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sundin13 on 27 October 2017
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fatslob-:O said:
sundin13 said:

I'd be willing to bet - and this is just a theory, don't quote me on this - most of those opioid deaths weren't homicides. The fact that a lot of gun deaths are suicides doesn't make them any less of a public health issue. In fact, you could argue that suicide is more of a public health issue than homicide.

As for successful drug policy, what exactly is it? Sounds like you are just kind of hoping that people will suddenly start following the law. Like, yeah, "If only people didn't break the law" is a nice thought, but as those spiking overdose numbers would indicate, hope and prison aren't really getting us very far. 

Yes but a person with drug addiction is a physical issue instead of a mental issue like we usually see with suicides. A heroin addict that gets treatment are over half as likely to relapse and sometimes that figure can be as high as 80% so most don't even try to seek treatment when they know it's futile for the most part but for gun suicides those people willingly take their own lives without much change in their brain's electrochemistry so there's not much we can do ... (a gun user won't be seeing the ICU too often while drug overdose users will get immediate treatment) 

To a gun user, the gun in his hand is nothing more than a tool that he could replace whereas a drug addict literally thrives on drug consumption until you know what happens ... 

Yeah, I would expect that people start following that particular law since it's rooted in medical science instead of being so wasteful towards the healthcare system ... 

Addiction is largely mental. Once you get past the physical symptoms (which is typically the period of time which treatment focuses on), it is the mental issues (often similar issues that lead one to suicide) which cause a relapse. Just as intervening and getting someone help is important to treatment of drug addiction, intervening and getting someone help is important for depression and those at risk of suicide. 

But theres not really any overall point I was making there. Just saying they are both public health issues.

What I do want to know is what you mean by that last bit. How are we to expect improvement if we don't change? If our current systems clearly aren't working, is it reasonable to expect that the drug epidemic will vanish because of a law that's been on the books for years? Do you think that imprisonment is in any way more beneficial to these individuals than actual treatment?

EDIT: The more I read about the treatment methods we use in the USA, the more I'm not surprised how high the relapse rates are. To seriously tackle opioid addiction, we need to rework how we deal with it not just from a prison/rehab level but within how rehab is handled itself. 

https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-drug-rehab-is-outdated-expensive-and-deadly

Last edited by sundin13 - on 27 October 2017