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How would (forced) addiction treatment hurt the most vulnerable?
For one thing, it's extremely difficult to force someone out of an addiction. You usually have to want to quit in order for that to be an option. Otherwise you have to do something like torture them by making them go through a possibly extremely painful cold turkey withdrawal.
So I'd say torturing the most vulnerable would hurt them.
But what makes you think that's what they'll do? Would helping someone with an addiction towards treatment really 'torture' them?
Thank you! People here getting all riled up without even reading the damn article. What else is new?
I am SO TIRED of articles about SF ending up in a national or global forum where people start complaining about stuff that SF is light years ahead on.
You asked about forced addiction treatment. Not this specific program.
There are a lot of times people are forced to have addiction treatment, especially by judges. And it is a form of torture.
Ok, fair enough. But I don't think many treatment programs still make them go cold turkey though. Of course it's always 'less fun' than just continuing shooting fentanyl, even for those who freely make the change
What? You think fentanyl addicts use it for fun? They probably didn't even start using opioids for fun. They probably started because they were in pain.
Also, if they stop using opioids they will be in a lot more pain and they will still be living in America, where a for-profit medical system to treat that pain is beyond their reach.
It's not about fun at all. What an incredibly insensitive thing to say.
If they don't get help to stop, they eventually progress to a point where they are definitely not using for fun. They have no choice anymore. They have one goal and that is to be high at any cost. I work in a part of SF where there are a lot of them and the things I see them go through are horrendous. It feels like watching state sanctioned torture. They are literally being left to rot. I know two people that have lost a loved one to fentanyl and it really is heartbreaking.
Again- many fentanyl addicts are people in actual physical pain. The whole reason there is an opioid epidemic in the first place is that opioids used to be handed out by doctors like candy and tons of people got addicted.
Claiming they're doing it for fun is simply insensitive and you should ask those two people why they lost those loved ones- what got them addicted in the first place.
I've had fentanyl in a hospital. It's not something pleasurable.
Jeez yeah thankfully I've never had to experience fent myself. I did get some Molly one time that was cut with meth, and that was a huge eye opener for me... different drug but still.
I do know the back story to one of the victims. He was just a dude that got caught up in the party scene too much. Was always using more and more as time went on. People even told him he was going to die someday. Sure enough, he had another party at his place, and in the early morning, people found him lying on the floor of his room, partially in a closet, dead. Fentanyl OD.
As if that wasn't bad enough, some of the people came back and took shit from his house after they learned he died. Ugh
I have spoken to some on the street though that did indeed get hooked originally from a pain script. It's definitely a thing.
Are you saying no-one is using opiates recreationally? Or that people get addicted because it makes them feel so incredibly bad? People I know that dose some special K at a festival don't really do so to ease their back pain...
I'm saying that the current opioid crisis was caused by people in legitimate physical pain being oversupplied opioids by doctors due to companies like Purdue Pharma pushing them on doctors. So a large number of fentanyl addicts are taking it because they have legitimate pain issues which also need to be addressed.
beyond that forced treatment is ethically questionable, conditioning other forms of help on sobriety puts people in a bind. it's hard for people to get and stay sober when they're suffering, physically and mentally.
housing/food/health care (to include mental health and psychiatric care) first means it's more likely that efforts toward sobriety will even work.
This bill explicitly does not do that.
Forced addiction treatment isn't what's happening. They drug test the poor and then cut them off from benefits if they fail. It is a punishment.
The only way to be eligible for benefits again is to join a treatment program, many of which in the US are just religious ministries that care more about proselytizing than human outcomes. Even cults like the Church of Scientology runs drug treatment programs, with obvious motivations...
These people are exploited by pretty much everyone, including those who are tasked to help them. If your solution is to force them into anything, recovery or otherwise, you're just exploiting them further.
You really need to read the article
From the article:
Breed’s office has said the measure was intentionally designed to be flexible on the treatment component. Treatment options could range from out-patient services to a prescription for buprenorphine, a medication used to treat addiction. They noted it doesn’t include a requirement for participants to remain sober, recognizing that people often lapse in recovery and shouldn’t be kicked out of the program for a slip-up.