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This stereotype about New York bias is, of course, true. I am a New Yorker, but would never touch a rag like The New Yorker, and it is because they print aricles like these--advocating for socialized medicine and compassion throughout the entire article, but not really wanting anyone to take responsibility for self.
Then, with no context, they drop in the middle of an article about drugs, that Trump won all 48 counties of West Virginia. What was that, guilt by association or something? Never mind that Trump never touched a drink or a drug in his life. Lame.
At one point the article said something snooty like, "It is unclear who will pay for the Narcan if the Affordable Care Act is repealed." Um............how about the people who use the Narcan?? The people who use the drugs and use the Naran should pay for their drugs and Narcan, perhaps?
That would be a bit like saying you should buy the 747 that you fly on. A large number of people who have Narcan used on them do not have the means to pay for it even if they wanted to so your answer is a non answer.
That would be a bit like saying you should buy the 747 that you fly on. A large number of people who have Narcan used on them do not have the means to pay for it even if they wanted to so your answer is a non answer.
That analogy was inaccurate. A better analogy would be "that is like saying you should have to pay for the helicopter that airlifts people who are stuck on mountaintops." And I would agree that, yes, people should have money for the cost of an air rescue set aside before they go hiking up Mt. Everest in a blizzard. No one's life is saved by flying on a 747. I just don't get where you're coming from.
My answer is that you pay your way in life, or someone voluntarily pays for you. Taking money, or property, from one person to pay for another, whether it's legal or illegal, is theft, evil, and a violation of the seventh commandment. I work for my money, you work for yours. I don't work for your money. My property is not your property. No one has the right to take it from me.
Having said that, I think you should be able to do anything you would like with your own body, as long as it does not violate anyone else's rights. So, if you're going to do drugs, and you are worried about an overdose, you will invest in Narcan. If you do not value your own life, as many of these people who shoot purple-tinged heroin into their veins do not, then you will likely not invest in Narcan. The article said that it is several hundred dollars without insurance, if I recall. Let's call it an even grand.
If you elect to have such a thorough and severe drug problem that you think you may go into respiratory failure at some point, you will very likely find the thousand dollars to put aside, and your family and neighbors may be kind enough to pitch in. From the way I see some people buying cigarettes and lottery tickets, they can forgo those two items for a week and have the money for the Narcan without assistance. Unload a truck for $200 five times. It ain't exactly the GDP of Russia.
If you study economics, life if a series of trade-offs. If you have a dollar and I have a banana, and we both want what the other has, we trade for it. I don't get to take your banana if I only have 50 cents, even if I'm really, really hungry. Even if I'll die without the banana. This system of bargaining is what has led to such a peaceful and prosperous society. Before this system, the only major ways of gaining wealth were loot, plunder, and slavery. The former is by far the lesser of the two evils than the latter.
So let me make my answer crystal clear, without involving 747s or bananas: If someone opts to use drugs that may put them into respiratory failure, and they opt not to invest in Narcan, they can go without Narcan. If this leads to some deaths that would otherwise be preventable if Narcan had been administered, that is a fact of life. No one is "entitled" to life-saving treatment. If i had a rare and lethal disease that only one doctor in Japan could cure, I can either find a way to pay for it, or I will die. It's quite simple.
Some food for thought: given that we live in a free market economy and businesses are constantly competing for our business, often manifesting in attempts to appear compassionate, a Narcan-friendly string of stores could theoretically crop up, where they advertise in their windows that if you O.D in their store, they will administer Narcan free of charge. It could get them more business and potentially be a win-win, without involving the government. As for me? I'm shopping at the store around the corner. Don't need no one passing out at my feet, convulsing, thank you.
This stereotype about New York bias is, of course, true. I am a New Yorker, but would never touch a rag like The New Yorker, and it is because they print aricles like these--advocating for socialized medicine and compassion throughout the entire article, but not really wanting anyone to take responsibility for self.
Then, with no context, they drop in the middle of an article about drugs, that Trump won all 48 counties of West Virginia. What was that, guilt by association or something? Never mind that Trump never touched a drink or a drug in his life. Lame.
At one point the article said something snooty like, "It is unclear who will pay for the Narcan if the Affordable Care Act is repealed." Um............how about the people who use the Narcan?? The people who use the drugs and use the Naran should pay for their drugs and Narcan, perhaps?
