News Biden Quietly Making Radical Shift in Opioid Policy [US]

[neversickanymore]

No it’s was a pile of political party debate dung.


Given all the money coming in from the opiate settlements we are going to see a ton thrown at harm reduction, but I think you have a valid point.. until we see some well designed program for legal distribution we likely will continue to take significant casualties.

 

[Burnt Offerings]

Would that money be better spent on housing, mental health and ensuring that people have hopeful lives? How much does it cost to change the laws and let pharmacies doll out oxycontin, fentanyl, meth and cocaine to people, instead of empower drug cartels?

I agree with a lot of what you've said, especially this part. Personally I believe in a basically maximalist philosophy and political program involving drugs...I think that the best course of action would be for state-controlled access points where psychoactive drugs would be sold in measured, pharmaceutically-pure doses...that wouldn't eliminate all the problems associated with drug use and abuse, there will always be people who use drugs in reckless or irresponsible ways. There's no way to eliminate that, and the issue would probably be especially acute in situations where people don't see a way to live a life with dignity and meaning, purpose, all that good stuff...that's why the second component, involving major investments in infrastructure, healthcare, energy, a public works program (a real one, not just some crap where the government subsidizes a bunch of private corporations) etc...

But, at the same time, while those solutions are the ones I personally think are the best, and would result in the best outcomes, there just isn't the political will (in my country, the USA) for even the stuff most people think would be actually good, like accessible healthcare for all citizens or renewed infrastructure...and the drug stuff, basically forget it, the belief that recreational drugs should just be a legal and accepted part of American life, facilitated by the very entity (the government) that used to work towards their prohibition and elimination...it's not as fringe of a belief as it once was decades ago but it's still a fringe belief IMO. So I see TUF's point about "working with what we've got", basically

 

[LucidSDreamr]

Biden quietly making radical shift in opioid policy
.

Although it makes little effort to trumpet it, “the Biden administration has made harm reduction the centerpiece of its effort to address the opioid crisis,” said Andrew Kolodny, who chairs the psychiatry department at Maimonides Medical Center in New York City.

This man Kolondy is an extremely evil cruel piece of piece of filth that deserves the most crippling tortured pain for decades and to be denied opioids.

He is responsible for millions of disabled chronic pain patient suicides and cutoffs from medications and has a whole association called PROP whose goal is to eradicate the use of opioids to treat pain in medicine.

He is bribed by the rehab industry to take this position.

His positions include no opioids at all for acute post surgical extreme surgeries and zero opioids for chronic pain at all. Only during trauma and hospitalization (you lost a limb and are being transported to the hospital)...he is kind enough to allow opipid use in such a situation. Tale home though? Fuck no.

 

[neversickanymore]

Edit:

looks like they are doing the same simple things as everyone else is?

Opioid Policy Research Collaborative

 

[assclass]

I agree with a lot of what you've said, especially this part. Personally I believe in a basically maximalist philosophy and political program involving drugs...I think that the best course of action would be for state-controlled access points where psychoactive drugs would be sold in measured, pharmaceutically-pure doses...that wouldn't eliminate all the problems associated with drug use and abuse, there will always be people who use drugs in reckless or irresponsible ways. There's no way to eliminate that, and the issue would probably be especially acute in situations where people don't see a way to live a life with dignity and meaning, purpose, all that good stuff...that's why the second component, involving major investments in infrastructure, healthcare, energy, a public works program (a real one, not just some crap where the government subsidizes a bunch of private corporations) etc...

But, at the same time, while those solutions are the ones I personally think are the best, and would result in the best outcomes, there just isn't the political will (in my country, the USA) for even the stuff most people think would be actually good, like accessible healthcare for all citizens or renewed infrastructure...and the drug stuff, basically forget it, the belief that recreational drugs should just be a legal and accepted part of American life, facilitated by the very entity (the government) that used to work towards their prohibition and elimination...it's not as fringe of a belief as it once was decades ago but it's still a fringe belief IMO. So I see TUF's point about "working with what we've got", basically

Drugs are an individuals solution for hopelessness. If we create a better society for all, less people will be inclined towards and less people will be vulnerable to the problems of addiction. No debate.
There is no political will for the real solution, because not fixing the problem and masking it (pretending to fix something forever) is so profitable and powerful.
If people really gave a shit about "the children" we would fix the drug laws, because it is probably one of the biggest motivating factors for young women selling their bodies, but that seems to be almost a feature not a bug of our stupid laws. Maybe because our law makers are disgusting old creatures who need to procure sex?

