Answer this question

[Basscatfrank]

If you understood why, you'd be an addict too. Kind of works that way. Doesn't mean it's not true.
I don't sleep with other men, have no desire. But plenty of men do it and I know it to be true.
Science isn't about personal choices, it's about studying a group, stimulus, environment, outcomes.
Over and over, we've proven that addiction is genetically influenced and a true disease.
Yes, choices are made, but that doesn't lessen the outcome or remove the need for intervention.

The above bolded quote is a blatant misrepresentation of the facts. There are studies calling it a disease and there are just as many disabusing that notion. As of today there is no definitive peer reviewed medical publication that has categorically concluded that addiction is an organic disease. It is theoretical conjecture at it's best. There are many who wish to classify it as such and their research tends to start with that conclusion and work it's way backward in an effort to prove it.

Most debilitating and often fatal diseases come upon you with no choice. Drug addiction starts with a poor one.

[ziggen]

Most debilitating and often fatal diseases come upon you with no choice. Drug addiction starts with a poor one.

Like visiting your doctor?

[Jeff La]

The above bolded quote is a blatant misrepresentation of the facts. There are studies calling it a disease and there are just as many disabusing that notion. As of today there is no definitive peer reviewed medical publication that has categorically concluded that addiction is an organic disease. It is theoretical conjecture at it's best. There are many who wish to classify it as such and their research tends to start with that conclusion and work it's way backward in an effort to prove it.

Most debilitating and often fatal diseases come upon you with no choice. Drug addiction starts with a poor one.

Unfortunately science and scientist will never admit some things can't be explained. Scientist main goal is to explain their basis of study. Saying you can't explain something is like admitting you have failed in your research. Coming up with a plausible thesis is making yourself look good while not admitting defeat. Until proven otherwise, which in many cases happens, your research is regarded as plausible. Many people choose to divest this information as fact, when and if it suits their ideology.

[TampaJim]

The above bolded quote is a blatant misrepresentation of the facts. There are studies calling it a disease and there are just as many disabusing that notion. As of today there is no definitive peer reviewed medical publication that has categorically concluded that addiction is an organic disease. It is theoretical conjecture at it's best. There are many who wish to classify it as such and their research tends to start with that conclusion and work it's way backward in an effort to prove it.

Most debilitating and often fatal diseases come upon you with no choice. Drug addiction starts with a poor one.

Are you going to overlook the fact that many addicts started under a doctor's supervision??

I did note that decision are made, but that it doesn't undo the results or undo our responsibilities.
DNA tests have found that addictive traits are stronger in some than others. That's a genetic issue.
And for anyone lacking that genetic predisposition, it's not possible to truly 'understand' it.

If we ignore people making bad decisions, do we start with obese people, that's a big group.
Maybe those who use tobacco or drink alcohol shouldn't be able to receive medical treatment.
After all, those truly are choices ... right?? And for dang sure if you text and drive, no EMS.

When do we accept that the affected people are human, our own kind? Mistaken or not.

[Basscatfrank]

Are you going to overlook the fact that many addicts started under a doctor's supervision??

I did note that decision are made, but that it doesn't undo the results or undo our responsibilities.
DNA tests have found that addictive traits are stronger in some than others. That's a genetic issue.
And for anyone lacking that genetic predisposition, it's not possible to truly 'understand' it.

If we ignore people making bad decisions, do we start with obese people, that's a big group.
Maybe those who use tobacco or drink alcohol shouldn't be able to receive medical treatment.
After all, those truly are choices ... right?? And for dang sure if you text and drive, no EMS.

When do we accept that the affected people are human, our own kind? Mistaken or not.

You have failed to refute any of my assertions. Are you now backtracking and calling it a bad decision as you state above? You then bring up results and responsibilities. The results and the responsibilities of the aforementioned bad decisions lay solely on those making them.

Your conflation of other poor decisions is nothing more than a strawman.

[Dan21XRS]

Are you going to overlook the fact that many addicts started under a doctor's supervision??

Does anyone have the numbers on the percentage of people that became addicted while under doctor's supervision??? I've never seen one, why??? In the county I live in there were on average 335 reported emergency room visits per month in 2018 for drug overdose, that's over 9 a day. How many were doctor assisted and how many are just flat out addicts??? I'd say the vast majority are flat out drug addicts. Why??? Because if the vast majority were doctor assisted advocacy groups would be screaming from the hospital roof-tops...

I know I'll get flamed on this but how many addicts started with marijuana???... Probably 99.999998% It's a gateway...

Maybe those who use tobacco or drink alcohol shouldn't be able to receive medical treatment.
After all, those truly are choices ... right??

Many if not all insurance companies charge more for smokers policies... I know my company does... So they're pulling their own weight now...

And watch the derogatory alcohol comments... Dan

[Tfall]

I know I'll get flamed on this but how many addicts started with marijuana???... Probably 99.999998% It's a gateway...

“Oh no you didn’t”...

[mysticslobra]

I know I'll get flamed on this but how many addicts started with marijuana???... Probably 99.999998% It's a gateway...

Just curious, do you consider alcohol a gateway drug? I only ask because my cousin is an addict. He started drinking as many of us do while he was in high school at parties. In college he tried marijuana while drinking at a party. He has since moved into very hard drugs.

I personally do not smoke anything but I will drink some beer now and then. I don't have a problem with marijuana or alcohol. I'm just curious your thoughts on alcohol also being a gateway drug as you seem to have a very strong opinion about marijuana. I am curious what it is based on.

[Dan21XRS]

Just curious, do you consider alcohol a gateway drug?

