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Drug use is a mental health issue. People take things that make them feel good when they don’t feel good. They’re just self medicating and we need to start trea

Drug use is a mental health issue. People take things that make them feel good when they don’t feel good. They’re just self medicating and we need to start treating it as a symptom of an underlying issue rather than the issue itself. Same with the obesity epidemic. It’s not the what, it’s the why.

spaceribs 3y ago
What if the underlying issue is capitalism itself though?
- golergka 3y ago
  You're right: if they didn't have food, they wouldn't be able to afford drugs either.
  - spaceribs 3y ago
    There is an extensive market around drug addiction, be it prisons, police budgets, drug companies, rehab clinics, and of course news media/politics. You didn't really answer the question and just jumped to your own conclusion.
- chaseha 3y ago
  So what alternative are you proposing? Socialist countries have addiction issues too...
  - spaceribs 3y ago
    When I think about the endgame of capitalism, I think about the kids in coalmines and the gilded age, the extractive and horrible conditions that allow for widespread unfulfilling company-store-owned worklife to flourish under the guise of progress. I'm not sure if there are any solid alternatives for this endgame actually, but we may already be in it, and pervasive addiction to me seem to go hand it hand with unhappiness.
- 0xDEAFBEAD 3y ago
  Perhaps the problem is lack of magic pixie dust. If we voted for leaders with the magic dust, everything would be solved. https://iea.org.uk/publications/socialism-the-failed-idea-that-never-dies/ https://iea.org.uk/publications/socialism-the-failed-idea-th...
  - somewhereoutth 3y ago
    You mean like in Europe? But seriously, though our GDP may be lagging behind the US, we do seem to be able to deal with homelessness and drug addiction somewhat better.
    - 0xDEAFBEAD 3y ago
      https://www.vox.com/2015/10/31/9650030/denmark-prime-minister-bernie-sanders https://www.vox.com/2015/10/31/9650030/denmark-prime-ministe... https://www.economist.com/briefing/2019/11/28/in-sweden-billionaires-are-surprisingly-popular https://www.economist.com/briefing/2019/11/28/in-sweden-bill... I'm always happy to learn from countries which have succeeded at something, but insofar as Europe has succeeded at things, it hasn't been a simple matter of "end capitalism". The devil is in the details. Also remember that Europe freerides on the US a great deal. They get bargain prices on drugs+health innovations discovered by US companies, and have an amazing defensive arrangement in NATO that comes at low cost for them and the US hardly benefits from.
      - somewhereoutth 3y ago
        During the cold war it was realized that unless the broad mass of people in Europe were reasonably happy / well off, they would turn to communism as it was right next door. The US had no such compelling imperative, so capitalism was allowed a freer rein. Drugs+innovations are largely funded by the public sector (see a previous discussion on HN I can't find right now), but in Europe we don't have a predatory healthcare industry. As for NATO, that was formed to stop the entirety of the Eurasian landmass falling under Soviet control. It is hard to imagine an isolated US fairing too well in that kind of world.
- at_a_remove 3y ago
  I would probably ask myself if substance abuse existed in communist countries, socialist countries, and so on. If it did, I might not be too eager to point the blame at capitalism.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- analognoise 3y ago
  In the Soviet Union, it was illegal not to work. They would have killed (not a high bar for them given their body count, so excuse the colloquialism) to have a camera watching every worker. Now we have Amazon drivers and packers with cameras in their face every day, working themselves so hard that they have to piss into bottles - every motion, breath, and second tracked - and people are convinced this is freedom, that our system is freedom. What a joke.
briffle 3y ago
Oregon shut down most of their mental health facilities in the 80's and early 90's. We literally have a federal judge letting charged criminals out free, becuase they have sat in jail for sometimes months before even being evaluated by the state hospital to see if they are competent/capable of defending themselves. They literally have 2 state hospitals for the entire state, and one of them is only 1/3 capacity, but they can't seem to staff it, and the other is well over 100% capactity, and forced to release people because of inhumane overcrowding. (and way understaffed, since it turns out people don't like to be beaten up by patients, with no help, protection, or training, for what is essentially entry level pay)
akira2501 3y ago
Yet.. there are people who take things to make them feel good when they already feel good. Further.. the idea that someone is going to improve their situation in any other than the most short sighted terms by "self medicating" with something like Methamphetamine or Heroin is completely ridiculous. I am absolutely not comfortable standing by to see how that story plays out, I know exactly how it plays out, and it's completely inhumane to pretend that you don't either.
- BobaFloutist 3y ago
  The term "self medicating" doesn't imply that it works, just that they're trying to address an underlying issue that isn't being sufficiently addressed by anything else. It's closer in concept to "coping mechanism" than it is to "prescribed medication".
  - lostdog 3y ago
    Considering how poorly the prescribed medication works, maybe it's just not that big of a difference.
- John23832 3y ago
  Not all recreational drug users are addicts.
njharman 3y ago
Drug *abuse* is maybe a mental health issue. I'm sure I'm not alone in using drugs (alcohol, caffeine, pot) for many reasons other than to "make them feel good when they don't feel good". Which along with equating use with abuse is such a shallow, narrow minded and ignorant view of drugs.
TrackerFF 3y ago
Well, you have psychological and physiological addiction. Normal "happy" people get addicted all the time - we've seen that with prescription drugs. That's almost purely a physiological addiction. But of course, those two are not mutually exclusive - you can have both forms of addiction, and they do often merge into one with many types of drugs. Even if you beat extremely physiologically addictive drugs, you can lust for the effects many years / decades later, because of how good they made you feel. And as you become addicted, usually at the expensive of everything else in your life, depression will set in - which just amplifies the need to escape. The big problem with homelessness, and those types of drug users, is that a solid chunk of them have underlying mental illnesses - which may have lead to the drug use (self medication), or came out after drug use. These are the type of patients that simply can't function on their own. If you give them a free apartment, they're not able to live there. I don't think radical decriminalization is the root problem - but rather the utter lack of (mental) healthcare.

