Why are we wasting resources on meth addicts who overdose? These are people who lie, cheat and steal to get their next fix. The money spent on the recovery could be better spent on the indigest or solving other health problems. If the addict recovers, they will have long-term issues in most case and will probably relaps.
Literally, the exact same thing could be said for saving an ‘at risk’ person that’s having a heart attack or stroke. I mean, in all likihood, they’re going to have another one and at the very least, they’ll be going through rehab and testing and it’s just going to cost you money in the form of increased insurance premiums and or medicare/medicaid costs.
What about the drunk that walks out into the street and gets his by a car? Do we check to see how many times he’s been arrested for alcohol related offenses? “3 times, nope, let him die…only two? Okay, lets work on him”
We probably shouldn’t have given Prince that save shot a few weeks before he died, right?
What it comes down to, in the end…this isn’t up for debate. The doctors, the medical staff, the hospital admins, even the person’s insurance company don’t get to decide who lives and who dies. Someone comes into the hospital, they have to do what they can to save them, period.
Go on, keep telling us why we should let people die because they use meth. I’m sure this will end well.
ETA, why don’t you put some numbers on it? What if you, personally accidentally ingested some ‘meth’. It’s easier than you think. You’re supposed to take 4x50mg pills at bed time, but you grab the wrong bottle and take 4 of your kid’s 20mg IR adderall. It exacerbates your heart problems. Guess what…that shows up as meth on a blood/UA screen. You get to die.
Maybe you’re kid is experimenting in college and snorting some of his adderalls. It’s pretty common in college and most of [del]us[/del]them aren’t meth addicts. He’s a good kid, straight A’s every year. One day, he’s not paying attention, does too much and passes out…all they need to do is give him a shot of valium to slow down his heart. Nope, they let him die on the table, because you feel that’s what needs to be done.
Is that really what you think needs to be done?
Also, lets keep in mind that you’re (I’m assuming) assuming that the hospital team is basing ‘meth addict’ total on the patient’s appearance. A random guy that works hard and doesn’t have a lot of money or a homeless person can do meth a few times and look like a meth addict, but isn’t. OTOH, a lot of meth (and moreso with cocaine) addicts just look like you and me and/or white collar workers.
I was a meth addict a long time ago. I didn’t lie, cheat, or steal to get a fix. I overcame my addiction and I’m doing some pretty useful things now, societally-speaking. So are a number of the people I used to do drugs with.
Sometimes people who get that close to death finally realize they need to change their lives.
My father was addicted to drugs for 7 years of my life. I didn’t see him from 7 until I was 14.
My father is a fundamentally decent human being who got caught up in substance addiction, something that millions of pot heads, cigarette addicts, and alcoholics can sympathize with.
He is fine now. He became a productive member of society again. It took help, addiction to certain substances is rarely beat with willpower alone. He needed constant attention and a drying out period before he was able to conquer it. He also needed familial support. Sometimes people can’t get those things.
We waste resources on these people because they’re people. Just like we wasted resources educating someone here. It doesn’t matter if they all obtain the benefit of our help, if we help some or most, that’s good enough to do it.
Why are we wasting resources on nicotine addicts who smoke? :rolleyes:
Hey! Long time no see! How you been?
We call it hitting rock bottom. For some there are ledges that seem like rock bottom and they cause them to change, but an NDE is almost as low as you can go.
As for the OP, we do it because we are human beings who live in a society where we don’t write off people for their personal failings. We mostly don’t even execute murderers any more. Why would we execute, which is what you are suggesting, people who might have shoplifted?
This has been bugging me, too. Not just meth, but any self inflicted injury. If someone deliberately injures themselves, (to include using any kind of drug) I honestly couldn’t care less whether they live or die. They want to commit suicide with meth, or heroin, or synthetic pot or whatever, makes no difference. That’s more chlorine in the gene pool, and good riddance to them.
You cannot imagine the absolute havoc that drug O/D in prison causes.
Every time one happens, we have to notify emergency services and call for an ambulance, unless and until they have been triaged and cleared by our own medical staff. We have to get the call out and the emergency response because the patient can deteriorate extremely rapidly - we literally cannot risk any potential for any delay in treatment.
Right now we have Novel Psychoactive Substances (NPS) and its far worse than heroin ever was in prison. It does not result in quite as much debt, but it does result in way more violence, suicide and serious mental health problems. The steep rise in the last year or so is extremely worrying.
We have had , on occasion, the entire first responder ambulance services for the whole of our county (which serves a population of well over 2 million people) tied up with OD/s just on our own prison
This then leaves the rest of the county without any emergency first responder ambulances for a period of maybe an hour or so - and when you consider that this is happening at over 130 such prisons around the UK, can you imagine the problems to the public that these drug induced shitwipes are causing to the rest of the population?
I wonder how many deaths to the general public that this completely self-induced behaviour has caused to the general public.
In addition, because our rules are, as you would expect, extremely tight on things such as reporting and dealing with suicidal prisoners, and the many serious incidents, let me tell you that quite a number of staff get caught up in this havoc, it is so easy to miss one step, not notice that a prisoner is down, or that a prisoner is not quite their usual self - the result is that staff end up are coroner’s hearings explain the sequence of events.