 

[assclass]

No it’s was a pile of political party debate dung.


Given all the money coming in from the opiate settlements we are going to see a ton thrown at harm reduction, but I think you have a valid point.. until we see some well designed program for legal distribution we likely will continue to take significant casualties.

if you think the opiate settlement money is going to do anything useful(other than greasing up some fat cats and being doled out to the media and special interests), I've got these new oxycontin pills that relieve pain without forming any habit or addiction to sell you

 

[neversickanymore]

if you think the opiate settlement money is going to do anything useful(other than greasing up some fat cats and being doled out to the media and special interests), I've got these new oxycontin pills that relieve pain without forming any habit or addiction to sell you

There are quite a few people monitoring that money so it’s going to be difficult to do that.

 

[LucidSDreamr]

if you think the opiate settlement money is going to do anything useful(other than greasing up some fat cats and being doled out to the media and special interests), I've got these new oxycontin pills that relieve pain without forming any habit or addiction to sell you

....but the new pills are still scheduled 2 which defines them of having a high danger of addiction..just like oxycontin always was.

This whole argument should have shattered the prosecutions case against any pharma company "tricking" medical doctors that went to school for 10 to 12 years to become a pain specialist that a schedule 2 drug (such as oxy was) is....as they have always been defined to be "highly addictive."

The entire prosecution was a sham of the government deflecting blame for creating a fueling a fentanyl genocide

 

[DeathIndustrial88]

My first introduction to & subsequent dependence started with tramadol. (Actually it was hydrocodone in my teens, but I didn't find it pleasurable back then).

Which was "unscheduled" and "non-narcotic" for 30+ years.
Even though there was research there showing it's metabolite was a full agonist, while the parent compound a partial agonist.

The rest of the world knew this & the US chose to ignore it.
I was double filling scripts of a 180 50mg tablets in a month back in 2009, since doctors & pharmacists believed it was like "a tylenol". Granted it wasn't actually my script though.
Then they decide one day to call it a genuine opioid & throw it in schedule 5 & take it away from me. lol
Ironically, tramadol was more enjoyable (at least with no tolerance) compared to a schedule 3 drug like shitty buprenorphine (which was oddly identified as "heroin" by non-tolerant opioid addicts during a study once).

Where's my settlement????????

 

[TheUltimateFixx]

I just fucking want to be able to get some diamorphine, pharmaceutical grade, pure and uncontaminated AT THE PRICE OF PRODUCTION. Not to have to worry every single time whether I'm about to either overdose or poison myself. Not have to shell out stupid money in order to accommodate the risk-to-profit margins of some shady dealer. Not have to betray my principles by indirectly supporting some brutal criminal cartel in the producing country. FFS.

... but apparently my only recourse to that is if
A) I'm in the literal gutter and have already almost killed myself via my habit and B) my only intent is to stave off withdrawal symptoms impractically FOREVER, but God forbid I should want to get high on the stuff. It's all fucked.

 

[DeathIndustrial88]

The American Healthcare system is a fucking idiotic joke.
Therapists do fuck all. In fact my latest therapist pushes my buttons some times.
I've been trying for a month now to get into a psychiatrist, but apparently my mental health can "wait".
I literally do not even wanna exist most days anymore. Since I moved, I no longer have my closest friends, I never have any money, my mother is dead & I no longer have access to full agonist opioids. It's the dumbest chapter of my life thus far.
If I were actually free to do what I felt was right for me, then I wouldn't have to rely on shitty therapists or psychiatrists & I wouldn't be so miserable. But America isn't "free" whatsoever.
Sorry, little side rant.

