Portugal decriminalized drugs and has hardly any OD deaths anymore. It's removed the stigma of those nasty dopers and made it easier for them to reach out for help.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/portugal-decriminalised-drugs-14-years-ago-and-now-hardly-anyone-dies-from-overdosing-10301780.html

I wonder how many on here are trashing addicts while drinking their daily beer and/or whiskey?

ETA: fixed typos

"We're from the government and we're here to help" happened.

  In 2010, Justice Department ..... federal probe of prescription drug abuse in NoVa, ...caused black market OxyContin prices to nearly double.

In 2010, Purdue reformulated OxyContin to make it more difficult to inject or snort.

Other interventions included the use of Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMPs) to track the sale of prescription painkillers, and a "pill mill" law in Florida passed in 2010 putting tighter regulations on pain clinics


American Pain was shut down in an FBI raid and its owners were imprisoned. The Florida legislature passed laws to kill off other pill mills and curtail the largely unfettered prescription of opioids. Deaths from oxycodone in Florida dropped 69% in the five years from 2010.  But the clampdown left those already addicted without a ready supply. It limited access to pills, forced up prices on the street, and made heroin a cheaper alternative. As the drug flooded in from Mexico, heroin deaths in Florida more than doubled in 2014 alone to a record 408.

Did you see what they do to combat addiction?

Jesus.  

Really some mental nut job gets hold of gun, explosives or something that he feels gives him more power, authority ect...causes release of endorphins and other chemicals in the brain and it most certainly alters brain chemistry.

You do not have to do drugs to alter your brain chemistry. A rapist, serial killer or even adrenaline junkies alter their brain chemistry and the only was they get that high is by doing those things like raping, killing or whatever a adrenaline junkie has to do to get that rush, endorphins released to their brains.

Soldiers when they first get out of service. Go through a kinda of withdrawal. We miss this kinda of high we got from the rush, excitement we got from doing whatever we did. Nothing excited us. I went nuts when I first got out. I was trying to get that rush, that kinda of high I felt when I was in.

I cringe when I look back and remember what I did and think how stupid I was. I drank like there was no tomorrow and acted that way too. I could've cared less if I lived to see the next day or not.

So yes there are some people that when they get a gun in their hands it does alter their brain. Just go to a gun range and you'll see some of these fools.  It's like they are high or something. They believe they are god with a gun in their hands. That was just a silly statement you made right there.

Hell a car can alter a person's brain chemistry, sex can.  You have receptors in the brain that react to the release of endorphins.

You actually have a receptor called an opioid receptor lol you also have nicotine receptors. You have all kinds of receptors that can change/alter the brain chemistry. Dopamine receptors is effected by numerous outside forces including drugs, physical activity and items like guns, car, skydiving.

You get my point. Now the level it effects people are different and how they react to it are different. Such as a sex addict, serial killer, drug addict ect... outside forces can alter an individual's brain chemistry. PTSD is a prime example.

A gun can be what's called a triggering device no pun intended. That once a person holds it. They change mentally. They can becaome Johnny bad ass because they have the power. Their brain has been altered to believe they are more powerful now.

I think you get my point.

But you still have not answered my question.

I see alot of blame on the drugs both legal and illegal. A call for more regulations and laws.

Fine....tell me this what laws that aren't already in place. That could prevent drug addicts from ODing or more drug addict deaths.

These people that are addicts, that OD are breaking the law. They are criminals. I don't mean to sound harsh. But that's the truth. Yet everyone here is blaming the drugs, both legal and illegal and drug companies and even doctors.

Well what about the addicts that are breaking the law and doing these drugs llegally.  Grant you I consider an addict as having an illness more than anything. But they must want to be helped. If they don't there is absolutely nothing I,  you or anybody in this world can do to help them.

The best place for them is in jail. Because if you let them go they will use again and eventually die from an overdose.

It's up to them. No one can force them to not be an addict. It's not the drugs. It were not drugs. It'd be alcohol or something else.

So tell me what new laws can prevent an addict from being an addict. Put the blame where it belongs on the individual  not a object.

My wife as well.  Thank God she broke free.

Yet people continue to use and become addicted while we spend hundreds of millions every year and not making any progress.

That’s the definition of insanity.

Maybe it’s time to try something different like legalization and then allocating a lot smaller percentage of dollars to education and support of addicts instead of Law Enforcement and the judicial system.

