Comment by Aurornis
9 hours ago
> 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.
Your response reads like status quo par for the course.
The same thinking that fueled the "Just Say No" and "this is your brain on drug's" campaigns in the 80s/90s. Because we all know that cutting off access via stone cold sobriety and absolute illegality under the law is the right solution.
Straw man response. I didn’t say anything about that.
I’m trying to counter the idea that a consistent heroin dependence is the “least bad substance” when there are clearly numerous drugs that are much less toxic over the long term.
I said nothing about best techniques for dealing with people who have addictions. My goal is to avoid having being read these comments and think that because they’re smarter they’ll be able to handle and benefit from a stable opioid dependence. It’s exactly how one of my friends got started