Resolved: Opiates should be available for home use

[VinylTurnip]

@Ann_Hedonia

I’ve actually HAD tincture of opium ( I inherited a bottle from a terminally ill friend ) and I guarantee that if it were available OTC I’d be an addict. It’s been ten years and I’m getting a craving just writing this. And I’ve had a bottle of OxyContin sitting in my medicine cabinet untouched for 7-8 years at least, that stuff doesn’t tempt me at all - but laudanum is another story.

Oh, that’s long expired. Have you heard about VT Express? Safe disposal of medications. I could put you in touch with someone…

[Ike_Witt]

Don’t places with legalized medical/recreational marihuana have lower instances of opiate use and prescriptions?

[Rigamarole]

All drugs should be decriminalized. And addiction treated as a health issue, not a criminal one.

[DrCube]

I should be able to buy horse tranquilizers and chemo over the counter if I want. Who the hell’s place is it to tell me what I can and can’t put into my body?

[DrCube]

@boffking

Opiates are too addictive, and they can easily ruin your life. Plenty of legitimate pain patients have wound up dead or trapped in a spiral of addiction because of opiates.

The likely cause of addiction has been discovered, and it’s not what you think.

The advert explains: “Only one drug is so addictive, nine out of ten laboratory rats will use it. And use it. And use it. Until dead. It’s called cocaine. And it can do the same thing to you.”

But in the 1970s, a professor of Psychology in Vancouver called Bruce Alexander noticed something odd about this experiment. The rat is put in the cage all alone. It has nothing to do but take the drugs. What would happen, he wondered, if we tried this differently? So Professor Alexander built Rat Park. It is a lush cage where the rats would have colored balls and the best rat-food and tunnels to scamper down and plenty of friends: everything a rat about town could want. What, Alexander wanted to know, will happen then?

In Rat Park, all the rats obviously tried both water bottles, because they didn’t know what was in them. But what happened next was startling.

The rats with good lives didn’t like the drugged water. They mostly shunned it, consuming less than a quarter of the drugs the isolated rats used. None of them died. While all the rats who were alone and unhappy became heavy users, none of the rats who had a happy environment did.

At first, I thought this was merely a quirk of rats, until I discovered that there was — at the same time as the Rat Park experiment — a helpful human equivalent taking place. It was called the Vietnam War. Time magazine reported using heroin was “as common as chewing gum” among U.S. soldiers, and there is solid evidence to back this up: some 20 percent of U.S. soldiers had become addicted to heroin there, according to a study published in the Archives of General Psychiatry. Many people were understandably terrified; they believed a huge number of addicts were about to head home when the war ended.

But in fact some 95 percent of the addicted soldiers — according to the same study — simply stopped. Very few had rehab. They shifted from a terrifying cage back to a pleasant one, so didn’t want the drug any more.

[DrCube]

@Smapti

You forget that opiates are tolerance-building; unrestricted use will lead to the user needing a stronger and stronger dose to get the same level of pain relief. That’s the cycle that leads a lot of opiate addicts to heroin and fentanyl in the long run, and it’s in the public interest to make that process more difficult.

Certainly, the current “controlled substance” regime is doing wonders at preventing addiction and heroin use right?

[Doctor_Jackson]

From the CDC:

The majority of drug overdose deaths (more than six out of ten) involve an opioid. Since 1999, the number of overdose deaths involving opioids (including prescription opioids and heroin) quadrupled…91 Americans die every day from an opioid overdose…Deaths from prescription opioids—drugs like oxycodone, hydrocodone, and methadone—have more than quadrupled since 1999.

Resolved: The OP posits a very bad idea. And no, DrCube, I don’t believe making them easily available will decrease those numbers.

[DrCube]

@Doctor_Jackson

From the CDC:
Resolved: The OP posits a very bad idea. And no, DrCube, I don’t believe making them easily available will decrease those numbers.

You just posted a link showing how controlling these substances isn’t working. But the solution is to just keep the status quo? Because 100 years of failed policy just needs a few more years to finally show results? You’re making my arguments for me.

[running_coach]

@DrCube

You just posted a link showing how controlling these substances isn’t working. But the solution is to just keep the status quo? Because 100 years of failed policy just needs a few more years to finally show results? You’re making my arguments for me.

No possibility that it won’t get far worse with OTC opiates?

[DrCube]

Not really. Any junior high schooler today can get as much heroin as they want on a moment’s notice without much more than their lunch money. All “controlling” these substances does is drive people into dangerous and disreputable black markets.

[Aeschines]

DrCube is expressing my position better than I did. I’m an adult, I can take responsibility for my use of drugs. Further, addicts are already getting their fix, so the measures that keep useful drugs away from people aren’t working anyway.

