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u/Simic_Sky_Swallower 14h ago
"I can't prescribe you medicine because it seems like you came here so I can prescribe you medicine" statements dreamed up by the utterly deranged
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u/Ian1240 14h ago
Like is there literally anything we can do to change this?
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u/One-Tap-2742 12h ago
extreme drug policy reform. but good luck cause we dont even have a process to unschedule drugs. that's why Marijuana law reform has taken 60+ years
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u/DeadInternetTheorist 4h ago
If it became inconvenient to rich people that shit would be fixed by Tuesday.
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u/OffsetXV 🏳️⚧️ trans rights 13h ago
doctors be like "yes i know you're in agonizing pain and your body is in a constant state of panic trying to deal with it, but have you tried losing weight?"
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u/idkwhattoputsoaoakka 🏳️⚧️ trans rights 11h ago
actually depending on the state a doctor might do anything but talk about weight
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u/Inspector_Robert 11h ago
"You mean there's a catch?"
"Sure there's a catch," Doc Daneeka replied. "Catch-22. Anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn't really crazy."
There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane, he had to fly them. If he flew them, he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to, he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.
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u/Aromatic-Pass4384 13h ago edited 12h ago
It's not deranged when there's people who will travel a sizable distance to get another prescription for opioids that they abuse
Edit: Downvote all you want, I'd bet not even half of you have even met anyone addicted to opioids. Most of you have no idea how bad it was at the peak of the opioid crisis especially in the southern US. Most of you don't know know what it's like to see nearly every adult around you heavily addicted to them as a child. None of you know what it's like to watch your uncle pass out, start choking on his own vomit, and literally die for several minutes before EMTs are able to resuscitate him after he got drunk while also taking hydros with several friends including your father, again as a child.
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u/Martin_Horde 🏳️⚧️ trans rights 13h ago
People will also travel a sizable distance (even to another country entirely) for medicine they need to survive. Also the opioid abuser will just buy fent and die as the other option as said by OP
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u/wozattacks 10h ago
Wild to see “the addicts are just gonna die anyway so might as well prescribe liberally” touted as if it’s a progressive take
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u/ComfyCatIRL 8h ago
"Addicts should have access to safe and regulated drugs to lower the risk of accidental overdose" isn't the conservative take you think it is, buddy
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u/717Luxx swimmimg guy 7h ago
sweden did it, to great effect. canada tried to do it and it didnt seem to make a difference.
the difference i see between their approaches? two-fold. sweden at the time had massive amounts of IV heroin users. they gave morphine.
canada has lots of fent users (pressed pills, smoked powder, some IV) and they gave dilaudid, a snortable pill they use in the ER. not close to what you get on the street, so they just trade em for fent.
the other difference is that sweden offered and encouraged talk therapy with professionals on the same sites they supplied the clean drugs and nurse supervision. the thought was that if a user didnt immediately take advantage of that offering, maybe they could be encouraged next time, or the time after.
they came to understand that most addicts dont want their life to be fucked. they dont want to be an addict, they want to be productive, they just dont know how to cope, how to get back on track, how to get off safely, how to improve themselves and how to stay clean.
thise policies came to pass under a cknservative govt. they were at their wits end, trying harsher policing, harsher sentencing on manufacturers and dealers, nothing worked. they hired consultants, and were extremely skeptical at the proposed system. but it turns out, treating people like people, giving people their dignity back when they thought it was fully gone, can go pretty far.
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u/DeadInternetTheorist 4h ago
Giving addicts access to regulated medicines that are manufactured in quality controlled facilities makes them die less, actually. You're the one so morally panicked over the government/healthcare system "endorsing" their addiction that you're fine with them catching a hot batch and dying on a park bench.
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u/aboxofkittens 12h ago
Here’s the thing though, I don’t care. It’s much worse for society (and the users themselves) when those people do street drugs instead
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u/Aromatic-Pass4384 12h ago
Cool, agreed. But maybe let's make it harder for people to develop an addiction in the first place, yeah?
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u/Apli_Diud 12h ago
Here's a cool idea, let's start treating addiction like the medical issue it is instead of a moral failing by the addicted.
