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Painkiller addiction in the USA

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    #26
    Painkiller addiction in the USA

    When I got my first ass-shot of painkiller in Emergency (for the aforementioned kidney stones), I was sitting in this little recovery room feeling far less pain.

    I turned to Mrs WOM and said "That really helped. You can't imagine how bad the pain was. I hope these things pass quickly."

    She and this other bloke started tittering and cackling until they had tears in their eyes. I then asked what was so funny. She finally said "Sweetie, I don't know what you think you're saying, but all we hear is 'bubbla blub blub blah blah blubabub'.

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      #27
      Painkiller addiction in the USA

      Heh. I'm really not joking about the effects. Apart from demanding that the TV be turned down as it was too loud, despite it being turned off, my stock three questions apparently were:

      1. What day is it?
      2. Where am I again?
      3. Can you remind me what I'm called?

      I'm starting to wonder if I still have some in my system, and this was 6 years ago.

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        #28
        Painkiller addiction in the USA

        Incandenza wrote: The New York Times has a story on Americans' abuse and addition to opioid painkillers, with some startling statistics.

        Opioids now cause more deaths than any other drug, more than 16,000 in 2010. That year, the combination of hydrocodone and acetaminophen became the most prescribed medication in the United States. Patients here consumed 99 percent of the world’s hydrocodone, the opioid in Vicodin. They also consumed 80 percent of the world’s oxycodone, present in Percocet and OxyContin, and 65 percent of the world’s hydromorphone, the key ingredient in Dilaudid, in 2010. (Some opioids are also used to treat coughs, but that use doesn’t seem to be a major factor in the current wave of problems.)
        We consume 99 percent of the hydrocodone in the world. That's astonishing. Unfortunately, the story doesn't go into why it should be that one country is consuming 99 percent of a certain type of drug.
        If the US is consuming 99% of the worlds hydrocodone, surely that means its just sold there. A bit like dr pepper, or chevrolet cars.

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          #29
          Painkiller addiction in the USA

          The Awesome Berbaslug!!! wrote: If the US is consuming 99% of the worlds hydrocodone, surely that means its just sold there. A bit like dr pepper, or chevrolet cars.
          What are you on about? I bought a Chevrolet here in Germany. Sure, it's a rebranded Daewoo, but it still counts.

          Am I the 1% now? That's scary...

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            #30
            Painkiller addiction in the USA

            It's interesting to consider the different way this is treated compared to heroin addiction. Many addicts begin using heroin as a way to self-medicate and ease pain, either physical (perhaps through undiagnosed conditions) or psychological, rather than getting a hedonistic high. A friend who was an addict says heroin made her feel "ok" for the first time in her life; she'd felt raw and in pain without it. It soothed her like a warm bath. Now she knows what the underlying conditions are that cause her physical pain; they'd been dismissed by doctors when she was a teen.

            Obv. you'd rather a script addict have your spare keys than a junkie, because those who buy their drugs on the street have more pressure to get money by any means, and are often in bad company where things get a little blurred, morally, but the differing judgement on the actual use of drugs is interesting. Good addicts versus bad addicts.

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              #31
              Painkiller addiction in the USA

              A good deal of the painkillers at issue here are sold on the street, especially outside of major urban centres (which is where this problem is at worst). Addicts in Appalachia don't have direct access to scripts.

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                #32
                Painkiller addiction in the USA

                That's also interesting, sort of overlap.

                All addiction is pretty miserable.

                Another complicating thing, is that some heroin junkies are huge snobs, and enjoy their outcast status, looking down on people with other interests, or using other drugs. I didn't realise what a thing that is.

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                  #33
                  Painkiller addiction in the USA

                  Yeah, we are starting to have that over here as well. They sometimes cite artistic addicts (writers, musicians, etc.) of the 50s as role models, which is definitely not how those people saw themselves at the time.

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                    #34
                    Painkiller addiction in the USA

                    ursus arctos wrote: A good deal of the painkillers at issue here are sold on the street, especially outside of major urban centres (which is where this problem is at worst). Addicts in Appalachia don't have direct access to scripts.
                    That documentary series Justified deals with this in depth.

