection. If it appears in a city, you have to quarantine off that area, clear the infection or it will spread and then it's just chronic management after that.
- simonh 9y ago
  Norway recently legislated for Portuguese style decriminalisation of drug use. Dealing hard drugs will still be illegal and dealers will still be pursued, but drug use and the behaviours typical of addicts will no longer be treated as criminal matters but as public health issues. This approach has had a massive effect in Portugal, dramatically reducing use rates, medical complications from drug use and related crime. Obviously Norway is a different country from Sweden, but do you know what made them go down that route? Do they have a significantly bigger drugs problem there?

nyolfen 9y ago

not every story has a bad guy

AndrewUnmuted 9y ago
This story does.

chrissnell 9y ago

Can we stop with the Big [insert capitalistic entity] already? I'm a regular listener of Dr. Drew Pinsky's podcasts. Aside from his celebrity doctor status, he's an addiction medicine specialist and has treated addicts for decades. He knows a lot about opiod addiction and talks about it frequently; he's in the middle of making a documentary on it. One thing I've learned about the epidemic from him is that it is not primarily the result of a big pharma marketing push. The biggest factor was the right-to-be-pain-free movement of the 1990s. This was a movement initiated by lawsuits against doctors on the behalf of patients who wanted pain management via medication and happened back when it was very rare to get an opiod prescription. Doctors started getting sued for not providing their patients with enough pain relief and this resulted in a sea change in medicine. Pain management clinics emerged and the number of opiod prescriptions skyrocketed and the epidemic kicked off. Sure, the pharmaceutical companies benefitted from this, but they didn't create this, attorneys did.

wand3r 9y ago

I find rehabs to be super dodgy and really only to be used in extreme situations for really short term timelines. of course they are better than literal prison but they are fraudulent and exploitative. I am in a quasi program currently and a drug test is billed to insurance at 595.00. I also failed a drug test for opiates even despite being sober. My councilor said it was possibly from eating a bagel although I doubt I even had a poppy bagel. The concentration of chemicals in my system was higher than it was when I really did fail because I took a half gram of heroin several hours before a test. This seems like a pretty big margin of error for a clinical laboratory, or they swapped samples or something. Either way I find rehab and drug counciling to prey on addicts worse than drug dealers and I find the industry disgusting.

jamesblonde 9y ago

I agree completely that the opioid epidemic was inevitable either. I'm from Dublin (Ireland) where heroin just 'appeared' in the 1980s. But it didn't just appear, a few criminal families introduced it, got richer selling it in deprived parts of Dublin, then with the increased wealth, spread the drug around the larger cities in the country. I live in Stockholm and there is pretty much no heroin here. Don't let people say "there is", there's not. Compared to any large european city, you never see strung out junkies anywhere. I would love to know how much of the crime difference between a city like Dublin and Stockholm can be explained by heroin (just heroin - we don't have much crack or breaking-bad stuff). I expect it's the majority of crime and definitely the majority of homelessness. Heroin is like a viral infection. If it appears in a city, you have to quarantine off that area, clear the infection or it will spread and then it's just chronic management after that.

simonh 9y ago
Norway recently legislated for Portuguese style decriminalisation of drug use. Dealing hard drugs will still be illegal and dealers will still be pursued, but drug use and the behaviours typical of addicts will no longer be treated as criminal matters but as public health issues. This approach has had a massive effect in Portugal, dramatically reducing use rates, medical complications from drug use and related crime. Obviously Norway is a different country from Sweden, but do you know what made them go down that route? Do they have a significantly bigger drugs problem there?