[rjkennedy98]

> Dr Gart, at this moment are you hungry? In your lifetime have you ever been hungry? Hunger is a type of pain. Did you treat that pain by consuming a substance?

If you don't eat you die. Do you die if you don't consumer pain killers? No you don't.

This is similar to the nonsense peddled by people who claim anti-depressants are the same as insulin and various other snake-oil salespeople.

[cafard]

Have you ever suffered constant pain, of the sort where you really can't think of anything else? I have been fortunate to have such events rarely, and then in spans measured in hours. But the intensity is enough to give me a notion of what others have gone through. The people I know who have used heavy-duty pain killers have not wanted to get stoned--one in particular despised the fuzzy feeling--they have wanted to function.

[4ntonius8lock]

It's a losing game putting out reasonable arguments as to why this hysteria is bad.

Some people want to control others and just don't care what the reality is.

They would never ban alcohol, they consume it.

They would never ban cars; they drive them.

They would never ban fast food; they eat it.

They will never ban sugar; they love it.

All of these things have cause a million times more misery than opioids ever have, by all measurable statistics (deaths, injury, domestic violence, etc)

But if there is something someone is doing that they aren't, their measurement of pros and cons will change. Statistics and comparable things of pleasure/damage will never be considered.

[reitanqild]

> But if there is something someone is doing that they aren't, their measurement of pros and cons will change. Statistics and comparable things of pleasure/damage will never be considered.

HN is also guilty of this in otver contexts.

[4ntonius8lock]

I think we are all guilty of this to a degree. We all measure risk/reward differently when the risk is perceived to be on our side and the reward on the other side.

The issue with perception is universal. We all feel these things.

How we act though? That's a choice. We can choose to read statistics and let our 'slow thinking' brain take over. But it has to be a choice and that lies with each of us.

[marcosdumay]

> Do you die if you don't consumer pain killers? No you don't.

Do you notice you are replying to a comment about somebody that did, right?

Not every problem is simple.

[lonelappde]

The comment above clearly stated that someone died of pain.

Your refusal to believe that illnesses can affect the brain is obsolete thinking.

[pfortuny]

You may commit suicide, though.

[lonelappde]

*die of suicide, as a side effect of chronic unrelievable pain