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                      #35
                      Painkiller addiction in the USA

                      ursus arctos wrote: A good deal of the painkillers at issue here are sold on the street, especially outside of major urban centres (which is where this problem is at worst). Addicts in Appalachia don't have direct access to scripts.
                      I've read depressing stories about people who were in pain and legitimately needed their painkillers, but who were also in such bad financial shape that they decided to sell their drugs instead to they could at least make some money.

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                        #36
                        Painkiller addiction in the USA

                        I was in San Francisco airport's international departures lounge on Tuesday and all manner of pills were for sale, hanging on a rack on the outside of the duty free shop, next to the postcards and the chocolates.

                        Presumably it's something Americans pickup for their relatives overseas just before boarding the aircraft. Dublin airport has Tayto crisps. San Francisco airport has pills.

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                          #37
                          Painkiller addiction in the USA

                          Certainly puts the War On Drugs in a different light.

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                            #38
                            Painkiller addiction in the USA

                            As a sort of aside to this, I had some root canal surgery last year, with an implant at the end of it. On the whole a fairly rough procedure, but not actual particularly painful. They fill your gums with liters of novocaine, and you don't feel anything, and they stop and you go home and the novocaine wears off and that's the end of it.

                            Except here in the US, even before I asked, even though they expected me to be in no pain, they gave me a prophylactic script (prophylactic in the sense of preventing me going back to the surgery for another script) of Vicodin. Loads of it. Each time they did anything I got another load of hydrocodone.

                            Fortunately, I don't seem to get any of the lovely buzzy effects you people do, so it's just sitting in my medicine cabinet waiting for when I'm actually in pain, next to the ibuprofen.

                            But I was pretty shocked at how liberally pharmaceuticals are given out here in the US compared to how strictly they are controlled back in Britain. I can easily see how it would be trivially easy to get addicted.

                            That said, the liberality with drug doesn't bother me when it comes to painkillers. To be trite about it, that's people fucking their own lives up. What really bothers me is that the same approach is taken with antibiotics. Any time anyone has a cold in this country and asks for some, they'll get a course of amoxycillin. Which is not only futile (although it is), but also insanely stupid. It puts everybody's life in danger.

                            And I have no idea how you begin starting regulating the amount of pharma scripts that physicians write.

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                              #39
                              Painkiller addiction in the USA

                              The problem with regulating pharma in the US seems to the same as with everything else there: the industry lobbyists are appointed the regulators.

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                                #40
                                Painkiller addiction in the USA

                                John Oliver on pharmaceutical marketing in the US:

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                                  #41
                                  Painkiller addiction in the USA

                                  Incandenza wrote: John Oliver on pharmaceutical marketing in the US:
                                  Sad as the story may be, it's a blessing to have John Oliver skewer things on a regular basis. Can we clone him? Please?

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                                    #42
                                    Painkiller addiction in the USA

                                    He'd sound really weird in Dutch

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                                      #43
                                      Painkiller addiction in the USA

                                      Medium has a reporter in rural Scott County, Indiana where there is an HIV outbreak with 140 recent cases in a community of 4,200, almost all of whom also have hepatitis C.

                                      Her story is here: https://medium.com/matter/the-drug-that-s-infecting-indiana-54747fb2c693

                                      The governor has allowed an emergency needle exchange program, almost unthinkable for a Republican to do.

                                      It's all because of intravenous painkiller use:

                                      Oxymorphone, know by the brand name Opana, is a semi-synthetic opioid painkiller. It is also strong as shit. It’s got an extended release, and while taking it follows the common practice of crushing, then dissolving, and then cooking, the resulting fix is definitely strong enough to share. And, in a state like Indiana where carrying a needle or syringe without a prescription can get you in trouble with the law, the communal aspect of drug taking and needle sharing seem to have created the perfect conditions for bloodborne disease transmission. Those surveyed reported injecting anywhere between four and 15 times daily, with the number of injection partners ranging from one to six per event. It’s the first time that an outbreak of HIV has been linked to the injection of prescription drugs. It probably won’t be the last.

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                                        #44
                                        Painkiller addiction in the USA

                                        ursus arctos wrote: He'd sound really weird in Dutch
                                        Jan Olafer?

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                                          #45
                                          Painkiller addiction in the USA

                                          Antonio Pulisao wrote:
                                          Originally posted by ursus arctos
                                          He'd sound really weird in Dutch
                                          Jan Olafer?
                                          Sjonnie Olieverf.

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                                            #46
                                            https://twitter.com/FT/status/1220462545129148418

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