Posted on 12/15/2016 7:14:25 AM PST by Kaslin
Robert Charles, a political appointee of George W. Bush, sounds the alarm that "we are nearing the falls."[1] Supposedly all we need to do is "care." Apparently this will miraculously cure "the problem."
Others have declared that "Fentanyl is the reason why deadly overdoses from painkillers continue to climb in the US."[2] Like Charles, they commit the logical error of declaring that the last step in a multi-step process is the source of a problem.
Such an assessment is simply wrong. Pundits use factual but context-free language to paint certain drugs as somehow evil. Fentanyl is "illegally made" and "synthetic." It is "50 times as powerful as heroin." As Herman Cain notes in his new book, we have to tackle The Right Problems.
In my thirty-six years in anesthesiology, I administered literally gallons of Fentanyl. It is a very safe drug, primarily because it's a pure narcotic with limited and very well understood side effects. Its more potent relative Sufentanyl is similarly useful. Each has a specific niche. The fact that they were synthesized in a lab is irrelevant.
Narcotics exist because we need them. Your body makes them in forms called endorphins. Various plants such as the opium poppy have been found to make narcotics, and those plants have been used for millennia to treat pain. They have been an important cash crop for almost as long. As our knowledge of chemistry has advanced, we have learned how to purify and modify them, creating synthetic narcotics.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Calls for more than 2 alcohol ooisoning level ODs a shift? Are you sure?
“It blows my mind that I am having the exact same conversation here as I have with liberals when they talk about banning guns... and am seeing the exact same opposing arguments. “
I have noticed this as well. The prohibitionists arguments read like they are straight out of the progressive “We know what’s best for you” playbook. These same people are against the gov’t telling what they can or cannot do except when it comes to cannabis. Boggles my mind.
It’s absolutely stunning. Replace “drug” with “gun” in this conversation and I’m arguing with the far left... all my arguments are the same and so are theirs.
“What I fear is the gubbamint will restrict pain killers in a draconian way that when people truly need them, they will not be able to.”
That is exactly what is happening.
I have no problem treating anyone with any appropriate drug for any medical condition in appropriate doses.
Opioid addiction causes far higher deaths in the US than guns. They just had a segment on Varney this morning on this very subject. The doctor giving the report stated the problem started in doctors offices giving inappropriate drugs and doses.
That’s what has already long since happened.
Pain management in the United States is an absolute nightmare of nanny-state overregulation and prohibitionist Puritanism - a 200 proof cocktail of pure tyranny.
What an individual chooses to do to manage their own pain - whether physical, mental or both - is rightfully nobody business but their own.
I confess I struggle to comprehend the level of self-righteous arrogance it takes to appoint oneself the dictator of others’ choices in this matter.
Connect one more dot and it will be revealed that the overprescription of opoids is the market response to the government’s incentives... and one more dot after that, if we get the government out of the picture entirely, we can produce the outcome with the least overall harm done.
I remember when my spouse was undergoing chemo treatments, her bones would ache deep down. They changed the schedule on her pain medication and made it more difficult to acquire. The rest of society suffers because of a few bone heads who OD. Great plan.
If the people in cars with WA plates you see here in Crescent City, CA, openly smoking weed in the Safeway parking lot are any indication, MJ use has gone way up.
I have no problem leaving them alone.
But when someone ODs are you suggesting we do not send first responders to pick them up?
I have no problem with the “natural selection” aspect...it simply seems a little too “pragmatic.”
“If everyone followed biblical Christianity, there would be no drug addiction...”
I’m sorry, but that’s just foolishness. People go into hospitals all the time with medical problems and come out addicted to painkillers. Are you going to say going to hospitals is forbidden by Christianity?
I have no problem at all with people growing their own pot. There is a HUGE difference between Pot and smack. Very few people are breaking into houses or living on the streets because of their pot addiction.
I am pretty much a libertarian on this. The reason I stated what I did is because this heroin epidemic is making us spend an inordinate amount of tax payer money to pick them up and give them narcan...and doing this two or three times a week.
I really don’t care what you do to yourself in your house, without hurting anyone else or spending “my” money.
When these people stick their hands in my pockets, I get angry and I don’t like it.
Not really sure what is so evil about fentanyl.
I was given 100mg of it in the ambulance on the way to the hospital for a heart attack.
It helped nicely with the pain in my arms and chest.
I don’t recall that it made me high, but then again I was in another state of being altogether, because systems were not functioning correctly.
As far as abusing fentanyl goes, shooting drugs into your veins for recreation is a stupid idea. Don’t do it.
A$$wholes taking harmful, illegal drugs is the problem. The laws are designed to protect people. The laws are not the problem.
Society suffers because government has been empowered to limit the rights of individuals.
The bone heads are not the ones who OD. The real bone heads are the ones who say, “there ought to be a law...”
A serious study might be problematic and I can give an example. The first automobile caused death after WA legalized pot, by a driver heavily intoxicated by pot, was listed as the pedestrians fault. The authorities said the pedestrian would have been hit even if the driver had not been under the influence of pot. The driver was not even cited for being intoxicated. That way it would not show up as a statistic.
One statistic they couldn’t hide was the increased number of infants and small children showing up in the ER with pot overdoses.
> But when someone ODs are you suggesting we do not send first responders to pick them up?
I suggest no such thing.
If you are looking for a perfect world, I can’t provide it to you.
If you want the world with the most liberty and least human suffering, remove the government from the equation. Empowering government to “save” one man inevitably requires empowering it to destroy a dozen more.
“There is a HUGE difference between Pot and smack. Very few people are breaking into houses or living on the streets because of their pot addiction.”
Yes, that’s true. Lots of people, though, seem to think of pot as the next thing to heroin. BTW, this talk about pot being addictive? Fake news.
“When these people stick their hands in my pockets, I get angry and I don’t like it.”
Yes, something needs to be done about that. I hope that the next thing works better than the last thing.
I’ve known people in my 6.5 decades who were lost to meth and heroin, and whose minds were lost to cocaine and LSD. And yet, people are still using all those drugs. Go figure.
BKM
“One statistic they couldn’t hide was the increased number of infants and small children showing up in the ER with pot overdoses.”
I was talking about that with an ER nurse just the other day. According to her, this is true, but the “overdose” seems to be just a period of severe nausea.
A heroin, meth, or cocaine overdose can kill you. An aspirin, Tylenol, or ibuprofen overdose can kill you.
I think some people are trying to create the impression that a pot “overdose” is in some way similar to a real overdose.
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