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Proliferation of genetic defects leads to opioid abuse
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dav...@agent.com
Apr 16, 2012, 12:52:40 AM4/16/12
to
April 10, 2012 - The Guardian/UK
America's Prescription Drug Addiction Suggests a Sick Nation
The growing taste for prescription opioids in the US is a concern.
What is it about our way of life that necessitates such relief?
by Victoria Bekiempis
We Americans really like to pop pills. The Associated Press has
just reported that we're increasingly strung out on prescription
opioids, with sales ballooning from 2000-2010. In some parts of
the US, receipts for oxycodone-based products – such as OxyContin,
Percoset, & Percodan – surged 16-fold; hydrocodone-based products
such as Vicodin continue to gain solid ground in Appalachia and
Middle America. Indeed, insatiable demand for "hillbilly heroin" –
sometimes doled out by doctors who want to legitimately treat pain,
sometimes by physicians who want simply to shut up their patients –
has prompted pharmacy robberies, and much worse. In fact, so many
people have died from medication overdoses of late that they come
to exceed car crashes as the US's top cause of accidental death –
a first since the government started tabulating such data in 1979,
according to the LA Times. This equates to "more deaths than heroin
& cocaine combined".
Meanwhile, scripts for benzodiazepines – the class of anti-anxiety
drugs including Xanax, Valium, Ativan, and Klonopin – have gone up
17% since 2006 to 94m annually, New York magazine notes. Generic
Xanax, which goes by name alprazolam, has become 23% more popular
in that same timeframe "making it the most prescribed psycho-pharma-
ceutical drug & 11th-most prescribed overall, with 46m prescriptions
written in 2010". Let's also not forget that 1 in 4 American women
is on psych medication. That's right – 25% of US women undergo
chemical treatment for depression, anxiety, ADHD or another mental
disorder. While it's clear that the US has a thing for drugs – which
seems both dangerous and disconcerting – what is not immediately
clear is why this is the case. In the New York magazine article
Listening to Xanax, author Lisa Miller ponders whether the demands
of modern American life necessitate routine benzo use, quoting one
expert as saying they "stop a gap that evolution has yet to fill.
As humans try to control an exponentially growing number of inputs
with which they're confronted, 'our attention becomes less flexible,
our minds become more chattering, and the next thing we know, we're
frantic'. Humans are ill-equipped to process or accommodate all
these new signals." The result? Perhaps "people need a bridge – a
pill – between what life doles out & what people can realistically
handle".
So what exactly do these popular & highly addictive prescriptions
do? Well, taking an opioid analgesic benzo anxiolytic makes you
feel very good. They don't just relieve pain & worry, they produce
psychic euphoria, a sense that the rest of the world has slipped
away, esp. when abused – perpetuating the potential for addiction.
It would only make sense, then, to ask why so many Americans would
want to feel this way: what is it about the nation's society &
culture seemingly that necessitates such relief? There are a few
potential explanations. To begin, Americans live super high-strung
lives, but without significant rewards that could potential justify
these stress levels. Mother Jones has noted that the proportion of
employed people working 50+ hours weekly has skyrocketed since '77
(with the exception of low-income men). Also, the US is one of a
handful of countries that doesn't enforce weekly time off, paid
annual leave, or paid maternity leave. A lot of this work is not
compensated. It's not necessarily making people richer, since house-
hold income appears to be declining. But people keep up the pace
because the employment market is weak, & they don't want to lose
their jobs. Reports indicate that overworked people tend not to be
healthy or happy. Centers for Disease Control data have linked over-
time with "poorer perceived general health, increased injury rates,
more illnesses, & increased mortality". And 2 recent studies have
linked long work hours to a higher risk of depression. Stress,
exacerbated by these factors, is "a major contributor to the
initiation & continuation of alcohol/other drug abuse, as well as
as to substance abuse relapse after periods of abstinence", acc.to
the National Institute on Drug Abuse. And, while it'd be incorrect
to draw a causal link between stress & widespread addiction, it's
safe to say that this correlation can't – & shouldn't – be ignored.
The American way of life sounds like it is sick, and drug overuse &
abuse might be a symptom of this illness – what happens when -
existential entrapment and chemical escapism intersect.
America's Prescription Drug Addiction Suggests a Sick Nation
The growing taste for prescription opioids in the US is a concern.