I feel for you brother it happens to some people. Some people for whatever reason are more easily addictive to meds. I've had 5 back operations, total knee replacement both elbows operated on. Two ruptured ear drums.

I never had a problem. But I'm stubborn. How long was your wife addicted to pain meds and where did she get them.

There's an idea. It beats just throwing the addicts in jail. At least try and help those that want help. Thise that do not want help give them a legal form of the drug and monitor their dosage. I bet their deaths and crime rate would drop. At least that garbage that's laced with poisons that's causing most the deaths and OD cases they would stop using.

Because until the addicts that are breaking the law as of now decide they want help. They will not stop and they will continue to OD and die.

But dont blame the drugs or drug companies or doctors.

You mean like DARE?

Yes, we need to switch from the War on Drugs to War on Addiction.

Why is it that we need to do ANYTHING?

Long time buddy of mine OD’d twice.

Second time he decided to do something about it and asked for the help to get him into rehab.

He went to some dumpy rehab in Detroit and went to a halfway house after that right in an extra ghetto part of the west side.

He is clean now and is trying hard to stay that way. No more alcohol either, since that just lets him slip.  Still can’t quit cigarettes though.

His foreseeable future will revolve around temptation.

Another old friend is not so lucky.  She went missing for four months,  assumed dead. She got arrested and released before family could get her. The mug shots from this year show a downward spiral. She has been living homeless somewhere in Portland for the last year. She probably will die if she doesn’t stop now.

What part dont you understand about drug users?
Dont you understand the cross contamination from user to a person who is not? Ask a cop about it.
After you find out that it happens. Would you try to save a user with out protection?

Yes. I have no sympathy for drug users. As far as I am concern using drugs is like attempting suicide.
Drug users are a drain on society. I say. Let Darwin win.

I agree with that to. Because would it make a difference and there are already laws and treatment facilities now to help those that WANT HELP. Another great answer.

That's the main thing with addicts. Do they want help and if so how badly.  As the poster a few above stated one friend succeeded and one didn't. The one that did. Did so because he wanted to. He reached a point in his life that he knew that if he didn't he'd probably end up dead.  Fear is a great motivator.

But either way you look at it. If you lose someone because of their addictions. Makes no difference weather it's to drugs or alcohol or both. Which most the time it is.

It still hurts those that loved them. It about killed me when my brother died. It still hurts me badly at at times.
But I did not go out waving a banner screaming ban drugs or alcohol.

What happened he did to himself. I'd talked to him in the past about it. I left home at 17 right out of HS and went into the Army. My brother was 3 years younger. I kinda blamed my parents at first. I said how could you have not known when he was young he did drugs. Did you just ignore it.

But it always amazes me when people lose loved ones. They blame the drugs. Like that drug jumped up and said hey try me. Then they try to make it harder for people that truely need these medications to get.

Folks I've seen people that live their live in chronic pain. Let me tell you. That's not a life to live. If these opioid drugs can ease their pain and allow them to have some kind of life. So be it. I've seen these people kill themselves because they could not live with pain 7 days a week 24 hours aday. It will run your life. You can't sleep, move, leave the house. You can function as a human being.

Yet because a drug addict broke the law, committed a crime. Overdosed on a drug they got illegally. People want to keep others that need them from getting them or make it so difficult to get that the people that need them must now use tainted illegal drugs. Thus overdosing and dieing and now the government has created an imaginary opioid epidemic.

WHY......WHY blame the drug instead of putting the blame on the criminal that broke the law. Most of these overdoses happen on illegal drugs not prescription drugs. If they do it is because they were again stolen by these addicts/criminals.

Very very seldom do I ever run a call on an opioid overdose from prescription drugs. It's illegal drugs. When I do run a call for legal prescription drugs they were taken by someone they were not prescribed to. They were stolen.

Yet lets blame the drug and not the addict. There is absolutely no personal responsibility being assigned to the addict.

The doctors and pharmacies are so afraid to write or fill scrips it's stupid. Then you have the pharmacist over riding the doctor on scrips. All because the people place blame on the drug not the addict and the government's  creation of a made up epidemic. 325 million people in America and in 2016 20 thousand deaths from opioid that includes fentanyl. What percentage is 20 thousand of 325 million

Over all there were 64 thousand deaths from drug overdoses of some kind. That includes the 20k,  what did the others overdose on because thats 44 thousand drug overdose deaths on something other than Opioids. But the CDC stated they did not track those deaths or what they overdosed on. Just opioid deaths. So your telling me the government only considers opioid overdose deaths important.

