Just make high quality opioids easy to get already. It should be as common as beer. The present system is deranged.
Opioids are incredibly addictive. At one point something like 25% of the male population of China 'regularly consumed' opium, i.e. they were addicted to it, and China has always been a country with at least a certain sense of order.
Opium is also special, even among other dangerous drugs. It takes over your brain's reward system and makes things you previously regarded as pleasurable as uninteresting compared to opium. It permanently destroys people.
Making it common as beer is a terrible idea. Rather I think it's likely that the opium sellers and everyone associated with the distribution and marketing of opioids need to be dealt with quite brutally.
Don't think of things like carfentanil as a drugs. Think of them as chemical weapons.
Given the choice between antidepressants and opioids, I'll take opioids.
Let's take the moral failure out of it. Imagine if Tylenol was random dosages that ranged from fake to a dosage that would induce total liver failure. That would be absurd.
Any entity participating in an endeavour which as part of its activities distributes, markets or which through propaganda or political action defends the use of opioids must be destroyed, because opioids are a chemical weapon.
They aren't 'illegal drugs'. They're a means to destroy somebody, and that is all they are.
What I know about the opioid class of drugs is that tolerance builds so the dosages commonly increase, too much stops the heart, and trying to stop causes violent withdrawal.
To me, opioids sound far more dangerous, enough to get its very own disorder.
At the risk of pedantry, opioids don't work directly on heart function.
Too much opioids in the system cause respiratory depression. That can go on to become respiratory arrest, which can then cause cardiac arrest.
Same end result, but the point is, opioid overdose is primarily a respiratory concern. In my county some EMS do not even carry Narcan (which is a debate in itself) but are directed to focus on positive pressure ventilation and transport to ER or, if carried, to gently titrate Narcan such that the person becomes gradually more alert at the ER and may be more open to addiction help, rather than the "heroic dose" that you get with IN (intra-nasal) Narcan.
Antidepressants increase suicide risks for some while decreasing for majority, saving large numbers.
More people in US die of overdose than suicide.
But just answer the question plainly. I really want to know.
You're advocating for Portugal's model, but note that it's subject to economics and politics (see https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/is-portugals-dru...), while the withdrawal symptoms are not.
I think a two-prong approach is necessary and I worry about the perverse incentive of healthcare specialists or medication experts wanting to maintain a pool of addicts long-term.
I had an informal debate with a former roommate--and to help him along the above was the one counterargument I thought of and I still don't have a good solution. Opiods are in a class of their own.
Because I've never seen stats to back that up, other than that illegal synthetic opioids are the leading cause of OD.
Those aren't necessarily the same thing, and I would like to know more about the actual reason behind OD's.
The number of overdose deaths are spiking, driven by fentanyl. That is 100% fact based.
Now you have to make a qualitative judgement: I think most ODs are accidental when this is studied. Did a whole shitload of drug users just become unusually suicidal? I would say it’s safer to assume “no” unless you see evidence to the contrary.
http://publichealth.lacounty.gov/sapc/MDU/SpecialReport/Fent...
Look at figure 2 here: https://nida.nih.gov/research-topics/trends-statistics/overd...
If you have good opioids in hand then there's no need to buy opioids of uncertain strength from dubious sources. Thus your dosage is more controllable.
If your supply is reliable then there is no seesaw of deprivation when you're out and overindulgence when you're flush.
For further data, apply the same logic that keeps people from oding on alchohol.
Th way I see it, alcohol issues wouldn't be reduced if you made it illegal and less people drank it, but now people are drinking unregulated moonshine that makes them blind or kills them because it contains methanol and isopropanol.
wtaf? this is literally what caused the current crisis in the first place