# Resolved: Opiates should be available for home use **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 19, 2017, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-opiates-should-be-available-for-home-use/777527 "2017-01-19T05:06:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![UberArchetype](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/2bfe46/32.png) [@UberArchetype](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UberArchetype)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2017, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-opiates-should-be-available-for-home-use/777527/61 "2017-01-21T14:28:41Z")
> [@doubleminus](#): > > Unfortunately, free access to opiates is a solution neat, plausible, and wrong. I doubt anybody (or at least very few) is advocating a 180-degree paradigm shift where people can walk into Walgreens and buy whatever they want without a prescription. But you should understand the present situation WRT the current DEA scheduling scheme for opiates. Only the drug companies stand to gain from higher prices and increased demand. The 3rd unintended effect of that remarkably disingenuous move is that people now finding it too difficult to get their fix legitimately are turning to black market heroin in record numbers, while the pharma fat cats sit back raking in the revenue. ---
**Author:** ![doubleminus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5daacb/32.png) [@doubleminus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doubleminus)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2017, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-opiates-should-be-available-for-home-use/777527/62 "2017-01-21T17:07:56Z")
I surely get that. I answered the OP regarding OTC (or almost OTC) opiates. As against full legalization of grass, which I totally support, opiates present different problems. And pharma having to compete on price and convenience against street heroin is (admittedly twisted) sweet justice. I can imagine their marketing meetings. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2017, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-opiates-should-be-available-for-home-use/777527/63 "2017-01-21T18:33:02Z")
> [@doubleminus](#): > > Unfortunately, free access to opiates is a solution neat, plausible, and wrong: Good point. Sounds like big biz doing what it does best: putting its won interests first and being a huge dick. Note that this was a big drug company _promoting_ opiates via the medical establishment, which operates under a particular paradigm. So this is more or less the opposite of the situation I envision, in which people have the freedom to use these drugs but they aren’t being shoved down their throats by ignorant, credulous docs. (From what I’ve heard, opiates are usually a poor choice for long-term pain management, so the doc were just buying Purdue’s line of bull.) ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2017, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-opiates-should-be-available-for-home-use/777527/64 "2017-01-22T20:20:16Z")
> [@Eva\_Luna](#): > > I’ve gotten codeine cough syrup covered by insurance. I had bronchitis so bad that the coughing fits kept me from sleeping, and I was on the point of ending up in the ER in bronchiospasm. It’s amazing stuff when warranted. Not a peep from my insurance company about covering it. I get it almost yearly. I get an annual bronchial cough that after four or five weeks, sends me to the doctor, where I get codeine, steroids, and antibiotics. I tend to wait four or five weeks to make sure it won’t clear on its own, its annual, so I have good records to support it, and its bad enough that I get to wear adult diapers because I can’t control my bladder when I cough. Its always been covered and my doctor has never told me she’s had any issues. (This year I ended up in the hospital with an infection from a laceration and ended up on IV steroids, antibiotics and opiates - seems to have knocked the bronchial infection right the hell out of me). ---
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-opiates-should-be-available-for-home-use/777527/65 "2017-01-23T02:05:44Z")
> [@doubleminus](#): > > Unfortunately, free access to opiates is a solution neat, plausible, and wrong: > > [How A Big Drug Company Inadvertently Got Americans Hooked On Heroin](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/24/heroin-epidemic_n_4790898.html) > > [How the American opiate epidemic was started by one pharmaceutical company](http://theweek.com/articles/541564/how-american-opiate-epidemic-started-by-pharmaceutical-company) > > [The Promotion and Marketing of OxyContin: Commercial Triumph, Public Health Tragedy](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2622774/) > > [‘YOU WANT A DESCRIPTION OF HELL?’ OXYCONTIN’S 12-HOUR PROBLEM](http://www.latimes.com/projects/oxycontin-part1/) Not necessarily - the Swiss have an interesting [approach](http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/drug-treatment_-without-the-heroin-programme-i-d-probably-be-dead-/37819830). One article I read reported that since addiction is treated as a disease with government provided heroin distribution clinics, heroin is no longer a ‘cool’ drug. It just means you are sick have to visit a clinic twice a day. ---
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctor_jackson/32/32_2.png) [@Doctor\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-opiates-should-be-available-for-home-use/777527/66 "2017-01-23T14:07:53Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > Another way is that they’ll have access to better drugs. Sounds silly, but Keith Richards has been a functional junky for over fifty years now. It’s a lot harder to OD on a consistent supply of very pure heroin than the severely adulterated (but not always!) junk on the streets. When you’re used to shooting up 50% baking soda and one day get a batch that’s only 5% baking soda, you’re going to OD. This paragraph in particular shows that you do not understand the issue with opioids. Read this, please, from the [US Dept. of Health and Human Services](https://www.hhs.gov/opioids/): > [@](#): > > The United States is in the midst of a prescription opioid overdose epidemic. In 2014, more than 28,000 people died from opioid overdose, and at least half of those deaths involved a prescription opioid. At least half of all deaths by opioid overdose in the US that year were from prescribed opioids. Prescribed. Legitimate big pharma manufactured drugs. Not something cooked up by Joe Horsecooker in his state of the art trailer home lab. Again I ask, how is easier access going to make that better? As always, cites trump opinion. ---