Sure alcohol is a gateway drug... My parents only drank on special occasions. Now when we got together with aunt's, uncle's and cousin's they all pretty much drank. So for ME, drinking was socially acceptable... Now marijuana on the other hand was something I found out about around freshman year in high school, always hidden, smoked under the cover of darkness. Knowing my limits and what was socially acceptable I stayed with beer (never really got the hard stuff bug) and stayed a way from the illicit drugs... That goes for the steroid craze also, I had teammates who blew-up, gained 30lbs of muscle in 6-8 months. It would've been easy for me to go along, but I knew there was life after football and choose to stay a way from those also... Like I told my kids, life is about choices, make the right ones and you'll go far, the wrong ones and we'll see you in the next world... Maybe... Now stay outa trouble... Dan

[1781ccT]

Does anyone have the numbers on the percentage of people that became addicted while under doctor's supervision??? I've never seen one, why??? In the county I live in there were on average 335 reported emergency room visits per month in 2018 for drug overdose, that's over 9 a day. How many were doctor assisted and how many are just flat out addicts??? I'd say the vast majority are flat out drug addicts. Why??? Because if the vast majority were doctor assisted advocacy groups would be screaming from the hospital roof-tops...

There are advocacy groups screaming from the roof tops. They're the ones telling us how the manufacturer of Oxycontin (Purdue Pharma) downplayed the abuse and addiction potential of oxycontin to create a flattering and "safe" view of opioids back in the 90's. Pharmaceutical lobbyists even conned the accreditation organization, Joint Commision, into requiring hospitals to address pain control in hospitalized patients. And as part of that campaign, they showed their bias in a book paid for by Purdue Pharma and distributed by Joint Commision to doctors saying "there is no evidence that addiction is a significant issue when persons are given opioids for pain control." It also called doctors' concerns about addiction side effects "inaccurate and exaggerated."

As for cited percentage of people that became addicted under a doctor's supervision, I don't know of any. But we do have tons of examples of disproportionate prescription rates - like the 4.3 million pills of Oxy sent to a single pharmacy in Oceana, WV (a town of ~1400) from 2008-2017; the 5,600 pills per day for every resident of Kermit, WV (a town of ~400) in 2008; two pharmacies in Williamson, WV town of ~3,000) were provided with 20.8 million Oxy pills from 2008-2015; the 884 deaths from drug overdose in WV in 2016.

Obviously, not all of those people in each of those locations were abusing the drugs. Not all of them were even taking the drugs. It is, however, indicative of the kind of doctors out there who feverishly write questionable prescriptions. The kinds of doctors out there writing these ridiculous prescriptions are every bit as complicit in addicting non-patients as the "patients" who presented to their offices for scripts of massive quantities of pills. And there are groups out there trying to educate the public, but it often falls on deaf ears because the people hearing or reading the info make false assumptions about "patient responsibility" and "but most of the people abusing Oxycontin didn't get the pills from their doctor". But this completely overlooks the fact that MOST of those pills being abused didn't come from grannies cabinet, but from doctors writing prescriptions to people that are basically paying the doc to look the other way, and dispensed through pharmacies that cared more about their personal and organizational wealth than the safety and health of their patients.

Some of the docs will serve decades in jail (as they should, imo), while the distributors that provided all those millions of pills to pharmacies in rural WV paid a collective sum of $6 million in settlement of the lawsuits. I personally know one of the docs that was charged in the deaths of two patients due to overprescribing. I know for a fact he was run out of the hospital where we used to work because of his questionable prescribing practices and because his wife (not a physician) was forging prescriptions. After our hospital ran him off (and he was not prosecuted), he opened a pain clinic. Dr Sanjay Mehta should go be in jail for life, imo.

[Dan21XRS]

There are advocacy groups screaming from the roof tops.

As for cited percentage of people that became addicted under a doctor's supervision, I don't know of any.

So they're like the Green New Deal folks... The sky is falling and the earth is gonna spontaneously combust if we don't do something in 10 years... If they can't give cold data then the fact don't support the accusations... Dan

[1781ccT]

So they're like the Green New Deal folks... The sky is falling and the earth is gonna spontaneously combust if we don't do something in 10 years... If they can't give cold data then the fact don't support the accusations... Dan

Uh, what? I didn't say "they" don't have any data. I said *I* don't know of any data on the number of people that become addicted while under a physician's care. I don't know of any data because I didn't go look for it. Where's your data saying they aren't becoming addicted while under a physician's care?

But my point, in case it was overlooked while searching for citations, was that all of the overdoses related to prescription drugs were, in some way, physician-assisted in that a physician prescribed the drugs for them to have gotten out to the public. The people taking the drugs might not be under the physician who wrote the prescription, but a physician was responsible for writing that prescription. And in the very real examples I gave, there was clearly a scheme in place by which physicians knowingly prescribed drugs to people in quantities they knew could not possibly be for personal use.

[Jeff La]

Are you going to overlook the fact that many addicts started under a doctor's supervision??

I did note that decision are made, but that it doesn't undo the results or undo our responsibilities.
DNA tests have found that addictive traits are stronger in some than others. That's a genetic issue.
And for anyone lacking that genetic predisposition, it's not possible to truly 'understand' it.

If we ignore people making bad decisions, do we start with obese people, that's a big group.
Maybe those who use tobacco or drink alcohol shouldn't be able to receive medical treatment.
After all, those truly are choices ... right?? And for dang sure if you text and drive, no EMS.

When do we accept that the affected people are human, our own kind? Mistaken or not.

We had both random drug and alcohol testing at work. Last policy when I was employed was termination upon failure, no exceptions. I don't know of any medical policy I or my wife have had that paid for alcohol addiction treatment, for a short time one company paid for drug treatment on a limited basis.