Re:The Opioid Detection Challenge
by DanBC on Tuesday March 26, 2019 @04:11AM
(#19490004)
This is tricky because the opioid crisis starts from legally supplied opioids, and is made worse by lack of access to pain treatment and illegality of drugs.
The continued illegality of drugs causes weird incentives. If a dealer has to smuggle opioids they're going to chose something easier to smuggle. Fentanyl is much easier than heroin to smuggle because you need so much less of it for a dose. Here's a photograph of a fatal dose of fentanyl (2mg): https://www.drugabuse.gov/about-nida/noras-blog/2018/05/true...
What the US needs is a huge increase in provision of specialist pain management treatment, free at the point of delivery. This would reduce the need for opioid prescribing (which mostly doesn't work for long term pain). That would reduce the market for opioids.
The US also needs a huge increase in evidence based addiction treatment. At the moment there is huge amounts of money being spent on detox holiday-camps, which have very poor evidence, and not much at all on medically assisted withdrawal and replacement, which has much better evidence.
The combination of addiction treatment and pain treatment would help remove the illegal market. These can be provided while opioids are illegal, but it's easier to do it if opioids are either decriminalised or legal.
Legalisation does not necessarily mean "sold in Walmart next to the soda". It might mean "available to registered addicts to prevent them getting involved in acquisitive crime".
The continued illegality of drugs causes weird incentives. If a dealer has to smuggle opioids they're going to chose something easier to smuggle. Fentanyl is much easier than heroin to smuggle because you need so much less of it for a dose. Here's a photograph of a fatal dose of fentanyl (2mg): https://www.drugabuse.gov/about-nida/noras-blog/2018/05/true...
What the US needs is a huge increase in provision of specialist pain management treatment, free at the point of delivery. This would reduce the need for opioid prescribing (which mostly doesn't work for long term pain). That would reduce the market for opioids.
The US also needs a huge increase in evidence based addiction treatment. At the moment there is huge amounts of money being spent on detox holiday-camps, which have very poor evidence, and not much at all on medically assisted withdrawal and replacement, which has much better evidence.
The combination of addiction treatment and pain treatment would help remove the illegal market. These can be provided while opioids are illegal, but it's easier to do it if opioids are either decriminalised or legal.
Legalisation does not necessarily mean "sold in Walmart next to the soda". It might mean "available to registered addicts to prevent them getting involved in acquisitive crime".