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Abusing sleeping pills is a great way to make it very difficult for people who actually need sleeping pills to not be able to get sleeping pills. This applies e

Abusing sleeping pills is a great way to make it very difficult for people who actually need sleeping pills to not be able to get sleeping pills. This applies equally to many other medications too, including the freshly politically demonized effective pain relievers at the heart of the latest media driven moral panic. It only takes a few fools to ruin something for the responsible majority.

djohnston 8y ago
i don't think this is true. healthcare has a litany of issues in america but i don't think it's common to pull controlled substances from the market because of black market abuse. am i wrong here?
- mawburn 8y ago
  Part of the reason why Quaaludes were pulled was due to recreational abuse, but there might have been other reasons.
  - TylerE 8y ago
    Much more dangerous than Ambien (or the other Z-drugs). A dangerous/fatal overdose could be as low as 4-5x the therapeutic dose, especially if mixed with alcohol. The Z-drugs, on the other hand, you can't really overdose on - at least not, as with 'Ludes', in the "stop breathing and die" sense.
    - DanBC 8y ago
      I agree the z drugs are much safer, but there have been deaths by overdose of zopiclone.
  - refurb 8y ago
    That was pretty much the reason.
- lazyasciiart 8y ago
  Isn't that what happened to pseudoephedrine? Went from being OTC to very hard to get because of recreational use.
  - selectodude 8y ago
    "hard to get" is overselling it a little. Maybe hard to get in very large quantities. Where I am, I can get up to 7.5 grams per month with zero issues. Not enough to make meth, enough for the maximum dose every day of every month.
  - astura 8y ago
    I dont consider walking up to the counter and saying "I'd like to purchase pseudoephedrine" 'very hard.'
DanBC 8y ago
> demonized effective pain relievers Opioids are widely prescribed for pain that they're not an effective treatment for. This is cruel: the patient is still in pain, and now they have an addiction too. The opioid crisis can be thought of as a mass failure in pain management.
- notadoc 8y ago
  How do you know? Do you work in a pain clinic? Are you a doctor who has worked with these patients for decades, or a researcher in the field? Or are you just repeating talking points from the latest media hysteria and politically driven moral panic?

djohnston 8y ago

i don't think this is true. healthcare has a litany of issues in america but i don't think it's common to pull controlled substances from the market because of black market abuse. am i wrong here?

mawburn 8y ago
Part of the reason why Quaaludes were pulled was due to recreational abuse, but there might have been other reasons.
- TylerE 8y ago
  Much more dangerous than Ambien (or the other Z-drugs). A dangerous/fatal overdose could be as low as 4-5x the therapeutic dose, especially if mixed with alcohol. The Z-drugs, on the other hand, you can't really overdose on - at least not, as with 'Ludes', in the "stop breathing and die" sense.
  - DanBC 8y ago
    I agree the z drugs are much safer, but there have been deaths by overdose of zopiclone.
- refurb 8y ago
  That was pretty much the reason.
lazyasciiart 8y ago
Isn't that what happened to pseudoephedrine? Went from being OTC to very hard to get because of recreational use.
- selectodude 8y ago
  "hard to get" is overselling it a little. Maybe hard to get in very large quantities. Where I am, I can get up to 7.5 grams per month with zero issues. Not enough to make meth, enough for the maximum dose every day of every month.
- astura 8y ago
  I dont consider walking up to the counter and saying "I'd like to purchase pseudoephedrine" 'very hard.'

DanBC 8y ago

> demonized effective pain relievers Opioids are widely prescribed for pain that they're not an effective treatment for. This is cruel: the patient is still in pain, and now they have an addiction too. The opioid crisis can be thought of as a mass failure in pain management.

notadoc 8y ago
How do you know? Do you work in a pain clinic? Are you a doctor who has worked with these patients for decades, or a researcher in the field? Or are you just repeating talking points from the latest media hysteria and politically driven moral panic?