"A Nation Dying" - Opioid Deaths Linked To Auto Plant Closures, Study Says

FWIW, I have never filled a prescription for narcotic pain meds... 800mg ibuprofen is the strongest I have taken. I am unsure of why others do what they do, but I had 2 reasons. I've seen too many folks get hooked too easily, and I lose what few filters I have when under the influence of anything... I'd be unemployable, but maybe fun to watch for a while.

Starting 2008, I have 3 compromised discs in my neck and 2 in my lower back. Prior to that, I had several years of shoulder problems... I've always known I could get pain meds. Its really disturbing how hard I had to work against getting them, the easiest way has often been just tossing out the prescription slip.

Dad has severe R/A, I don't seem to be having his symptoms, but it scares me how screwed up that can make you.
 
The chickens are coming home to roost for drug users. Going by what I've read, the difference lately is that heroin is being cut with fentanyl to increase profit margins of the dealers.
Why would anyone cut heroin with fentanyl? It’s cheap, these researchers say
Cutting heroin has been done for ages. A favorite was to cut it with powdered laxative. This has been one of the reasons that users overdose has been that the strength varies from dealer to dealer.

My son's friend was clean, but like all addictions, it doesn't go away easily. He was tempted one night and used heroin again. From what we have found out, he used the same dosage he did before and his body wasn't used to it anymore. The Fentanyl may have played a part in it.

The sad thing is that there are lots of places that treat addictions but the beds are full and the list is long to get in them. Then they just treat the addiction and not the reasons why the addiction started in the first place. There's a lot of misconceptions about how this happens and about the addicts themselves. It used to be the drug of the low income inner city. It's reached out to the suburbs and it's killing a lot of people these days.

Money drives this... Look at prohibition one hundred years ago and how that fueled organized crime and lined the pockets of politicians with money. That is what is happening now.
 
A lot of people want legalization of all drugs. With exception of weed (which I don’t smoke), I disagree.

we have a case study in mass opioid addiction-1800s China. There are books and YouTube stuff about it. It pretty much destroyed Chinese society and paved the way for the communism. The Opium was a very dirty trick the Brits pulled on China.
 
The Opium was a very dirty trick the Brits pulled on China.
Therein lies the distinction with the situation today where it is now simply a black market phenomena (and yes I've heard the Chinese conspiracy theories). In many jurisdictions coming forward may result in the loss of employment or worst case that and your incarceration. IMHO A legalised and quality controlled supply is the way to prevent deaths and manage the causes of the addiction.
 
Fentanyl is extremely deadly, I think that its about a pound of the stuff is enough to kill ten thousand people. It is highly toxic and needs to be handled with gas masks and gloves, get it on your skin and you will collapse. But here's the thing, it increases the high by about a factor of 50. It also makes the user far more addicted. So dealers cut their product with fentanyl knowing it will cause their addicts to come back far more often and be far more desperate to get a hit, if this addict goes without, he contorts with agony and needs the drug to keep the pain at bay. Even though the death rate increases, the dealers don't care, in the end they make far more money, and getting more people addicted is easy. With fentanyl it only takes a couple of hits and you have an addict for life basically. The stuff is even worse than Meth.
In this situation, legalization simply won't work, it will only destroy lives.
 
so far i have never had to be on any type pain killers. i could not imagine walking around like zombie all day
I was given narcotics once after a surgery. I took it for two days and tossed them. I don't like what they do to me.

Then they just treat the addiction and not the reasons why the addiction started in the first place.
Treat the root not the symptom. I'll step out on a limb and say we should look at the decline of the family.
 
Treat the root not the symptom. I'll step out on a limb and say we should look at the decline of the family.

That is definitely a part of the problem, but there are so many factors that also come into play that I can't point at just one. I think that there are a lot of young people that are struggling with mental issues and are looking to escape the world and their problems for even just an hour or two.

I've known people that have struggled with addiction of one form or another. Some of them are gone, victims of the alcohol they drank or the heroin they put in their arm. Some had strong families and some didn't.
 