I don't think it's quite as simple as the people in New York looking down on the people in West Virginia, but it is almost a wonder to New Yorkers (not me) that people who live in such an idyllic place would suffer with problems they jealously cling to as something that is solely theirs. (I remember driving up around 64 in my first 24 hours in West Virginia--I was somewhere around Monroe or Greenbrier Counties--and the scenery was so breathtaking that for one moment I wondered why there was a drug problem. Then I came back down to earth). It was probably about six months ago that a very rich, semi-famous New York money guy called Dennis Shields fatally overdosed on opiods, despite issuing Narcan to himself in his New York apartment. I think there is an attitude up here that New Yorkers--with their suits, commutes, psychiatrists, busy schedules, and super-important work they are doing--have the monopoly on problems. When these elites see drug use by anyone rural--and, frankly, poor and white--it comes as a great big shock sometimes. Then they all think they are going to write the article that's going to save Appalachia, and they'll get toasted at big fancy New York writing parties, regardless of what actually comes out of their article. I really think that's why they're falling all over themselves to save everything and everyone--for the accolades from their peers. These are some of the most neurotic, insecure people you will ever meet.
I also agree that many people trade addictions. I think the industry is very hypocritical as to what is a "problem." If you were boozing, but now you go to meetings, you can be 200 lbs overweight, smoking two packs a day, probably smoking weed, and drinking coffee by the pot and they will tell you only to "keep coming back." Even with the subtle "addictions" (whatever that word actually means), people are treated differently. If a man and a woman both want to perfect their bodies by working out hard and eating really clean, the woman is going to be called to the carpet for "over-exercising" while the man is championed, but the man is going to be called out for undereating while his female counterpart will get praised for discipline. Our world is just crazy. I'm trying to get used to it.
I completely agree with everything about this post. I think the best we can do as a society is prevention. Why are we never focusing on the winners in society, the people who made it? What can we learn from those people? I think people need to learn discipline and to stand strong in the face of adversity. For that reason, I would suggest competitive sports or dance for children. Parents should also, as someone stated above, emphasize healthy eating. Emphasize winning. Emphasize morals. Foster deep relationships with family and church. Foster big dreams, and deter drug use, because it will kill the big dreams. After that...a person is just going to do what they do. Once they're adults, we can't do much buy pray for them or give them something that's as tempting as the drug--such as the hopes of meeting a desirable partner or living in a great home--that they can only have if they give up the drugging. Sometimes I see these "addicts" who are in "recovery" (I put the words in quotations, because they are just folk sayings; they have no medical definition that I know of) and their lives sound so damn sad. "Hey, I've got partial custody of my kids, and I work part-time at Sheetz." Um...congratulations? But that wouldn't keep me sober. I would need something big to really strive for, and I think the "recovery" community, in its current state, infantilizes the "addict," hammering it into his head that he has a lifelong, incurable "disease," when he's really just messed up, and he can shake it off with the right goal-setting.
A detox is fine for a person who is physically addicted to the stuff, and if one is kicking dope, a hospital is probably the best place to be for a few days, but studies show that outpatient drug treatment is just as successful as inpatient drug treatment, yet all this article wanted to do was sob over lack of beds available. How about starting a grassroots outpatient program in the community?
I definitely agree that a certain amount of people are going to die from drug overdoses. It is human nature for man to want to change his state of mind, and he has been doing it since the beginning of time. That's not going to stop. Needle exchanges only give the needle user a false sense that he is doing something that is ok. Clean needles are cheap and sold over the counter. If a person can score money for drugs, but can't be bothered to purchase the needle, then they don't care about communicable viruses, and that mindset cannot be changed. The needle exchange, to me, is a sanction by society.
So I am alright with some people--even young people--dying. We all are, or we wouldn't drive cars, because there are more traffic fatalities than drug deaths. It doesn't mean we go back to riding horses. We just make our cars as safe as we can and buckle our seat belts.
As far as blaming the doctors, I will never blame a doctor for prescribing medicine to get someone out of pain who is in pain. I would rather he over-prescribe by a lot than under-prescribe by a little. Why? Because, quite simply, being in pain freaking sucks, and if we have the technology to get people out of pain and they are willing to live with the side effects, who are we to withhold it from them, God? If the medicine gets into the wrong hands, well I'm sorry, but that is what is going to happen anytime there's a black market. The article kept coming back to people numbing psychological pain with painkillers, and I don't know what is so wrong with that. Some people have really bad lives, and if they choose the numbness over the pain, again, who am I to take that choice away from them, God?
I know this is controversial, but I would end the drug war yesterday. It's not bearing any fruit. Let the dope fiends be dope fiends if they're convinced that's what they need to be. The black market, which, as people pointed out, is involved with Afghanistan, as well as international sex trafficking, cartels, human butchering, bribery of public officials, etc., would all be dealt a crippling blow if you could buy opium at the local drug store. That was the situation 100 years ago, and, yes, you had opium dens, but you also had a fully functioning society. We stop spending money on the drug war and we have more of our paycheck to pocket and buy art supplies or attend a ballgame. I think that's how the society stays off drugs--we get our minds right, and we pray for the few of us who cannot.
