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Comment by DanBC | Hacker News Reader

Many of the opioid addicts in the US are people who got legal meds through irresponsible prescribing.

Legal opioids have caused massive addiction, and massive harm.

The drug war clearly isn't working, and all drugs should be legalised, but we need to recognise that legal drugs will cause harm.

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> that legal drugs will cause harm.

The GP specifically said to "tax them and spend the money on rehab and education", so I assume he did recognize this.

That approach doesn't seem to have worked so well for alcohol.

The tax revenue isn't spent on rehab though

Compared to what? During prohibition? I'd say things are much better now than then.

I'm not sure. From what I've read it worked quite well in Scandinavian countries. For example, Norway, while consuming approximately the same amount of alcohol (with a slight upwards tendency, but with spirits usage going down in favor of wine), has had 20 years of non-stop reduction of deaths related to alcohol usage from 1980-2001 (http://www.who.int/substance_abuse/publications/en/norway.pd...). That, to an outsider like me, suggests that they have something that works, although I don't know exactly what it is.

Agreed - I've seen friends prescribed opiates by doctors when clearly they were in need of mental support as well (therapy, life coaching, etc).

I'm not sure how to overcome the fact that most people do not want to admit they need help or are not able to recognize it.

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