> Maybe the answer isn't to make heroin available OTC at Walgreens
Actually, in UK you can get actual opioids (as co-codamol) behind the counter, without a prescription. Funny how they don't seem to have a disastrous and deadly opioid epidemic like the US has.
I'd so much rather live where people can get cheap pharmaceutical grade heroin at the pharmacy than where people who need opioids end up smashing windows to steal my laptop to buy some dangerous and overpriced fentanyl contaminated "heroin" that ends up making them overdose in the street (transnational criminal organisations tend to lack purity standards commensurate with those of prescription drug manufacturers, weirdly enough).
Crackdowns on "pill mills" and "doctors who overprescribe" is what denies people a safe and legal source of pharmaceutical-grade opioids and forces them onto the black market of illegal, extremely overpriced, dose-uncertain, and fentanyl-contaminated opioids -- all of which make drug use a lot more problematic and dangerous (for both the user and the community) and pushes people from "drug dependence" (needing a regular, constant dose of a medication to function) to "drug addiction" (problematic, damage-causing drug use).
Dose uncertainty especially contributes to the harm of drug use -- if the doses aren't uncertain (and are precisely metered like those of other, pharmaceutical-grade medications), it's a lot easier for the user to find the right dose that extinguishes the withdrawal symptoms and the pain while not ending up anywhere near an overdose. Also the ability to access pure opioids with precise doses means it's a lot easier to take the drugs as a periodic, regular dose and not have one's life disrupted by extreme highs and extreme lows and drug-craving. This allows users to maintain a normal, productive, non-criminal life with other things in their life (family, hobbies, career) than just the pursuit of opioids.
In US, the "epidemic" of OD deaths only began when crackdowns intensified on legal, pharmaceutical, sources and prescribers of opioids. The DEA cracking skulls over opioids and investigating doctors is literally the only reason illicit fentanyl (and its even nastier analogues) are common illicit products now. I am so very doubtful that skull-cracking and door-kicking will miraculously work after decades of it not working. Prohibition has given us carfentanil in illicit heroin. If you don't know what that is, it's a fentanyl analogue so potent that it's been successfully used as a chemical weapon. This is not an anomaly -- it's just the "iron law of prohibition (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_prohibition) at work.
> It's not like anything else is working.
Prohibition isn't working, and has caused tremendous devastation to society, and the opioid epidemic is just another instance of this. Prohibition has to get wound down, from the top (end the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs and the statutes that give it effect) to the bottom (make it so local police can't arrest or search people for any drugs offences (possession, manufacture, use, transport, sale, purchase) regardless of the drug or quantity).
> Actually, in UK you can get actual
> opioids (as co-codamol) behind the
> counter, without a prescription.
> Funny how they don't seem to have a
> disastrous and deadly opioid epidemic
> like the US has.
Cocodamol is 8mg of codeine to 500mg of paracetemol. To get 240mg of codeine -- equivalent to 10mg of oral oxycodone -- you'd need to take 30 cocodamol pills, which is 15g of paracetemol. If you present at a hospital having taken more than 12g, they'll put you on a acetylcysteine IV (and generally assume you were trying to end your life).
Actually, in UK you can get actual opioids (as co-codamol) behind the counter, without a prescription. Funny how they don't seem to have a disastrous and deadly opioid epidemic like the US has.
Because it is sold over the counter, buyers have to first talk to a pharmacist to get it. This will likely involve discussing what you're suffering from, so that the assistant is sure that what you're buying is appropriate. Finally, they aren't going to sell you ten packets of pills at once, you'll get just one pack containing a few pills.
So, to get an addict's amount of codeine, you're going to have to visit all the pharmacies in town and give each of them a story about terrible dental pain or some such rubbish. It's just not going to be practical.
Actually, in UK you can get actual opioids (as co-codamol) behind the counter, without a prescription. Funny how they don't seem to have a disastrous and deadly opioid epidemic like the US has.
I'd so much rather live where people can get cheap pharmaceutical grade heroin at the pharmacy than where people who need opioids end up smashing windows to steal my laptop to buy some dangerous and overpriced fentanyl contaminated "heroin" that ends up making them overdose in the street (transnational criminal organisations tend to lack purity standards commensurate with those of prescription drug manufacturers, weirdly enough).
Crackdowns on "pill mills" and "doctors who overprescribe" is what denies people a safe and legal source of pharmaceutical-grade opioids and forces them onto the black market of illegal, extremely overpriced, dose-uncertain, and fentanyl-contaminated opioids -- all of which make drug use a lot more problematic and dangerous (for both the user and the community) and pushes people from "drug dependence" (needing a regular, constant dose of a medication to function) to "drug addiction" (problematic, damage-causing drug use).
Dose uncertainty especially contributes to the harm of drug use -- if the doses aren't uncertain (and are precisely metered like those of other, pharmaceutical-grade medications), it's a lot easier for the user to find the right dose that extinguishes the withdrawal symptoms and the pain while not ending up anywhere near an overdose. Also the ability to access pure opioids with precise doses means it's a lot easier to take the drugs as a periodic, regular dose and not have one's life disrupted by extreme highs and extreme lows and drug-craving. This allows users to maintain a normal, productive, non-criminal life with other things in their life (family, hobbies, career) than just the pursuit of opioids.
In US, the "epidemic" of OD deaths only began when crackdowns intensified on legal, pharmaceutical, sources and prescribers of opioids. The DEA cracking skulls over opioids and investigating doctors is literally the only reason illicit fentanyl (and its even nastier analogues) are common illicit products now. I am so very doubtful that skull-cracking and door-kicking will miraculously work after decades of it not working. Prohibition has given us carfentanil in illicit heroin. If you don't know what that is, it's a fentanyl analogue so potent that it's been successfully used as a chemical weapon. This is not an anomaly -- it's just the "iron law of prohibition (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_prohibition) at work.
> It's not like anything else is working.
Prohibition isn't working, and has caused tremendous devastation to society, and the opioid epidemic is just another instance of this. Prohibition has to get wound down, from the top (end the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs and the statutes that give it effect) to the bottom (make it so local police can't arrest or search people for any drugs offences (possession, manufacture, use, transport, sale, purchase) regardless of the drug or quantity).