Quote:
Originally Posted by AzzarTheGod
[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
Not to mention "stopping the opioid epidemic" is a complete misnomer. You can't stop something like that, you can only prevent NEW people from using opioids.
Trying to choke off the poor saps who got bit does absolutely nothing productive for this country as theres a 95% long term failure rate on first-time detox. Attacking doctors for simply writing prescriptions does nothing. the DEA should examine whether the patients that the doctor is writing for are legitimate and then leave the doctor alone especially in the event that the doctor is not the first doctor to have written for them. The problem I have read is that "pill mills" are a bit of a myth, there was a few outliers, they all got busted, and now the DEA is feeding on legitimate practices.
There needs to be policy changes if the opioid war is to be successful. Attacking existing market is futile, they need to focus on the new market. Pissing off the existing market is only going to cause them to complain, start talking to their friends about how to get pills, which doctor is writing, etc. possibly even start spewing pro-opioid propaganda to their friends and stress the importance of pills. That is not winning hearts and minds, and does not prevent new users. It generates more new users who will be affected by this propaganda.
Prevention is the most effective tactic in the opioid war. Unfortunately the DEA thinks that means attacking doctors to "prevent" scripts from being written. This does fuckall except feed Cartels pockets (Mexico is largest importer of opioids since the crackdown)
|
Not to mention the majority of harm caused by opiates comes from behaviors associated with illicit use, which would be ameliorated by a policy shift toward decriminalization and harm reduction. Like you said, no amount of laws will take away the underlying drive for people to partake in opium. It needs a smear campaign on the order of what they did with tobacco.