The Oxy Kingpins

[argonsagas]

And what do you think about this Rob? I appreciate your topless joke, but seeing as it's in your backyard, so to speak, where do you stand on the whole 'safe injection' site idea?
Personally, I think it's good to try new things in order to help. And sure as sh** there's evidence to back up that it's been successful in other parts of the world. But, nobody wants that kind of thing in their backyard.

I have a question in response to your post: Many thousands have been kept "safe" from otherwise using impure drugs and related paraphernalia, but what is the actual ratio of "cures"?

[Rob S.]

I support it. (But NIMBY)

[RustyTank]

I support it. (But NIMBY)

Yeah, I relate with that.

[bccap]

I have a question in response to your post: Many thousands have been kept "safe" from otherwise using impure drugs and related paraphernalia, but what is the actual ratio of "cures"?

We've had them here in Vancouver for some time . I'm not sure what you mean by " cures " as the program wasn't designed to cure addiction .....They did do a study on costs and were pleasantly surprised at how much money the medical system saved from the project ..... The fact that it saves the medical system money is enough to get public support without considering humanitarian reasons ....... This is an old link from 2008 with the amounts saved by the medical system at that time .....The program has been expanded since then ......

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2582765/

[Rob S.]

Much cheaper if the med tech is already standing by with the O.D. reversal than calling an ambulance.

[bccap]

Much cheaper if the med tech is already standing by with the O.D. reversal than calling an ambulance.

I'm sure there is some saving for that reason but the primary savings to the health care system is in treatment of HIV and Hep C ..... No shared needles and no transmission of either disease .....

[argonsagas]

I'm sure there is some saving for that reason but the primary savings to the health care system is in treatment of HIV and Hep C ..... No shared needles and no transmission of either disease .....

Savings in medical costs may be determinable, but what about other associated costs?
Here, I am referring to almost inevitable increases in crime in the area, thus more policing costs, more court and jail costs, and, perhaps as much as, or even considerably more, costs in the form of losses incurred by local businesses that are on the receiving end of the crime increase as well as their paying customers who will avoid the area.

sure, that sounds like NIMBY, but it must be a VERY real concern to them.

[adamdaz]

It makes you feel better, takes the edge off hard parts of life, and the more you do it the more you want. Of course, I'm talking about motorcycles here.

[Burque73]

I've had many family and friends hooked on that crap. Some choose it to seek an escape others just took what the Dr prescribed. Most are, or were, badly addicted. My dad is probably the worst addict I know. He doesn't abuse it, takes it just how it's prescribed, but can't stop. He's almost 80 now and has been on opioids for the last 15 years or so. At one point he took oxycodone, contin and had a morphine patch. His broken and worn out body parts and surgeries have left him in so much pain he can hardly move. Finally when he switched Dr's they cancelled his morphine patch. If he misses one friggin dose of oxy he becomes ill. Stop for a day and he wishes he'd die.

That OD killer, Naloxone, is always near by. If it gets used he'll still need medical attention because it'll send him into withdrawls in short order. It says on the package to stll call paramedics since the naloxone wears off before the opioids do If he's taken a strong enough dose, he'll slip back into OD mode. Who knows if his withdrawls would be fatal or not. Given his congestive heart failure and pulmonary fibrosis he can hardly breathe as it is. I'm thinking he'd be in trouble.

Personally, I wish they'd never prescribe opioids. I've never brokenn my back or needed anything stronger than tylenol though.

[trevor]

I've had many family and friends hooked on that crap. Some choose it to seek an escape others just took what the Dr prescribed. Most are, or were, badly addicted. My dad is probably the worst addict I know. He doesn't abuse it, takes it just how it's prescribed, but can't stop. He's almost 80 now and has been on opioids for the last 15 years or so. At one point he took oxycodone, contin and had a morphine patch. His broken and worn out body parts and surgeries have left him in so much pain he can hardly move. Finally when he switched Dr's they cancelled his morphine patch. If he misses one friggin dose of oxy he becomes ill. Stop for a day and he wishes he'd die.

That OD killer, Naloxone, is always near by. If it gets used he'll still need medical attention because it'll send him into withdrawls in short order. It says on the package to stll call paramedics since the naloxone wears off before the opioids do If he's taken a strong enough dose, he'll slip back into OD mode. Who knows if his withdrawls would be fatal or not. Given his congestive heart failure and pulmonary fibrosis he can hardly breathe as it is. I'm thinking he'd be in trouble.

Personally, I wish they'd never prescribe opioids. I've never brokenn my back or needed anything stronger than tylenol though.

