[mirimir]

This is just so sad.

It costs less to prescribe drugs than to diagnose and treat underlying problems. So the American profit-driven medical system relies heavily on drugs, especially for poorer patients. And drug companies love addictive drugs. So we get lots of opiate-addicted patients.

And then there's the "drugs are evil" mindset, which justifies criminalization. Even preventing pain is too much like having fun. So it's better for addicts to OD than get safe drugs. Because they deserve it, or whatever. They should just suck it up, walk it off, ...

So it goes.

[nickik]

It has nothing to do with profit driven. The problem is about intensives.

The perverse US health care system with all its regulation has made it so that doctors primary make money by giving away pills.

There were other models where people would basically have subscription to clinics and those would have a intensive to keep you healthy.

The problem is that all alternative models are literally illegal.

Check out this podcast: http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2017/06/christy_ford_ch.htm...

They talk about this book: Ensuring America's Health: The Public Creation of the Corporate Health Care System

[UncleMeat]

This explains why countries with more regulation (to the point of state run medicine in England) don't have nearly the same problem with opioid addiction, right?

[nickik]

Well not necessarily. You can also have a stat run system that can have the same intensive problem. I don't know how Britain handles these things.

It really just depends on the individual institutional setup, and it depends on the culture of the doctors.

[justinjlynn]

I honestly don't understand what kind of solution you're proposing. Would you mind briefly expanding on your statements?

[mirimir]

1) Properly treat people's medical problems, rather than just prescribing drugs.

2) Give safe drugs to addicts. Anonymously. Offer help, but don't force anything.

[Shivetya]

Well I think for #1 we need to understand how many got on this path from a medical provider. We cannot just assume the epidemic is the result of bad diagnoses. The numbers are just too high. It is just more likely that the price point reached for this strong of a drug and the ability to get it to users reached critical mass.

with regards to #2, it would good to know death rates and severe medical incident numbers in any localities to see how much of an effect such an approach is having.

#3 should be requiring all police departments having the training and recovery drugs necessary to pull someone out of an overdose along with no charges being filed for any parties involved in such a call.

this problem has been around a long time and only recently was it even addressed at the highest levels. it seemed like the problem everyone wanted to ignore