When recovering from 18 hours of surgery after a motorcycle accident in 1987 of course they had me on morphine. When I came to in a week or so (I don’t remember much) I told my doctor “no morphine!” as I was terrified of getting addicted. He tried to talk me into tapering off, but I was so insistant he said “OK” and moved me to Demerol.
What I experienced that night was such pure hell I wonder how I woke up the next morning.
I now only feel saddness and pity for addicts.
I don’t know if you know this already but demerol is an opioid which is a synthetic opiate:
Obviously that was a hypothetical, I do understand the reality of the situation.
The thing is, if addicts had unlimited access to a safe and consistent supply it wouldn’t suddenly turn them into productive citizens. Most of them would be content to lie in a drugged-out stupor (as happened during the days of the opium dens). Unless their drug (and other essentials, like food and water) are going to be dispensed for free there will continue to be the problem of people who need at a minimal amount of stuff but are unable to hold down a job. This tends to lead to crime as well as sponging off friends and relatives.
It may as well be free, as I said. Opioids cost nowt, at least not the common ones.
The insanity of the US health system that makes them cost so much is as irrelevant as the insanity of the laws that make them unoptainable; I am only talking about an ideal world here.
Here is 200mg of morphine for £2.43. And that’s at retail prices and it isn’t subsidised (it would actually cost more to someone buying it on the NHS interestingly, because there is a flat fee for a medicine).
In bulk it’s going to be a tenth of that.
Opiate addiction exists. In fact, many people take opiates because they are addicted to them. There is plenty of documentation out there that clearly shows that being an opiate addict really sucks, and is a huge emotional and financial drain on everybody involved. Now, as a normal human being I can look at that and say “I have empathy for those people, and I wish the situation was better”.
One way of improving the situation would be to work on reducing the number of new addicts (ignoring existing ones). This might work to some extent, but it’s obvious that the number of opiate addicts has not significantly decreased despite major efforts.
Another way of improving the situation would be to work to improve the life of opiate addicts. A lot of that is done by trying to provide treatment, with mixed success. However, since most of the negative aspects of opiate addiction seems to be related to the facts that
a) the drugs are illegal, expensive, hard to acquire, and are of dubious quality
b) society shuns and rejects opiate addicts
We can try to do something about those two things. One can make an argument that accepting opiate addicts and making high quality legal opiates easily available for cheap or free would be detrimental to the first effort of not making new opiate addicts, and I see where one would be coming from, but I don’t think the evidence will support that.
So what if addicts would be non-functional members of society and there would suddenly be twice as many? If most of the crime, poverty and horror related to those drugs was eliminated? Sure, families and society would still effectively lose those family members, but the improvement for everybody involved and society in general would be staggering.
I would agree with you that addiction is not OK -** it’s not OK**. It’s not OK the same way Type II diabetes, sports injuries and HIV are not OK. However, it does not need to be justified or not justified. It exists, and it has existed for a very long time, and your way of dealing with it clearly not working.
I knew that. But it is a step down from morphine.
Great high though if you are opioid naive. First one I ever took. I would have been thirteen or fourteen and a friend’s dad gave them to him*. We had a whole blister packet between us.
Happy days!
*In hindsight I am not so sure that is the exact nature of the transaction, or whether the father even knew 
:rolleyes:
Nobody isn’t predisposed to dishonesty and selfishness. Plenty of us are decent respectable folks with high morals…who would lie and cheat and steal from our grannies if we were heroin addicts. I’m sure I would. I can’t even kick my Diet Dr. Pepper habit–drugs would get me in no time. Drink probably would too; I have enough alcoholic ancestors to make me nervous about it.
I had a friend whose husband was a Vicodin addict. He was a nice guy before. They had three great kids and a good life. He had terrible migraines and took Vicodin for them, and after a couple of years he was buying a ton of the stuff off the Internet and walking around like a zombie. Couldn’t hold down his job, lost his whole family (not before he treated his kids to some horrible sights), nearly died, I don’t know where he is now.
Basically, this describes the guy whom I described above, who was on Suboxone (buprenorphine) long-term. He wasn’t really in a total stupor, so much as he was leading a pointless existence, dependent on his parents at age 30.
I was under the impression that it wasn’t possible to purchase narcotics over the internet; at least without a prescription.
I’ve already offered myself up as a counter example. There is no reason why one has to steal from one’s grandmother if one is an addict.
If you know something is wrong then you can stop yourself from doing it. One can rationalise a hell of a lot of things as an addict, I gave the example before of stealing from the hospital in general as being similar to stealing bread when you’re starving - but stealing directly from patients or from ones grandmother is not rationalisable if you are a decent person. Simple as that.
There are actually loads of functional addicts around. You just don’t notice em, it’s not something most people are up front about. Mostly it’s alcohol but that is only cause the stuff is legal. And it’s the legality that means there are not many functioning opioid addicts around and the majority of them that are are addicted to ones that are easy to get ahold of.
Exactly. Those of you arguing for easy access to drugs seem to think that an addict with a consistent supply will function normally in society and hold a job, care for their family, etc.
They don’t.
The definition of addiction is that they prioritize it above everything else in their life. There have been two addicts in my extended family who had an endless supply of their chosen substance. In both cases they were mostly functional - they held down jobs, didn’t get in trouble with the law, etc. In both cases it changed their personalities severely for the worse and tore their family’s hearts out.
That is the core lie of addictions. “It’s not hurting anyone.” “I can do this after the kids are in bed and they’ll never know the difference.” “It hasn’t changed me.” These are lies.
I think that’s a red herring. Maybe SOME people are arguing that, but I certainly am not. I am arguing that it will be better for most people involved. Again, I disapprove of people using opiates recreationally, but my disapproval is about effective at stopping that behavior as making it illegal.
Just because I don’t condone something, and disapprove of it, and don’t think anybody should do it, doesn’t mean it should be illegal. Moreover, thinking something should be legal and provided by society – doesn’t mean I condone it, approve of it, or think anybody should do it.
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
That’s not the definition of addiction. That’s the definition of being a dick.
True, and I appreciate the distinction. I wasn’t really aiming my comment at you. However I do disagree that it would be better.
IMHO the human cost* is* the tragedy and horror. If I were given a choice between drug violence but no addictions, or addictions but no crime, I’d choose the crime in a heartbeat. Crime we can do something about. Crime doesn’t twist loved ones into monsters you can’t recognize.
I’m also not sure how this would work - you’d provide drugs and housing and necessities to addicts? Sign me up! 
For good reason, I’d say. See earlier comments about personality changes - even in ‘functional’ addicts, it warps personalities badly. Addicts care for their addiction before everything else, even their family. I don’t see a lack of stigma changing this.
[QUOTE=spankthecrumpet]
That’s not the definition of addiction. That’s the definition of being a dick.
[/QUOTE]
Well, it qualifies one for dickhood anyway. You really think that someone can be addicted to something and still have a normal life with healthy relationships? That is the lie of addictions. It doesn’t work that way. Have you watched someone you love become an addict? It’s easy to delude yourself when you’re the one taking the drugs. It looks entirely different from the outside.
Functional is an extremely subjective word for this conversation.
Eventually, they become the same thing. If you’re addicted to something–including alcohol–the real problem, in the end, is not that you must have the substance, so much as that you are mentally ill. Some can maintain the appearance of normalcy for longer than others, but for the vast majority, the longer you are using/drinking, the more of a dick you become.