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kakacik | on: Cannabinoids remove plaque-forming Alzheimer's proteins from brain cells (2016)
Opiates form a quick and nasty addiction. People in constant pain (as in, 24/7 or even most of the day, every day) need to take ever increasing doses to get the same level of pain relief. You would be surprised how many folks are like that, and not only 70+ years old. It takes few weeks to form a lifelong addiction that can never be fully shed and will form a permanent crack or weakness in one's personality.

What all that, how can you defend opiates? Opinion of society is irrelevant here, they are absolute scourge if used enough, and nobody is immune.

thin_carapace | parent | next
treatment guidelines don't even stress the effect of opiates that is activation of corresponding receptors in the gut, causing water to be leached and chronic excruiciating constipation to result. if only people were told that drinking coconut water solves this problem without relying on pharmaceutical means. this is one example of opiates being demonized due to incorrect application.

i do argue that in the correct harness, opiates could be distributed to minimize unnecessary suffering at least somewhat - not 24/7, because literally any drug will result in tolerance (and debilitating physical side effects, something opiates lack) at that point. our current system is unsatisfactory - people are not taught how to take drugs correctly, and people exist in a system that naturally causes dopamine seeking reward systems to malfunction. while some are born psychologically weak, inherently leading to addiction susceptibility, society is expressly designed to produce such weakness in order to maintain the status quo. of course such an environment is not positively conducive to the dopamine flooding effects of opiates. i dont blame opiates for the system in which they exist.

regarding personality cracks, i still refer to rat park for the most part, saving brain resets such as ibogaine for extreme cases - our addiction inducing society (as a whole, not merely the opinions wherein) does not imply impossibility of rewiring addictions. regardless, some people think cracks are beautiful (ref. kintsugi).

do you argue that everyone should be instead placed on nsaids that destroy the stomach and liver, killing them earlier and objectively adding pain prior? is the current trajectory (that is, entirely depriving the suffering of effective relief, regardless as to their age bracket) for the best?

johnisgood | root | parent
Yeah, people complain about opiates but even beta-blockers or antihypertensive agents have rebound symptoms if you stop taking them. People really just love to see others suffer instead of allowing them to use opiates.

NSAIDs are known to kill your stomach, your kidney, your liver, and your heart, whereas opiates do not. And they are ineffective for a lot of people's chronic pain, on top of that.

thin_carapace | root | parent
it's truly a shame that wilful ignorance is societally acceptable. psychopathy is a scale we all fit on; everyone modulates their empathy to varying degrees, otherwise we'd be bonobos. the downtrodden of society deservedly get that moniker - for being walked over. im happy on your behalf that you are conscious enough to know how to treat yourself correctly, and it truly is a shame that others in your position aren't taught how to do so. i do see why people are in favor of this callousness - either they have no clue what its like to hurt, or they are in fight or flight mode as a trauma response. neither of those factors change their callousness though. there definitely are a few sociopaths out there ... for the most part they would probably prefer to sell more drugs not less.

in a few years when non opiates (ones labelled as equivalent to opiates in terms of analgesia) are cheap, opiates will go the way of benzos - only prescribed by old doctors who learned under different guidelines. then chronic pain sufferers will get no pleasure at all, merely blunting. and everyone will be okay with it, the same way they are okay with schizophrenics being blunted by antipsychotics.

johnisgood | root | parent
> either they have no clue what its like to hurt

I was thinking the same thing. There is no way people who have chronic pain are saying these things. And if you think about it, it is sickening that people who are fine and do not have chronic pain are the ones dismissing a painkiller, or are trying to dictate someone else's life because they heard opiates are bad (opioid crisis, war on drugs).

And yeah, everyone will be okay with it. Sometimes I really wish people were in my shoes... We need more people experiencing it, otherwise we really are f....d (because they lack empathy, it seems). Good comparison to schizophrenia, by the way.

I really hope that you are wrong though. :/

(BTW, any way I could reach out to you?)

johnisgood | parent | next
I have been taking high-doses of opiates for years without any issues... without the need to increase doses. Without constipation-related issues. At times I go through voluntary withdrawal, however, but that is it. Am I ought to choose pain because opiates were made to seem like the devil?
thin_carapace | root | parent
i didnt really want to add anecdotal evidence to argue against the idea that nobody is immune ... but now that n=2 ... id like to also bring up the notion that schizophrenia is considered relatively benign (if not venerated) in some cultures, and the hallucinations experienced in those cultures are themselves benign ... whereas places like north america demonize schizophrenia, resulting in affected individuals being placed on chemical straitjackets, increasing their suffering purely due to societal influence ...
analog8374 | parent
Surely there many substances that some people cannot do without. Treat opiates as just another one of those. They are cheap to manufacture. Addicts can hold down a job, pay taxes etc just like the rest of us. So why not?