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u/Aromatic-Pass4384 12h ago
Did I say it's a moral failure? It doesn't have to be a moral failure to be bad. Yes, we need to increase resources for addiction. We also need to take steps to stop people from forming addiction but you can't read and think about things with nuance, just like the rest of the people in this thread. How about you get fucking back to me after you literally watch your uncle clinically die for several minutes. Better yet do that while you're about 8, like I did. Get back to me after you've seen the effects of the opioid epidemic. Get back to me after you see nearly every fucking adult in your life as a child heavily addicted to benzos and opioids. Get back to me after you've seen people, including your parents, giving away ebt cards in exchange for opioids. It's not a fucking moral failure but I never claimed that. What we need is more resources for treatment and safeguards to stop people from getting addicted.
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u/HuckinsGirl gnenerfluod💗🤍💜🖤💙 11h ago
The number one way to reduce drug use is to improve material conditions enough to make life bearable without drugs, harshly punishing drug use actually often makes the problem worse by making people scared to seek help when they need it. Not to mention the vast majority of people who are requesting medications because they actually need them who suffer from the same restrictive policies
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u/charmingasaneel 10h ago
Improvement in one’s material conditions is not the primary driver for addiction. Substance abuse and addiction is just as common with rich people , if not more common.
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u/One-Tap-2742 12h ago
why is use abuse? do you feel this way about coffee?
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u/wozattacks 10h ago
They never said use is abuse. They specifically brought up the issue of abuse lol
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u/Aromatic-Pass4384 12h ago
I think many people do abuse caffeine actually.
Use isn't the same as abuse, if you have a genuine medical need for it to treat chronic pain in the case of opioids or anxiety or similar with benzos it's not abuse. The people driving dozens of miles and seeing multiple doctors aren't usually using it for a legitimate medical need.
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u/Negitive545 5h ago
I would rather 1000 addicts get unnecessarily prescribed opioids than even a single person in severe pain not receive a prescription for fear of them abusing it.
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u/SeasonPositive6771 yes but also no 14h ago
Don't forget it also means that people are suffering in excruciating pain unnecessarily!
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u/squidtugboat 14h ago
Have you considered perhaps that my entire moral framework is predicated on suffering being virtuous actually?
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u/SeasonPositive6771 yes but also no 14h ago
Interesting, my moral framework also includes that the world is definitely inherently fair and people only suffer if they deserve it.
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u/squidtugboat 13h ago
Suffering good because bad people suffer because they are bad.
Good people suffer to prove how good they are.
This is important because I have mythologized my own suffering to fuel a psychosis that my personal trauma was good and necessary and years of unnecessary abuse was to fuel my ascension into a greater being (a Costco premium rewards membership holder)
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u/Inphiltration 10h ago
Yeah I had surgery and they only gave me a prescription for 10 pain pills. I was still in excruciating pain recovering but they wouldn't give me more. I spent another 12 days in writing agony before the pain dissipated.
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u/Aromatic-Pass4384 13h ago
Probably some but most people doctor shopping are just addicted and should receive help overcoming their addiction instead
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u/SeasonPositive6771 yes but also no 13h ago
Most people aren't doctor shopping, they either need actual treatment for their medical issue causing them pain, or you are correct, a small number of people have substance use disorder and need treatment.
But we've made both unavailable and by coming down so hard on a tiny number of addicted people, we've made many more people without addictions suffer unnecessarily.
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u/Aromatic-Pass4384 13h ago
Did I say most people are doctor shopping?
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u/SeasonPositive6771 yes but also no 12h ago
Strange question, I didn't say you did.
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u/Aromatic-Pass4384 12h ago
Then why say that most people aren't? That is t a claim I made.
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u/SeasonPositive6771 yes but also no 12h ago
Because I'm a human being having a human conversation on Reddit and that's just how my human thoughts work.
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u/Aromatic-Pass4384 12h ago
Uh ok...
So we should do nothing to try to stop an addiction from forming in the first place then? I don't think most people downvoting me have actually seen the effects of the opioid epidemic on the southern US. It's not good!
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u/SeasonPositive6771 yes but also no 10h ago
I am not arguing that the opioid epidemic is good either, I don't think anyone is.
I think it is entirely possible to both treat people's pain and get them the addiction support and treatment they need.
Sometimes those are two separate groups. Sometimes they are the same.
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u/Aromatic-Pass4384 10h ago
It seems everyone is arguing for very few restrictions on who can pick up opioids and who can prescribe them. The things we have in place exist to stop people from going to far away doctors and picking up at multiple pharmacies, I literally work in a pharmacy I'm aware of the systems used to track them.