What is it about our way of life that necessitates such relief?
by Victoria Bekiempis
We Americans really like to pop pills. The Associated Press has
just reported that we're increasingly strung out on prescription
opioids, with sales ballooning from 2000-2010. In some parts of
the US, receipts for oxycodone-based products – such as OxyContin,
Percoset, & Percodan – surged 16-fold; hydrocodone-based products
such as Vicodin continue to gain solid ground in Appalachia and
Middle America. Indeed, insatiable demand for "hillbilly heroin" –
sometimes doled out by doctors who want to legitimately treat pain,
sometimes by physicians who want simply to shut up their patients –
has prompted pharmacy robberies, and much worse. In fact, so many
people have died from medication overdoses of late that they come
to exceed car crashes as the US's top cause of accidental death –
a first since the government started tabulating such data in 1979,
according to the LA Times. This equates to "more deaths than heroin
& cocaine combined".
Meanwhile, scripts for benzodiazepines – the class of anti-anxiety
drugs including Xanax, Valium, Ativan, and Klonopin – have gone up
17% since 2006 to 94m annually, New York magazine notes. Generic
Xanax, which goes by name alprazolam, has become 23% more popular
in that same timeframe "making it the most prescribed psycho-pharma-
ceutical drug & 11th-most prescribed overall, with 46m prescriptions
written in 2010". Let's also not forget that 1 in 4 American women
is on psych medication. That's right – 25% of US women undergo
chemical treatment for depression, anxiety, ADHD or another mental
disorder. While it's clear that the US has a thing for drugs – which
seems both dangerous and disconcerting – what is not immediately
clear is why this is the case. In the New York magazine article
Listening to Xanax, author Lisa Miller ponders whether the demands
of modern American life necessitate routine benzo use, quoting one
expert as saying they "stop a gap that evolution has yet to fill.
As humans try to control an exponentially growing number of inputs
with which they're confronted, 'our attention becomes less flexible,
our minds become more chattering, and the next thing we know, we're
frantic'. Humans are ill-equipped to process or accommodate all
these new signals." The result? Perhaps "people need a bridge – a
pill – between what life doles out & what people can realistically
handle".
So what exactly do these popular & highly addictive prescriptions
do? Well, taking an opioid analgesic benzo anxiolytic makes you
feel very good. They don't just relieve pain & worry, they produce
psychic euphoria, a sense that the rest of the world has slipped
away, esp. when abused – perpetuating the potential for addiction.
It would only make sense, then, to ask why so many Americans would
want to feel this way: what is it about the nation's society &
culture seemingly that necessitates such relief? There are a few
potential explanations. To begin, Americans live super high-strung
lives, but without significant rewards that could potential justify
these stress levels. Mother Jones has noted that the proportion of
employed people working 50+ hours weekly has skyrocketed since '77
(with the exception of low-income men). Also, the US is one of a
handful of countries that doesn't enforce weekly time off, paid
annual leave, or paid maternity leave. A lot of this work is not
compensated. It's not necessarily making people richer, since house-
hold income appears to be declining. But people keep up the pace
because the employment market is weak, & they don't want to lose
their jobs. Reports indicate that overworked people tend not to be
healthy or happy. Centers for Disease Control data have linked over-
time with "poorer perceived general health, increased injury rates,
more illnesses, & increased mortality". And 2 recent studies have
linked long work hours to a higher risk of depression. Stress,
exacerbated by these factors, is "a major contributor to the
initiation & continuation of alcohol/other drug abuse, as well as
as to substance abuse relapse after periods of abstinence", acc.to
the National Institute on Drug Abuse. And, while it'd be incorrect
to draw a causal link between stress & widespread addiction, it's
safe to say that this correlation can't – & shouldn't – be ignored.
The American way of life sounds like it is sick, and drug overuse &
abuse might be a symptom of this illness – what happens when -
existential entrapment and chemical escapism intersect.
Robert Carnegie: Fnord: cc talk-origins@moderators.isc.org
Apr 16, 2012, 6:26:03 AM4/16/12
to
Actually this is an online version of the article
(in a British newspaper, and outside its editorial
voice, I think) but it doesn't say a lot (except
in readers' comments about high cholesterol etc)
about "proliferation of genetic defects", but
overwork in an unkind society and a tough economy.
Nor about "opioid" and other drug "abuse". Rather,
a high rate of mostly legitimate use.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/apr/09/america-prescription-drug-addiction
Now, who is this, again? And what point were you
making? Perhaps that mutations are always bad?
(in a British newspaper, and outside its editorial
voice, I think) but it doesn't say a lot (except
in readers' comments about high cholesterol etc)
about "proliferation of genetic defects", but
overwork in an unkind society and a tough economy.
Nor about "opioid" and other drug "abuse". Rather,
a high rate of mostly legitimate use.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/apr/09/america-prescription-drug-addiction
Now, who is this, again? And what point were you
making? Perhaps that mutations are always bad?
wiki trix
Apr 16, 2012, 11:56:17 AM4/16/12
to
On Apr 16, 6:26 am, "Robert Carnegie: Fnord: cc talk-
orig...@moderators.isc.org" <rja.carne...@excite.com> wrote:
> Actually this is an online version of the article
> (in a British newspaper, and outside its editorial
> voice, I think) but it doesn't say a lot (except
> in readers' comments about high cholesterol etc)
> about "proliferation of genetic defects", but
> overwork in an unkind society and a tough economy.
