Naked Science Forum
General Discussion & Feedback => Just Chat! => Topic started by: PmbPhy on 24/03/2019 22:00:37
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I talked about this last year but put a hold on it. I'm coming back to it again here.
Someone raised the objection/made a point that the increase in narcotics usage was approximately proportional to increase of narcotics related deaths and asserted that this was an important part of the debate on narcotics use. The problem with that assumption is that its true for all drugs. Even for car usage. Increase the number of drivers by a factor of T and you'll approximately increase the number of deaths due to auto accidents by a factor of T(non-drug related deaths that is). I did learn that many doctors wish to prescribe narcotics but are prevented doing so by the government. Lawmakers etc. = Dumb punks! Grrrrr! :D
Note: Comments like I made about cars are merely rough guesses and apply to particular ranges. These things are models and as such far from being precise. I mention them to make the point that deaths are part of life and acceptable. I.e. I take it as an acceptable risk that I might slip in the shower and snap my neck and die. That doesn't mean I won't take a shower.
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That's interesting.
I'd expect that an increase in narcotic use obviously increases the size of the populations at risk from overdose, but that it's also likely to alter the odds of harm among that population.
For example, if there are many people using, then the medical emergency services will get better at treating overdoses, so the rate of death would be less than pro rata.
Similarly, better information available to the users- simply because there are more of them to learn from- would improve safety or reduce risk depending on how you choose to phrase it.
I have to admit that, of course, I don't have any actual data to back those ideas up, but they seem reasonable to me.
And, it's possible that higher rates of use might lead to a change in quality of the supply- it may get better as different suppliers compete on quality, or it may get worse s supplied get spread tinner and cut with other materials.
And since the quality of the product might fall with an increase in supply, it's easy to imagine an increase in harm from that poor material.
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I don't get it. Only on person posted and he's on my ignore list for being irritating to me.
Doesn't anybody have an opinion/position on this point?
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I don't get it. Only on person posted and he's on my ignore list for being irritating to me.
That's what happens if you put people on the ignore list.
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Depends on what you mean by an increase in narcotics use. If you mean increased per capita dosage within a limited subset population, then you will increase the probability of harm per capita and in populatio, but if you mean increased population with the same per capita dosage, you will not alter either risk but you will kill more people..
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Increace in drug usage means new less eperienced people doing drugs, leading to more deaths.
Another point is that if the illegal drug use goes up, but supply remains the same, drugs could become weaker, leading to less deaths, or cut with/alternate lethal substances, meaning more deaths.