**Author:** ![UberArchetype](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/2bfe46/32.png) [@UberArchetype](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UberArchetype)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-opiates-should-be-available-for-home-use/777527/67 "2017-01-23T15:03:09Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > (From what I’ve heard, opiates are usually a poor choice for long-term pain management, so the doc were just buying Purdue’s line of bull.) Oh, absolutely. The OD problem however has little to do with pain management. Treating chronic pain with opiates is a dead-end street, with the operative word being “dead.” But people just like to feel “good” and that is how they get started. Initial episodes involving pain treatment are long forgotten after the scenario morphs into an emotional and psychological maintenance roller-coaster by the time addicts are well into the addiction cycle. An ironic aspect of opiate addiction is how the physical addiction arising from withdrawal drives the craving, but it’s no longer about the original physical pain that got things started. Of course some of it comes from purely recreational experimenting that graduates to full blown heroin use, but the prescriptions come from only one place: Doctors. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-opiates-should-be-available-for-home-use/777527/68 "2017-01-23T15:31:21Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > I’m not minimizing the risk or terribleness of opiate addiction, but I don’t think it’s fair to keep useful drugs away from people because others can’t handle them. Thoughts? Legalise the lot. You want heroin, oxytocin, vicodin, cocaine, whatever? Sure, here you go. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-opiates-should-be-available-for-home-use/777527/69 "2017-01-23T16:08:11Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > Legalise the lot. You want heroin, oxytocin, vicodin, cocaine, whatever? Sure, here you go. When we made opioids far, far easier to get legally by basically handing them out to anyone who complained of pain, we got over 14,000 deaths from those prescriptions per year. Now we’ve decided we don’t want that, so are making them harder to get. You may want to buck that trend, but right now we as a nation are not going for it. A small subsection is clamoring for easier access, but the larger number, who previously had acquiesced to making them more available when told they were safe and effective for all kinds of pain (turned out that was not the case) now doesn’t want to do that any more. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-opiates-should-be-available-for-home-use/777527/70 "2017-01-23T16:25:06Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > Legalise the lot. You want heroin, oxytocin, vicodin, cocaine, whatever? Sure, here you go. I overdosed on oxytocin once. Woke up drenched in my own breast milk. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-opiates-should-be-available-for-home-use/777527/71 "2017-01-23T16:32:50Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > When we made opioids far, far easier to get legally by basically handing them out to anyone who complained of pain, we got over 14,000 deaths from those prescriptions per year. How many deaths and how much criminality is caused by having the current restrictions? One only has to look at the Prohibition era to see that de-restricting them would be the lesser of two evils. Ban cars and you’d save many more lives. > [@](#): > > Now we’ve decided we don’t want that, so are making them harder to get. I believe that they shouldn’t require even a prescription. ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2017, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-opiates-should-be-available-for-home-use/777527/72 "2017-01-24T01:39:41Z")
> [@Doctor\_Jackson](#): > > This paragraph in particular shows that you do not understand the issue with opioids. Read this, please, from the [US Dept. of Health and Human Services](https://www.hhs.gov/opioids/): > At least half of all deaths by opioid overdose in the US that year were from prescribed opioids. Prescribed. Legitimate big pharma manufactured drugs. Not something cooked up by Joe Horsecooker in his state of the art trailer home lab. Again I ask, how is easier access going to make that better? As always, cites trump opinion. Is there more information on this? It seems counterintuitive. I imagine some of these are suicide attempts or people buying on the black market, but I’m curious how so many people with a regular prescription could accidently overdose. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2017, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-opiates-should-be-available-for-home-use/777527/73 "2017-01-24T03:09:58Z")
My spouse has cancer. As part of his at home pain management he was handed two bottles of opiate-based pills. Either one of those contained sufficient opiates to kill about 5 people all at once (based on listed quantities and some googling). So yeah, _really_ easy to overdose if you’re careless, or you want to, or you’re just so desperate to kill that pain you keep taking pills to make it go away. I don’t know why this is a hard concept for people to get. Hand people a bottle of opiate-based pills and what’s to stop them from taking too many? LOTS of medications are handed out in potentially lethal quantities. Your average bottle of Tylenol is more than sufficient to kill a person and in fact accidental OD’s on acetaminophen is now the leading cause of sudden liver failure in North America. ---
