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Comment by pgnas | Hacker News Reader

HAHA! Doctors? they are the reason for the failure. Doctors were directly responsible for the overdose and death of my wife. The epidemic of drug abuse which starts by over the counter addiction is perpetuated by DOCTORS.

Citizens need to lead for calls of drug policy reform. We are the masters of our destiny, The problems surrounding drug abuse directly affect US, the people who live in our communities. Start going to your local city council meetings and take a stand, voice your opinion. This isnt going to be solved by Doctors! The majority of Doctors are direct beneficiaries to this abuse. I am not saying EVERY doctor is bad, I am saying that they are part of a business and drugs are a high margin product.

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My cousin nearly lost her home and everything she had due to an opioid painkiller addiction -- from drugs she was prescribed by a doctor after major surgery. This has become a silent epidemic, and a gigantic one, and it's ruining lives more and more every day.

My condolences on your loss. I wish there were an easy way to put an end to this horrific and needless suffering, but I fear things will only get worse before they get any better.

This is weird reasoning, you don't wake up one morning and are suddenly addicted to opioids, all involuntary and without your doing. Becoming so addicted to the drug of your choice that you can't quit is a process, and it requires a conspicuous absence of introspection, if not conscious choice.

I'm saying this because I have seen close relatives turn into alcoholics. The mental illness/disease angle doesn't do the addiction dynamics justice, and you know that when you have seen other relatives develop genuine mental illness. There's a difference between drinking too much for several evenings in a row without a real reason and not getting worried about it the following morning and losing touch with reality due to developing schizophrenia.

There are living conditions that make it understandable why someone would like to choose not to be sober but leaving personal responsibility out of the picture, saying it's the doctors fault or it's all in your genes, is infantilizing.

Jesus. What the hell was even the point of your comment?

If your cousin lost his home over an opioid addiction sustained over opioids prescribed after major surgery, where they are actually indicated the prescribing physician and the class of drugs are far down on the list of things to blame. At least in my world, they are.

There are psychological and social factors in addiction, and you can't just ignore these and solely hold physicians and pharmcos responsible for the opioid epidemic. The "addiction is a disease" model encourages this thinking - a drug addiction is acquired through contact with the abused drug and cured by detox, and it neglects to ask what factors predispose individuals to become victims of addiction. You can't forget that people live on Earth, which is a horrible place at times.

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