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Opinion:People arrested for using heroine/drugs should not be jailed if this is a consequence of opioid prescription given by a therapist
- Thread starter fireflame
- Start date
Should we arrest everybody who drinks alcohol because some assholes drink and drive? How about people who use mobile phones, should we arrest them all as well?
Wouldn't you go to jail for operating a motor vehicle impaired not for just being impaired. You know just like alcohol.....
The times I've been given opioids I've actually needed them. I wasn't getting through three weeks of post-tonsillectomy pain without them.
The big issues with opioids with heavily obscured addiction issues happened last decade. That's not really what's going on here with why it's an issue. The thing about opiates is that getting your body addicted is easy - my body was physically dependent after my tonsilectomy cause I didn't start tapering soon enough and I had to take a few extra days off work to handle the spectacularly unfun withdrawal symptoms. (if it ever happens to you, take a regular dose of immodium, it helps with 90% of it tapering you down to earth.)
Yup.
Actually, an even bigger problem might be finding an insurance company that will actually cover the drugs. And I'm not just talking about opioids, they are refusing to cover opioid alternatives, too.
Lines up with my understanding based on my mother's experience with Lupus
My wife has completely stopped prescribing opiates. They've made it so difficult that maybe one Doctor out of 10+ in her practice will still prescribe it. She says whilst some paranoia over it's use is warranted, much is just someone like yourself with chronic pain who have stuck to the same dose for years. But they get questioned by the Pharmaceutical council about why they haven't weened a person off opiates and then they're in front of the Medical council and possibly in deep shit. Easier to just say no and not prescribe at all.
The fact is that if opiates are working and no evidence of addiction or side effects are noted then they can work well for some types of pain. Alternatives are great, if they work, but there are no perfect pain medications. Every person requires a different approach and sometimes that will require opiates. The big problem here in Australia is the lack of a centralised medical database, drug addicts just go from practice to practice for opiates and there is no way to check they haven't got a dose from elsewhere.
i'm sorry, i wasn't reading any caveats in your "no one should go to jail for drug use" statements being posted verbatim...........................ellipsis
There are no caveats. No one should go to jail for using drugs. This is a simple statement. Drunk drivers don't go to jail for drinking. They go to jail for driving under the influence of alcohol.
Like I said, no one goes to jail for drinking they go to jail for operating a vehicle under the influence, so you didn't list any any caveat in my statement
One of the bigger problems I saw was direct to consumer marketing of medicine in general. That hasnt been allowed in my country for as long as Ive been alive.
But, and Im not sure if this is the case here, I have seen "conferences" in tropical resorts and "marketing budgets" that went to medical professionals.
Umm....proof?
This concept that most doctors are getting kickbacks pisses me off to no end.
On topic, the clinic I'm familiar with has basically taken that power away from docs, and everyone is referred to a pain specialist.
And add another to the "no addict should be jailed for being an addict" tally.
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The truth right here. It's a damn mess. People are dying and nobody seems to care.
We can start with decriminalisation if you don't want to support legalisation
Also, if you don't want legalised addictive drugs, you understand that would mean making alcohol and nicotine illegal as well right? If you're in the not legalising addictive drugs camp after all
Yup. If you want to jail people make sure it's a place where they have rehab and not just regular jail.
The tropical resorts conferences typically are for medical education/research. As a physician in the US, you are required to continue your education for the entirety of your career. That means you not only have to take board exams every X amount of years, but also every year or so you have to attend conferences and get credits for education.
These conferences may be in nicer resorts
Lol one of the benefits, for the powers that be, of over prescribing narcotics is creating people that can fill jail cells.
Agreed on the direct to consumer marketing. It does not seem to be handled well at all here.
Can you share more on the marketing budget thing?
Yes, doctors need ongoing education. One way they do that is through lectures at conferences. These conferences are often in nice places. My wife has to take time off to make her quota. She might get reimbursed for the ticket and room, but this is not some extravagant windfall for the doc, and is in fact required to remain certified.
The problem is rehab is often a huge scam. There's not a lot of good science behind it and in some places in the US, basically anyone can open a rehab with very little regulation. Some courts even mandate 12 steps, even in prison, which is completely worthless jibberish.
