Hacker News Reader

Comment by brady8 | Hacker News Reader

I am a physician, and there has been a "state of emergency" declared in my province due to a fentanyl overdose "epidemic". Although I use this drug routinely, it is incredibly unsafe outside of a clinical setting. Unfortunately, these are not your stereotypical "bad" people that are dying from overdoses, but your average young people who just happen to experiment. It's utterly awful, and I feel for you. I hope this trend (if you can call it that) ends soon.

View on HN

'"Unfortunately, these are not your stereotypical "bad" people that are dying from overdoses..'

Sorry to nitpick but this is a fairly delicate subject. Does a typical 'bad' person for whom it would be totally ok to overdose exist?

What he probably means is that it's not (just) happening to people who are so badly addicted that an overdose is a likely conclusion in any case.

Addiction is a complicated problem and labeling the addict as 'bad' is an antipattern. Modern society should be able to approach everyone from a position of dignity and humanity - dehumanizations erodes both parties in an interaction. 'You deserve to die because of your past history' is a brutal, ethically untenable stance.

Then again, considering we have limited resources for dealing with this problem, pretending all users are the same when we damn well know they aren't is probably not the most efficient approach.

I wasn't claiming statistics or individual differences don't exist.

From the point of view of outcomes and efficiency it's better to approach people as individuals and not as statistics, or even worse, statistics with moral binning into good and bad. The logical argument is that humans are complex and it takes a lot of time to gather sufficient data to be correct.

I can dig out references if you like but medical facilities which focus more on individual-to-individal interactions rather than on factory like throughput work better.

Well sure you can cite evidence where treating people as individuals is beneficial and optimal, my dispute was that this is always the optimum approach.

I obviously agree.

Yes, groups that society consider to be trash or defective from the get go. Not "those people" who don't "deserve" such things to happen to them. The law enforcement response to opiods versus crack in the 80s shows us how society views these groups, and what the solution is (militarized police for one, "treatment" for another).

The people who are overdosing from the Fentynal problem are doing so mostly unknowingly. Dealers are "spiking" their heroin with it in an effort to boost sales as when someone OD's from taking heroin, the user community takes that as being a great batch of heroin and the OD being caused by someone who is not very tolerant to heroin. It's a sick and disgusting game that dealers are using. Again it's not the drug and generally not the users who are OD'ing that are bad, it's the sick twisted dealers out to make more dope money!

Can this be astroturfing? My finances mom died of an accidental Fentynal overdose this past year. It was legally prescribed to her.

I didn't read what GP wrote as those "bad" people deserve to die (nobody deserves to die IMHO but that is another subject) but that it is not the hardcore, everyday drug users who die but the average-kid-nextdoor who is experimenting.

>the average-kid-nextdoor who is experimenting.

experimenting with drugs which, even if they are what you think they are, can be fatal. Especially when mixed (as they often are) with alcohol and other narcotics.

There isn't some special shield around newbie drug users to protect them from consequence. I find the whole concept bizarre, they are well within their rights to experiment but then they own the consequences.

> but your average young people who just happen to experiment

That's exactly how "stereotypical bad" people start out. It's just that fentanyl kills them faster, while other drugs leave them time to self destroy until we no longer have any empathy.

Everyone starts out that way. Some stop, some turn into stereotypical bad people. It's a real shame when anyone at the first stage overdoses and dies. Still a shame for the latter group, but they have more culpability for their own death by continuing to do something they know could/will eventually kill them.

Do they really have culpability in the face of extreme addiction?

Did they get addicted by accident?

Nobody starts of planning to get addicted. And while they certainly should realize that's a risk I'm not sure it ever factors into anything. Much like harsh punishments don't actually deter crime.

Sometimes we take decisions without being fully aware of the consequences (or simple choosing to ignore the consequences), but this doesn't make us less responsible. Nobody drives intoxicated planning to have an accident, for example.

And of course punishments deter crime. Not the crime that happens, obviously, but the crime which is never committed. There would be more rape, theft and murder if there were no consequences at all.

I am 100% sure they all are started with «harmless» marijuana.

the same way all the high speed accidents happen to people that started driving at the «harmless» speed of 20km/h.

What I want to say is that demonizing marijuana can allow a bad comparison in the form "marijuana did nothing bad to me, all the thing they say about drugs are nonsense, so I can move to other drugs and be ok".

Truth is marijuana is harmless, compared to almost all the other drugs, including alcohol and tobacco.

> It's a real shame when anyone at the first stage overdoses and dies.

Yeah, it's bad for business. Good consumers must sink all their money and all money of their relatives to drug dealer, drug clinics, etc.

A surprisingly large chunk of the population has tried opioids, a relatively small percentage become the classic druggie. Much like alcohol is common, but only some people have major issues.

The difference is how long the average person can stay a casual user.

Fentanyl is amazingly potent. Similar to LSD. And the therapeutic index is very low.

Maybe you should rethink what a stereotypical "bad" person is.

It is hard to support my parent comment, but it is true: addicts are not good young girls/boys anymore. And if someone 'experiments' with hard drugs like cocaine or heroine, he/she is statistically-definitely addict with all consequences. One doesn't simply stop after first dose, that's why non-medical drug use is illegal.

I've taken many drugs just once...

Same in my case. I tried LSD, cocaine, MDMA and DXM, and each of these only once in my life. I saw no point in doing any of them again, and I had no problem whatsoever refraining myself from it.

>One doesn't simply stop after first dose

This is demonstrably false, in most cases.

> And if someone 'experiments' with hard drugs like cocaine or heroine, he/she is statistically-definitely addict with all consequences. One doesn't simply stop after first dose, that's why non-medical drug use is illegal.

This is definitively wrong. They do not meet the medical criteria for substance use or substance dependence. Nor is it statistically probable that a person eventually will, given that they have taken the drug at least once.

Please do not spread misinformation.

Can't downvote so responding instead: this is the kind of harmful misinformation that stigmatizes even responsible drug use and makes it less safe for all. Please educate yourself and reform your beliefs on the matter, and stop spreading it.

Also do you realize what you're saying to the author of the root comment? Shame on you.

Can you please provide a link to addicts-per-'those who used cocaine/heroine' ratio? I can't find exact numbers supporting common medical knowledge (e.g. 1/5 for cocaine).

Even though I'd also like to see such a link, I'd argue that because you're the one making a rather strong (purportedly factual) statement, it's up to you to provide evidence for it.

Don't get me wrong: I don't have a strong conviction on this matter. I really do want to see some evidence to inform my own point of view.

That said, the vast majority of my friends have used cocaine, as have I. Most of them multiple times. None of them have a problem with cocaine.

I'd never encourage someone to experiment with cocaine or heroin because it can be quite dangerous. But misinformation is potentially even more dangerous.

I've taken cocaine exactly one time in my life. That being said, I would never touch meth, heroin or crack even once.

People will do drugs, I accept that. I just want them to know the actual risks of what they are doing. I can't stop adults choosing to take drugs but maybe I can remind a few people to be a lot more careful and to be less trusting of their suppliers.

Only 30-something% of cocaine users is addicted

Reply on news.ycombinator.com