Nationwide Arrests for Opioid Fraud & Prescription Abuse

[SuburbanFarmer]

You're also an adult. Teenagers do not possess that level of self control, or awareness.

This is a pretty common topic here in OH - at the heart of the heroin epidemic. It starts almost universally with a legit prescription, then progresses to pill dependency, and a transition to the needle. It's happened to people I know, and it's happening across the country. This is not in question, moral judgements, notwithstanding.

Just on anecdotal experience, I don't agree with you either. I had surgeries and injuries when I was a teen and got a lot of pain pills, and I loved taking them, but when they ran out I didn't have any issues.

But for argument, I'll wait until you present evidence that most addicts start as legitimate users rather than recreational users who do it too long.

GrumpyCatFace:

Didn't you say in an earlier thread that you didn't want the government spying on everyone to stop pedos and terrorists in the name of the children? You said something like (I'm paraphrasing), "I can protect my own children, and there is always a risk in society. The cost in civil liberties is too high." That is a perfectly reasonable point. Now its like you are saying: "I want the government to militantly go after this dangerous thing and violate all sorts of civil liberties because think about those poor children who will get addicted."
I don't get this.

Does it need to be a 'militant government action' to reduce over prescription of pain meds? I don't like the idea of the government arresting doctors without a high bar of evidence.

That said, the change needs to happen somehow, and since we will never dare to threaten the mighty drug makers, that leaves very few options.

[clubgop]

"Muh back still hurts"
"Ok, here ya go"

Legitimate doctors have no way of measuring pain, so they will keep a script going for life.

Outside of shady doctor pain pill distributors, most doctors are aware of the addiction potential and will not keep give an opioid script for life cus "muh back hurts".

I don't believe you'll find 1 in 100 doctors that would cut a patient off, complaining of chronic pain. They would probably be liable to a lawsuit of some kind, if they did.

Hmm mmm, sure. How does it feel to watch the model for your gun control schemes collapse all around you?

[clubgop]

That said, the change needs to happen somehow, and since we will never dare to threaten the mighty drug makers, that leaves very few options.

Yes let's expand the war on drugs that's the ticket.

[SuburbanFarmer]

That's not really true.

It is true that people can start with a prescription for real pain, but they have that addictive personality and it takes over.

I took narcotics as prescribed for over ten years. When they stopped working, I tapered off. I had physical dependency, but not an addiction. A lot of people don't seem to understand the difference. Physical withdrawal sucks balls, but it's not going to make you run out and rob people for drugs. It just makes you more focused on getting through the process. It's when people have that psychological addiction that shit goes wrong fast.

Also, when you are in pain, and you take the drug as advertised, that feeling of euphoria goes away after a few weeks. It's not really a factor in anything unless you chase by taking more and more pills that you are not supposed to take.

You're also an adult. Teenagers do not possess that level of self control, or awareness.

This is a pretty common topic here in OH - at the heart of the heroin epidemic. It starts almost universally with a legit prescription, then progresses to pill dependency, and a transition to the needle. It's happened to people I know, and it's happening across the country. This is not in question, moral judgements, notwithstanding.

Just on anecdotal experience, I don't agree with you either. I had surgeries and injuries when I was a teen and got a lot of pain pills, and I loved taking them, but when they ran out I didn't have any issues.

But for argument, I'll wait until you present evidence that most addicts start as legitimate users rather than recreational users who do it too long.

There are many studies on this, but I have no intention of finding them on my phone. I'll get back to you.

[SuburbanFarmer]

That said, the change needs to happen somehow, and since we will never dare to threaten the mighty drug makers, that leaves very few options.

Yes let's expand the war on drugs that's the ticket.

I don't want the government going after the users. I want the cartels stopped, or the middlemen pressured into stopping the behavior. What would you suggest?

[heydaralon]

Those kids don't "choose" to get hooked on pills. They're usually prescribed them after some sort of injury, then get addicted. They aren't degenerates.