spaceribs 3y ago

What if the underlying issue is capitalism itself though?

golergka 3y ago
You're right: if they didn't have food, they wouldn't be able to afford drugs either.
- spaceribs 3y ago
  There is an extensive market around drug addiction, be it prisons, police budgets, drug companies, rehab clinics, and of course news media/politics. You didn't really answer the question and just jumped to your own conclusion.
chaseha 3y ago
So what alternative are you proposing? Socialist countries have addiction issues too...
- spaceribs 3y ago
  When I think about the endgame of capitalism, I think about the kids in coalmines and the gilded age, the extractive and horrible conditions that allow for widespread unfulfilling company-store-owned worklife to flourish under the guise of progress. I'm not sure if there are any solid alternatives for this endgame actually, but we may already be in it, and pervasive addiction to me seem to go hand it hand with unhappiness.
0xDEAFBEAD 3y ago
Perhaps the problem is lack of magic pixie dust. If we voted for leaders with the magic dust, everything would be solved. https://iea.org.uk/publications/socialism-the-failed-idea-that-never-dies/ https://iea.org.uk/publications/socialism-the-failed-idea-th...
- somewhereoutth 3y ago
  You mean like in Europe? But seriously, though our GDP may be lagging behind the US, we do seem to be able to deal with homelessness and drug addiction somewhat better.
  - 0xDEAFBEAD 3y ago
    https://www.vox.com/2015/10/31/9650030/denmark-prime-minister-bernie-sanders https://www.vox.com/2015/10/31/9650030/denmark-prime-ministe... https://www.economist.com/briefing/2019/11/28/in-sweden-billionaires-are-surprisingly-popular https://www.economist.com/briefing/2019/11/28/in-sweden-bill... I'm always happy to learn from countries which have succeeded at something, but insofar as Europe has succeeded at things, it hasn't been a simple matter of "end capitalism". The devil is in the details. Also remember that Europe freerides on the US a great deal. They get bargain prices on drugs+health innovations discovered by US companies, and have an amazing defensive arrangement in NATO that comes at low cost for them and the US hardly benefits from.
    - somewhereoutth 3y ago
      During the cold war it was realized that unless the broad mass of people in Europe were reasonably happy / well off, they would turn to communism as it was right next door. The US had no such compelling imperative, so capitalism was allowed a freer rein. Drugs+innovations are largely funded by the public sector (see a previous discussion on HN I can't find right now), but in Europe we don't have a predatory healthcare industry. As for NATO, that was formed to stop the entirety of the Eurasian landmass falling under Soviet control. It is hard to imagine an isolated US fairing too well in that kind of world.
at_a_remove 3y ago
I would probably ask myself if substance abuse existed in communist countries, socialist countries, and so on. If it did, I might not be too eager to point the blame at capitalism.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
analognoise 3y ago
In the Soviet Union, it was illegal not to work. They would have killed (not a high bar for them given their body count, so excuse the colloquialism) to have a camera watching every worker. Now we have Amazon drivers and packers with cameras in their face every day, working themselves so hard that they have to piss into bottles - every motion, breath, and second tracked - and people are convinced this is freedom, that our system is freedom. What a joke.

