Merv's Politically Incorrect Audio Blog

Many folks who use are trying to medicate themselves out of some form of trauma-based emotional pain. Putting them in prison is a mistake.

 

Blame society. Majority of people don't want these people near their businesses or their lives. It is worse when they get out of prison where barely anyone want to touch them. People secretly hope that they never return to their town/city and never to be seen again.

 

The self-medicating is everywhere. Alcohol/ drug addiction is just one form.

 

A huge part of the problem is the candor in which prescription opioids, amphetamines, or whatever upper and/or downer have been prescribed by "Medical Professionals" here in the United States. I recently had a manager that made a point of telling people every few months that he's been clean and sober for 21 years, yet he's taking prescription Adderall for his "ADD" and Vicodin for his migraines from the job...

 

Yes, this is the part of the 'open conspiracy' that George Carlin talked about.

Edit: the psych industry constantly manufactures illnesses in order to maintain demand for their services. Meanwhile, even with all the psych meds being prescribed, people are more and more anxious and depressed. Don't get me wrong, properly prescribed psych meds can work miracles. But we are way past responsible use of those meds.

 

A huge part of the blame for opioids specifically goes directly to Purdue Pharma and their multi-billionaire owners, the Sackler family. Criminal cover-ups of details regarding how addictive Oxycontin is, and how doctors were incentivised.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purdue_Pharma
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sackler_family

 

Not American (gasp) but misdiagnoses that ultimately lead to exacerbation of actual underlying illnesses are definitely common all over, it seems.

Symptoms of BPD being thought of as nothing more than typical female presentations of ADHD, conflicting dx between service providers (some of whom are legally well-recompensed but ethically criminally underpaid), some service providers allowing their biases (for religion or against religion; conformity to archetypal gender norms or abject disgust thereof-- there's idiocy on either extreme in every case) to colour their interactions with clients and patients...

@JK47 thank you for adding quotation marks to "ADD", they need to catch up on why that's not really a thing anymore.

 

I like ODD (Oppositional Defiant Disorder). Pretty sure my employers thought I was an adult(?) example.

 

Story time.

Back in the mid '70s I was in charge of the EE technicians in a medical device company while working to complete my EE degree. A particular candidate came in and I gave him my standard technical competency quiz, which would never past muster in today's HR world due to lack of statistical evidence of being gender / race / religion / etc neutral. However it was effective at finding whether a particular individual was competent at the tasks we needed performed. He passed quite well and we hired him. Later he confided that he appreciated my giving him a chance as he had just been released from prison for felony convictions. I had no idea. All I experienced was a hard working, committed and competent person.

Later we had the opportunity to hire another technician. The successful candidate was someone that I might call gender challenged. Think Lola by The Kinks. S/He was also competent but a little different. Our department was considered a bit odd to most of the other employees, who were mostly good Mormons as the company owner was also Mormon. Preference to those of the same religion. This was the beginning of my human experience enlightenment.

Later, when I had some issues with main registrar for our university EE department as not being qualified to be accepted by the department, these same individuals that I had given a chance were very supportive and encouraged me to basically not take no for an answer. Finding an advisor who was an old Navy man, I found guidance that allowed me to not only successfully achieve my undergraduate EE degree but also learn how to learn in the process and go on to create what is considered (hopefully) many useful inventions, now around 13 patents and a 14th in the works.

Moral: past behavior is not necessarily predictive of future performance. Some people do learn and grow. Don't deny them that chance.

 

It still weird me out watching American television channels and seeing all the drug commercials or "if you have such and such symptoms, join our lawsuit" type things.

 

Except in the case of Purdue - who are estimated to be responsible for almost 2/3 of opioid overdose deaths in the US! - it isn't poison. It is literally a drug prescribed for medical conditions. Oxycontin is used for pain. Fentanyl is the drug of choice for surgical sedation and pain management.

But you've had millions of people going to a trusted medical professional with a real health problem. They've been told that the opioid is the best solution, and that all the manufacturers scientific studies show it isn't addictive. They have been lied to. You've a *huge* number of people made into addicts through no fault of their own.

And yes, there are other addicts who just do it for the fun. But the current phenomenon of regular folks becoming opioid addicts is very different from the past. And people can't just blame it on woke Dems and poor border control.

 

I love watching these two videos about this drug topic in SF:

 

I'm sorry about your friend. I have my own version of that story.

Prison just re-traumatizes those struggling with addiction. We throw them in jail constantly, and it obviously is not a deterrent. If it was, the War on Drugs would have been won. Not saying putting folks on jail never works. Maybe your friend would still be alive. Professionally, I've seen threat of prison work a couple of times, but those are exceptions. Hell, if people struggle to stop spending on audio, what chance do folks have to stop using a substance engineered for addiction? Same dynamic applies to social media.

Edit: I think A Scanner Darkly nails a lot of this.

 

Unfortunately drugs are easily available in most jails and prisons. I really don't have an answer or solution, and at the end of the day the bottom line is that the individual makes the choice.

I still have Tylenol 3 sitting in my cabinet from the Dentist that pulled all 4 of my wisdom teeth four years ago (the older you are, the harder they are to take out), after the first day I was fine with advil. I grew up in Vancouver during the 80's and 90's when there was plenty of cheap China White #4 Heroin flooding the streets, and have witnessed first hand the devastating effects not only on adults, but kids as well. When I was 14 I lost my first friend to overdose, he was the little brother of my little league teammate. Died at the age of 12 with a needle in his arm, his 14 year old bro was a user as well. That stuff was everywhere and so many people I grew up with never got off it, jail, rehab, they all went back except one, and they tell me it's the hardest thing to stay away from. 15 years later and they still get cravings, I told them to move from the city and get new friends, but they say they can't...

 

Hard agree. The answer that sounds best to me, while also acknowledging that no system is perfect, would be extended rehab with serious mental health services (30 days may flush the system but addiction isn’t purely physical), combined with meaningful community service after. Not picking up trash on the side of the road, but helping real people in communities. Leverage the experience people gain from going through the process of physically and mentally purging. If we made a culture of helping in that way, it would become normalized.

We need to also consider that prison in the US in particular is both deliberately punitive, not restorative, and is for profit! The prisons themselves make money off of prisoners and then companies can buy prison labor for pennies. Those conditions create perverse incentives to jail more people than is necessary (the US has one of the largest prison populations per capita in the world), and to increase recidivism rates, not reduce them. Intentionally putting someone in that system who needs help and support is nearly a guarantee that they will end up worse than when they went in.