Whew. Harsh words there. This isn’t an article, it’s a manifesto.
Clearly also written by someone without any knowledge of addictions.
I disagree.
Agreed.. and has neither understood how drug addiction is used to enslave people for prostitution. Also, there is no real place for mentally ill people to go and the drugs hide the root problem.
I have on large tattoo.. so I guess she would dismiss me, but I have watched nurses hold the hand of an addict.
No concept about living with pain, no concept about the Big Pharma and the medical profession’s part in it, someone on thier high judgmental horse.
Yes, I get that sometimes the frustration causes one to throw up their hands and say let them do what they want including self destruct.
But that is no reason to just give up. Do I think all this should be decriminalized? Yes. Even though sometimes a little time in jail is good for breaking the user cycle, I have heard that drugs are readily available in jail.
Anyway, the writer of this article is a one dimensional thinker.
Or written by someone who has never had a toothache.
Or by someone who unceremoniously overcame an addiction by a simple choice of will and refuses to sugar coat their personal failings with the label of a disease.
I like the suggestion someone made here . Three strikes for opioids. The EMTs will come to you three times and give you a ride to the ER. The fourth call will get no response. I would extend that to drug ODs in general and maybe limit it to two calls. We used to have institutions where such people could be stashed to keep them alive. I am ambivalent about the ending of those back in the 70s. They provided a seemingly necessary service but the people who were drawn to work in those places - well, many of them belonged in another sort of institution and the corruption that allowed people to be put in them for political and social reasons was intractable.
“Clearly also written by someone without any knowledge of addictions.”
Addiction is binary.
Your either choose to be addicted, or you choose not to be addicted.
Addicts should not be coddled. They should be discarded until they realize the error of their ways.
If they get clean, they should be welcomed back. If not, forgotten.
“Clearly also written by someone without any knowledge of addictions.”
I have knowledge of addictions, but I largely agree when it comes to repeat people.
In my area, there is a detox for alcoholics, in operation since the 1950s.
They do NOT allow multiple times. There is a lifetime maximum.
The idea at that detox, and should be fror EMTs with Narcan, save the effort for somebody likely to benefit from it.
Plus one