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I have volunteered on and off for years at a hospital detox/ treatment facility.
The typical opiate/ opioid addict is young, late teens- early 20's, white and suburban. I have yet to run into anyone who thought they could become addicted. In fact, many persist with denying addiction and maintain a perception they are in control. There's a lot of Compariative Rationalalization going on. A pill popper is not as bad as a pill chruncher is not as bad as a pill shooter is not as bad as a heroin smoker is not as bad as a Heroin shooter and so on. No shortage of delusional thinking.
Most have a history of polysubstance abuse. Most began their journey with marijuana and/ or alcohol and then moved onto pills for recreational use. No reasonable way to distinguish a pill prescribed to grandpa from a pill made in an illegal lab bearing the same stamp as pharmecy grade pills. Pills are expensive. Heroin is a better bang for the buck.
Therapists routinely probe for root cause, depression, anxiety, dysfunctional family PTSD and so on. In my opinion a heck of a lot of young people just want to get high and live a fantasy life without consequence- immature cognition, regardless of age.
A percentage of the global population has been reduced to low wage jobs for a variety of reasons, technology substitution/ industrial robotics, lack of apptitude, effort, skill, lack of opportunity and so on. In the US the days of paying relatively high wages, pensions and benefits to a low- moderately skilled workforce have been declining for nearly 60 years.
Russia has an addiction rate more than three times as high as the US. Unlike the US, the Russian government does not take responsibility for the lousy choices made by a relatively small percentage of the population.
I agree with this post and especially the bold.
I also believe that drugs are stronger today than they used to be due to the way they are produced/processed.
I grew up in the crack epidemic and honestly it bothers me that so many people want to help all these addicts. Most do drugs because they didn't think they would get hooked. People always think "something won't happen" to them.
That is the root cause - idiocy. There may be underlying reasons for that idiocy but that is what it is.
It bothers me that so many people want to "help" these addicts when this wasn't the case during the previous heroin epidemic (late 60s-70s) nor the crack epidemic (80s-90s) and I fully believe that is due to the fact that the "face" of those epidemics were black and brown Americans and people didn't care about them like they do these white suburbanites who think they can't get hooked on drugs.
I feel bad for the families of the addicts since my father is a recovering addict (has been clean nearly 30 years now) and I know the effect addiction can have on families. But I don't feel for the addicts themselves and think that government needs to take a step back and stop trying to help these people. There have been studies done of black Americans of my generation and how we are the least likely to do these sorts of hardcore drugs and I truly do believe that is due to the fact that we saw how devastating drug use can be in full color. I have never done any drug, not even marijuana and I barely even touch alcohol (maybe 3-4 times a year) because most of the addicts I knew were also drunks and IMO they go hand in hand. None of my close friends who are black that I grew up with have fallen into this heorin epidemic and neither have our kids but unfortunately many of my white friends have been affected by this with their kids getting addicted to heroin. Most didn't start their addiction due to being taken off of Rx drugs. They started because they wanted to try drugs and get high and these drugs are so strong that they got addicted after 1-2 times of using it.
Nothing, it has to do with myopic people who live in little boxes who can't deviate from their obsessions.
What's the best chili recipe?
"Chili is government conspiracy!"
What music do you like to listen to?
"Did you know the government is trying to control you?"
These people must be a barrel of laughs in everyday life.
People were force fed prescription drugs at the behest of your government masters. Then Sammy threatened docs if they over-prescribed those drugs.
Supply and demand subjected to artificial manipulation always has disastrous results regardless if people are looking to get high or for a loaf of bread.
I would say the lousy economy for the last ~10 years (give or take) is the MAIN culprit. People who have money or are rich do not really show up in the news much for "death by overdose".
On the other hand people who are poor, people who are broke, people who are depressed are much more likely to end up using drugs to cope with their crappy life situation.
It's aaaaalll about coping, America is the STRESS CAPITAL of the world. It's interesting that in 3rd world countries you rarely ever hear about "death by overdose" and "lone wolf mass shooters". I wonder why
a lot of young people just want to get high and live a fantasy life without consequence- immature cognition, regardless of age.
Maybe it's how these kids were raised. Are these the same kids who were always told they were "special"? The ones who were coddled, with permissive parents, seldom faced consequences for what they did, and got away with everything? Are these the kids who got "feel good" trophies when they lost? The kids who never had to cope with losing?
If so, they never learned coping mechanisms that the rest of us learned. Those of us who grew up without being spoiled, had to learn to do without and had to suffer consequences if we did something wrong. We know what it's like to feel awful but we also know that you do get over it.
Think of generations before us. They had it even worse. Depression era kids and kids before that. They learned ways of coping. They survived and didn't take drugs no matter how hard their lives were. Today's generation is too soft and spoiled. No one taught them how to deal with losing or not getting their own way. So they turn to drugs. (If that's the reason, then it's pretty hopeless...)
I also believe that drugs are stronger today than they used to be due to the way they are produced/processed.
I grew up in the crack epidemic and honestly it bothers me that so many people want to help all these addicts. Most do drugs because they didn't think they would get hooked. People always think "something won't happen" to them.
That is the root cause - idiocy. There may be underlying reasons for that idiocy but that is what it is.
It bothers me that so many people want to "help" these addicts when this wasn't the case during the previous heroin epidemic (late 60s-70s) nor the crack epidemic (80s-90s) and I fully believe that is due to the fact that the "face" of those epidemics were black and brown Americans and people didn't care about them like they do these white suburbanites who think they can't get hooked on drugs.
I feel bad for the families of the addicts since my father is a recovering addict (has been clean nearly 30 years now) and I know the effect addiction can have on families. But I don't feel for the addicts themselves and think that government needs to take a step back and stop trying to help these people. There have been studies done of black Americans of my generation and how we are the least likely to do these sorts of hardcore drugs and I truly do believe that is due to the fact that we saw how devastating drug use can be in full color. I have never done any drug, not even marijuana and I barely even touch alcohol (maybe 3-4 times a year) because most of the addicts I knew were also drunks and IMO they go hand in hand. None of my close friends who are black that I grew up with have fallen into this heorin epidemic and neither have our kids but unfortunately many of my white friends have been affected by this with their kids getting addicted to heroin. Most didn't start their addiction due to being taken off of Rx drugs. They started because they wanted to try drugs and get high and these drugs are so strong that they got addicted after 1-2 times of using it.
And the race card was played. I mark it at page 4, 2nd post. Surprised it took that long. This thread was going a lot better than most on this topic do. Next milestone will be someone chiming in to say it's mostly Trump supporters it's affecting and getting a good laugh out of it.
I don't see why we can't do what Switzerland did. In the 80s heroin, HIV and street crime became a problem, so they opened free heroin maintenance centers, focusing on rehab where users would get heroin of high quality, clean needles, access to safe injection rooms, showers, beds and medical supervision and social workers would help them fight housing, finding jobs and other problems they were facing.
Heroin addiction was an epidemic mostly consentrated in Zurich in the 80's- 90's and a very serious public nuisance. The government chose to change their approach from criminal to healthcare and social responsibility. After nearly 25 years, they claim there are barely any new users while continuing to maintain legacy users, primarily with " replacement therapies".
What works in a country of 8 million will not necessarily work in a country of 325 million that does not have universal healthcare.
Imagine public reaction to the US government funding prescriptions for heroin.
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