# Why is opiate addiction so feared? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 29, 2012, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-opiate-addiction-so-feared/614331 "2012-02-29T10:57:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![VOW](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/vow/32/3043_2.png) [@VOW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VOW)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2012, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-opiate-addiction-so-feared/614331/101 "2012-03-03T00:15:41Z")
IIRC, the “opium den” problem was something imported to this country with the Chinese workers. In China, the opium addiction got so bad, NOBODY was working. The Chinese government came up with a dandy solution: kill the addicts. So, opium usage fell into disfavor in China. Chinese workers were brought to the United States as laborers. And they were paid much less than the Caucasians. After a hard day of digging rocks and hauling dirt and scaling mountainsides, they escaped with their pipes of opium. The hysterical reaction by the US public to opium use (“crazed Chinamen abducting and raping white women”) was more of an expression of racial prejudice than actual fear of opium. After all, US citizens could buy all the laudanum they wanted, and patent medicines were in their heyday, which contained mostly laudanum. ~VOW ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2012, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-opiate-addiction-so-feared/614331/102 "2012-03-03T00:34:38Z")
> [@VOW](#): > > In China, the opium addiction got so bad, NOBODY was working. The Chinese government came up with a dandy solution: kill the addicts. Could you come up with a cite for this unusual claim? ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2012, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-opiate-addiction-so-feared/614331/103 "2012-03-03T00:43:04Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > A guy comes into an AA meeting and says “I’ve got a magic pill. Take one of these, and you will lose all desire for alcohol forever.” > > A voice comes from the back of the room - “What happens if you take two of them?” Heh. Haven’t heard that one. ---
**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:** [March 3, 2012, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-opiate-addiction-so-feared/614331/104 "2012-03-03T02:25:32Z")
> [@VOW](#): > > IIRC, the “opium den” problem was something imported to this country with the Chinese workers. > > In China, the opium addiction got so bad, NOBODY was working. The Chinese government came up with a dandy solution: kill the addicts. If things got so bad in China the government started killing the addicts I don’t see how you can blame _that_ on what was going on in the US. What, you think there were no opium addicts homegrown in the US? Post Civil War addicted war veterans were a big, big issue, nothing to do with Chinese people out west. ---
**Author:** ![PlainJain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5daacb/32.png) [@PlainJain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlainJain)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2012, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-opiate-addiction-so-feared/614331/105 "2012-03-03T03:10:04Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Don’t recall who told the story, but IIRC it was something he heard in Alcoholics Anonymous, on what it means to have an addictive personality. > > A guy comes into an AA meeting and says “I’ve got a magic pill. Take one of these, and you will lose all desire for alcohol forever.” > > A voice comes from the back of the room - “What happens if you take two of them?” > Regards, > Shodan Ah, yes. Too funny, thanks. ---
**Author:** ![VOW](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/vow/32/3043_2.png) [@VOW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VOW)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2012, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-opiate-addiction-so-feared/614331/106 "2012-03-03T03:17:59Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > If things got so bad in China the government started killing the addicts I don’t see how you can blame _that_ on what was going on in the US. > > What, you think there were no opium addicts homegrown in the US? Post Civil War addicted war veterans were a big, big issue, nothing to do with Chinese people out west. If you re-read my post, I discredit the prejudice against the “opium dens” because US citizens were swilling down laudanum. The consumption of opium by smoking it was a different route than the patent medicines here in the States. “Evil opium” was more a racial prejudice than it was a dispute with narcotics. It wasn’t until 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act that people even found out what the stuff was in those cure-all bottles they were buying. ~VOW ---
**Author:** ![FlyByNight512](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/82dd89/32.png) [@FlyByNight512](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlyByNight512)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2012, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-opiate-addiction-so-feared/614331/107 "2012-03-03T03:38:03Z")
> [@jjimm](#): > > Could you come up with a cite for this unusual claim? [A mention here.](http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F10D13FC355D13738DDDAC0994DA405B848DF1D3) ---
