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by 82_28 » Sat Feb 24, 2018 6:01 am
by Joe Hillshoist » Sat Feb 24, 2018 8:04 am
Elvis » 24 Feb 2018 04:27 wrote:I play guitar better on codiene. I think it's because I'm relaxed.
by mentalgongfu2 » Sat Feb 24, 2018 8:34 am
by Karmamatterz » Sat Feb 24, 2018 9:31 am
by Karmamatterz » Sat Feb 24, 2018 10:09 am
I believe on principle that anyone should be able to abuse any drug they wish, provided they don't access it through violence, robbery or theft.
Percocet for some reason really grosses me out. Dentist prescribed some for me a few years ago when I had a bad tooth infection and stuff made me feel awful. I love how Vicodin makes me feel, Percs, yuck!
by Burnt Hill » Sat Feb 24, 2018 12:37 pm
THIS 38-YEAR-OLD STUDY IS STILL SPREADING BAD IDEAS ABOUT ADDICTION
The Rat Park study was flawed and its findings have been oversimplified, but it keeps getting cited.
Katie MacBride
SEP—05—2017 02:55PM EST
In 1979, Bruce Alexander, a researcher at Simon Fraser University, separated rats into two cages, a stimulating one and an isolated one, and gave them morphine in order to measure the effect of environment on addiction rates.
The so-called “Rat Park” experiment was intended to debunk some of the flawed understanding around addiction at the time, specifically the notion that the drug itself was the most important factor in whether someone became addicted. The rats in both cages became physically dependent on the morphine, but the Rat Park rats consumed less morphine than the group in the boring cage. “Addiction isn’t you — it’s the cage you live in,” Alexander concluded.
The Rat Park study was flawed in its design and its findings, however, and it was ignored for almost three decades — until a group of experts rediscovered and started promoting it around 2008. The Rat Park study undermined one popular misconception about addiction, that chemistry of drugs is the single most important factor in addiction. But instead of pushing the popular understanding forward, it merely replaced that misconception with a new one: that environment is the most important factor.
GET 2 BRAINS
Unfortunately, addiction isn’t that simple. The idea that there is nothing inherently dangerous about drugs — specifically opioids — is inaccurate. And with the opioid epidemic spreading throughout the country, it’s potentially dangerous.
At the time Alexander conducted his study, the United States was seven years into the War on Drugs, the trillion-dollar federal government effort to eradicate illegal street drugs by focusing on arresting and imprisoning drug sellers and users.
The prevailing rhetoric asserted that recreational drugs were inherently addictive and using them would “hijack” the brain, turning it from a “normal” brain into an addicted one. This was an oversimplified, damaging view that fundamentally misunderstood addiction and helped undermine more effective policy ideas like decriminalization and harm reduction. Alexander called this the “Myth of the Demon Drug.”
Though many had long doubted the effectiveness of increased criminalization of drugs and drug use, it took 30 years of longitudinal studies to get hard data to support that notion. In 2008, The Brookings Institute compared the “punishment” model used in the U.S. to more lenient policies in Europe, and found that it did not correlate with lower usage rates; in fact, the “combined hardcore user rate for hard drugs” was “approximately 4 times higher in the US than in Europe,” the report concluded.
As it became more apparent that the War on Drugs was a costly failure, both in terms of dollars and damage to people and communities, its critics became more vocal. And in the late aughts, they found fodder in the Rat Park experiment.
The experiment’s finding that environment is the determining factor in the development of addiction was held up as the “vital missing evidence” by the psychologist and BBC columnist Tom Stafford, and many other writers, journalists, and popular psychologists picked up the line.
In 2008, Gabor Maté, a Canadian doctor, addiction expert, and strong critic of the War on Drugs, published In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction, which was was a #1 best-seller in Canada and went on to be a New York Times bestseller as well. In the book, Maté argued that the War on Drugs has been a failure and argues for more comprehensive, compassionate treatment of people struggling with addiction. He devoted a chapter to establishing how environment can be a significant contributing factor in developing an addiction. He cited the Rat Park experiment as well as a study published in 1975 which showed that rates of heroin addiction were 20 times higher for Vietnam soldiers while they were stationed in the war zone than before they shipped out. After they returned to the U.S., addiction rates fell back to pre-deployment levels.
After the signal boost from In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, folks interested in understanding addiction wrote excitedly about the study. The psychologist and author Lauren Slater devoted a chapter to Rat Park in her 2004 book, Opening Skinner’s Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the 20th Century. Stuart McMillen produced a science comic book about Rat Park and put it on the internet. The controversial former UK chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs David Nutt, who was asked to step down after saying he thought alcohol and tobacco were more harmful than cannabis, LSD, and ecstasy, referred to the study in his 2012 book Drugs Without the Hot Air. Cory Doctorow, founder and editor of the popular website BoingBoing, read Nutt’s book and wrote an article praising the Rat Park study.
