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That’s gotta be the most ignorant opinion I’ve heard on the subject. This clearly is coming from someone who has had the benefit of good health, or hasn’t had the misfortune of a critical ER visit. When I got addicted to opioids, the doctors didn’t ask me what I wanted in the ER. I got Dilauded as they prepped the OR. I wasn’t lucid enough or cognizant enough to give informed consent. During my recovery, there wasn’t an option of alternate anything - I got a lot of morphine and then oxy. I was discharged 4 weeks later from the hospital with a 3 month prescription for 120mg of opioids per day. That would kill most people.

My story is not unique. It is so common it could be a troupe. The doctors saved my life in one way, then discharged me into a hell of addiction that it took 9 months of serious determined effort to overcome.

Then, some uninformed keyboard warrior like yourself comes along and blames people in my situation? Maybe you should have read a little less Opioid Wars and a little more Current Events. You clearly know nothing about this problem.

[beaeglebeachedd]

I've worked in the ER, held a license to work there, and spend everyday with licensed providers in addiction medicine. I assure you I have more familiarity here than even most addicts.

But you win the victim totempole height contest I guess.

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That doesn’t clarify anything about your knowledge. The specialized hospital cleaning crews are in the ER every day and dozens of hours per week in the OR, but that doesn’t allow them to practice medicine or perform surgery. Proximity is not the same as practice.

The medical practice (until a few years ago) was profoundly and intentionally misinformed about the addictiveness of Oxycodone and Oxycontin. You brought up a question about why people didn't learn from the Opioid Wars, but your flippant question could just as easily be applied to the MDs who wrote the prescriptions.

Medical doctors are smart; they MUST know about the Opioid Wars and the horror the opium wrecked on Chinese society for centuries. Why would they prescribe such a dangerously addictive compound to injured and vulnerable people having the worst day of their lives?

Instead, you blame patients with little choice (or capacity to evaluate choices) in a terrible situation. And, if you talked to any addicts, you'd sure find that the top of the "victim totempole" is actually really crowded with people who got there the exact same way. That is no coincidence.

The fact of the matter is that Purdue intentionally misinformed everyone - doctors, patients, caregivers, and family. They used marketing, propaganda, bribes, recognition, and myriad other tools to convince everyone that their product was different. Doctors, knowing full well about the Opium Wars, wholeheartedly believed the propaganda. I wasn't the first patient to be discharged from the hospital with a multi-month supply of opioids. This was a common practice.

The worst part is for someone who claims to be around addicts, you think I am somehow unique in my story. My story is so mundanely typical that it should be nauseating. Medical treatment is, by far, the most common way addicts start with opioids. 75% of all heroin users whose addictions started in the 2000s reported that it began with prescriptions from their doctors.

https://nida.nih.gov/publications/research-reports/prescript...

I genuinely suggest you spend some time talking to the addicts around you rather than judging them. You'd quickly come to regret the flippancy of your statement and probably have some empathy for their situation. These were regular people with jobs, families, lives, hopes, and dreams. In a crisis, they entrusted medical doctors to make the best medical decision for them, and the price they paid was their future.