Originally Posted by
foxtrot
Without offending this is a naive response. You ever had a surgery, dental procedure, or similar in the last decade? Suffered from debilitating pain?
The opiates that doctors are prescribing as if they are tic tacs were only intended and approved for hospice, i.e. end of life pain management. When you see the rates that production has increased, it is literally being handed out in prescriptions like it is candy. Something like fifteen years ago (running on fuzzy memory) production was only a few tons. Now it is thousands of tons. (IIRC, may be mistaken, but we are literally talking that large of an increase in fifteen years).
Ask your local law enforcement department and they will tell you that heroin/prescription opiate abuse is the #1 problem now. And surprisingly, it's not arising in the "inner city" / "minority/homeless" populations. It is originating in white suburbia. The only reason that you don't see overdose deaths every day in the news in your local is because LEO (as well as EMT/Paramed) all generally pack the antidote, and it works, incredibly well. If this was the 1970's you'd be seeing more people dead from opiates than car accidents.
Here is where the problem lies. You guys on your high horses think this is an addict problem, because you are in great health. The second you suffer some long term debilitating pain - on the job accident for instance - and your fuckwit GP prescribes you oxy or vicodyn, you start taking it. It doesn't actually last 12 hours like they promise, so you need to take slightly more than prescribed to make it through the day. You become mildly dependant on it just to manage your pain. Then you actually become chemically dependent on it. Yup, this can easily happen to your child, your nephew, your elderly father, even you. These people aren't addicts.
Eventually, the prescriptions end, and the debilitating pain returns on top of insane, uncontrollable withdrawal symtoms. Where do they turn? Black market or grey market prescriptions, or Heroin. Not for the high, but to maintain the dependence.
Only now, Heroin is more pure by factors of 1000% than it used to be, so you have people overdosing on their first hit. They don't die thanks to the antidote. Most of the people using Heroin are not junkies looking for a high, they are your neighbors or your neighbor kids - otherwise nice looking - that were originally prescribed an opiate by a doctor for some bullshit tooth ache or a sports injury.
Before you go thinking, "Damn, foxtrot has way too much personal experience with this...."
I've never taken a single fucking opiate even when prescribed in my life. I've not had a single family member addicted - in part because I'd ride their ass. Advil is nice, Tylenol is nice, and you know what, pain is nice too. If you want to keep you and your family safe from this statistic, I suggest keeping the same policy and never filling those "heavy" prescriptions. This is literally becoming as dangerous as car accidents. It's easy to think you are personally immune or stronger than anyone else, but thousands of great people have fallen to this - many better, stronger, than you. Some don't statistically die from the overdose, but it leads them towards other avenues such as suicide.
[This post is not personally directed to any individual, but rather generally addressed as a foxtrot PSA]
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