The Rat Park experiment provides seemingly perfect evidence to explain why the War on Drugs is such a failure, because its policies focus on drugs as the source of the problem. While the failure of the War on Drugs is virtually undisputed among experts in the field of addiction — though sadly not represented by significant changes in policy, as drug offenses are the “single biggest factor” contributing to booming incarceration numbers — Alexander’s emphasis on the user’s environment was novel and presented obvious implications for drug policy.
The buzz Dr. Maté had generated around the Rat Park experiment became a roar in 2015, when Johann Hari published Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs. Focusing heavily on the work of Maté and Alexander, Hari asserts that he has discovered the “likely cause” of addiction: a lack of human connection. Just as the rats in the isolated rat park cage needed social interaction and connection with other rats, Hari wrote, so do humans. Alexander believed a poor environment causes addiction; Hari asserted that the disconnection that arises from a poor environment creates addiction.
Despite a poor review in the New York Times, Chasing the Scream went on to be on the best-seller lists for weeks. Hari’s TED talk, modestly titled “Everything You Know About Addiction Is Wrong,” has been viewed over three million times.
In 2017, the Rat Park study continues to be cited as a “classic experiment” in the field of addiction.
“All those who subscribe to [a] sociological theory of addiction trot [the Rat Park experiment] out as if it establishes their premise,” said Dr. Sam Snodgrass, a member on the Board of Directors of the substance abuse support organization Broken No More. “The problem is that most people aren't scientists and believe whatever they read.”
Unfortunately, the Rat Park study had some issues.
Despite his claims of a revolutionary breakthrough, Alexander had trouble finding a journal to publish his results. Both Science and Nature rejected the study for publication, likely due to significant problems with the methodology and results. Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior published the results in 1981 with little response and the funding for Rat Park was canceled shortly thereafter.
The Rat Park experiment provides seemingly perfect evidence to explain why the War on Drugs is such a failure
Alexander lost eight days’ worth of data due to a malfunctioning piece of electronic equipment used to measure the amount of liquid the rats consumed, which may or may not have impacted his results. He also failed to control for important variables, Snodgrass said. For example, male and female rats in the boring cage were isolated from each other, he said, but they were housed together in the Rat Park cage. Soon, Rat Park was filled with rat pups. Alexander never explained what happened to the pups, Snodgrass said, such as whether they were removed or left in the cage and somehow factored into the results. “The females would wean one litter after approximately 18 days and then would begin to cycle again,” Snodgrass said. “You can’t do this. You can’t have one group of subjects mating and with pups and compare it to a group that doesn’t engage in these behaviors and say that the difference between the two groups is caused by environmental differences.”
When scientists tried to replicate the Rat Park study, they got mixed results. In 1996, a study attempted to precisely replicate the conditions in Alexander’s Rat Park, down to the breed of rat. The researchers conducted two experiments to see if they could replicate the Rat Park study’s results. In the first experiment, the happy, social rats consumed slightly more of the morphine liquid, in the second experiment, the isolated rats drank slightly more. Neither experiment reflected the Rat Park’s results, which had the isolated rats drinking up to seven times the amount of the morphine liquid as the social rats. The authors of the study note that in 1979 the supplier both they and Alexander used for Wistar rats changed, noting that “the Wistar rats used in the Alexander, et al. study were Old Colony Wistar rats, and the ones used in the 1996 were New Colony Wistar rats.” The author concluded that the difference in behavior between the rats in the initial Rat Park study and the 1996 study were, “likely genetic in nature” (Petrie, 1996). This is especially notable considering Alexander’s current position that genetics do not play any role in the development of addiction.
Other studies did indeed replicate the results of Alexander’s Rat Park, as he notes on his website.
Finally, there is the obvious fact that rats aren’t human and thus behave differently than humans do. Dr. Adi Jaffe notes how this specifically impacts the Rat Park study here.
So if the four-decades-old Rat Park experiment provided important but partial, or inconclusive, evidence about the cause of addiction, why is it still being touted as the “missing link” to understanding addiction today? In part, the persistence and ineffectiveness of the War on Drugs is to blame.
Alexander’s study was an important breakthrough in understanding addiction, but the results were far from conclusive. The study’s real problems have less to do with the science and more to do with the grandiose claims made based on the results. For example, morphine (an opioid) was the only type of drug used in the experiment, but Alexander extrapolated that addiction to all drugs would present similarly. This is likely because his theory states that the drug itself is almost irrelevant — addiction is determined by environment, not the drug itself. He writes that “addiction to drugs as well as other habits and pursuits” happens when people “feel ‘caged.’”