It's stories like this that made me react so abruptly to Ed's comment "As far as I'm concerned, nobody forced the consumers to open their mouth...." Ed
It so ignorant and uncaring to say that....
I have had so many clients stay in my houses that have had a great life going...wife, kids, house etc....then they got hurt at work....it is devastating to see the fall out that happens to some people.
Right now I have a former NHL hockey player in one of my houses...great guy! As a matter of fact we just made him an assistant manager. I helped him get full time work and he's doing very well. But he got hurt playing hockey...opioids...
Of course not everyone looses their lives and become addicted...but to judge those that do is not helpful.
A few years ago my sister's son was addicted to opioids from a work accident...I got him out here and put him through our treatment centre for free....10 months later he was working in Vancouver and had moved in with a really nice girl. He go hurt at work badly and an ambulance took him to emergency where the doctor didn't ask any addiction questions and gave him opioid pain relief. He got home that night and his girlfriend was upset and took the pills that the doctor gave my nephew and flushed them down the toilet....the same toilet that she would find my nephew dead on a few hours later.
He had snuck out in the night to find more "relief"...
If you want to help with this global problem you can start by not judging people.

[bccap]

Savings in medical costs may be determinable, but what about other associated costs?
Here, I am referring to almost inevitable increases in crime in the area, thus more policing costs, more court and jail costs, and, perhaps as much as, or even considerably more, costs in the form of losses incurred by local businesses that are on the receiving end of the crime increase as well as their paying customers who will avoid the area.

sure, that sounds like NIMBY, but it must be a VERY real concern to them.

Not really .... It's kind of a funny area . Only about two blocks long as the surroundings have been gentrified over the years .... And they are there already as an existing community ......If they weren't inside they'd be right outside ..... So there is really no change in demographics ..... The safe injection sites don't attract people who aren't already there ......We call it " Cruise Ship Alley " as the tourists off the cruise ships like to go there and see a skid row they can observe in perfect safety .... No idea why but nobody { outside of themselves } ever gets attacked down there ..... There have been loads of studies done on it as it was originally controversial . Not so much now 13+ years later ......

[argonsagas]

Thanks.

I have heard stories (and I may have seen a documentary) stating there was considerably more crime and police costs, but I never had cause to look into it on my own.

[Cipher]

ahh sweet Morpheus bringer of sleep and dreams.
The medical communities' complicity and later outright 180 degree turnaround hypocrisy is disgusting.

Legit pain suffers are now treated like crap because Drs handed this stuff out like candy.
20 years ago Youd get it without asking for it.

Drs in this country get paid for prescribing new meds. They get paid a lot for doing so.
If your on a lot of meds youll probably experience a Dr wanting you to try something new.
He gets paid and you get to take a new drug forever or until a new one comes along.

2000-2015 I have seen more than once in a OPD an irate bullying addict feigning pain and threatening staff to get more meds.
I don't go often to OPDs and I doubt the instances I saw were the only ones occurring.

Outlaw Drs getting paid to promote new drugs and see what happens.

[trevor]

If you are interested in know about opioid addiction..Dr Mate is someone I have a great deal of respect for...

https://www.thefix.com/dr-gabor-mate-trauma-underlying-stigma-addiction-interview?utm_content=buffer65cd9&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer&fbclid=IwAR0rjrTtbPJsMLdfPqzugMvqn7e_aYVSj12aaN6iaWbda3IkCTwM6Vq6ync