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u/smartsport101 13h ago
Ok tell me if I'm wrong but I swear that overprescription is worse than underprescription. Doctors caused the opioid epidemic, not cartels. Most people's introduction to opioids was from a doctor prescribing them painkillers, often unnecessarily strong ones. And then after they ran out of painkillers, a lot of people went to illegal vendors to feed their new addiction.
I totally believe that we've gone too far the other way, but at least our entire healthcare system isn't blatantly creating new addicts anymore. I feel bad for the people who already got addicted because of them.
Oh and considering the page we're on, I wanna mention that nothing I'm saying has anything to do with the shit doctors pull with E or T. Fuck doctors who aren't willing to treat their patients properly.
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u/Comptenterry 13h ago
Yeah, OP trying to reframe the opioid crisis as some puritanical overreaction is insane. Paramedical companies were purposefully lying about the strength and addiction risks of their painkillers and pushing doctors to prescribe them for everything. They killed nearly a million fucking people.
Sure there's been an overcorrection in prescriptions, but that's kind of expected when the medical industry got 1 out of 30 people hooked on dangerous amounts of painkillers so they could line their pockets.
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u/bruhmeister06 🏳️⚧️ trans rights 13h ago
You see how the problem here is “companies are lying” and not “doctors are prescribing medicine to help people” and how the solution is “stop companies from lying about medicine” and not “never prescribe medicine ever again” right?
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u/wozattacks 10h ago
The point is that the medicine only helps people in a narrow set of circumstances and outside of those circumstances it can harm them very badly.
Like you’re just glossing over the entire issue of the dangers. The company lying about the safety and efficacy of these drugs was the problem. Because there are problems with the safety of the drugs. The company wouldn’t have lied to sell them if there weren’t.
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u/DifferentEye4913 9h ago
Opiates are known to be addicting. The over prescribing went on way after they knew it was addicting. Doctors were responsible for over prescribing well after they knew it was addictive
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u/DifferentEye4913 12h ago
I'd caution against blaming pharmaceutical companies. Doctors are the authority figures in the chain of command, and they were well aware of how addicting opiates can be. They were the ones over prescribing them due to greed.
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u/annastacia94 13h ago edited 13h ago
The issue with the opioid epidemic wasn't that doctors were over prescribing but that the opioid manufacturers LIED about their products by telling prescriber's that they were not addictive. So doctors were prescribing the opioids with that in mind and not warning patients or creating care plans to reduce the risk of addiction forming.
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u/smartsport101 11h ago
Thank you, yeah the pharmaceutical companies were the source of the opioid epidemic! I was conflating them with doctors. I think I have still heard of doctors prescribing painkillers when they simply weren't necessary for the extra money, but yeah they're a bit more of a middleman here
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u/wozattacks 10h ago
…yes, the companies were LYING about the safety issues to get doctors to prescribe more. Because they knew that if they were honest, the doctors would not prescribe like that. Because of the dangers that these drugs pose.
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u/jlb1981 13h ago
I am certain that pharmaceutical companies were partially responsible for the crisis due to false/misleading statements to PCPs.
I am also certain that some PCPs were incentivized to move product for the pharmaceutical companies in exchange for kickbacks of some kind, even if only indirectly.
Healthcare with a profit motive will never be optimal for human health and well-being.
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u/translunainjection 11h ago
America has the best healthcare in the world… at making profit for oligarchs
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u/karatesaul 10h ago
It’s a little more complicated than that. Companies like Purdue Pharma produced the drugs, ignored how addictive they were, and pushed doctors to prescribe them more and more. So yes, the doctors overprescribed them, but especially at the pushing of the pharma companies that produced the drugs.
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u/lewgroznyzwierz 11h ago
Both are awful and we really don't need to debate which state is worse. There should be clear guidelines for prescribing medication and a process for patients to seek justice both in cases of underprescription and overprescription.
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u/Linked2ThePast trans rights 14h ago
As someone who desperately wishes I could just get my goddamned Xanax prescription in peace but can't without getting a psychiatrist, which is insanely expensive and difficult—YUP.
