I think that people are more concerned with opioid death statistics than opioid addiction itself. And there is a shattering sense of defeat, which is normal, that is associated with realizing that you cannot help anyone who doesn’t want to help themselves. And if they don’t want to help themselves, then they may go down a collision course that will be their undoing. In this case that often means death.
I feel strongly this way, or maybe I'm missing your point. Addiction is terrible, but death is clearly worse than addiction. Addiction is survivable.
My point is that the “preventive maintenance” approach to opioid addiction is more about death statistics than it is about death itself. It’s a numbers game. A nation’s response to situations such as this will largely be determined by how many people don’t die, because people have a distaste toward death and the general public is subservient to what data suggests irrespective of its practical and tangible representations.
No offense, but your view here seems insane to me.
I don't follow your point about death statistics vs death itself.
"Helping them stay on drugs" is very much the wrong way to look at it. How about "reducing the harm they do to others"?
“Helping them stay on drugs” is the practical way of looking at it, because in practice that’s what’s happening. “Reducing harm” in this context sounds like some sort of neo-Hippocratic Orwellian spin on the fact that the alternative is to address the greater issues that lead to and foster drug addiction that are beyond the scope of this tiny box that I’m typing into and do not involve more needles.