I never said they were. I'm just tired of this lazy journalism/puritanical hysteria about pain pills. From a harm reduction standpoint, this is literally the best thing possible. Medicinal quality drugs that you know down to the last miligram. Oxy has less hepatoxicity than alcohol. People abuse them, but I could not care less about that. People are going to use drugs. Some people will die. That is life. What I'm not fine with is the government acting like this is the end of the world, and ruthlessly imprisoning people for using chemicals that society doesn't approve of. This is like buckets in a well. They closed a bunch of pill mills in Florida, and the heroin deaths skyrocketed. Everyone acted shocked. This always happens. In Vietnam, the government cracked down on marijuana. The soldiers started using heroin. When the government cracked down on heroin, the price went up, so instead of snorting and smoking they injected it. Amphetamines used to cost pennies in midwest pharmacies. The government outlawed buying it without a scrip. Now there is a meth epidemic, with questionable chemicals and shady people selling it. Are you noticing a pattern?

I do, and I'm well aware of it. However, this is temporary fallout from the change. If we stop over prescribing in the first place (exactly as we did with antibiotics), then the problem won't be there in the first place.

I'm just not losing too much sleep over people engaging in high risk behaviors being more prone to dying. Its fucked up, but we have this weird double standard for drugs that we don't hold for a bunch of other dangerous shit. Drug addicts are going to die, the same way every year a bunch of high schoolers die behind the wheel of a car, or a bunch of smokers get cancer. And as usual the government cure is worse than the disease. It is horrible to think about what would happen if someone in your family got addicted. But what then? What if they closed down every pill mill in the country and your relative still wanted to get high? Should they get locked up for years? The ugly truth is, this is a permanent problem. That's why I don't understand why people are losing their shit over these doctors and companies. They didn't start the addiction epidemic, and this is way better than heroin and the public health nightmare of unknown quality and the diseases that come from intravenous drug use. Its still bad, but it will always be bad. These journalism crusades remind me of temperance journalists who wrote about all the horrors of alcohol leading to Prohibition. They weren't wrong, but they did not understand what they were up against, or the horrors associated with stopping it. We put up with alcohol, and it kills so many people, yet society still functions and the world doesn't end. A society full of alcohol is not ideal, but it is realistic. A society full of pain pills is the same.

[heydaralon]

Just on anecdotal experience, I don't agree with you either. I had surgeries and injuries when I was a teen and got a lot of pain pills, and I loved taking them, but when they ran out I didn't have any issues.

But for argument, I'll wait until you present evidence that most addicts start as legitimate users rather than recreational users who do it too long.

GrumpyCatFace:

Didn't you say in an earlier thread that you didn't want the government spying on everyone to stop pedos and terrorists in the name of the children? You said something like (I'm paraphrasing), "I can protect my own children, and there is always a risk in society. The cost in civil liberties is too high." That is a perfectly reasonable point. Now its like you are saying: "I want the government to militantly go after this dangerous thing and violate all sorts of civil liberties because think about those poor children who will get addicted."
I don't get this.

Does it need to be a 'militant government action' to reduce over prescription of pain meds? I don't like the idea of the government arresting doctors without a high bar of evidence.

That said, the change needs to happen somehow, and since we will never dare to threaten the mighty drug makers, that leaves very few options.

You keep trying to differentiate between the evil corporations, and the innocent addicts. The demand from the addicts fuels the corporations, and this is literally the most innocuous way to fill this market role without people cutting each other's heads off on video. Please tell me a way to get people to stop wanting to use drugs. Barring that, its either Pfizer or Sinaloa Cartel.

[SuburbanFarmer]

You're also an adult. Teenagers do not possess that level of self control, or awareness.

This is a pretty common topic here in OH - at the heart of the heroin epidemic. It starts almost universally with a legit prescription, then progresses to pill dependency, and a transition to the needle. It's happened to people I know, and it's happening across the country. This is not in question, moral judgements, notwithstanding.

