immediate deployment of National Guardsmen to go forth and shoot, on sight, God'amn marijuana smoking long-hairs. And if a few faggots get caught in the cross fire ... heh! :shrug:
immediate deployment of National Guardsmen to go forth and shoot, on sight, God'amn marijuana smoking long-hairs. And if a few faggots get caught in the cross fire ... heh! :shrug:
Actually, Herbs, Opioid addiction is one of the worst social ills I've seen around here. Last year there were more opioid overdose deaths than by gunshots and car wrecks combined! It's hitting every socioeconomic group, every age, gender, ... whatever. Mostly it starts by taking the drugs prescribed by a doc. We're talking vicodin, oxycontin, hydrocodone, etc. They mess with your brain. If you get caught you gradually devolve to heroin because it's so cheap. Now, Herbs, this ain't the Sid Vicious kind of heroin you know. You can ingest in all manner of ways. Gotten from a supplier you don't know what you're getting. Lots of times it's laced with fentanyl which gives you a much higher high at the start, although short lasting.
All of our local cops carry narcan, which can stop the overdose. We're having community meetings about it, etc. Several high school kids have died in the last year or so. You get your knee banged up playing football, the doc prescribes an opioid... and you get hooked. You feel ashamed so you sneak around to feed your high. Parents are putting locks on their medicine cabinets in case one of their kids' friends gets in there.
Naturally the demand has led to pill mills and the pharma companies gladly provide. It's bad.
He's gone soft on JFK too; twenty-five years to do their homework and Langley still wants to hand it in late :naughty:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Herbert Augustus Chapman
is no 'cure' for addiction of any kind; it is a life long affliction and usually only successfully controlled by the individual strength of the afflicted party. This is one large piece of **** you are going to struggle to get back up the horse.Quote:
Originally Posted by Chief Arrowhead
Astonishing to learn the significant part played by the american medical profession and I think our old friend, the highly refined sense of entitlement, is at the root of the problem. I have knocked my knee, I have pain. It is your job, physician, to remove that pain.
I know you were having a lark, but there's little chance that you are aware of how bad this is since most here are yet to be aware. I am on the board of an addiction specialist organization and all of a sudden we're getting parents begging the org. to help their kids. I got involved in this group when my son had some problems -- POT! -- 8 short years ago so I thought it was the same. Nope, these kids were hooked on heroin. Heroin! Wasn't that, you know, a bit 70's? These were good kids with no needle marks, etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by Herbert Augustus Chapman
You are also quite correct. Everyone wants a quick remedy for everything, especially pain. Physical and mental. Some docs just prescribe whatever the patient wants. One of my friends had his knee replaced and received a prescription for 30 days worth of hydrocodone!!! When he asked the doc if he really was going to need all of that the doc said no, but in his experience most folks come back to him for a refill scrip so he's just in the habit of doubling it.
Frankly, the remedy for this is complicated and will require big changes and some "pain". In other words it's like a mass social addiction. So far the steps taken give me little hope. Did you know that pharmacies are stocking narcan now so that anyone can buy it? Guess who makes narcan.. yep.
We also have a commercial for a drug that combats OIC. Do you know what OIC is?
www.movantik.com
You realise of course, chief, that you're making rather a good argument against private, free-market medicine?Quote:
Originally Posted by Chief Arrowhead
That's not what we have. Our medical system is long, long past the free market when a consumer can get 90 opioid pills for a $5 co-pay. It's a Gordian knot of insurance companies, pharmacy benefit managers and government. If a consumer had to pay for the true cost of a pill out of his own pocket he might say, "Maybe I'll just buy two."Quote:
Originally Posted by Burney
Actually, I am a huge advocate of private, free market medicine.
I take your point, but you have to bear in mind that, by the standards of most developed nations, the US medical market is a free-for-all in which prescription medicines are advertised on TV (this doesn't happen in other countries), in which all that matters is the level of insurance possessed by the patient, in which the patient is a customer to be pleased first and foremost and in which doctors are actively lobbied (and paid) by pharmaceutical company reps to push their pills.Quote:
Originally Posted by Chief Arrowhead
God knows I'm not trying to advocate for our rather Stalinist model of healthcare, I'm just trying to give you an idea of how weird your system looks from outside and suggesting how it may have contributed to the problem you describe.
Had no idea whatsoever Chief.
Did your son get into difficulties with high strength weed? I first encountered it circa 1981 in Germany. Such powerful columbian grass it induced what I later discovered was Paranoid Psychosis.
I also witnessed the conspiracy of silence that weed smokers indulged in about there being any ill affects or negatives about cannabis use.
:nod: Weed smokers are massive liars about this. I basically stopped using the stuff because I found that regular use just made me boring, introverted, housebound and lazy.Quote:
Originally Posted by Herbert Augustus Chapman