 

[assclass]

I just fucking want to be able to get some diamorphine, pharmaceutical grade, pure and uncontaminated AT THE PRICE OF PRODUCTION. Not to have to worry every single time whether I'm about to either overdose or poison myself. Not have to shell out stupid money in order to accommodate the risk-to-profit margins of some shady dealer. Not have to betray my principles by indirectly supporting some brutal criminal cartel in the producing country. FFS.

... but apparently my only recourse to that is if
A) I'm in the literal gutter and have already almost killed myself via my habit and B) my only intent is to stave off withdrawal symptoms impractically FOREVER, but God forbid I should want to get high on the stuff. It's all fucked.

this is unreasonable. I'd be happy to pay for the price of production, and a reasonable markup. I don't expect anyone to make good drugs without making a profit, but 50% to 100% markup would be so much better than the 1000%+ percent markup with illegal goods.

 

[DeathIndustrial88]

Some fun facts...


"Fifteen years after the introduction of heroin-assisted treatment for
incarcerated opioid-using individuals in a Swiss open prison, we found
no evidence for increased mortality, overdoses, or severe medical
complications. In fact, over the time period evaluated, no drug-related
death occurred in inmates receiving HAT."

Fifteen years of heroin-assisted treatment in a Swiss prison—a retrospective cohort study - Harm Reduction Journal

Background In the context of the current US opioid crisis and the compelling fact that a quarter to a third of all those addicted to heroin pass through its prisons and jails each year, the care of incarcerated opioid-using individuals (OUI) needs to be improved. Aims Little has been published...

harmreductionjournal.biomedcentral.com

 

[Fertile]

I have been lucky enough to try many opiates and opioids. It is my considered opinion that opium-based compounds should be available to adults in the same manner as tobacco products. It's impossible to accidentally overdose on opium. The death rate we see is almost entirely due to the legal and moral position on this class of drug and the availability of very potent derivatives. It's easier to smuggle 1Kg of morphine than 20Kg of opium.

In the 19th century MANY famous people used opium products (mainly laudanum) for every day of their adult lives with people being dependent for 40 or 50 years.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Thomas De Quincey, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot, Bram Stoker, Gabriel Dante Rossetti, and his wife Elizabeth Siddal, Charles Kingsley, Queen Victoria, Rudyard Kipling, and Edward Elgar, All of the Bronte family and Conan Doyle.

Above ,all mention it in their diaries BUT it was so commonplace that it would not be mentioned in a diary. It would be like a 2022 diary in which someone records taking a couple of ibuprofen!

Opium was sold in man, many places, not just apothecaries. Evidently some kind of licencing was involved but is is recorded that in villages in which the only shop was also the blacksmith, opium would be sold.

Now, it IS possible to purposefully overdose. In Victorian England a few notables committed suicide by drinking 2 or 3 pints of laudanum and records of the Russian invasion of Afghanistan tell of how cheap opium was and that deeply depressed Russian conscripts would eat a matchbox (a common size which sold for about 60 cents) sized lump of opium to end it all. But all the reports state that large amounts are involved and that no cases of accidental overdose were recorded.

I guess it's a bit like many European nations that allow people aged 16+ to buy beer and wine BUT to buy spirits a customer must be 18+. The difference would be that opium would be legal for those 18+ but the sale, intent of sale and importation of stronger opioids would be controlled. One could even make the law differentiate between opiates and opioids - the latter being synthetic or partly synthetic so only codeine, morphine, thebaine, papaverine and noscapine would be legal in some circumstances.

Don't forget that the farm gate price of opium is $350/Kg so if farmers could grow opium legally, it would go some way to increasing the nations security. I mean, it's a total mess with the police all working for drug king-pins who pay various terrorist groups to be exempt from the law. Make no mistake, it would not be the answer, but it could be part of the answer.

I would also say that on a personal level, I find opium by far the nicest opiate. I guess it's like beer and everclear. The latter makes it more practical to get drunk but one can drink the former at a reasonable speed all evening without getting smashed.

I understand that opium withdrawal is quite unpleasant but it was used within many cultures in which smoking alone or at home would be considered unusual. People would gather occasionally and smoke together thus it's use was encoded within the culture. Don't we have that now with alcohol? drinking alone is considered a bad sign?