**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:** [March 3, 2012, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-opiate-addiction-so-feared/614331/108 "2012-03-03T03:49:37Z")
> [@VOW](#): > > If you re-read my post, I discredit the prejudice against the “opium dens” because US citizens were swilling down laudanum. It was pretty common knowledge that laudanum was made from the opium poppy. Your claim is ridiculous. ---
**Author:** ![pflashman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/77aa72/32.png) [@pflashman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pflashman)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2012, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-opiate-addiction-so-feared/614331/109 "2012-03-04T04:28:26Z")
I spent 2 years in med school before going off to grad school to become a biochemist. One of the interesting things I heard in lectures was the story of a pharmacologist who had been seriously injured in an auto accident and spent 6 months on morphine for pain relief. He happened to study opiates in his research, so he knew both sides of the story. He said that the withdrawal at the end was quite unpleasant, but nothing that a psychologically normal person couldn’t go through and be fine. He had never experienced any desire after withdrawal to go back on opiates. He thought that the pull of addiction that is so strong for some people had more to do with a particular psychological profile of the user than anything else. It was his guess that addicts don’t find much reward in life from the usual gratifications even before they get addicted, and thus they find the opiate high so uniquely satisfying that it is hard to stay away from it indefinitely. The fact that at least some people find it so hard to get out of that pit once they get into it is probably why it is so widely feared. ---
**Author:** ![thelabdude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dc4da7/32.png) [@thelabdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelabdude)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2012, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-opiate-addiction-so-feared/614331/110 "2012-03-04T18:40:46Z")
I was in great physical pain last Tuesday and ready to risk opiates. My need for relief was huge, but very short term. Many people find life painful in other ways and an ongoing thing. I have to agree with the points above. ---
**Author:** ![Willy\_boy\_f\_NA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Willy\_boy\_f\_NA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Willy_boy_f_NA)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2012, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-opiate-addiction-so-feared/614331/111 "2012-04-24T11:18:25Z")
Man idk if youve ever done heroin or else you would know its the needle that is addictive and not the chemical per se. Ive been addicted to heroin since I was in tenth grade of high school. Believe me its not pretty. Have you ever not been able to say no to a certain chemical? Have you ever stolen off people you love and who love you. Ive done everything I could do to family and friends and to have them ask you why you just cant stop? Believe me its tough as shit. Plus living to steal, you become something entirely uhuman. Have a little compassion bro were doing the best we can here in pittsburgh, pa. Theres a steady supply of relatively cheap shit coming in from Mexico by way of New Jersey. And just as readily as there are new customers in the high schools, there are 200,000 young desperate black and mexican kids willing to sell this shit! Thats what is truly sickening, not what it does to the addicts, but what it does to the communities that sell the shit. The ones that sell it and profit the most, are the worst off! Ive known little 16yo dope men that are probably dead or in jail right now, that would put themselves in the most dangerous situations over 20 or thirty bucks. Money I spend every month on coka-cola, they’re so hungy, so beat down and repressed, hated even, that they’re willing to kill each other over something so little as a couple hundred dollars or a cell phone with kids from rich neighborhoods phone # in it. People need to understand, you cant always be so black and white as the world was 60 years ago. Its a different world than what are parents and grandparents live in. jack Kerouac and Hunter s. Thompson couldnt survive in our time right now. Its sad to say that we live in an addiction/recovery world right now. No one wants the drug addicts to stop using. Think about it. Theres so many jobs created every year for dealing with the supply and demand for drugs. Cops judges prison guards psych nurses, councillers ect. Sorry I rambled on and on im new to message boards bro just using this shit as a way to talk with like minded individuals ---
**Author:** ![Maastricht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@Maastricht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maastricht)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2012, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-opiate-addiction-so-feared/614331/112 "2012-04-24T12:26:05Z")
A test group might be the Dutch (former) heroin addicts now on a government sponsored methadone program. If the OP is right and addicts problems’ are just the problems arising from their drug being illegal and expensive, the people in the methadone program should be virtually problem -free, rigth? Here are some [studies on that question](http://scholar.google.nl/scholar?q=methadone+programs+Netherlands&hl=nl&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart&sa=X&ei=d5qWT6O2Gsjk8QOox8mECg&sqi=2&ved=0CB0QgQMwAA). One Swedish study found: > [@](#): > > Abstract > Thirty-four