Is the opioid death toll a thing in all of western society?

[Phil Pascoe]

I was in hospital for two months - this was a small hospital to where we were shipped out from the major one when it was decided we were no longer in immediate danger. A chap I was in with had really bad constipation and blood transfusions for anaemia and I asked one day if he'd been told to eat loads of figs and prunes and other fruit. I was surprised when he said no, he hadn't. I ate liquorice, chocolate, figs and prunes by the pound.
I was way past co codamol - I was on codeine, morphine and slow release morphine (overnight) - they and baby stuff like gabapentin, pregabalin, nortriptyline, tramadol are things of the past. I don't want to go there again . )
Codeine affects people differently - my wife takes one 30 mg? and it knocks her out, I can take three or four and not feel any side effects. I didn't feel anything the one time they gave me fentanyl, I did have a few lousy days when I dropped the morphine, though.

 

[JobandKnock]

I don't eat sweets much any more (other than chocolate, which I not fussed about), but i do carry dried apricots around a lot of the time. Similar effect

 

[dannyr]

sad news today, USA just passed 100,000 annual death by drug overdose level (not including alcohol). this is a rise of 5x since 2000.

I had 5 lovely younger American cousins of whom 3 are dead, two accidently, one drug related and a fourth had a close brush (alcohol). It certainly wasn't poverty/deprivation/lack of family support in their cases.

Europe has plenty of problems, but the highest death by drug overdose is Norway with one fifth of the US rate per million, and an average country like say Spain has a rate only one twentieth.

Why?? - serious subject, so sensitive answers, please

 

[selectortone]

Why?? - serious subject, so sensitive answers, please

Why? Money. Purdue Pharma, the manufacturers of OxyContin, and the Sackler family who own the company, have been called the biggest drug cartel in the world. Unlike the Colombians though, it was all legal.

 

[Jake]

The Fentanyl issue in the US is also very much driven by China.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I'd be a bl00dy expensive junkie - I was given fentanyl and asked how it made me feel - I felt nothing at all.

 

[Jake]

As I understand it, that's one of the problems with it. Super narrow dosage window between no effect and dead.