4 ms·

> The article seems to blame the drug, and the delivery service, and the people selling it. But many of the people in the bottom 20% income bracket in the US ar

by wdewind 12y ago

> The article seems to blame the drug, and the delivery service, and the people selling it. But many of the people in the bottom 20% income bracket in the US are sick, isolated, have no access to health care... From the article: > "the victims — mostly white, well-off and often young" > "A result has been a rising sea level of prescription painkillers that continues today, of opioids such as Percocet, Vicodin and OxyContin. Sales of these drugs quadrupled between 1999 and 2010. Addiction followed. And this has given new life to heroin, which had been declining in popularity since the early 1980s." I think your point is valid but not relevant to the article. It's not claiming the things you said. Also Rat Park is highly controversial and has failed to be reproduced and, obviously, is a rat study, so I wouldn't really rely on it as a robust narrative for what's going on with drug addiction in humans.

wanderingstan 12y ago
I didn't realize that Rat Park was controversial. Can you point me to some scholarly articles or discussions around it, or the latest addiction research? The wiki page indicates that there was some success in replicating the results. Searching the web is impossible, as it's mostly hype popsci articles in th vein of "you didn't know this about addiction!"
- facetube 12y ago
  There are almost certainly some issues with the Rat Park experiment, but even exercise alone has been shown to reduce binding availability at the mu opioid receptor in humans, probably as a result of beta-endorphin being released: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18296435 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18296435. It wouldn't be a huge leap to hypothesize that this could decrease exogenous opioid consumption. Interestingly enough, there's also a genetic mutation that's at least loosely associated with alcoholism, a possible increased response to naturally-produced beta-endorphin, and a need for more opioids to achieve equivalent pain relief: http://www.pnas.org/content/95/16/9608.full.pdf http://www.pnas.org/content/95/16/9608.full.pdf http://www.snpedia.com/index.php/Rs1799971 http://www.snpedia.com/index.php/Rs1799971
facetube 12y ago
Point taken with respect to to the original article, but it's definitely not just a well-off white people problem. Here's a different view from Crawford County, Ohio: "Nestled between major urban hubs, Columbus and Toledo, Crawford County, with 47,000 residents, a median household income of $32,000, and a broken-down industrial base, is a sitting duck. As jobs and hope have left town, stress has mounted dramatically. “There’s never a day that we don’t see patients for depression,” says Crawford County physician and coroner Dr. Mike Johnson." http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/a-high-for-less-easier-access/ http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/a-high-for-less-eas...

by wdewind 12y ago

wanderingstan 12y ago

I didn't realize that Rat Park was controversial. Can you point me to some scholarly articles or discussions around it, or the latest addiction research? The wiki page indicates that there was some success in replicating the results. Searching the web is impossible, as it's mostly hype popsci articles in th vein of "you didn't know this about addiction!"

facetube 12y ago
There are almost certainly some issues with the Rat Park experiment, but even exercise alone has been shown to reduce binding availability at the mu opioid receptor in humans, probably as a result of beta-endorphin being released: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18296435 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18296435. It wouldn't be a huge leap to hypothesize that this could decrease exogenous opioid consumption. Interestingly enough, there's also a genetic mutation that's at least loosely associated with alcoholism, a possible increased response to naturally-produced beta-endorphin, and a need for more opioids to achieve equivalent pain relief: http://www.pnas.org/content/95/16/9608.full.pdf http://www.pnas.org/content/95/16/9608.full.pdf http://www.snpedia.com/index.php/Rs1799971 http://www.snpedia.com/index.php/Rs1799971

facetube 12y ago

Point taken with respect to to the original article, but it's definitely not just a well-off white people problem. Here's a different view from Crawford County, Ohio: "Nestled between major urban hubs, Columbus and Toledo, Crawford County, with 47,000 residents, a median household income of $32,000, and a broken-down industrial base, is a sitting duck. As jobs and hope have left town, stress has mounted dramatically. “There’s never a day that we don’t see patients for depression,” says Crawford County physician and coroner Dr. Mike Johnson." http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/a-high-for-less-easier-access/ http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/a-high-for-less-eas...