briffle 3y ago

Oregon shut down most of their mental health facilities in the 80's and early 90's. We literally have a federal judge letting charged criminals out free, becuase they have sat in jail for sometimes months before even being evaluated by the state hospital to see if they are competent/capable of defending themselves. They literally have 2 state hospitals for the entire state, and one of them is only 1/3 capacity, but they can't seem to staff it, and the other is well over 100% capactity, and forced to release people because of inhumane overcrowding. (and way understaffed, since it turns out people don't like to be beaten up by patients, with no help, protection, or training, for what is essentially entry level pay)

akira2501 3y ago

Yet.. there are people who take things to make them feel good when they already feel good. Further.. the idea that someone is going to improve their situation in any other than the most short sighted terms by "self medicating" with something like Methamphetamine or Heroin is completely ridiculous. I am absolutely not comfortable standing by to see how that story plays out, I know exactly how it plays out, and it's completely inhumane to pretend that you don't either.

BobaFloutist 3y ago
The term "self medicating" doesn't imply that it works, just that they're trying to address an underlying issue that isn't being sufficiently addressed by anything else. It's closer in concept to "coping mechanism" than it is to "prescribed medication".
- lostdog 3y ago
  Considering how poorly the prescribed medication works, maybe it's just not that big of a difference.
John23832 3y ago
Not all recreational drug users are addicts.

njharman 3y ago

Drug *abuse* is maybe a mental health issue. I'm sure I'm not alone in using drugs (alcohol, caffeine, pot) for many reasons other than to "make them feel good when they don't feel good". Which along with equating use with abuse is such a shallow, narrow minded and ignorant view of drugs.

TrackerFF 3y ago

Well, you have psychological and physiological addiction. Normal "happy" people get addicted all the time - we've seen that with prescription drugs. That's almost purely a physiological addiction. But of course, those two are not mutually exclusive - you can have both forms of addiction, and they do often merge into one with many types of drugs. Even if you beat extremely physiologically addictive drugs, you can lust for the effects many years / decades later, because of how good they made you feel. And as you become addicted, usually at the expensive of everything else in your life, depression will set in - which just amplifies the need to escape. The big problem with homelessness, and those types of drug users, is that a solid chunk of them have underlying mental illnesses - which may have lead to the drug use (self medication), or came out after drug use. These are the type of patients that simply can't function on their own. If you give them a free apartment, they're not able to live there. I don't think radical decriminalization is the root problem - but rather the utter lack of (mental) healthcare.