Those 44 thousand other drug overdose deaths don't matter. Somebody has to know what they overdosed on at CDC because they have to collect that information. Honestly it sound like the government is specifically targeting Opioids. It goes back to one of my earlier statements. A political leaders son, daughter or wife dies of an overdose related to Opioids and blames the drug and is targeting them.

The doctors, pharmacies and pharmaceutical companies. The government singled out a drug that they created an epidemic on. That 20k people die of in 2016 out of 325 million Americans. Yet 44 thousand Americans die from overdoses on other drugs they say they don't track.

Something sounds awful wrong here.

One thing it does show is that the increase in death seems to correlate to when the government started it's crack down on the pill mills and Opioids and made it harder for people to get prescription meds and started using heroin and oyher street drugs.

So really if you must point a finger at anybody. Point at the government for causing these deaths. Because there very own charts and graphs indicate that their involvement were the direct cause in the spike in overdose drug deaths.

Oh wait the government got involved in health care and people started dying.

Yup.

Lost a very close friend earlier this year opioids. Was clean for a bit, got drunk took an oxycotin and never woke up.

You were a good friend Matt Sames

Blame dumbass liberals and their infatuation with patient satisfaction scores driving EVERYTHING at all costs. Doctors had to prescribe that shit or risk getting shitty satisfaction scores and lower or no reimbursement.

Damn, sorry to hear that.  

So...opening the floodgates of drugs to people is your idea?   That actually sounds like insanity.  People don't need drug education.  Everyone KNOWS what drugs are and what they do.
Everyone.  Watching some power points in gym/health classs isn't going to do shit.  They ALREADY DO THAT SHIT in like K-12.   Flooding the market with illegal drugs and making them available everywhere
would only crush our infrastructure, kill our hospitals, and further destroy the moral fabric of the nation.

MAYBE...if our country wasn't full of fucking idiots.  MAYBE...if we were intellectually superior and had morals.  MAYBE is our society and our morality matured well over the next 400 years instead of deteriorating.
MAYBE...if our people knew what moderation was.  MAYBE...in perhaps 1,000 years of enlightenment we'd be mature enough of a society to be able to handle drug legalization.   But that time isn't anywhere near now.

Do you even realize how overloaded the treatment facilities and detox's are? Around here there's one detox facility per county, call ahead and get a bed reserved days in advance and hope the people still want to go. None of the treatment facilities will take anyone who isn't detoxed because they don't have the care needed. There are a couple in the state that will but you have to have really good insurance to get in.

It's more of our broken health care system. It's easier to cycle them in and out of the courts and jails than it is to deal with the actual problem.

ETA: Anyone who is deep in addiction has the free state health insurance and the only programs around here that take it are complete shit. I know someone going to one right now in outpatient. Clients showing up high as hell and nodding off during the session. The person I know isn't doing much better. Not being held to mandatory AA or NA meeting attendance.

I know some people that sent their kid to one over on the east side of the state, when the counselor went on vacation they just let the people hang out for a week. Completely broken system.

Great point. What's your recommendation

since we have laws protecting idiots from the real world Darwin finds a way. 

Your friend got drunk and took one oxycotin and died. I'm sorry to hear that. I truely am. But your friend took something more than just an oxycotin.

Your friend was on more than one oxycotin pill even if he was drinking. He more than like took several oxycotin and other drugs to and went into respiratory arrest.

One oxycotin pill even if you are drink won't kill you. He guarantee you he was on way more than one oxycotin pill. If that's what you were told then they were not being honest with you.

Be more along the lines or Portugal and treat it as more of a medical condition than a criminal problem. There's been studies done that if all the jails and prisons had treatment programs society as a whole would be better off monetarily. They looked at what the average cost to everyone was for these people stealing to get their next fix vs how much treatment costs and then factored in what percentage actually stay clean.  Even if 5% stay clean society comes out ahead.

They also force people into treatment.  

Do you want that?

I have and a first cousin of mine is addicted to heroin and on his last leg. I still say legalize everything, they're going to get their fix no matter what. 

As opposed to a felony possession of a controlled substance charge it doesn't seem all that draconian. 

This. We need more legislation and government intervention. That will surely un-f$%k the problem. It always does.




Sorry about your cousin OP.

No kidding. It's this kind of misinformation that's driving the current hysteria. ONE Oxy wasn't the difference between life and death here. No way.