There is likely some truth to this. Certain people are more vulnerable to addiction than others; many people can use any array of drug without becoming addicted. But although addiction experts disagree slightly about where certain drugs should be on a spectrum of most to least addictive, almost all agree that there is indeed a spectrum. It would be willfully ignorant to say that a person is equally likely to become addicted to cannabis as they are to oxycontin or fentanyl. Of course the drug in question matters. So do a plethora of other factors. In reality, there are many factors that lead to addiction, including environment, stress, genetics, life-circumstances, and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). It is not uncommon for people with addictions to have any combination of the above factors, nor is it an exhaustive list. These factors also have different effects on different individuals. For example, people who suffer from a mental illness are twice as likely to struggle with addiction. But both Hari and Alexander still claim they’ve discovered the “real,” implying singular, cause of addiction.
The point that Rat Park is used to underscore is true. Environment often plays a role in a person developing an addiction and the War on Drugs does nothing to address that. In fact, the War on Drugs has done tremendous harm by ignoring the sociological factors that contribute to addiction and focusing exclusively on criminalization. Alexander and Hari argue that we need a more humane approach to drug policy, a belief that is widely shared. But ignoring the greater body of addiction science in favor of a neat narrative is the kind of thinking that fueled the War on Drugs. It’s precisely because this is such an important fight that we should make sure our arguments, and the evidence we use to support them, are sound.
https://theoutline.com/post/2205/this-38-year-old-study-is-still-spreading-bad-ideas-about-addiction?zd=1&zi=jrilktru
by Cordelia » Sat Feb 24, 2018 12:41 pm
Actually Percocet (Oxycodone) - is stronger than both Morphine and Vicodin (Hydrocodone)
by lucky » Wed Feb 28, 2018 6:38 am
by 82_28 » Wed Feb 28, 2018 7:35 am
by Cordelia » Wed Feb 28, 2018 8:35 am
lucky » Wed Feb 28, 2018 9:38 am wrote:I have been a heroin addict most of my adult life clocked up 35 years with some breaks. Its not heroin that does the damage it's the lifestyle and dirty gear that finish people off. When you are an addict every penny goes on smack forget food, toothpaste, looking after your self etc. I am one of the lucky ones i have a supportive family ( I steal £500 a month from my mother who thinks im seeing a shrink- nice eh?) and my wife who wont let me near money and knows that i still use tho not to the extant that i actually use most days unless i run out of smack tokens and then i take my methadone - the biggest enabler there is as once you have a script you have the resource to stop getting sick.
I wore out my veins many years ago from doing speedballs and smoke it now - in the UK we get afghani gear which is produce to smoke.
Happy to answer any questions you might have.
San Francisco wants to open first safe heroin injection sites in the US
Posted: Feb 17, 2018 1:23 PM EST Updated: Feb 08, 2018 1:23 PM EST
Written By CNN News
The San Francisco Department of Public Health has unanimously endorsed a task force's recommendation to open what could become the nation's first legal safe injection sites aimed at curbing the opioid epidemic.
The facilities provide a safe space where people can consume previously obtained drugs, such as heroin and Fentanyl, under the supervision of staff trained to respond in the event of an overdose or other medical emergencies. They also provide counseling and referrals to other social and health services.
Although the often-controversial facilities are not an ideal solution, they are a necessity in light of the skyrocketing number of deaths caused by opioid overdose in the United States, according to San Francisco Mayor Mark Farrell.
"I understand the misgivings around it and some of the rhetoric from people who don't support it," Farrell said last week. "But we absolutely need to give it a try."
More than 63,000 people in the US died from drug overdose in 2016, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention -- more than the number of Americans killed in the Vietnam War. At this rate, over half a million people will die from overdose in the US in the next 10 years, exceeding the number of Americans killed in World War II, the deadliest conflict in human history.
The city plans to open the first two facilities in July, the beginning of its fiscal year.
"I'm really excited," said Laura Thomas, the California state director for the nonprofit Drug Policy Alliance. "I've been working on this particular issue for over a decade."
There are an estimated 22,000 intravenous drug users in San Francisco, many of whom openly inject in public areas across the city. Last year, over 100 people died in San Francisco of drug overdose, according to a report published by the city's Safe Injection Services Task Force.
More than 100 peer-reviewed studies on safe injection sites -- otherwise known as supervised consumption facilities -- have consistently shown them to be effective at reducing overdose deaths, preventing transmission of HIV and viral hepatitis, reducing street-based drug use and linking people to drug treatment and other services.
In addition to saving lives, the facilities are projected to save the city approximately $3.5 million a year in overdose-related medical costs, according to Rachel Kagan, director of communications at the San Francisco Department of Public Health.
Other cities in the US, such as Seattle and Baltimore, are taking steps toward opening safe injection sites. Last week, Philadelphia announced that it will welcome private organizations interested in setting up such facilities.