In "BEYOND DRUGS: The Universal Experience of Addiction," you quote trauma pioneer Peter Levine, “Trauma has become so commonplace, that most people don’t even recognize its presence.”
Do you believe that the widespread experience of trauma is behind this current opioid epidemic? Given the warm bubble of pleasure that opioid use brings about where a user barely can be touched by anything outside the addictive cycle, did prescription painkillers and heroin become the easy choice for a wounded generation? Lacking awareness of their trauma and access to treatment options, did opioids become the most straightforward available option to medicate the experience of latent pain?
“Yes,” is the only answer to the first point about opioids. They are pain relievers, and they happen to be the most powerful pain relievers that we have. They not only relieve physical pain; they also relieve emotional pain in the brain. Opiate use always has to do with both physical pain and emotional pain. When you give opioids to people who only need them for physical pain, they don’t become addicted.
The myth that the opioids create the addiction is wrong; it’s the pain that creates the addiction combined with access to the opioids. There are legitimate uses of opioids in the treatment of physical pain. There is no legitimate use in the treatment of emotional pain. The opioid epidemic represents an epidemic of emotional pain that is rooted in the childhood experience of trauma. Such emotional pain is coupled with a troubled society where disconnection, isolation, and increasing amounts of stress have become commonplace. For example, we know that for every percentage point in the increase of the unemployment rate, there is a corresponding increase in opioid use. It’s a question of a very stressed society where people are seeking escape.
Another key factor in the opioid epidemic is the under-education and inadequacy of the medical profession when it comes to learning how to deal with pain. We don’t teach or learn about the complexity of pain. We don’t explain how physical pain is often a result of a combination of both physical and emotional factors. We don’t learn how to speak to people with pain and how to listen to them. We don’t learn about the roots of chronic physical pain and chronic emotional pain that often lies in childhood experience. We don’t learn about non-pharmacological ways of treating pain. Therefore, it’s much easier and much quicker, and it’s an awful lot cheaper just to write an opioid prescription and move on to your next patient. All of these other modalities would take more time. Combined with a troubled society and an epidemic of emotional pain caused by unresolved trauma, such medical inadequacy was nothing less than a recipe for such an epidemic. When you consider all of these factors, the opioid epidemic is not that surprising, but the loss of human life remains tragic and so unnecessary. There are ways to break these cycles.

[RustyTank]

As far as I'm concerned, nobody forced the consumers to open their mouth and shove pills down it. Of course, the lawyers go after the deep pockets, to line their own.

I do not believe the opioid problem blame falls on one entity; there is shared responsibility all through the chain.

Pill makers didn't care where they went. There were doctors that were nothing but pushers, distributing pills like jelly beans. And the end users of course were slamming them down. It irritates me when some make it out like the users were victims. Maybe so to some extent, but not to the point many claim (in my view.) It's like blaming cigarette companies for people smoking for 30 years and dying of lung cancer. Or blaming gun companies when someone murders someone with a gun.

Regarding alcohol, it's an addictive drug that's sold everywhere. Nobody forces people to drink the stuff, but they do. Drunk driving is a top killer, not to mention some people drink themselves to death. Alcohol is accepted though, so there you have it.

Ed, I'm not sure you'll see this but, I appreciate you explaining your opinion a little more in depth.

Needless to say no one here gives a hoot what I think or what have to say but I figure at the end of the day we're just a handful of people shootin the sh** right? So here goes. I've been ruminating on the topic of this thread for the last couple days. Thought it better for me to sit back and think rather than stick my foot in my mouth, something I've gotten pretty good at over the years. For better or worse I find myself becoming less and less reactionary the older I get. Anywho...I have an enormous amount of empathy for people suffering from substance use addiction. Chalk it up to personal life experience. At the risk of virtue signaling, I've recently decided to go back to school, specifically to work in social and human services. My hope is to eventually have the opportunity to work for an organization that helps, in some capacity, people in crisis…local homeless communities, people suffering from substance use issues, mental health issues, etc. I say all that to emphasize my perspective.

In response to your opinion Ed, I appreciate where you're coming from, and I can understand your want to spread the blame. My takeaway from your post is that no one is innocent, so to speak, in regard to such an enormous calamity. Your comments on substance use/abuse in general seem to focus heavily on accountability. With accountability being such an important component in addiction recovery I appreciate your focus on it. The topic of addiction is a sensitive one. So many are touched by it personally, often tragically. Your original statement, “As far as I'm concerned, nobody forced the consumers to open their mouth and shove pills down it” was rather blunt and harsh, but I think it’s important to recognize it’s not your job to be sensitive about it. You have every right to state your opinion as bluntly as you’d like. It’s your opinion for God sakes, lol, and I’ll continually defend your right to express it. That said though, I can relate to Trevor’s reaction. I just have a different approach. Ed, the last thing I’ll say is, I don’t know what ya know and what ya don’t regarding opioid addiction. I could sit here and type up all sorts of info about how opioids effect the release of dopamine receptors in the brain and yada yada yada, but it’s not my job to educate you. Instead, I’ll post a couple short videos explaining it all. One vid is four minutes, and one is eight. I leave it to you. I think it's important for me to remember that not everyone is on the same page I am regarding this topic. When we surround ourselves with likeminded people it's easy to forget that.

As far as what I think about the opioid crisis and its inception…boy oh boy did the folks who listened to their doctors get a raw deal. A fu**in raw, raw deal. The clean up on isle 10 is gonna take years.

Trevor, I’m interested in learning more about your sober houses, maybe I’ll message you if ya don’t mind. We can have a chat.