3 ms·

In a Boston University study they found that 81% of prescription drug abuse and 79% of high alcohol abuse was to self manage pain. There is no humane approach t

by mike_d 3y ago

In a Boston University study they found that 81% of prescription drug abuse and 79% of high alcohol abuse was to self manage pain. There is no humane approach to furthering addictions as a band-aid for our lack of medical care and failure to address mental illness. Scrap the free use drugs laws and invest in clinics for underserved populations with chronic pain management programs and mandatory rehab programs for people who have lost the battle. https://www.bumc.bu.edu/camed/2016/05/10/many-patients-abusing-drugs-and-alcohol-are-self-medicating-chronic-pain/ https://www.bumc.bu.edu/camed/2016/05/10/many-patients-abusi...

at_a_remove 3y ago
Yeah. The gateway drug here is chronic and intractable pain. I am reminded of Blade Runner: "You were made as well as we could make you." "But not to last." After a kid or two, you've done what evolution has selected for, and if walloping amounts of suffering and disability appear after that, well, there's always the next batch. Nobody wants to look too hard at that. People's squeamishness about genetic engineering has always had a whiff of the ignorable about it. It's pretty fun to pat yourself on the back about avoiding "eugenics" when you're healthy and young. I suppose we could go the animal husbandry approach and just license reproductive age, pushing it steadily up and creating an artificial evolutionary pressure to keep people healthy at greater and greater ages.
seanmcdirmid 3y ago
It isn’t that simple though. Say you have an encampment set up next to a public bus stop used by high schoolers, and they start selling to kids to support their own habits, and kids start dropping dead from bad fentanyl trips. So…how do those clinics for underserved populations really help in that case?
- davidw 3y ago
  Dealing drugs is still illegal here in Oregon.
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    It doesn’t matter. If you can’t go after buyers, you have almost no leverage to go after dealers either. Those high school students are going to start dying in increasing numbers.
    - BobaFloutist 3y ago
      Wait are you saying that the problem is that you can't throw the high schoolers in prison?

by mike_d 3y ago

at_a_remove 3y ago

Yeah. The gateway drug here is chronic and intractable pain. I am reminded of Blade Runner: "You were made as well as we could make you." "But not to last." After a kid or two, you've done what evolution has selected for, and if walloping amounts of suffering and disability appear after that, well, there's always the next batch. Nobody wants to look too hard at that. People's squeamishness about genetic engineering has always had a whiff of the ignorable about it. It's pretty fun to pat yourself on the back about avoiding "eugenics" when you're healthy and young. I suppose we could go the animal husbandry approach and just license reproductive age, pushing it steadily up and creating an artificial evolutionary pressure to keep people healthy at greater and greater ages.

seanmcdirmid 3y ago

It isn’t that simple though. Say you have an encampment set up next to a public bus stop used by high schoolers, and they start selling to kids to support their own habits, and kids start dropping dead from bad fentanyl trips. So…how do those clinics for underserved populations really help in that case?

davidw 3y ago
Dealing drugs is still illegal here in Oregon.
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  It doesn’t matter. If you can’t go after buyers, you have almost no leverage to go after dealers either. Those high school students are going to start dying in increasing numbers.
  - BobaFloutist 3y ago
    Wait are you saying that the problem is that you can't throw the high schoolers in prison?