Every Newspaper Story About Prescription Drug Abuse Is Wrong

[snarp]

(Subtitle: Also, Don't Read The Comments. Sub-Subtitle: I Should Not Have Read The Comments)

Okay, this is the definition of drug abuse:

If you're using a drug in a way that does you more harm than good, you're abusing it.

And this is the definition of physical drug addiction:

If you will have unpleasant withdrawal symptoms if you stop taking a drug regularly, you're addicted to it.

A person who is addicted to a substance is not necessarily abusing it. A person with severe chronic pain who takes oxycodone every day is almost certainly addicted - they're going to feel like shit for months if they have to go off the stuff - but they are not abusing it. It's doing them more good than harm. If you wouldn't be able to get out of bed if you weren't taking the stuff, then why the fuck does it matter if you're addicted?

My grandmother, towards the end of her life, could not move around, cook, and take care of her pets without prescription painkillers. One of her doctors nonetheless at one point decided to refuse to renew her prescription, because she was "an addict." Yeah, no shit, buddy. She was also an old woman who, without that medication, physically could not care for herself.

I wonder how many people in her situation that doctor, and others like him, have killed like that.

A lot of people have personal objections to taking stuff that's addictive, even if they'd be better off on it; I am one of them! But that's 100% a personal decision - it is not something that other people have the right to decide for you. You do not need to feel guilty if you choose taking something that induces dependency over, y'know, being in horrible pain all day.

And it is definitely not something we should be fucking legislating. If you think that, you are what is known, in medical terms, as a complete jackass.

Comments

[vass]

If you're using a drug in a way that does you more harm than good, you're abusing it.

True but incomplete. Unless I was abusing Metformin by taking it exactly as directed by my endocrinologist and the manufacturer and consequently shitting myself on the regular.

And this is the definition of physical drug addiction: If you will have unpleasant withdrawal symptoms if you stop taking a drug regularly, you're addicted to it.

The definition of addiction I've read a lot of places makes a distinction between physiological dependency and addiction. Like, addiction would be physiological dependency and that's a problem (or: and there's also abuse, or also behavioral problems with it.) So your grandmother would have been dependent but not addicted. I think that's a really useful distinction to make.

If you think that, you are what is known, in medical terms, as a complete jackass.

Cosigned.

[snarp]

My issue with making a distinction between "dependency" and "addiction" in this sort of discussion is that,

1) Most laypeople, and even many doctors (at least when talking to laypeople), use the word "addiction" to cover both things. So, I'm treating it as one of those words that means a different thing to medical professionals.

2) When people do distinguish between the two terms, they often do it in a way that loads the word "addict" with moral judgment: "addiction" = "criminal behavior," whereas "dependency" = "health problem."

Which generally means, of course, that if you're poor, PoC, and using heroin, you're "addicted," while if you're middle- to upper-class, white, and using prescription painkillers, you have a "dependency."

Thus my decision to stick exclusively with the word "addicted" in this sort of discussion. You can't count on people using "dependent" in a way that's not bigoted as fuck.

[vass]

Now I see what you're getting at. I don't think we can count on people not applying addicted in a way that's bigoted as all fuck either, but still.

[snarp]

My strategy is to call rich white people using percocet "addicts" until they get scared and start demanding decriminalization/legalization. This is a very mature strategy.

[azurelunatic]

I generally feel that the position of medical gatekeeper for drugs is the "This substance is easy to use in a way that can lead to your immediate or near-term and accidental death. Let's not have that happen!" sort of thing.

Complete jackass is right.