[usmeteora]

hmm Well considering heroine use has doubled in the passed 5 years, and doubled from 2012-2013, and that three-quarters of all heroine users now started out by getting addicted to their prescribed pharmaceutical equivalent, due to the delay in the administration cracking down on the pharmaceutical pill farms who incentivized the healthcare system to hand these out like candy with anyone who used the word "pain, back pain or anxiety", I would say, yes, psychiatric drugs and painkillers, are causing more harm than good. We are in the middle of the biggest heroine epidemic in U.S. History.

The Huffington Post has three articles in 2015 detailing this epidemic and providing the statistics on this for anyone interested. This one is the most in depth and compelling I have seen so far: http://projects.huffingtonpost.com/dying-to-be-free-heroin-t...

The best part is there is a compelling treatment, but it is stigmatized in favor of abstinence/cold turkey teaching. Of course there is no data to support this is more effective (in fact a disturbing amount of data to show otherwise) but alot of politics of holier than thou to support the failing system. Read more about this tragedy here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/the-real-cause-of-...

[corin_]

Heroin (and prescribed opioids) are not psychiatric drugs, so while yes they are a big problem, they're not really relevant to whether psychiatric drugs are positive or negative.

[techlibertarian]

It definitely is relevant because psychiatric drugs are how people get onto heroin.

[corin_]

That's not the way my parent was talking about, nor something I'm aware of.

What's very common is people getting prescribed painkillers (oxycodone, etc.) and then moving onto heroin, because they are similar drugs. But those painkillers are not psychiatric drugs.

[techlibertarian]

Yes that is what I meant. A confusion on my part.

[duaneb]

People are generally prescribed opiates, which are not considered psychiatric but a pain reliever, and can become addicted that way. Perhaps you're thinking about benzos, like Valium or xanax, that are both psychiatric, addictive, and whose abuse/withdrawal can be extremely lethal (especially with alcohol for an overdose combination). They are similar but have different problems. Benzos are more deadly but less life-destroying. Opiates are probably prescribed too much/for too long without patient monitoring.

[benaiah]

What? Opiates are not psychiatric drugs. You don’t get addicted to opiates by tasking other, unrelated drugs. That’s absurd.

[Tenhundfeld]

Are you misreading psychiatric as psychedelic?

Even then, I vehemently disagree with you, but I at least can follow the logic.

Arguing that clozapine, diazepam, fluoxetine, etc., are gateway drugs for heroine is an argument I've never heard before. It sounds ridiculous to me, but if you have evidence to support the claim, please post.

[corin_]

I'm pretty sure he's thinking painkillers are classed as psychiatric drugs, which if they were would mean he was correct.

But on your point, personally I think abuse of benzodiazepines is more likely to lead to a drug like Heroin than psychedelics are. The whole concept of "gateway drugs" hasn't been proven, but the effect of benzos is a lot closer to heroin than psychedelics (anyone who has actually tried heroin might correct me on this...), so would imagine a stronger cross-over (even if not due to a gateway effect, simply down to the fact that anyone who likes downers is likely to try other downers).

[techlibertarian]

> I'm pretty sure he's thinking painkillers are classed as psychiatric drugs, which if they were would mean he was correct.

Yes, you are correct. My bad.

[evanpw]

I'm deeply confused by this comment. The main thesis of that first link you posted is that it's way too hard for psychiatrists to prescribe a drug that treats heroin addiction.

[maccard]

> incentivized the healthcare system to hand these out like candy with anyone who used the word "pain, back pain or anxiety"

It's all well and good to blame big pharma, but the problem isn't an incentivised healthcare scheme, the problem is there's a lack of awareness and follow up care associated with the people who are prescribed these drugs. In Ireland I was put through weeks of agony trying out various strengths of painkillers before they decided to give me Oxycodene, which had me back on my feet and in work. There's still people becoming addicted to these drugs who aren't given these drugs just because they are asked to.

The biggest problem I saw was that my GP decided that when my back pain was resolved after an operation he decided I was finished with the painkillers as of right now. No weaning off process, no care to ensure that I was coping without the tablets other than the pain.

furthermore, when I was put on them, my doctor mentioned in passing that they were addictive - Nobody mentioned to me that I could end up with a chronic addiction to them when they put me on them. As is always the case; education and information availability will solve a huge amount of the problems, along with better management when withdrawing from opioids (that doesn't require me to sign up to a rehab program)

[tyho]

Opioids and Benzos need to be much more carefully prescribed. They are addictive and expensive and people build a tolerance to them. Once you have are addicted and have a tolerance the logical decision to make is somethimes to start snorting heroin as it is much cheaper. I hear a lot of people starting on prescribed opioids then moving to heroin because it is more affordable.

That being said, these classes of drugs are not the ones being discussed in the article.