**Author:** ![drewder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2017, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-opiates-should-be-available-for-home-use/777527/74 "2017-01-24T03:17:51Z")
According to my pain management doctor more people die from opiates than car accidents. > **[46,471: Drug Overdoses Killed More Americans Than Car Crashes or Guns](https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/susan-jones/dea-drug-overdoses-kill-more-americans-car-crashes-or-firearms)** > > . ---
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctor_jackson/32/32_2.png) [@Doctor\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2017, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-opiates-should-be-available-for-home-use/777527/75 "2017-01-24T14:17:46Z")
> [@jackdavinci](#): > > Is there more information on this? It seems counterintuitive. I imagine some of these are suicide attempts or people buying on the black market, but I’m curious how so many people with a regular prescription could accidently overdose. There are tons of links on the cited page, and literally hundreds of others in a basic Google search. Opiods are highly addictive and one can build up a tolerance to the affects. That combo is a recipe for OD. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2017, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-opiates-should-be-available-for-home-use/777527/76 "2017-01-24T16:36:37Z")
> [@drewder](#): > > According to my pain management doctor more people die from opiates than car accidents. > > [http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/susan-jones/dea-drug-overdoses-kill-more-americans-car-crashes-or-firearms](http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/susan-jones/dea-drug-overdoses-kill-more-americans-car-crashes-or-firearms) That cite doesn’t really support the claim, precisely. > [@](#): > > In 2013, the most recent year for which data is available, 46,471 people in the United States died from drug overdoses, and more than half of those deaths were caused by prescription painkillers and heroin. > > That compares with the 35,369 who died in motor vehicle crashes and 33,636 who died from firearms, as tallied by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. So the 46,471 figure is for \*all \*drug overdose deaths, not just opiates, and the “more than half” of deaths from opiates includes both prescribed painkillers and heroin in the tally. [This site](https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/data/overdose.html) claims there were 12,727 deaths in the United States from natural and semi-synthetic prescription opiates in 2015, which is still quite a lot, but less than half of the number of deaths from car accidents. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2017, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-opiates-should-be-available-for-home-use/777527/77 "2017-01-24T19:30:06Z")
> [@VinylTurnip](#): > > That cite doesn’t really support the claim, precisely. > > So the 46,471 figure is for \*all \*drug overdose deaths, not just opiates, and the “more than half” of deaths from opiates includes both prescribed painkillers and heroin in the tally. > > [This site](https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/data/overdose.html) claims there were 12,727 deaths in the United States from natural and semi-synthetic prescription opiates in 2015, which is still quite a lot, but less than half of the number of deaths from car accidents. Moreover, there are a lot more painkillers than just opiates. OTC acetaminophen kills about 150 people a year - in overdoses - plus the long term liver damage death count. It causes more acute liver failure than alcohol - and of course the combination is a killer. ---
**Author:** ![UberArchetype](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/2bfe46/32.png) [@UberArchetype](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UberArchetype)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2017, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-opiates-should-be-available-for-home-use/777527/78 "2017-01-24T20:01:43Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > Moreover, there are a lot more painkillers than just opiates. OTC acetaminophen kills about 150 people a year - in overdoses - plus the long term liver damage death count. It causes more acute liver failure than alcohol - and of course the combination is a killer. Nothing comes close to opiates in pain efficacy. They really are miracle drugs. Just too bad the side effects are so potentially disastrous. ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2017, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-opiates-should-be-available-for-home-use/777527/79 "2017-01-24T20:04:53Z")
> [@Doctor\_Jackson](#): > > There are tons of links on the cited page, and literally hundreds of others in a basic Google search. Opiods are highly addictive and one can build up a tolerance to the affects. That combo is a recipe for OD. There’s not an answer to my question on that page or a basic google search. But after wading through a lot of unhelpful sources, the best answer I could find was that people are ODing mostly on the time release opoids or mixing them with other drugs. Which doesn’t really advance your argument. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2017, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-opiates-should-be-available-for-home-use/777527/80 "2017-01-24T20:39:03Z")
> [@UberArchetype](#): > > Nothing comes close to opiates in pain efficacy. They really are miracle drugs. Just too bad the side effects are so potentially disastrous. They are miracle drugs for severe acute pain and malignant pain. For chronic non-malignant pain they’re a hell of a trap far more often than not. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-opiates-should-be-available-for-home-use/777527.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-opiates-should-be-available-for-home-use/777527.md?page=5)