Misditribution (illegal distribution) of controlled dugs (not over the counter) should be punishable --whether they be doctors who knowingly over prescribe or black market sellers (drug dealers).
"Help the addict but punish the dealer" feels good to say but the world just isn't that simple.
So you say, well in that case someone will make them dirty and available for a price. Punish the illegal seller and prosecute all suppliers who knowingly sold to someone not registered. Prosecute any and all corruption related to making and distributing the product illegally.
Do people get their coke from Coca-cola imported leaves? No. They know the consequences and take appropriate precautions to ensure they are not subverted by greedy employees.
You just can't get around the evidence that making drugs illegal doesn't make them unavailable and doesn't reduce the number of people who use them. It just makes it more dangerous to the addicts and funds cartels and gangs.
> So you say, well in that case someone will make them dirty and available for a price. Punish the illegal seller and prosecute all suppliers who knowingly sold to someone not registered. Prosecute any and all corruption related to making and distributing the product illegally.
Which is exactly what we know from experience has never worked. Why do you think you could make it work?
The outcome is to drive up prices until it becomes sufficiently profitable for sufficiently brutal syndicates to take on production and distribution.
How do you think we ended up with the amount of death and misery the drugs trade causes in the first place?
So, in other words, keep failing in exactly the same way as we're failing right now?
That's not a realistic scenario though.
2. A very small percentage of Doctors set up shop to hook their patients.
3. I just can't put all the blame on doctors.
4. People are miserable across this county. A lot of you are insulated from the misery, but it's there. The anti-drpepressant effects of opioids should not be hidden. They make you feel good.
Plus--I don't think it's a coincidence that heterocyclic/tricyclic anti-depressants have come under extreme scrutiny. Basically--do they even work. Oh yea, that double blind study, in India, proved they work 62% over a huge Placebo response? Meaning 6 patients answered three positive questing, more that the control group, on that poorly worded psychological test.
5. Now the problem is the patient starts to develop a tolerance. The foolish run to the street, and buy bags of whatever. The responsible patient stays on the same dosage. (There are studies, done in nursing homes, that state that patients on opioids can stay on tge same dose of opioids for years, and don't feel the need go up their dose.)
6. O.K. we are blaming the doctors for the opioids crisis. They don't want to get sued, or have the FDA knocking on their door; so they cut off the patient.
7. Now, if the patient can't kick the stuff by themselves, they are labeled addicts. They go on bupenorpine, or methadone. They have to jump through hoops just to get that medication. Many, if in the right areas, just go to the street. I can see why they do. I don't understand anyone who just sticks a needle in their arm, and hopes for the best.
8. We are now stuck with a terrible system, and people in agony. Way to go America!
(Excuse my attitude. My doctor got cold feet prescribing me bupenorpine, after a decade of taking it. It's not been easy getting off of. I am not happy with the system is the slightest. I don't blame the doctors though. Many of them know their patients do just fine on a on most controlled substances. Now--the doctors who are dragging in their patients for unnecessary office visits; those bastards should be exposed, and dealt with. The ethical doctors should be left alone to treat their patients, without any oversight. Yea--try finding a ethics, doctor. I do know they exist.)
The opioid crisis is far worse in the US than in any other country.
> I don't think it's a coincidence that heterocyclic/tricyclic anti-depressants have come under extreme scrutiny. Basically--do they even work. Oh yea, that double blind study, in India, proved they work 62% over a huge Placebo response? Meaning 6 patients answered three positive questing, more that the control group, on that poorly worded psychological test.
SSRIs are good at treating depression if you actually have depression. (something like 60% efficacy) If you don't have depression they don't work at all. The lack of efficacy of SSRIs is just US doctors again overdiagnosing and overtreating.
The theme is US healthcare is not very good for very many people..
> There are studies, done in nursing homes, that state that patients on opioids can stay on tge same dose of opioids for years, and don't feel the need go up their dose.)
Do you have a source? Because all the studies I've seen show that long term use of opioids causes tolerance, and doesn't work to treat pain.
This all just reinforces your larger point that US healthcare is not very good for very many people. It's great if you have the money (or insurance) to see whoever you need to, but not so good if you don't.
That's a very misleading statistic. It's because most everywhere else in the world doesn't prescribe it... they typically give smaller doses of _stronger_ opioids.
As far as I'm aware, junkies still need money to eat/sleep/drink and very few have a reliable source of income. All gun battles aren't over drugs, and would still occur. And not all overdoses are caused by tainted drugs.
No profit to fight over
>> car break ins
No need to find hundreds of dollars a day to support the habit
>> or OD'ing?
Known quantities of known substances can help people avoid OD from either the wrong thing (fentanyl lately) or unexpected purity.
>> As far as I'm aware, junkies still need money to eat/sleep/drink and very few have a reliable source of income.
You only need a few bucks a day to eat/sleep/drink, you need potentially hundreds for your habit at present. Given an easy, cheap supply many will be able to hold down a regular job.
>> All gun battles aren't over drugs, and would still occur.
But the ones over drug money would stop, drugs are a major source of gang funding.
>> And not all overdoses are caused by tainted drugs.
No, but a hell of a lot are.
You still see plenty alcoholists unable to keep a job, stealing things, fighting and even dying from their habit. It's almost as if easily accessible drugs doesn't fix the underlying problem here.
Sure: being drunk in various contexts may be, and can be a serious crime (drink driving, certain commercial operators expecially). But being in possession of alcohol, drinking it in your home, sharing it with friends (provided above legal age and not driving): not a crime.
You've got the fundamental problem of addiction, for those who are addicted (many are, many are not). But you aren't layering on the additional crime of criminalisation.
It's not really a very strange argument, particularly when it comes to opiates - it's a pretty well evidenced argument. Those with access to cheap or free maintenance doses have a better recovery rate, and a better rate of being able to re-enter prodictive society.
I also have a bit of a hard time imagining that someone having even easier access to, say, meth will thus be able to hold onto a job more easily. Personally I can't show up drunk to work.
Though I agree with things like gang violence, I do worry about the effects on public health. Cigarettes and alcohol mess up society a lot already
>> I also have a bit of a hard time imagining that someone having even easier access to, say, meth will thus be able to hold onto a job more easily. Personally I can't show up drunk to work
Me neither. And I honestly don't know how this stuff might apply to a substance like meth.
I know that studies tend to show that when opiate addicts are given easy and cheap/free access to maintenance doses and counselling, they have a much easier time returning to something like a normal life, and many can hold down jobs while either continuing the maintenance indefinitely or slowly tapering. The constant search for money and the insecurity about the next dose both make the effects of the addiction on their lives much, much worse. And it's not like heroin is all that expensive to make.
This isn't, as I said above, necessarily an argument for a totally free market in heroin, but it is to show that a different approach may reduce the harm to the individual and reduce the harm done to society by both those individuals and the black market profit-making organisation above them. Not to mention the hell that gets rained on producer-countries.
>> Cigarettes and alcohol mess up society a lot already
Objectively, scientifically, these are two of the worst and most harmful drugs we know of.
How often do you hear about gun battles over alcohol?
It's overall cheaper. It's safer for him and you. Reduces crime, which saves money on police.
And if drugs are cheap to most, and free to some, there's no huge profit to be made by illegally selling them. Thus, no gun fights over distribution spots on the streets.
The problem is the people with free drugs selling them to people that cannot obtain them free.