> Nor about "opioid" and other drug "abuse". Rather,
> a high rate of mostly legitimate use.http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/apr/09/america-prescript...
> Actually this is an online version of the article
> (in a British newspaper, and outside its editorial
> voice, I think) but it doesn't say a lot (except
> in readers' comments about high cholesterol etc)
> about "proliferation of genetic defects", but
> overwork in an unkind society and a tough economy.
> Nor about "opioid" and other drug "abuse". Rather,
>
> Now, who is this, again? And what point were you
> making? Perhaps that mutations are always bad?
That bad drugs are the result of ID?
> Now, who is this, again? And what point were you
> making? Perhaps that mutations are always bad?
chris thompson
Apr 16, 2012, 12:26:10 PM4/16/12
to
their uses- I was really grateful for them when I was in physical
therapy after spinal cord surgery. But I had to flush them down the
toilet about 2 months after I got home- I saw where it was leading.
And I've never taken anything stronger than ibuprofen since then.
Chris
Kermit
Apr 16, 2012, 3:22:31 PM4/16/12
to
On Apr 16, 3:26 am, "Robert Carnegie: Fnord: cc talk-
medical practices are leading to genetic deterioration, and the
population is too high, so we should let people die by withholding
medical treatments to relive the population pressure. He pretty much
always cites articles like this which fail to support his claims.
Kermit
orig...@moderators.isc.org" <rja.carne...@excite.com> wrote:
> Actually this is an online version of the article
> (in a British newspaper, and outside its editorial
> voice, I think) but it doesn't say a lot (except
> in readers' comments about high cholesterol etc)
> about "proliferation of genetic defects", but
> overwork in an unkind society and a tough economy.
> Nor about "opioid" and other drug "abuse". Rather,
> a high rate of mostly legitimate use.http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/apr/09/america-prescript...
> Actually this is an online version of the article
> (in a British newspaper, and outside its editorial
> voice, I think) but it doesn't say a lot (except
> in readers' comments about high cholesterol etc)
> about "proliferation of genetic defects", but
> overwork in an unkind society and a tough economy.
> Nor about "opioid" and other drug "abuse". Rather,
>
> Now, who is this, again? And what point were you
> making? Perhaps that mutations are always bad?
Dave is a subtle crank. He thinks that many (if not all) modern
> Now, who is this, again? And what point were you
> making? Perhaps that mutations are always bad?
medical practices are leading to genetic deterioration, and the
population is too high, so we should let people die by withholding
medical treatments to relive the population pressure. He pretty much
always cites articles like this which fail to support his claims.
Kermit
wiki trix
Apr 16, 2012, 3:41:58 PM4/16/12
to
agree that the population is far too high. After all, life is the
leading cause of death, and must be stamped out wherever it is found.
Boikat
Apr 16, 2012, 3:44:54 PM4/16/12
to
On Apr 16, 5:26 am, "Robert Carnegie: Fnord: cc talk-
population growth. Yes, he's an effin' prick.
Boikat
orig...@moderators.isc.org" <rja.carne...@excite.com> wrote:
> Actually this is an online version of the article
> (in a British newspaper, and outside its editorial
> voice, I think) but it doesn't say a lot (except
> in readers' comments about high cholesterol etc)
> about "proliferation of genetic defects", but
> overwork in an unkind society and a tough economy.
> Nor about "opioid" and other drug "abuse". Rather,
> a high rate of mostly legitimate use.http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/apr/09/america-prescript...
> Actually this is an online version of the article
> (in a British newspaper, and outside its editorial
> voice, I think) but it doesn't say a lot (except
> in readers' comments about high cholesterol etc)
> about "proliferation of genetic defects", but
> overwork in an unkind society and a tough economy.
> Nor about "opioid" and other drug "abuse". Rather,
>
> Now, who is this, again? And what point were you
> making? Perhaps that mutations are always bad?
Drugs prolong life, which is bad because that means there is excessive
> Now, who is this, again? And what point were you
> making? Perhaps that mutations are always bad?
population growth. Yes, he's an effin' prick.
Boikat
wiki trix
Apr 16, 2012, 3:59:54 PM4/16/12
to
Yes, he's an effin' prick.
Boikat
Apr 16, 2012, 4:11:03 PM4/16/12
to
>
> Yes, he's an effin' prick.
>
> Pointlessness noted.
Boikat
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