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u/sign-through madam of mug 13h ago
xanax quite literally saved my life and gave me autonomy after failing over and over to do normal human things like go stand without crying around people. being prescribed it absolutely sucks though. the ladies at the front desk of the dr's office judged me, the pharmacist judged me, and the next doctor i saw didn't even taper me off i just cold sweat my way through half of 2020 alone. wish more people saw it as an actual, useful medicine
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u/Linked2ThePast trans rights 12h ago
So glad you got the help you needed. I used to be able to get it when I first moved to Kentucky, but I assume that since it's in the same category of drugs as opioids, and now the entire association of doctors offices in the area that I use patently WILL NOT write any prescriptions for anything with that categorization, which I assume is a clumsy way to dodge patients getting pissy with them for saying no to opioid requests without specifically banning just them. So damn stupid.
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u/napoleonfucker69 11h ago
nights used to be relentless rumination and i'd worry myself sick over the smallest things. being able to take half a xanax to quiet my brain enough to sleep has been lifechanging. in fact just knowing i have it in the house for when i need it gives me such a sense of peace that i end up no longer working myself up into a doom spiral, thus only needing it maybe once or twice a month. i got it prescribed it abroad when travelling because my country will not prescribe it, which is cruel as the healthcare system also doesn't give a f about mental health.
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u/23saround 13h ago
I mean…OxyContin the company is genuinely, truly, purely evil. They conned the whole country into believing they had developed a non-addictive opioid, used very sketchy means to convince doctors to overprescribe it until a huge portion of America was addicted, and the fentanyl crisis is the fallout of that practice. They knew what they were doing the whole time and made billions from it.
But two things can be true. You’re right that we’ve probably swung too far in the opposite direction. But let’s not exonerate the rich fucks who engineered it all either.
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u/lamboman43 14h ago
As is typical when America encounters a problem, it decided to overcorrect and ruin it for everyone.
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u/DifferentEye4913 12h ago
In NYC, they have something called a controlled substance sheet. every time they open up your profile at the pharmacy. The first thing to pop-up is your controlled substances sheet.
It lists every single time you've ever been prescribed a controlled substance and if your document is multiple pages they feel justified treating you like shit or straight up denying you, you're meds.
Their reasoning is nobody should be prescribed that many controlled substances in their lifetime.
They completely disregard the fact that some people have genuine health issues.
I was there after multiple rounds of surgery with well documented health issues and they were still treating me like I was just a junkie
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u/BeneGesserlit Gay gay homo gay 4h ago
Is there any way to look up your own?
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u/DifferentEye4913 4h ago
If you're in nyc you can ask how many pages your document is. Idk if they are willing to email or print it for you.
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u/BeneGesserlit Gay gay homo gay 2h ago
Is it every single time you fill a prescription or every different thing you've ever filled?
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u/DiscretePoop 14h ago
We did something about it and now opioid deaths finally started declining in 2024.
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u/Garfunklestein 11h ago edited 4h ago
As someone who grew up in the epicenter of the opioid epidemic: you have no idea what the fuck you're talking about. Pharmaceutical companies and their bribed doctors started this epidemic by overprescribing, and SO MANY people addicted to opioids are people who were carelessly tossed into painkillers with no safety plan or oversight.
YES, underprescribing is a huge problem too, but let's not pretend that we need to flip the needle entirely in the opposite direction when we've LITERALLY already seen what it did.
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u/thatvillainjay OG KING TOP 12h ago
About 7 years ago I was having constant debilitating panic and anxiety attacks and no doctor in my state would prescribe anything stronger than Prozac or lose does of buspar or tell me to take over the counter benadryl
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u/liam06xy 13h ago
Americans when doctors won't give them hardcore opioids every time they get a tummy ache.
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u/madsnorlax then you know that the bourgeois are not human. 4h ago
Hilariously I didn't find this to be an issue at all. I went to my doctor, she had me fill out the exact same ADHD test I had done online, went "wow yup you got ADHD do u wanna do therapy or get meds" and I said uhhh I'm already in therapy so meds please and I had a Vyvanse prescription that night
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u/megthebat49 12h ago
I need melatonin, I got melatonin until I was 16, I now can't get melatonin and all the doctors are baffled as to why I'm not sleeping right, almost like it's a known fact that I need melatonin....
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u/BeneGesserlit Gay gay homo gay 4h ago
Melatonin is easily obtainable over the counter anywhere. It's not even a medication
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u/Acct4SrsBsns 3h ago
Some places melatonin is controlled, actually. Showing your whole ass right now.
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