[Drinking] Drink or Drugs?

[Thecoffeecake]

The level of addiction to opioid painkillers in the US is quite staggering compared to here. Much of that comes down to the way the health system operates I think. Here, you're registered with a GP, and if they prescribe you medication, any other doctor you go to will be able to see that, and won't give you more until you've legitimately used the first lot. The US system seems to make it easy to go to a physician, request said painkillers (and am I right in thinking doctors are incentivised by the pharmaceutical companies to promote their drugs??), and then pop into another practice and order more.

Clearly there are people addicted to opiate painkillers in the UK, but I believe relative levels are much lower than in the States. Must cost people an absolute fortune to keep buying them all??

Our healthcare system is unabashedly controlled by the dollar, and the powerful healthcare and insurance lobbies keep it that way. Doctors absolutely write prescriptions for drugs by companies that send them and their families on month long vacations, and loads of other incentives I don't care to find out about. Painkillers do get too expensive, and that's when addicts turn to heroin, which, rumor had it in my hometown, cost as low $3 a bag at one point. Everyone knows what heroin does, and most people aren't sticking a needle in their arm day one.

Mind you, this is a country where the narrative has been manipulated to state single payer health care is too expensive, but a trillons-dollar war in poor Middle Eastern countries were absolutely vital to our national interests.

 

[spring hall convert]

He started apparantly when he was about 15 by experimenting with cannabis

He had a joint before he had a beer?

 

[spring hall convert]

As for booze, it is so acceptable that it is far too easy to become an over user. That said, I noticed about 20 years ago a phenomnon that did not exist when I was a teenager - binge drinking. My network was into all sorts when I was late teens early 20s, but all of us would have been embarrassed to have slurred speach during a night out. But 20 years ago it became a thing to down half a litre or more of spirits before going out. I was genuinely shocked by that (despite knowing that one of my mates, who is now a professor in a big uni in north America, used to chase the dragon in his youth). Gtting out of control went from verboten to de rigeur. Also it became acceptable for young women to get legless, take a piss between parked cars, and that, in a way that I never saw 45 years ago. There again, I have always avoided chavs and their haunts (like the bus stops at Churchill Square on a Saturday night at elven thirty, in the late 1970s - once was enough), so maybe my experience of the past is through a rose tinted wine glass. The usual rule in life is that people never change - just their opportunities - so maybe I missed the worst excesses of the 1970s and 80s.

As an ex-drinker I have only recently noticed the completely blinding obvious. The whole culture surrounding alcohol in this country is completely wrong.

 

[mothy]

I do both thanks. Normally at the same time - but not cocaine (any more)- such a naff drug

& only tried heroin & crack a couple of times - prefer weed & pills for my kicks.

Any alcohol will do

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Yeah, I'm clearly no expert, but I believe that it's a free market for drug companies, as illustrated by the frequent television adverts for different products. I find them fascinating to watch- you'll hear the narrator going about how such and such a drug is the market-leading product for muscular pain relief etc. But then they're legally obliged to read out all the potential side effects. So you end up with an advert which is ten seconds worth of extolling the drug's virtues, then thirty seconds of horrendous sounding possible consequences of taking it: "Warning. Side effects may include blackouts, dizziness, nausea, anxiety, blurred vision, hearing loss, infertility, vomiting, tightness of breath, hot flushes and heartburn. May be linked to higher instances of juvenile cancers and melanoma. If symptoms occur, discontinue use and consult your physician. Always read the label" It's a wonder anyone ever bothers to take them after all that.

Also the law changed in the US during the Obama years such that the side effects have to be stated at normal speed (cf the 'may cause cancer blindness and death' at lightening speed at the end of the 'Beefcake!' ad on Southpark

BEEFCAKE!!!