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We need robust universal healthcare for a bunch of other reasons, but specifically for the chronic pain management issue I don't see how making opioids (and marijuana, since AFAIK that helps some people too) available over the counter wouldn't fix it.
Making a highly addictive substance like opioids available OTC is not a way to cut down on opioid addiction and abuse. Cannabis is different because it's not (physically anyway) addictive.
There's nothing, in my opinion, wrong with opioids being prescription-only, as long as doctors aren't handing them out like candy, which was part of the problem. But another issue is that cannabis and opioids are not the only pain treatments out there. I suffer from chronic pain and I do use cannabis to help, but I also need to take anti-convulsants because they have a secondary effect of treating the pain of the kind of nerve disorder I have (atypical trigeminal neuralgia). No amount of opioids will help me, and I know because I had a bunch of opioids thrown at me in a row. I'm glad I didn't get addicted. Withdrawal is a bitch anyway.
But if I thought they could help me and they were OTC? I would have tried every type and probably ended up addicted.
It's bad enough cigarettes are OTC. My probably unpopular opinion is that they should transition tobacco and nicotine products into also being available by prescription only so that doctors can help patients quit, finding the best method for each patient since addiction does not have a one-size-fits-all approach. The amount of money saved in healthcare bills would be enormous. But our government is way too beholden to the tobacco industry for that to ever happen.
Who said it was? Certainly not me!
What it is, is a way to cut down on overdoses due to sketchy street drugs being laced with shit the consumer didn't expect.
[Edit] Let me put it this way:
Which is more important, trying to prevent people from becoming addicted (which, let's be honest, is at least as much a moral crusade as it is a health concern), or trying to prevent the drug from destroying their lives (whether via overdose, exorbitant cost, or criminal prosecution) if they do become addicted to it?
Legalizing it does not prevent overdosing, it also would make it less likely to treat the root cause of the pain.
And I didn't say legalization shouldn't happen, I said it shouldn't happen alone. Preventing addiction should be a priority if you legalize drugs.
[citation needed]
Really?
How about the fact that legal alcohol causes college kids to die of alcohol poisoning on a regular basis?
Alcohol and opioids don't have the same effects and aren't used the same way. It's not as if people are binging heroin at parties.
Alcohol isn't legal for most college kids (i.e. those under 21), so that doesn't prove what you think it does. Besides, in order to make your claim, you'd need to compare the situation of legal alcohol to the situation of illegal alcohol, not legal alcohol vs. illegal other drugs.
Moreover, alcohol's change in legality at adulthood is part of the problem: it being forbidden until that point hypes up the mystique and makes social drinking seem cooler than it really is. We're dumping these young adults into an environment of alcohol availability right as their parental supervision has ended and peer pressure is near its peak. Is it any wonder there are problems when we set them up for failure like that?
We tried prohibiting alcohol once; it didn't go well. Unlike with opioids and the "war on drugs," we learned our lesson.
Wait... sorry... so now you're saying opioids should be legal for children to take recreationally?