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In reply to the discussion: Heroin deaths double after painkiller crackdown [View all]hunter
(38,731 posts)... are still using alcohol five years later, and a very significant number of them become alcoholics.
And OMG, what about the coffee users? That shit is really hard to kick. I'm a coffee addict. If I don't get my fix in the morning, damned right, I do become dysfunctional.
Throwing "dependence" in those statistics makes them bullshit. Of course chronic pain patients are "dependent." They don't want to hurt, and they don't want the extra aggravation of withdrawal symptoms on top of that.
There are ways to solve the problem. Let's stop treating actual addictions as a moral failing or character flaws, and recognize it as something biological. The monitoring system ought to be sensitive enough to discriminate between people who actually hurt and do not escalate their opiate use, and those who become addicted.
And then divert addicts, any kind of addict, to addiction specialists who can help them with that problem.
Legalizing cannabis would also be helpful.
There are ways of dealing with these problems in a humane fashion. But no, we have to fight a fucking "war on drugs" which destroys the lives of so many people, and only enriches corrupt pharmaceutical corporations, corrupt medical providers, drug gangs, private prisons, drug warriors, and religious cults.