I'm not trying to get political, but I will put one last thought out there as an analogy: Most people agree that intervention with the legal purchase of firearms does not stop gun violence. So why do we keep buying into the myth of drug prohibition?
Whoops, I wrote a novel. This just hits a lot of topics that are really intense for me--classism, drug "abuse," societal problems, myths about "recovery," and I'm always interested in anything concerning West Virginia, because I truly think it's wonderful, yet it's treated like the red headed stepchild of the US for some reason.
Ending the war on drugs would also end a tremendous amount of police corruption in the United States. It would also lead to a much more stable Mexico...which would have a tremendous positive imoact on our national interests as well.
That analogy was inaccurate. A better analogy would be "that is like saying you should have to pay for the helicopter that airlifts people who are stuck on mountaintops." And I would agree that, yes, people should have money for the cost of an air rescue set aside before they go hiking up Mt. Everest in a blizzard. No one's life is saved by flying on a 747. I just don't get where you're coming from.
My answer is that you pay your way in life, or someone voluntarily pays for you. Taking money, or property, from one person to pay for another, whether it's legal or illegal, is theft, evil, and a violation of the seventh commandment. I work for my money, you work for yours. I don't work for your money. My property is not your property. No one has the right to take it from me.
Having said that, I think you should be able to do anything you would like with your own body, as long as it does not violate anyone else's rights. So, if you're going to do drugs, and you are worried about an overdose, you will invest in Narcan. If you do not value your own life, as many of these people who shoot purple-tinged heroin into their veins do not, then you will likely not invest in Narcan. The article said that it is several hundred dollars without insurance, if I recall. Let's call it an even grand.
If you elect to have such a thorough and severe drug problem that you think you may go into respiratory failure at some point, you will very likely find the thousand dollars to put aside, and your family and neighbors may be kind enough to pitch in. From the way I see some people buying cigarettes and lottery tickets, they can forgo those two items for a week and have the money for the Narcan without assistance. Unload a truck for $200 five times. It ain't exactly the GDP of Russia.
If you study economics, life if a series of trade-offs. If you have a dollar and I have a banana, and we both want what the other has, we trade for it. I don't get to take your banana if I only have 50 cents, even if I'm really, really hungry. Even if I'll die without the banana. This system of bargaining is what has led to such a peaceful and prosperous society. Before this system, the only major ways of gaining wealth were loot, plunder, and slavery. The former is by far the lesser of the two evils than the latter.
So let me make my answer crystal clear, without involving 747s or bananas: If someone opts to use drugs that may put them into respiratory failure, and they opt not to invest in Narcan, they can go without Narcan. If this leads to some deaths that would otherwise be preventable if Narcan had been administered, that is a fact of life. No one is "entitled" to life-saving treatment. If i had a rare and lethal disease that only one doctor in Japan could cure, I can either find a way to pay for it, or I will die. It's quite simple.
Some food for thought: given that we live in a free market economy and businesses are constantly competing for our business, often manifesting in attempts to appear compassionate, a Narcan-friendly string of stores could theoretically crop up, where they advertise in their windows that if you O.D in their store, they will administer Narcan free of charge. It could get them more business and potentially be a win-win, without involving the government. As for me? I'm shopping at the store around the corner. Don't need no one passing out at my feet, convulsing, thank you.
People that make a decision to use heroin and other addicting drugs know the risks involved. They choose to use anyway, then don't want to pay the consequences for their actions. Choosing to continue to associate with other users and addicts is not "seeking help'. God is available to everyone that seeks Him, and He can put people on the right direction to get help- IF they will trust Him. I speak from experience with addictions of my own. Sympathy does not help addicts.
Though I was first hesitant to respond to this post on account of how devastatingly it deconstructed and exposed the fallacy in each and every point I made, I have bravely decided to come out of hiding.
Seriously, though, the laissez-faire approach that I broke down in painstaking detail is the best solution of those available. It fails when compared to utopia, as does literally everything else, but it beats out everything else under the sun.
Instead of criticizing my solution by repeatedly trying to nullify it, even as it resonates with the other posters and enjoys popular support, why not actually advance a different theory? (Hand-wringing doesn't count).
I look forward to a thoughtful discussion. If someone wants Joe Q Taxpayer (aka me)--a non-opioids user--to foot the bill for someone else's Narcan, I disagree, but respect them enough that they will say it. On the other side of the coin, I am nonplussed by assertions that are based on nothing but emotion and knee-jerk reactions.
I guess some people feel safer clinging to certain notions, regardless of how they play out empirically. I guess I have the right not to respect that.
Once again--this time for the cheap seats--my preferred solution to accessing Narcan is paying for it on the free market, whether on one's own or through voluntary contributions, or through one's insurance company, if one had the forethought to purchase medical insurance. Brilliant in its simplicity if I do say so myself.
