Hacker News Reader

Comment by scurvy | Hacker News Reader

I don't like Mr. Sessions, nor do I like asset forfeiture, but I'd like to know more about the efficacy of rehab before heading down that path. I asked for some stats about rehab in the recent opioid epidemic thread, but I didn't receive any. Even as everyone threw forward ideas about free state sponsored heroin and rehab programs.

I really would like to see some stats before forming an opinion on emotions alone. After all, it was emotions that landed us here.

Some people just don't want to rejoin society. Why choose life when you've got heroin? Pretty sure that rehab doesn't have a good success rate in those situations.

View on HN

If you are interested in statistics about the success of treatment programs you can google it and do the research. It's important to think about addiction as a disease and treat it as such. It spreads like a disease and it inflicts damage across society like a disease. It's killing 60,000 people a year.

I will say that I can see the damage here in the Detroit region from another untreated addiction epidemic, the crack crisis from the 80s. So much of the regions ills come from treating it as a criminal justice problem instead of a health crisis. A generation was lost to either the drugs themselves or the war on drugs.

I've tried to Google it and do the research, but I mostly find rhetoric or self serving studies (or good ones behind medical association walls). That's why I posted and asked for links. I'm not against rehab, I just haven't seen anything saying that it works on a large scale (except enriching treatment corporations).

I'm not saying incarceration is the answer. I'm trying to do research to see what might be better.

Everyone downvoting, thanks for the negative feedback on someone trying to form a fact based stance on a touchy subject and asking questions.

>Some people just don't want to rejoin society. Why choose life when you've got heroin?

I dont have the stats you are looking for, but even if it is ineffective and some people do not want to rejoin society, how is locking in them in a cage an ethical response to that?

There's no tidy table, but "75% drop" sounds promising.

http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2017/04/18/524380027/i...

Especially when coupled with "cheaper".

Yeah, I'm really looking for a good study that isn't behind a medical pay wall or requires professional creds to read.

The 95% drop in HIV is a great side stat, but really looking more on stats for rehab programs.

They instituted mandatory treatment for people found with personal use amounts of drugs and then but it's actually a 75 percent drop from the 1990s.

I suppose what I am suggesting is that this is sufficient evidence for you to stop casting doubt and go find evidence for it if you want to continue questioning treatment.

Otherwise you get to argue by shouting at the monkeys to dance as you demand ever higher quality proof that you are wrong.

TYPE_FASTER posted something along the lines of what I was looking for. I was looking for something more substantial than a one liner in a NPR article. That's exactly the stuff I was trying to avoid.

I'll stop shouting at the monkeys now.

http://www.justicepolicy.org/uploads/justicepolicy/documents...

https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/principles-drug-abuse...

Nice! This is what I was looking for. Thanks!

>Why choose life when you've got heroin?

Heroin abuse is in the extreme minority when it comes to opioid abuse. You need to get rid of the image in your head of the strung-out heroin addict lazing about in a grubby drug den. A majority of the opioid epidemic these days is actually from prescription opioids like Oxycontin , Vicodin, and similar drugs. So there's plenty of high functioning blue and white collar opioid addicts out there with plenty to lose.

The only difference between heroin and oxycontin is oxycontin is more expensive. The effect is identical. Most opiate addicts that can get heroin do it because it's a fraction of the cost.

I live in San Francisco and the majority of street junkies here are on heroin. The junkies here are strung out on the sidewalk and my doorway, not in a grubby drug den. Maybe that's what I'm faced with so that's what I care about? Sure there's so term for that.

Treating those addicted to heroin as criminals is far less likely to help them or society, and is probably just as expensive if not moreso. What exactly do you propose doing instead?

Not sure, that's why I'm asking. Rehab? Government provided drugs? Safe places for taking drugs that also provide the drugs?

If there's someone on drugs that wants to be on drugs, I think a real possibility is that we keep giving them drugs until they want to change. Remove the criminal element and possibility of disease and adultered drugs be having the government provide the drugs. Then give them help once someone is ready for help.

Just spit balling here. Maybe I'm wrong and forced rehab has better efficacy rates.

> I don't like Mr. Sessions, nor do I like asset forfeiture, but I'd like to know more about the efficacy of rehab before heading down that path.

It's a lot more effective (and just) than locking people up.

Links plz... not asking for proof, asking for studies I can point to in my own arguments.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com