drug addicts, aged 20–24 years, with a history of 4–8 years of intravenous heroin abuse, were randomly assigned either to a methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) (17) or to an untreated group (17). The untreated controls could not apply for entrance to the program until two years later. > > It was found that after two years 12 MMT patients had abandoned their drug habits and begun work, whereas 5 had recurrent drug abuse problems. Of the controls, one was drug-free and gainfully employed, 12 were continuously abusing heroin (3 of these had incurred potentially fatal diseases in consequence), 2 were in prison and 2 had died. Two to seven years after their first visit to the Psychiatric Research Center 8 of the original control group have been accepted into the program. At present 19 (out of 25 admitted) are gainfully employed and no longer abusing drugs. Among the remaining controls 4 are dead, 3 are in prison, one in spite of a serious heart condition abuses heroin and one is drug-free. > > The rehabilitation rate was thus 76 per cent in the program as compared to 6 per cent among the control group. In addition, MMT obviously reduced the high morbidity and mortality rates found in a selection of heroin addicts who fulfilled the admittance criteria of the Swedish program. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2012, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-opiate-addiction-so-feared/614331/113 "2012-04-24T12:39:50Z")
> [@spankthecrumpet](#): > > Fine, but morphine is basically free. Seriously. Costs nothing. It won’t be, if legalized. Just like every other highly desired consumer product, the price will be jacked up as high as people will pay. And since addicts will pay _anything_, that indicates quite a high price indeed. ---
**Author:** ![Maastricht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@Maastricht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maastricht)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2012, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-opiate-addiction-so-feared/614331/114 "2012-04-24T14:05:42Z")
I don’t know if there is any truth in it, but I have heard say that opiate stimulates the same pleasure centers in the brain as loving social happy interaction. Stimulates it _hard_. So after a while, the drug gives you the feeling you would otherwise have to get by connecting in a loving manner with other people. And once that pleasure center is used to the hard stimulation by opiates, it no longer responds to real-life loving interaction. It has become numb to it. So basically an addiction to opiates sets you up to be a miserable selfish bastard, even after you’ve overcome the addiction. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2012, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-opiate-addiction-so-feared/614331/115 "2012-04-24T14:07:45Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > It won’t be, if legalized. Just like every other highly desired consumer product, the price will be jacked up as high as people will pay. And since addicts will pay _anything_, that indicates quite a high price indeed. It’s not called the law of demand, it’s called the law of supply and demand. Plus, you can grow it easily practically anywhere. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2012, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-opiate-addiction-so-feared/614331/116 "2012-04-24T15:31:07Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > It’s not called the law of demand, it’s called the law of supply and demand. Plus, you can grow it easily practically anywhere. You’re speaking like supply isn’t something that can be controlled by cartels. Pretty sure the supply will be deliberately held at a point to drive the price high, like diamonds. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2012, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-opiate-addiction-so-feared/614331/117 "2012-04-24T16:29:47Z")
Diamonds have only a few producers. Whereas unless the government regulates it to the point that only a few big producers can make it, it is fairly simple to grow. And that’s only for the people who can’t grow their own, assuming of course the government doesn’t make that illegal as well. But at that point I’d hesitate to call it truly legalized. ---
**Author:** ![obbn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/d6d6ee/32.png) [@obbn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obbn)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2012, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-opiate-addiction-so-feared/614331/118 "2012-04-25T04:37:28Z")
Chronic pain patient here. I have been on opoids for years, just about everything you can name. Demerol, Fentynal and currently on morphine. I take 90mg of morphine a day and percocet every 4 hours while awake to control the pain. I am joining the thread just to give some perspective from a long time user. First, the drugs. Demerol was given to me in the hospital when I first came in after my workplace accident and it was used in high doses after my the back surgeries. Demerol has been the only drug that has gotten me “high”, totally sent to the moon. I was recovering for 12 days in the hospital after my third surgery and I got a Demerol shot every four hours, plus I was on a self administer pump for in between. I can honestly say that besides pot, I have never done an illegal drug, but 6 or 7 days into my recovery I could easily have taken the route to become an addict. The Demerol gave me such a feel good high that I actually craved it. I would count the hours and then