Location: Appalachian New York, Formerly Louisiana
4,409 posts, read 6,539,156 times
Reputation: 6253
My heart goes out to West Virginians on this. The sad fact is that the state itself doesn't really have the means to deal with this problem, and the rest of the country doesn't seem to care.
Some people consider WV the trashcan of the US and I cannot stand that assertion. I cannot help but to think that this attitude towards WV is part of the reason young people in the state are turning to drugs. They feel completely hopeless and entirely rejected by their own damn country.
To liberal America (AKA the media), it's long been time to stop turning a blind eye just because it's mostly white people suffering. Put your political narrative aside and help those in need!
Though I was first hesitant to respond to this post on account of how devastatingly it deconstructed and exposed the fallacy in each and every point I made, I have bravely decided to come out of hiding.
Seriously, though, the laissez-faire approach that I broke down in painstaking detail is the best solution of those available. It fails when compared to utopia, as does literally everything else, but it beats out everything else under the sun.
Instead of criticizing my solution by repeatedly trying to nullify it, even as it resonates with the other posters and enjoys popular support, why not actually advance a different theory? (Hand-wringing doesn't count).
I look forward to a thoughtful discussion. If someone wants Joe Q Taxpayer (aka me)--a non-opioids user--to foot the bill for someone else's Narcan, I disagree, but respect them enough that they will say it. On the other side of the coin, I am nonplussed by assertions that are based on nothing but emotion and knee-jerk reactions.
I guess some people feel safer clinging to certain notions, regardless of how they play out empirically. I guess I have the right not to respect that.
Once again--this time for the cheap seats--my preferred solution to accessing Narcan is paying for it on the free market, whether on one's own or through voluntary contributions, or through one's insurance company, if one had the forethought to purchase medical insurance. Brilliant in its simplicity if I do say so myself.
Ok. Your theory is fine in principle, but leads to morgues full of dead young people. Narcan saves lives, and I have no problem allowing my tax dollars to go to its purchase by first responders, or even addicts to some extent.
I understand your argument, but being part of society is admitting we don't have an individual "opt out" for public spending we disagree with. You are well within your right to debate as to whether this individual expenditure is worth it, but I will argue it is. A dead addict has no chance to turn their life around and become a better father/mother/child/sister/brother/friend, etc. An addict that is saved with this medication has that chance.
Though I was first hesitant to respond to this post on account of how devastatingly it deconstructed and exposed the fallacy in each and every point I made, I have bravely decided to come out of hiding.
Seriously, though, the laissez-faire approach that I broke down in painstaking detail is the best solution of those available. It fails when compared to utopia, as does literally everything else, but it beats out everything else under the sun.
Instead of criticizing my solution by repeatedly trying to nullify it, even as it resonates with the other posters and enjoys popular support, why not actually advance a different theory? (Hand-wringing doesn't count).
I look forward to a thoughtful discussion. If someone wants Joe Q Taxpayer (aka me)--a non-opioids user--to foot the bill for someone else's Narcan, I disagree, but respect them enough that they will say it. On the other side of the coin, I am nonplussed by assertions that are based on nothing but emotion and knee-jerk reactions.
I guess some people feel safer clinging to certain notions, regardless of how they play out empirically. I guess I have the right not to respect that.
Once again--this time for the cheap seats--my preferred solution to accessing Narcan is paying for it on the free market, whether on one's own or through voluntary contributions, or through one's insurance company, if one had the forethought to purchase medical insurance. Brilliant in its simplicity if I do say so myself.
They aren't going to pay. Many will be billed for E.R. services or for paramedics to show up but they won't pay. It's your solution so you have to describe how exactly it is that you are going to force them to pay.
My heart goes out to West Virginians on this. The sad fact is that the state itself doesn't really have the means to deal with this problem, and the rest of the country doesn't seem to care.
Some people consider WV the trashcan of the US and I cannot stand that assertion. I cannot help but to think that this attitude towards WV is part of the reason young people in the state are turning to drugs. They feel completely hopeless and entirely rejected by their own damn country.
To liberal America (AKA the media), it's long been time to stop turning a blind eye just because it's mostly white people suffering. Put your political narrative aside and help those in need!
This wasn't in WV but a lot of this did go on in WV.
The story of how Timbs ended up in the Supreme Court began with steel-toed boots he bought for work in a truck factory. The boots hurt his feet, but he couldn't immediately afford the insoles he was told to buy. A doctor wrote a prescription for hydrocodone. Before long, Timbs was hooked on heroin.
The doctor prescribed him hydrocodone because his boots hurt his feet. This doctor should lose his right to practice medicine.
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