Separate topic - coming out of the Capitol thread. The statistics about alcohol and death are surprising. I looked them up as part of that discussion and generally don't carry around arguments like that.
Less on the alcohol thing and more on the overdose deaths. The movie industry and other things in the states have always provided us with odd portrayals of addicts vs. alcoholics, for example. If you knew a kid in a bad house with alcoholics (abuse, etc. all rolled into that), it was "that's a shame, but oh well, what can you do about it". If you brought up such things as weed (which I have no interest in and never did, and never tried, but it's fairly benign), you could get the older folks totally fired up. Including the alcoholics. The perception was an odd thing. Alcohol is a gaba agonist from what I understand. Take it away and someone who needs it to remain calm has no ability to control their fear. Gaba agonists tend to be something that you have to taper off of over a long period of time to change your body's regulation (but being no expert on alcohol, I'm guessing the lack of inhibitions and impaired judgement makes tapering pretty difficult to implement). Since I don't get a particular thrill out of it, I wouldn't have any difficulty doing this, but people who do get the thrill ..not the same.
On to the statistic that came out of the discussion - drug overdoses in the US are at least 10 times higher than firearm homicides that don't involve gang or drug-related crimes (sorry to offend anyone who thinks I should count those - I don't think you'll get them to go away and you have near zero chance of getting caught in them). the remaining number is something like 6000 and some fraction of that again has an avoidable element, but I can't see the data parsed further to find out what's "regular people run amok". So the number could be 20 or 30 times.
We're also keenly aware now thanks to publishing of information that a lot of the deaths are people who start with a prescription, find something they really like (just as I'm thankful for not having the lightswitch on effect from alcohol, I'm glad that I've never had any short term medication from a surgical procedure, etc, that was particularly thrilling).
What's the cause of all of the prescribing? The first thing you'll hear from simplified story tellers here in the states is that it's greedy docs and drug companies. I'm sure that's some part of it. Just about everyone who works has some level of greed and likes to grow their business. But what I'm interested to know is the other side of the cause here with the opioids, and that is that our medical association gets fascinated with ideals. Two that stand out to me is if you go through a low row and go to a psychiatrist here (something I had to do due to an adverse reaction to a migraine medication - a simple beta blocker), the psychiatrist will attempt to figure out how to make you happy "all the time" or "almost all of the time". I may be one of the few, but I think this is a dangerous thing to aim for, and said the same.
On the pain side, the medical society here apparently (relaying what I've heard from physicians) decided that pain was an important treatable issue and that the goal is no pain. This is, again, a pretty dangerous target for the average person. I've never taken an opioid and probably never will, but I understand that some people get the warm fuzzies from them above and beyond pain relief, but even for those in the latter, the dangerous part about the treatment is that there can be pain relief and reasonable functionality. As tolerance builds, it takes more, but the medical directive states that physicians should treat pain as they would any other condition.
The outcome of this was predictable.
Is this a universal international thing, or is it only in the united states (as in, I know there are pharma abusers everywhere, but is it as prevalent elsewhere in a per capita basis?). An equivalent basis in the UK by population would be something like 12k deaths per year with some sizable fraction of those being opiate addicts starting with a pain prescription.
Less on the alcohol thing and more on the overdose deaths. The movie industry and other things in the states have always provided us with odd portrayals of addicts vs. alcoholics, for example. If you knew a kid in a bad house with alcoholics (abuse, etc. all rolled into that), it was "that's a shame, but oh well, what can you do about it". If you brought up such things as weed (which I have no interest in and never did, and never tried, but it's fairly benign), you could get the older folks totally fired up. Including the alcoholics. The perception was an odd thing. Alcohol is a gaba agonist from what I understand. Take it away and someone who needs it to remain calm has no ability to control their fear. Gaba agonists tend to be something that you have to taper off of over a long period of time to change your body's regulation (but being no expert on alcohol, I'm guessing the lack of inhibitions and impaired judgement makes tapering pretty difficult to implement). Since I don't get a particular thrill out of it, I wouldn't have any difficulty doing this, but people who do get the thrill ..not the same.
On to the statistic that came out of the discussion - drug overdoses in the US are at least 10 times higher than firearm homicides that don't involve gang or drug-related crimes (sorry to offend anyone who thinks I should count those - I don't think you'll get them to go away and you have near zero chance of getting caught in them). the remaining number is something like 6000 and some fraction of that again has an avoidable element, but I can't see the data parsed further to find out what's "regular people run amok". So the number could be 20 or 30 times.
We're also keenly aware now thanks to publishing of information that a lot of the deaths are people who start with a prescription, find something they really like (just as I'm thankful for not having the lightswitch on effect from alcohol, I'm glad that I've never had any short term medication from a surgical procedure, etc, that was particularly thrilling).
What's the cause of all of the prescribing? The first thing you'll hear from simplified story tellers here in the states is that it's greedy docs and drug companies. I'm sure that's some part of it. Just about everyone who works has some level of greed and likes to grow their business. But what I'm interested to know is the other side of the cause here with the opioids, and that is that our medical association gets fascinated with ideals. Two that stand out to me is if you go through a low row and go to a psychiatrist here (something I had to do due to an adverse reaction to a migraine medication - a simple beta blocker), the psychiatrist will attempt to figure out how to make you happy "all the time" or "almost all of the time". I may be one of the few, but I think this is a dangerous thing to aim for, and said the same.
On the pain side, the medical society here apparently (relaying what I've heard from physicians) decided that pain was an important treatable issue and that the goal is no pain. This is, again, a pretty dangerous target for the average person. I've never taken an opioid and probably never will, but I understand that some people get the warm fuzzies from them above and beyond pain relief, but even for those in the latter, the dangerous part about the treatment is that there can be pain relief and reasonable functionality. As tolerance builds, it takes more, but the medical directive states that physicians should treat pain as they would any other condition.
The outcome of this was predictable.
Is this a universal international thing, or is it only in the united states (as in, I know there are pharma abusers everywhere, but is it as prevalent elsewhere in a per capita basis?). An equivalent basis in the UK by population would be something like 12k deaths per year with some sizable fraction of those being opiate addicts starting with a pain prescription.