minutes until my next dosage and my wife said I would push the button for the self administrator pump over and over, even though it wouldn’t give me anymore. About day 9 of recovery I started to hallucinate very badly, but I didn’t want to tell anyone because I was afraid they wouldn’t give me anymore Demerol! They found out when I called 911 from my hospital bed to report a gang of undead trying to kill me. After release from the hospital, the doctors put me on Vicodin for the pain. I had time to think about the experience and it literally scared the shit out of me, thinking how easy and almost uncontrollable my desire was for the Demerol. I rely don’t know if I could be strong enough to resist, I have never felt a good in my life as I did on the Demerol. Fentynal, the patch they put me on to manage pain worked for a few months, but I soon built up a tolerance and the pills were doing nothing to dull the pain. My doctor at the time put me on the Fentynal patch. It was amazing! I never got high from it, but it worked magic with the pain. For the first time in years I was 100% pain free. It worked for about a year then tolerance kicked in and they had to up the dose. I eventually ended up on a 75mg (microgram) patch, but that was losing it’s effectiveness. I really didn’t like the patch as sometimes the medication would run out early and leave me in horrible pain, the patch was supposed to last 72 hours. The really scary part was that I was always afraid the patch would fall off and would find its way and come in contact with one of the family members. Even a brief contact with Fentynal by a person who is not opioid tolerant can be fatal. I found a new doctor who got me off it and on to morphine. Morphine: currently I am on morphine extended release 90mg twice a day, with percocets every 4-6 hours for breakthrough pain. The morphine has worked well, has been very effective and predictable. But, I am quickly developing a tolerance and it seems about once per year the dosage has to be increased. This concerns me as I am only 45 and I wonder if the doctors will be able to control my pain if I make it to 70. I am concerned by those who have said that their doctors are managing their long term pain with drugs like Vicodin. This is the wrong way to go as you well build tolerance to it quickly and the high doses of Tylenol are dangerous long term (yes, I know percocet has it to, but I have limited choices for breakthrough pain.) The drugs make me so tired that trying to live a normal life is very difficult. The lethargy has gotten so bad that my doctor has me on amphetamine to keep me awake during the day. I also have to take weekly injections of testosterone as the long term use of the narcotics has made my body shut down testosterone production. I realize I have been l long winded, but perhaps this answers part of the OP’s question. There is much more to continued narcotic use than just keeping pain at bay or being high. It destroys your life by taking away all of your energy and the rising tolerance puts one at risk of repository failure. The drugs for me are a necessity, but why anyone would want to enter this circle of hell by choice is beyond me. I am very tired, I hope that my response was on topic and understandable. ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2012, 10:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-opiate-addiction-so-feared/614331/119 "2012-04-25T10:26:23Z")
I am so soory for your pain. I hope that it will work out. ---
**Author:** ![Imago](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/85e7bf/32.png) [@Imago](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Imago)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2012, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-opiate-addiction-so-feared/614331/120 "2012-04-25T12:30:42Z")
> [@grude](#): > > So basically there is a class of drugs which by themselves are pretty harmless in appropriate doses except for causing drowsiness and constipation. Overdoses can be fatal, but the same can be said of aspirin or Tylenol and other drugs in every bathroom. A big enough opiate overdose kills much, much quicker (and therefore with far more certainty) than taking truckload of Tylenol or aspirin. Hell, if you’re injecting, it can be damn near instant. The line between being in danger from the overdose and being utterly screwed also appears to be thinner with opiates. That’s why you hear about accidental deaths from opiate overdose- when is death by aspirin ever an accident? Tylenol if used “correctly” will most likely condemn you to (long, slow, unpleasant) death by liver failure and aspirin AFAIK to either internal hemorrhage (if caught in time, usually not as deadly as it sounds so long as it isn’t in the brain) or liver failure (such fun choices!) but once all that morphine/heroin/etc kicks in, it’s curtains for you. > [@CalMeacham](#): > > I have no first-hand experience with opiates, and for all I know what I have beebn told may be exaggerated, but all I have been told would suggest that this line grossly, grossly minimizes the extreme difficulty of withdrawal, and therein lies the answer. Also this. > [@spankthecrumpet](#): > > nothing I said is controversial :smack: > [@spankthecrumpet](#): > > Addiciton simply doesn’t change your moral character - it just changes how imporant drugs are to you. And what do you think happens when they become more important to you than not harming others? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-opiate-addiction-so-feared/614331.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-opiate-addiction-so-feared/614331.md?page=7)