I do agree with you, however. People become addicts due to how our society has criminalized and deregulated drug manufacture and sale and made it extremely hard to teach people how to do properly.
Just to emphasize that:
Before my SO started working in a hospital, I had no idea that people going through alcohol withdrawal can end up in the ICU. They're ending up in an ICU because of the withdrawal, not the alcohol... That was really surprising to me.
Also interesting that, in the very wealthy area we're in, outside of infants and the elderly, middle-aged white men going through alcohol withdrawal are the most common ICU patients.
(sorry for derailing discussion away from opioid addiction)
Anyway, there doesn't appear to be consensus on whether coffee/tea drinking in moderate amounts is good or bad, but I've seen more suggestions that it's beneficial than otherwise. Any input to that?
> but in the end the person still
> needs to go through withdrawal
At some point Britain thought that wealthy highly-educated people were incapable of being criminals, until time proved them wrong. Science is always evolving.
The war on drugs weighs particularly heavily on black defendants. The police target their neighborhoods, herding people into a court system where judges are demonstrably harder on black offenders. The report found that nearly half of the counties in Florida sentenced African-Americans convicted of felony drug possession to more than double the jail time of whites — even when their backgrounds were the same.
This may just be a Florida problem, but I doubt it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/17/opinion/sunday/unequal-se...
From someone I know with personal experience, after they were charged with possession with intent to distribute due to growing pot, they had 3 choices. Go to jail, spend $X on an attorney who would get them probation, or spend 10 * $X on an attorney who would get them off. Both attorneys had perfect records, n>100, at their respective objective.
So, then, why would black people spend less money on legal defense?
300 is a small statistic.
10% of 300 is even smaller.
Science is hard.
2. For myself, going on generic bupenorpine, and tapering off was not that bad. I took a year to taper off. I probally could have tapeed off the opioids if I was given a chance. The problem is most Doctors just cut you off. Completely ridiculous, especially if the patient is a serious individual. (I got lucky to find a doctor to prescribe bupenorpine without driving me crazy with endless office visits. I also just happened to be given the drug for another disorder.)
3. The generic bupenopine is still pricey. I don't quite get it, other than most Dr's don't trust their patients to not abuse opioids, so there isn't a huge demand for generic Subutex? There are still some sensible people who just want to stop the original addiction. On the other hand, I wouldn't be schocked if the price of generic Subutex is the result of some shenanigans.
4. Most people will be given Suboxone, that has Naloxone in it. It makes doctors feel safe, and that's what was taught in the course they had to take in order to prescribe/treat. Crazy again. (I felt Nalaxone just raised the price of the drug, but some of you will need an opoid antagonist in your treatment, especially if street drugs are easily available, or you don't have not much self control.)
4. My point is if you Taper off, all the drama is spared. My story will never be on Lifetime.
5. It's still a pain in the ass with the Dr. visits, and getting scripts though.
6. I can offer this, if you want to stop, Taper off. Yes--I know it's just not that easy. The system we currently have makes getting off difficult. Again crazy?
7. Stay away from all the support group sites. They just scared the hell out of me, especially the ones on the internet.
8. If you are addicted to anything, most of you can successfully taper off yourself. Very few of you need the drama, and expense of a rehab. Again--the system is so rediculious, we are forced into going to the rehabs, just to get the opportunity to taper off. Again crazy.
9. We have a crisis. It's not giving addicted people the easy/cheap way to Taper off the most controlled substances. It's no wonder people turn to the streets to feed their cravings.
Withdrawal is hard. Yes. But at least the person is in the right mindset to go through it once they are off the compulsory addiction, even if it takes a year to get to that point.
As kchoudhu points out and many have pointed out to me before this article, certainly once a bunch of white kids have this problem, suddenly they are "victims" not "criminals". Yet we have destroyed so many lives between the 80s and now, especially with the mandatory minimums and such.