Just on anecdotal experience, I don't agree with you either. I had surgeries and injuries when I was a teen and got a lot of pain pills, and I loved taking them, but when they ran out I didn't have any issues.

But for argument, I'll wait until you present evidence that most addicts start as legitimate users rather than recreational users who do it too long.

There are many studies on this, but I have no intention of finding them on my phone. I'll get back to you.

Here ya go:

https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/ ... heroin-use

Of people entering treatment for heroin addiction who began abusing opioids in the 1960s, more than 80 percent started with heroin. Of those who began abusing opioids in the 2000s, 75 percent reported that their first opioid was a prescription drug. Examining national-level general population heroin data (including those in and not in treatment), nearly 80 percent of heroin users reported using prescription opioids prior to heroin (Jones, 2013; Muhuri et al., 2013).

http://archive.samhsa.gov/data/2k13/Dat ... e-2013.pdf

Recent increases in the annual number of persons in the
United States who used heroin for the first time have
raised concerns that prior nonmedical use of prescription
pain relievers may have led to heroin use in many people.
This study examines the recent trends in heroin initiation,
including the role of nonmedical prescription pain reliever
use in the heroin trend among persons aged 12 to 49.
Pooling data from the National Survey on Drug Use and
Health (NSDUH) conducted annually from 2002 through
2011, the study finds that the recent (12 months preceding
interview) heroin incidence rate was 19 times higher among
those who reported prior nonmedical pain reliever (NMPR)
use than among those who did not (0.39 vs. 0.02 percent).
In contrast, the recent NMPR incidence rate was almost 2
times higher among those who reported prior heroin use
than who did not (2.8 vs. 1.6 percent). Four out of five
recent heroin initiates (79.5 percent) previously used NMPR
whereas only 1.0 percent of recent NMPR initiates had
prior use of heroin. However, the vast majority of NMPR
users have not progressed to heroin use. Only 3.6 percent of
NMPR initiates had initiated heroin use within the 5-year
period following first NMPR use. The study contributes
important new data to improve understanding of the role
of prior NMPR use in initiation of heroin use in the U.S.
general population

[clubgop]

That said, the change needs to happen somehow, and since we will never dare to threaten the mighty drug makers, that leaves very few options.

Yes let's expand the war on drugs that's the ticket.

I don't want the government going after the users. I want the cartels stopped, or the middlemen pressured into stopping the behavior. What would you suggest?

Surrender to the fact that people have free will and what is being done is all that can be done without going into draconian hysterics. Haven't we seen this movie before.

"Let demand grow insatiably while we spend ever increasing resources to fight a market black, white, or puce, that raise to meet it." Yeah that ends well.

[SuburbanFarmer]

GrumpyCatFace:

Didn't you say in an earlier thread that you didn't want the government spying on everyone to stop pedos and terrorists in the name of the children? You said something like (I'm paraphrasing), "I can protect my own children, and there is always a risk in society. The cost in civil liberties is too high." That is a perfectly reasonable point. Now its like you are saying: "I want the government to militantly go after this dangerous thing and violate all sorts of civil liberties because think about those poor children who will get addicted."
I don't get this.

Does it need to be a 'militant government action' to reduce over prescription of pain meds? I don't like the idea of the government arresting doctors without a high bar of evidence.

That said, the change needs to happen somehow, and since we will never dare to threaten the mighty drug makers, that leaves very few options.

You keep trying to differentiate between the evil corporations, and the innocent addicts. The demand from the addicts fuels the corporations, and this is literally the most innocuous way to fill this market role without people cutting each other's heads off on video. Please tell me a way to get people to stop wanting to use drugs. Barring that, its either Pfizer or Sinaloa Cartel.

The addicts don't start out looking for the drug. The drug is ordered for them by a trusted physician given the mystical power of healing over their bodies. In the case of kids, their parents order them directly to take it. They never had a choice.