clair014

The media hysterics against opioids, such as The New York Times, ought to be ashamed of themselves! http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/commentisfree/2016/jun/08/opioid-epidemic-drug-mix-overdose-death Bob Bee- It's prohibition that serves to ensure opioids are more dangerous than they otherwise would be, due to uncertainty of purity and dosage of unregulated, black market drugs. Thus prohibition makes fatal OD's more likely, not less. Opioids should be legalized, regulated, and taxed like tobacco and alcohol. That way, users would know exactly what they were buying and the dosage. Also, opioid legalization would mean good, old, natural opium would be legally available. Users could opt for opium (active ingredients include morphine & codeine. It can be eaten, smoked, or consumed as a tea) as a safer alternative to ultra-potent pharma-junk powders & pills. Opium's safer as it's less concentrated and is harder to fatally OD on. End the counter-productive,...

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/21/health/opioid-prescriptions-drop-for-first-time-in-two-decades.html?_r=0 (excerpts) "...for each of the past three years — 2013, 2014 and 2015 — prescriptions have declined, a review of several sources of data shows." " IMS Health, an information firm whose data on prescribing is used throughout the health care industry, found a 12 percent decline in opioid prescriptions nationally since a peak in 2012. Another data company, Symphony Health Solutions, reported a drop of about 18 percent during those years. Opioid prescriptions have fallen in 49 states since 2013, according to IMS, with some of the sharpest decreases coming in West Virginia, the state considered the center of the opioid epidemic, and in Texas and Oklahoma. (Only South Dakota showed an increase.)" ... ... One important development that may have helped propel the decline came in 2014, when the federal government tightened prescribing rules for one of the most c...

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/27/opinion/sunday/opioid-use-and-abuse.html?_r=0 To the Editor: Re “ A Strong Response to the Opioid Scourge” (editorial, March 17): There are longtime users of low-dose opioids, like me, who never require an increase in dose and who find that this medication provides quality of life. How? By addressing chronic pain, sleep disorders and associated depression. The alternatives proposed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, like aspirin and ibuprofen, can cause long-term damage to body organs and short-term stomach pain. For many of us, spare use of a low-dose opioid is the very best alternative. Unfortunately, voices like mine are not heard often. Why? Because the media climate right now is so fiercely anti-opioid that those who rely on this drug can feel hesitant to speak out. More reporting should be done on the lives saved and enhanced by opioids, in addition to the terrible consequences of addiction. Policy should reflect a m...

by building a wall with the said goal to stop contraband drugs as his response to heroin   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfWidZH0xBs#password The "success" of this sort of policy would be to favor domestically produced bathtub "heroin" that would be likely spiked with the far more potent synthetic opiate fentanyl, in of course vastly varying potencies, unregulated thus promoting even more fatal ODs. By banning Opium and its derivatives, the market availability was shifted to the more concentrated forms of opiates as Heroin HCI, and with the price likewise artificially increased to be pricier per weight than gold, encouraged its use in the way with the greatest 'bang for the buck" of injection- also the most addictive and potentially dangerous- further exacerbated by the variable potency of such a substance in an unregulated black market of uncertain purity and adulteration perhaps with something even stronger such as fentanyl. By failing to address any of...

if the polices towards opiates are really so valid, why not then apply them to other drugs, such as nicotine?   http://www.borgenmagazine.com/opium-cultivation-rise/ https://prezi.com/dfx5tfc7mnf_/opium/ Virtually anything and everything written about the various "epidemics" of heroin and opiates or opioids treats the policy as if it were written in stone by God. Regular use of such can not be tolerated. People must be gotten off opiates, or rather off of their regular opiates and onto something longer lasting and stronger and more physically addictive. From what one would gather, this is because the regular use of their regular opiates must be associated with various sorts of diseases and/or ill effects upon health.  That staying on say pain pills or heroin is intolerable because such invariably harms health.  Perhaps as that with the excessive use of alcohol causing cirrhosis of the liver.  Or that of the regular use of Tobacco, particularly the type bred for ciga...