Can we please stop devaluing the lives of addicts and just treat them with proven science? [View all]

[antigone382]

Last edited Thu Feb 5, 2015, 07:35 PM - Edit history (1)

(I have reworded the title of this post because many people felt it was out of line. I apologize for any pain caused and will take lessons from this. However, the change does not seem to be updating for everyone who is commenting on it. My only point is that every disease should be dealth with based on compassion and sound science, not judgment and stigma.)


According to the CDC, drug overdose rates have been rising steadily for two decades now, and are currently the leading cause of injury death in the United States. (http://www.cdc.gov/homeandrecreationalsafety/overdose/facts.html). Most of these are due to opioid overdose; but as opioid pain medications become more difficult to access, heroin overdose deaths are skyrocketing--as anyone who really understood how addiction works would have guessed.

As a millenial I have buried many of my friends, and watched many others' lives fall apart, at least partially as a result of their drug use. These were lives of talent, brilliance, and promise. They were people that I loved and still do, and I made what feeble efforts I could to support them in recovery, but generally to little effect. Far outweighing anything I could have done was a culture and system based on shame, punishment, and dehumanization, which profoundly failed and continues to fail them, while ignoring abundantly available medical science. In the process, the stigma around addiction contributes to many substance abusers' denial and silence, up until the point that their addiction is truly wreaking chaos on their lives--a tragedy since treatment is more effective the earlier it is begun in the addiction process.

I absorbed what I could of the Fresh Air episode linked below, but mostly it brought me to tears. But I encourage folks to read/listen, and to take this problem seriously as one of the defining moral crises of our time. There are STILL many people in positions of power--politicians, medical professionals, etc.--who smugly assert that addicts are just criminals whose lives have no value, or lazy charlatans who need to be shamed and traumatized into "straightening up." Such leaders base critical policy decisions on this hideous, scientifically erroneous, and often lethal prejudice, ignoring that what we are seeing is a massive and growing public health crisis that is consuming an alarming percentage of young lives.

http://www.npr.org/2015/02/04/383782327/new-meds-block-heroin-craving-but-reporter-finds-treatment-centers-don-t-use-the

It's time to demand the the value of these lives be taken into account. Get rid of the stigma. Get rid of the shaming. Get rid of the ineffective punishment. Get rid of attachment to one-size-fits-all treatment approaches that don't adapt to individual needs. Instead, start make life-saving medications like Naloxone available. Start sensibly incorporating medications and therapies that address the brain's role in addiction. Start structuring treatment programs around the comprehensive, longterm needs of those in recovery. Start guaranteeing that those who call for medical help in an overdose situation will not be punished for their efforts to save a life. Mostly, start acting like this crisis matters.