Euhm.. so I'm just going to speak from personal experience here. I know that some general conferences are held in locations like that, but I've also seen product specific conferences dressed up to seem general. We have these credit systems as well, and a large part of those credits are earned by going to product specific courses/conferences.
Sure, so without being too specific, this was in the dental field. In exchange for buying a certain number of a specific product, the practice would get a marketing budget that they were free to spend on promoting their practice. In practice this was syphoned off to the practice owners bank account.
Maybe it's just my field, but I've seen all manner of constructs where money was transferred in less than above board ways.
I have family on the practioner side and yeah those trips arent amazing windfalls, but still there is some amount of nudging going on there. It used to be in my field that excursions and meals would also be comped. That is no longer allowed since about 5 years. I can't even give away a mint.
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Yup. Rehab through courts tends to be a joke, but I do believe many of them have the right idea. Sobriety courts are a good idea, but if all you're doing us forcing them into NA or AA 7 days a week, you're not gonna see the long term results you were hoping for. Not to mention the weirdness of forcing people to attend meetings that revolve so strongly around god.
Always blows me away that US patients are incentivized to pester their physicians about certain prescription medicine because pharma companies have free range to market their shit to laymen. It's preposterous.
Even if we ignore that 12 steps was founded by fundamentalist christians for the primary goal of converting people at their weakest, it's unfathomable to me that we have courts putting faith in completely unscientific rehab practices invented by a stock speculator in the 1940s.
We may as well give them all a copy of dianetics.
Opinion: don't jail people for using drugs. Seriously. Drug use itselft should not be a jailable offense. Drug related crime might be, although I would always fall on the side of treatment and rehabilitation a la Portugal rather than punishment.
And it's really warped how they view other options. My experience has been that knowledge of other, more effective treatments is very low, but judgement toward them is very high. I guess the fundamentalist christian comes through there! But seriously, talking to the people/judges/probation officers who ran my sobriety court about naltrexone for alcohol addiction was incredibly frustrating. They had never heard of it (which is already shocking, given its success relative to AA) but it was already dismissed on the merit that giving an alcoholic a pill cant work.
+1 for not arresting people for doing drugs. As long as they aren't putting other people at risk, ie. driving under the influence, it's nobody's business what someone else chooses to do. We can put all the money we'd save toward actually helping the people that need it.
But I have a question, decriminalizing drugs means what? They find someone injecting heroin or something, they get their drugs confiscated and fined them only? Or what would happen? I'm been curious about that, since I just keep hearing decriminalize drugs, but not what would happen, besides not being sent to jail of course.
I still feel if anything people should be detain and be sent to rehab for their own good, if they show addicting behaviour towards the substance of course. Going to jail for having or using drugs is dumb, that wouldn't help them.
And regarding Nicotine and Alcohol, I'm ok for them to not be legalized either. But again, this is just me, I don't use or need either of them to function daily. But I do know people who do, specially Cigars. They just become cranky or aggressive if they haven't smoked during the day. If we can have a future with less drugs that can affect your state of mind when you aren't using them, then I'm cool with that idea.
But being realistic, that will never happen and there are more drug users out there than non drug users. That includes nicotine and Alcohol, so for me to say this things is going to sound like I hate them. Which is not true, but like I said, its my opinion, doesn't mean that it will happen or that I care if it happens. I have friends that smoke pod and I'm not there telling to them not to do it, they are adults, they should know if its good for them or not.
I just hope for a future where addicting drugs aren't use to this extends or are a symbol of "coolness". Nothing that can harm your body should be seen as something "cool" or "fun". Again, I hope I don't offend anybody, not my intention. I might had worded my thought wrong, so don't take this as facts or must do, its just a simple opinion, well or badly informed.
Why not: Opinion: People arrested for using heroin/drugs should not be jailed? Assuming they've committed no other crime, why not just send them to rehab?
Disagree, if you participate in the horrific drug trade, you need putting in jail. Until it is legalised you shouldn't use them.
This.
Was about to post the same thing.
For dealing OK, but not for the use..