It is not nice to be at an inquest to find yourself cross examined by members of the drug addled arse wipe’s family.
Result, staff are also having immense pressure to cope, all because of these self gratifying shit heads.
For the record, the reoffending behaviour of UK prisoners costs our society £13 billion per year, and most of that is drug related.
I am not going to take a position on what should happen to such O/D prisoners, but other posters need to be aware of the absolute chaos these individuals are to everyone around them.
I know a couple of posters have come through this, but, it was self imposed you were not compelled to take drugs, nor were you compelled to damage others to the extent that you have, including to yourselves.
The problem for me is this, there are many folk who take the outlook of the OP - and being very close to the situation - I completely understand why, but ultimately if we allow these substance abusers to die because ‘they are more trouble than they are worth’ (and they probably are) the overall result is a far more draconian and dangerous society we will become.
This is truly an incredibly dangerous precedent we would be setting, and it is the price that we all must pay to remain free of the sorts of individuals who propose ‘instant solutions’.
Many is the day I initially imagine I agree with the OP, but rationality has to break through, its not as bad as the alternative but it is extremely difficult to deal with.
Another take on why, besides some of the above mentioned reasons, is there are people who really care about these addicts and that motivates them to help others.
We all have issues we personally take to heart more than others, and we tend to go the extra mile for these heartfelt issues more that other issues. It is often that ‘extra mile’ that can really make meaningful difference in turning an addict around. It is a person who really cares for these people who becomes the motivation and/or the mentor for the addict to overcome.
So it is the best use of the population to help each other to allow multiple issues and let the people chose what motivates them and where they can make the most difference in the overall picture of humans helping others.
Here’s the most pragmatic answer I can think of:
We should help people who OD on drugs because a lot of time and money has already been invested in them. If your expensive car stops running, do you abandon it on the side of the road? No. You’re probably going to at least try to jump start it. Maybe a wire is just loose and it’s still got another 200K miles left on it. You’d be a fool to walk away from it.
Here’s the second most pragmatic answer I can think of, although it’s slippery-slopish:
Once we start abandoning certain people on the side of the road, it becomes that much easier to do it for another group. Today it’s drug abusers, tomorrow it’s the morbidly obese, and then next week it’s people who chose to drive above the speed limit. “All life is precious” may be overly sentimental drek, but it sure makes the EMT and ER staff’s job a lot easier. I don’t think they should be given the power to decide whose life is valuable and whose isn’t. Their job should just be to save people’s lives and keep their judgments to themselves.
Well, if you’re ever in rural Wisconsin and land up in my former roommate’s care you may not want to mention that - she overcame several issues, including self-injury, to become a competent doctor willing to serve communities outside the big cities where they need good doctors. There’s around a good dozen folks in rural Arizona who would have died in childbirth (both mothers and babies) if she hadn’t been there, in some cases “there” being on the literal side of the road when she went to meet a laboring woman in distress. Not to mention the injury/accident victims she’s helped, the babies/kids/teens/adults she has immunized…
See, that’s why we “waste resources” on such people - we actually CAN save some of them, and some of those people go on to save other lives or do worthwhile things for society. In which case spending those resources isn’t so much as waste as an investment which pays dividends down the line.
The thing is, we can’t tell ahead of time which ones are going to clean up and which aren’t, so we sort of have to treat all of them to find the diamonds in the rough.
So the biggest reason that I am getting is they are people and we should be happy and support them? Even if they aren’t doing anything illegal to get meth, the possession and consumption of the meth is. The resources can still be better used elsewhere.
If my “car” kept dying on the side of the road, I would return it under a lemon law.
If my “car” kept dying on the side of the road, I would return it under a lemon law.
I kinda sorta feel that way about heroin. Whenever I hear about someone who OD’d on it, I’m torn between thinking that their families are devastated (maybe, if they aren’t estranged) and that they spared society and everyone who ever knew them a lot of heartbreak.
Some medical ethicists have discussed whether people who blow themselves up in meth lab explosions should even get any treatment other than comfort care. :eek: There are burn units that have had to close because the entire hospital was in danger of bankruptcy just from all the uninsured meth cooks that they have had to treat.
I can’t be the only person who thinks some people start using (in particular) heroin because they think addiction is cool. :dubious:
No, you don’t have to be “happy” about it. No one is happy people abuse drugs or hurt themselves or do anything like that. It is, however, the right thing to care for people who are injured or ill (at least for some of us). Ethics isn’t about doing right when doing right is easy, it’s about doing right when doing the right thing is hard.
At some point the ethical thing is to allow people to pass on if they are injured or ill beyond a certain point.if someone keeps using and oding then they are demonstrating they do not wish to be healed.
We should only keep those “cars” (people, actually, nice to know you’re objectifying them) that aren’t defective, is that right?
Hey! If you’re not serving a purpose, and instead are a drain on society, then you’re not worth helping! In fact, you shouldn’t even be alive! Just die, already!
I’m sure you’ve never been injured or sick, or needed any social help whatsoever.