Comment by monero-xmr
16 hours ago
You can live with a sustained opioid addiction permanently without major issues. That’s the entire basis of methadone clinics - controlled dispersement of opioids at a level that solves cravings and allows the addict to be functional. It is very sad we don’t allow pharmaceutical grade opioids to be given to addicts in a controlled way, it would eliminate the purity variance that causes overdoses, and prevent the poison mixed in to increase street profits from destroying bodies (tranq, etc)
In Switzerland they can get actual, state grown, heroin. Clean heroin is one of the least problematic substances appearantly, less problematic and more "everyday friendly" than Methadon even.
And you don't SEE any issues like in the US (or UK) around here at all.
> Clean heroin is one of the least problematic substances appearantly, less problematic and more "everyday friendly" than Methadon even.
Least problematic is too strong of wording. Consistent opioid use will take a large toll on the body and mind. A therapeutic level of dosing could possibly be better than severe chronic pain depending on the situation, but even chronic pain patients have to deal with a range of negatives and side effects that are only tolerable because they’re less bad than their severe chronic pain.
Chronic opioid use induces a lot of changes in the body and mind. The initial euphoria isn’t sustainable, as everyone knows, but long term use induces even further changes that predispose users to deeper depression and can even begin to augment pain signals.
Opioids are in a class of drugs that are unusually deceptive because users who more or less control their dosing will talk themselves into thinking they can do this forever without real negatives. They can go for years before the cumulative negatives become too obvious to ignore.
For addicts deep in cycles of rehab-relapse extremes, going to a maintenance program and achieving stability is definitely better than continuing the cycle indefinitely. However it comes with a high price relative to sobriety. I think it’s important to not downplay the effects of being on opioids for years and years.
I live in Zurich. I spent 5 minutes waiting at a bus stop in Langstrasse and I was offered cocaine and marijuana by a thug
The comment was about heroin. Were you offered heroin?
Is cocaine and marijuana available from the government too? If not, what relevance is your comment?
Was this the first and only time you were waiting at a bus stop in Switzerland? If so, perhaps a notable story, if not then we'll need more information to conclude how bad this thug problem really is in Switzerland.
2 replies →
Sounds like you have easy options for some common drugs. Not a bad thing perse and sounds like they didn't offer any opioids
5 replies →
"waiting at a bus stop in Langstrasse" -> what were you expecting?
1 reply →
Is it too long, too little or what? Red light districts, official or not are the place to get drugs in european towns. Langstrasse is basically an official place for that, at least the most official Zurich has.
If you think cocaine and marijuana are comparable/interchangeable with heroin, you might want to educate yourself on the topic a bit more before trying to make a quip.
Imagine you are sitting in a room. Your child is in front of you. A scary man sits next to them. The man says:
“Your child is a drug addict. They are addicted to opioids. I am the devil, without any care in the world other than making money. The choice is yours. Would you rather they inject clean heroin made by a pharmaceutical company in your country, or banish them forever as street addicts slavishly doing what it takes to score their fix?”
When facing the devil I’m voting for my tax dollars to give them clean heroin made by my country. That is what every parent wants when faced with an addicted child
I switched from my Twitter addiction to a Bluesky addiction. Still scrolling to death, but now my opinion is mine again. #dontDoGrok
That’s a fake dichotomy btw, a sadly very common logical fallacy.
You (wrongly) assume there’s no way out of an addiction, for example.
11 replies →
Methadone is available in the UK, on the NHS. I know at least one person who has been on it for decades.
https://www.nhs.uk/medicines/methadone/
> You can live with a sustained opioid addiction permanently without major issues.
To me that seems to say cause of the opiod crisis doesn't exist, which probably isn't what you mean. But what do you mean?
The problem is not the opioids themselves as a chemical. They are tolerated well and have minimal side effects. The main issue is that street opioids are of uncertain purity, and cut with toxic chemicals. This causes overdoses when a batch is too strong, and various health issues from the harsh toxins.
A properly managed opioid addiction can be permanent. For a decade millions of Americans were addicted to opioids (OxyContin, Vicodin, etc.) prescribed by doctors. When the state cracked down they were forced to go on the street to get their medicine, which is when the opioid crisis exploded
And we learned zero from the change after shutting down the Purdues. The electorate just wants to see drug users punished, not treated. Even though treating cheaper, more humane, and has way better outcomes.
>When the state cracked down they were forced to go on the street to get their medicine, which is when the opioid crisis exploded.
What's the data corroborating this theory?
[dead]