Therein lies the distinction with the situation today where it is now simply a black market phenomena (and yes I've heard the Chinese conspiracy theories). In many jurisdictions coming forward may result in the loss of employment or worst case that and your incarceration. IMHO A legalised and quality controlled supply is the way to prevent deaths and manage the causes of the addiction.

pretty much established historical fact that the East India Company brought in the opium and later the government took direct control. No conspiracy theory.

San Francisco is already a test bed for your idea. The streets are festooned with tents, **** and needles that were supposed to be exchanged. Junkies are not productive citizens.
 
But in San Francisco you better pick up your dog's poop!

There is no opioid crisis. The makers aren't in the streets forcing people to buy their product.
Docs can no longer overprescribe opiods.
I know a guy who lived on the stuff. Woke up and popped pills. He was like Dr. House.
He got his pills from Canada. Finally the acetaminophen started affecting his kidneys and the opiods clogged the colon.
Had to get some operations and then come off the drugs. It wasn't pretty.
Its not an opioid crisis but a responsibility crisis.
 
In this situation, legalization simply won't work, it will only destroy lives.
Thanks for your thoughtful reply but are you advocating for the status quo? It seems that prospect of maintaining the "war on drugs" is the equivalent of relying on the Darwin Effect to take care of the problem.
 
pretty much established historical fact that the East India Company brought in the opium and later the government took direct control. No conspiracy theory.

San Francisco is already a test bed for your idea. The streets are festooned with tents, **** and needles that were supposed to be exchanged. Junkies are not productive citizens.
Not suggesting a conspiracy theory just pointing out the distinction with the present case where there are alternative approaches available.

I'll also suggest that the loss of vagrancy laws is the primary contributor to the sad state of affairs wrt to homelessness on the left coast. If I'm not mistaken your Supreme Court recently put the final nail in the coffin of that valuable tool.
 
I have been hospitalized numerous times in the last 3 years with severe wounds to my legs and other life threatening issues ( heart & kidneys). To tell you the truth.....I thought for sure that the hospital couldn't save my legs. Somehow through months and months of intensive care I still have my legs. I was in so much pain that I didn't sleep for days. The hospital was giving me morphine injections every 4 hours. I needed it to knock the edge off the pain and not to get high. I don't think I ever got a " buzz" from the morphine or oxy. The pain was intense. I still have problems with the wounds on my legs today. I don't need hospitalization but qualify for morphine as an in-patient or Oxy as an out-patient. I decline either of the pain-killers. I have been able to absorb a certain level of pain and can still sleep a few hours at a time. The morphine is an almost immediate pain relief but doesn't last as long as Oxy. The Oxy takes longer to knock the edge off the pain and the pain relief lasts longer than morphine. Like I said....I haven't accepted any pain med scripts for a couple of years now.
 
A morphine injection was the best sleep I ever got when my back was in a bad way. I normally do no pills, I kicked a 2 pack a day cigarette habit. Mainly because the govt, state and federal had taxed it to a point that I did not want to pay (this was almost twenty years ago), told you I was cheap. I am one that is for the legalisation of all drugs. The reasons mentioned above point to the need for it. It would standardize dosing and quality. The fact remains the feds make way too much money on illicit drugs. As proven by more and more states legalizing marijuana, and the feds absolute refusal to do the same. There is always more money in chasing a boogie man than actually tackling a problem. Fact is they are a crutch that are easy to get attached to then hobble around with for years after the need is gone. I have my own, some I have kicked, others like sugar and chocolates I may never kick, and do me no good, but they make me feel better.
 
Not suggesting a conspiracy theory just pointing out the distinction with the present case where there are alternative approaches available.

I'll also suggest that the loss of vagrancy laws is the primary contributor to the sad state of affairs wrt to homelessness on the left coast. If I'm not mistaken your Supreme Court recently put the final nail in the coffin of that valuable tool.

Yes, vagrancy laws should continue. There is also the nature of the area and the “free” stuff those people can get. As the old saying goes-when you subsidize something you get more of it. Free food, free needles, cash subsidies. People don’t just bum around there for the climate.

I am all for forced substance abuse treatment and reopening mental asylums. Someone taking meds for medical reasons isn’t the same as someone with an armful of heroin or sucking a crack pipe. That **** ruins people’s lives and legalization doesn’t fix it a bit.
 
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