I'm sorry that you have had to witness such devastation, but fact is legal drugs would be safer(known ingredients) , cheaper(theoretically with free market principles) and a lot harder to accidentally OD on(consistent % of intoxicant known). Sort of like how alcohol became safer & cheaper after prohibition.

Drugs are like guns. They are both inanimate. Drug Abuse is a personal problem that requires a personal solution. Not a government one.

Hell of a 7th post noob!

Just curious on what people's definition of responsibility and freedom are.

Because that is neither.

quoted for the MF Truth!!!
 

My buddy is an EMT here and he said narcanning people generally takes up the majority of his weekends now. As in greather than 50% of all calls he responds to are to narcan a junkie. Crazy. Such a waste of resources.

And sometimes, it really is best just to step aside and let Darwin take over.

It's a faulty assumption to assume that wanting legalization comes from the attitude of a lack of care or a desire to get high.

I'm assuming, but never been there, that they are forcefully taking people to rehab that are not exercising their freedom to use drugs responsibly....
You know the same person you would take to jail for a PI instead they take them to a detox/rehab?

Why do you find freedom so scary and responsibility so confusing?

No, Narcan is not making it worse for that reason.  The addict hardly considers the risk of OD and no more than you consider the risk of choking when you are hungry.  Narcan comes with its ethical issues, but its affect upon the decision process of an addict is likely insignificant.

Freedom to me = Having the right to choose (for better or worse) what my pursuit of happiness may be, without coercion from the government.

Threats of violence, theft and imprisonment(govt coercion) should not be used by a government against its citizens, for non-violent crimes that involve this intoxicant and not the other.

Responsibility to me = Knowing the difference between use & abuse. And understanding that there is a time and place for everything, including when to make the right choice for yourself and accepting the consequences for your choices.

If society can live with alcohol and tobacco, why can't it live with meth and opiods? Or can it?

Show me in this thread where I advocated arresting them.

Ill wait.

Should society force or fund rehab programs for anything of them?

Cause thats what Portugal does.

Absolutely not. The same goes for mandated health-care. Personal problems require personal solutions. IMHO. If society agrees that rehab is a better solution than prison, then society should agree on how it should be funded. Until then..."Let them eat cake".

this whole thread sucks. every time a discussion starts on addiction the "muh freedom" crowd takes over.
I would wager the "muh freedom" gang has no relation/friends who have become addicted either willingly or accidental because they and their friends are supermen which have never been addicted to anything so mundane as opioids, benzos or alcohol. 

I know two very important people who suffered or are suffering. One is dead and the other is suffering with the 4th year of recovery. 

You'd lose that wager, BTW.

That's crazy. Truly a waste indeed. I'm all for NOT narcanning people after an OD. Especially adults. But I suppose that cat's been out of the bag for too long now. More nanny-state, "everyone take care of me" BS. What a can of worms we've got ourselves into, in our era of irresponsibility. Thanks a lot bin laden (Hangover reference for clarity).

Why would you bet against freedom? Too much for you to handle?

Serious question...from what I've read in the 1890's-1920's there were opium dens in big cities across the US.

There was no ATF, DEA or any federal regulations....you could walk into any pharmacy and buy cocaine (look into coco-cola's roots), a 12 year old could buy a bottle of whiskey if he wanted- tobacco, anything. Plenty of people bought what are now 'controlled drugs' and used them frequently in order to deal with pain then....there was no 'healthcare system' then either.

That said, how did the US not turn into a an opium, cocaine, alcohol abuse OD haven without any federal government regulation? Sure people died then, but somehow it was not widespread.

Could it be that regulation actually leads to systematic abuse and an uncontrolled black market? (think uncontrolled illegal fentenal now as opposed to pharmacy filled orders)...look too at undeveloped countries like Mexico where many controlled 'US drugs' can be bought at pharmacies there super cheap....why are they not all dying in 3rd world countries but in controlled forced black market countries - like the US people are dying due to a black market that has no controls because people are buying not from pharmacies but on the real street level?

What is the difference from then and there from here and now? I think this is the key question most are not willing to address truthfully.

I'm going to take the guess that people who are not doing opium/heroin won't start if it's legal.



I wouldn't touch that shit with a ten foot pole.


I seent what it does.

Would addiction work differently if drugs would either be more illegal or more regulated?

Every pt I have is originally admitted against their will. What's your point?