But San Francisco will probably be the first to open one.
The operators of the first two facilities will be chosen from a list of six to eight nonprofit organizations that currently operate needle exchanges and other drug addiction services in the city, Kagan said.
Funding for the facilities will initially come from the private sector. According to Kagan, this helps the city avoid liability issues, since intravenous drug use is against state and federal law.
"There are over 120 of these around the world at this point, and they all operate on the same basic idea," Thomas said, referring to locations in Canada, Europe and Australia. "You show up; you check in; you use your drugs; you hang out for a while, interact with the staff and then go on your way."
In Australia, a safe injection site in Sydney managed 3,426 overdose-related events without a single fatality over a period of nine years, according to a 2010 government report. The report also found that residents were half as likely to observe people injecting drugs in public at the end of the nine-year period.
"One of the biggest supervised injection facilities in the world -- certainly in North America -- is Insite in Vancouver, British Columbia," Thomas said. "There's a nurse's station in the middle of the room that has all of the syringes, sterile supplies that they may need, and then they go through the usual process of preparing their drugs and injecting them, all under the supervision of trained staff."
Supervised injection sites have faced opposition. Some believe that they implicitly condone drug use and lead to increased use. Opponents argue that there is no safe way to inject or otherwise use illicit drugs.
Though the sites in San Francisco would be at odds with California and federal laws, state legislators are trying to pass a bill that will protect anyone associated with the injection sites -- including property owners, employees and drug users -- from arrest. A version of the bill passed in the State Assembly last year but is two votes short in the state Senate, according to Thomas.
But the San Francisco sites will probably open this summer, regardless of changes to state law, she said.
See the latest news and share your comments with CNN Health on Facebook and Twitter.
"It certainly wouldn't be the first time that San Francisco has prioritized the health, safety and well-being of its residents over state or federal law," Thomas added. "Times have changed. The biggest threats we're seeing aren't crack houses in urban neighborhoods but overdose deaths and people injecting on the streets."
San Francisco residents are also generally supportive of the idea. A poll conducted by David Binder Research in January among 500 registered voters found that 67% of respondents backed the idea, while 27% opposed it and 6% didn't know.
According to the poll, more than half of all self-described progressives, liberals and moderates supported the idea, compared with 42% of self-described conservatives.
http://www.kvoa.com/story/37460651/san- ... -in-the-us
by lucky » Wed Feb 28, 2018 3:35 pm
by Karmamatterz » Thu Mar 01, 2018 9:14 am
Heroin to be prescribed to addicts in plan to starve criminal gangs of cash
UK police commissioner says addiction a public health issue and 'our approach to drugs is failing'
The official in charge of the UK’s second largest police force signalled a radical new approach to the war on drugs on Monday, including plans to keep some drug offenders out of criminal courts and provide users heroin on prescription.
David Jamieson, West Midlands Police and Crime commissioner, said drugs were costing £1.4bn of public money a year in his region alone, and “fresh ideas” were needed to tackle the problem.
Mr Jamieson, who sets the region’s policing priorities and budget, said the time has come to treat addiction as a public health issue – a move that has been welcomed by charities and medical experts.
Experts have said the Government must “accept responsibility” for rising drug deaths driven in part by austerity, with 3,744 people dying of overdoses in 2016 – about 70 per cent of which were overdoses of illicit drugs.
by Burnt Hill » Thu Mar 01, 2018 1:38 pm
by Elvis » Thu Mar 01, 2018 3:09 pm
Burnt Hill wrote:US government and Pharmaceutical industry are absolutely complicit in our addiction crisis.
by Cordelia » Thu Mar 01, 2018 3:21 pm
Burnt Hill » Thu Mar 01, 2018 4:38 pm wrote:The government accepting responsibility for rising deaths in a community is different than saying it is the governments fault people are addicts, please.
These clinics absolutely offer addiction counseling and recovery options.
This is separate from the fact that the US government and Pharmaceutical industry are absolutely complicit in our addiction crisis.
The US can learn a lot from Zurich about how to fight its heroin crisis
February 12, 2016 · 12:00 PM UTC
By Stefanie Knoll
In the early 1990s, this city of 400,000 was notorious for having Europe’s biggest open drug scene. And we’re talking hard drugs, like heroin.
These days, new heroin addicts are rare in Switzerland, while other countries like the United States and Australia are witnessing a devastating heroin comeback.
So how did Switzerland succeed, and what can we learn?
It wasn't until the country radically changed its drug policy and pioneered a pragmatic approach to addiction that it was able to really battle its heroin epidemic 25 years ago. The approach even leaned into taboo territory — prescribing heroin itself to heroin users.
More.....
https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-02-12/ ... oin-crisis
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