I talked to a pharmacist who works in Indiana a few years ago, and there are many docs happy to robo-sign scripts for opiates, and the pharmacies are inundated with people coming in for their fix. These people know that they are addicted. If we really cared about this problem and its effect on society, we would give them free addiction treatment, not simply keep drugs away from the general public.

I admit that having laudanum available OTC would get some people hooked, but the same is true of alcohol, tobacco, etc.

[snowthx]

@DrCube

I should be able to buy horse tranquilizers and chemo over the counter if I want. Who the hell’s place is it to tell me what I can and can’t put into my body?

Your health insurance company, and the rest of the people in your risk pool may have something to say about paying for your hospitalization.

Clamping down on opioid abuse is a more recent thing in response to the growing problem - it is not 100 years in the making. Making them easier to get will only make things worse.

You do make a good point about people going to black markets, tho. Programs that are meant to help people get off these drugs should also include counseling - just cutting someone off is likely to drive them to the streets for drugs, and probably an early death.

[DrCube]

My insurance can charge me according to my risk profile. Zero others affected.

And if you bring up UHC you will lose one of the precious few supporters that concept has in this country. Caring for the less fortunate doesn’t require controlling their behavior like children. That’s “I’m an expert in what should/shouldn’t be in poor people’s shopping carts” territory. We can all move right past that condescending stage of the discussion, thanks.

[Bill_Door]

@DrCube

You just posted a link showing how controlling these substances isn’t working. But the solution is to just keep the status quo? Because 100 years of failed policy just needs a few more years to finally show results? You’re making my arguments for me.

I know, it’s like one of those elderly people who mistake the gas for the brake and accelerate through a crowd of pedestrians. We’re just pushing down harder and wondering why the problem isn’t going away.

[Aeschines]

@Bill_Door

I know, it’s like one of those elderly people who mistake the gas for the brake and accelerate through a crowd of pedestrians.

Now now, that’s unfair to our seniors. Terrorists do that too.

[Eva_Luna]

@Personal

I think they can, but insurance won’t pay for it because it doesn’t fall within standard treatment parameters.

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.

[Ann_Hedonia]

@Aeschines

Interesting. What was it like?

At first - (and I never went beyond at first, I had a small amount and I tasted it very infrequently) the laudanum smoothes out all the rough edges of life while still leaving you highly functional. No anxieties, nothing gets on your nerves or under your skin, no worries.It was really long-lasting, too - one dose would last all day and you’d still have a bit of a glow the next day. On the downside, it’s totally constipating ( my very sick friend was taking it in order to slow down a highly dysfunctional digestive system). And it changes your sleep, you don’t so much sleep as "nod off"on and off all night. But all in all it’s easy to understand why Victorian ladies had it for breakfast.

Of course, like all opiates, you would develop a tolerance if you used it on a steady basis and it wouldn’t be good anymore.

@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.

Oh, I have a great story about codeine cough syrup.A long time ago, I went in to see a physicians assistant at my doctors office because I had a bad cough and my sinuses were hurting. I was convinced I had an infection and was fishing for antibiotics- I only mention this because if i had been fishing for cough medicine this never would have happened.

So she refuses to give me antibiotics but says “you need something for that cough” and pulls out her prescription pad. This very inexperienced young woman wrote the prescription with the quantity as “one bottle”.

I take the prescription in and the pharmacist gives me the fish eye and says “I need to call them” So he gets on the phone and they start trying to figure out how much codeine-laced cough syrup I’m going to get. I come back a few minutes later and I get the fisheye again - along with 600 milliliters of cough syrup. That is over 20 ounces. That was a lot of cough syrup. I had a stash for awhile and it came in handy when I had the flu.

[drewder]

@John_Mace

A doctor can’t prescribe opiates to treat cough? Who stops them from doing so?

(I don’t know a lot about the whole system. The last time I had a prescription for something was maybe 20 years ago).

At my Dr.'s office he has a news article posted about a doctor who was arrested for prescribing opiates and a notice that he will be happy to refer anyone requiring them to a pain specialist.

[jackdavinci]

@Rigamarole

All drugs should be decriminalized. And addiction treated as a health issue, not a criminal one.

I agree in principle, but I can’t figure out how that would work in practice. You still have to regulate for safety, and that can be a difficult thing to figure out with things that are especially dangerous. Plus I imagine the litigation issues would be a nightmare. Have you seen any well thought out plans beyond merely “decriminalize”?

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[kopek]

@jackdavinci

I agree in principle, but I can’t figure out how that would work in practice. You still have to regulate for safety, and that can be a difficult thing to figure out with things that are especially dangerous. Plus I imagine the litigation issues would be a nightmare.

I keep coming closest to this position. I like the idea but the thought of what it would take to make it safe and remove some of the more criminal influence any narcotic issue has is beyond my ability to comprehend.