Drugs in Shetland

[paulb]

So if you were to have a car crash where you were at fault. Would the police be as okay with your methadone as dvla are. Would it then be fair to prosecute someone who was on a low level of street opiates. It seems un just that you could get off with a lesser charge.

 

 

unlinks statement about an alcholics blood level compared to a normal drunks is valid. The alcholic would be perfectly functional at just above the drink drive level but they would still be prosecuted.

Your taking a sedative so even at only a low level it must make your reactions slower.

Ive only ever had morphine once and I was not fit to walk from the bed to the wheelchair at a dose that was the same level as your maintance dose.

[OP8S]

I don't think comparisons can / should be made between the difference in substances. I think we all have to focus on how society uses them & how we can minimise the harm that they do. Substance use will never stop in our lifetimes.

[shetlandpeat]

You may need to understand how the chemical works with the body. There is no comparison really that can be made as far as fx. The prescribed, controlled substance prevents more than it creates, where as alcohol, unmeasured in some instances, creates more than it prevents. You would not take a drink to drive and function normally unless you are having problems controlling your alcohol consumption.

The chemical is prescribed by a legal practitioner and therefore falls under normal medical rules. You need now to remove the association of methadone and heroin, as in the legal eyes, it is a prescribed medicine. That can make folk addressing their problems more apprehensive because of the associated dogma.

The idea is to encourage folk to come forward and make the start of helping themselves and also saving themselves and their families. They will not come forward if they feel they are being paraded in any way and not in the literal sense.

[unlinkedstudent]

^ With all due respect SP re legally prescribed - so are painkillers! I understand how methadone works on the body but many painkillers are given for legitimate reasons, are supposedly 'safe' doses where the person taking them isn't aware of them impairing their judgement but they can, and have, been pulled over by PC Plod who thought otherwise and then they get nicked!

 

It is fair to say it is not OP's fault re the legal situation - after all, OP doesn't make the law!

[shetlandpeat]

If you ask your doctor about it he will always air on the side of caution. If the DVLA Medical team have been informed and they do not suspend your right to drive then you can drive.

With a regulated dose, to prevent withdrawals affecting your day to day life. As you say though, if you do feel that this dose is bothering or impairing you then it is a voluntary thing. Similar to those who drink and drive.

I would wager that more accidents are caused by gluttony / over eating then driving.

We are duty bound as drivers to do the right thing when we are faced with such problems. There are many substances that can change the way we drive. That are generally just a food stuff.

[paulb]

I would wager that more accidents are caused by gluttony / over eating then driving

that would take some violent eating to cause.

3000 deaths and 267000 injuries.

[shetlandpeat]

ah, the wager was that more ACCIDENTS may be caused by the results of gluttony than through driving while taking the prescribed dose of methadone.

Sorry for the mix there.

[JustMe]

OP8S writes

No drug causes the fundamental ill's of our society. If we are looking for the source of our troubles we shouldn't be testing people for drug use, we should be testing them for stupidity, ignorance, material greed & love of power.

How right you are but at the moment there are few laws to control the first three and the fourth one is to some extent regulated by elections.

 

What this country and indeed much of the world needs is a way to help people who are addicted to substances be they legal or otherwise and at the moment that just is not happening. Was it Tony Blair's New Labour that came up with the slogan "Tough on crime--tough on the causes of crime". Well it never happened no matter who thought up the slogan. Instead we have a system of crime and punishment with few resources devoted to changing a criminal into someone who wants to obey the laws and live a peaceful life.

 

Catch them, put them up in court, send them to prison, release them and wait for the next time. Of course I am talking about more than drug addicts here. We need a regime that sets out to do its best to help anyone convicted of a criminal act to become a different person who will not offend again.

 

Did I hear someone muttering about "wishy washy liberal"?. Not entirely. Sadly I believe that there may well be people who cannot be helped and in that case we do need a way to keep such people safely locked up under humane conditions until such times as they can be helped or forever if that is necessary.

[JustMe]

ISOT wrote

Dear God Justme!

 

I just canna agree we you on this, how can there be any justification for breaking/entering someone's property and then stealing from them?

 

Highly probable(again) that this will be a junkie, sweeping statement I know but just the kind of society we live in now.

Justification?. Well I guess that depends on the reason for someone breaking and entering to raise some cash. Addiction is one "reason" that the courts often hear but unless we have suffered from the same addiction can we really dismiss this as a justification?. But that is not the only thing that some people believe justifies a crime. Imagine that you are hungry, have no money, no friends, the money from the social did not arrive and you are rubbish at begging. Do you steal?. Or even worse the baby is hungry in the same situation. Do you steal then?.

[Ghostrider]

^^ Not a fair argument. Food is a necessity for survival, not an addiction. An addict to opiates, alcohol, nicotine or whatever will survive, albeit probably unpleasantly, indefinitely without ingesting anything containing the substance their addiction demands. Any human who does not ingest foodstuff of some sort immediately starts on a terminal decline once their stomach and intestines are emptied.

 

Addictions may well be cited as "reasons" or "excuses" for crime, but ultimately the person in question chooses between suffering the unpleasantnesses of withdrawals or resorting to crime. The need for food is a whole other choice, one of either death or resorting to crime. The death card is one few choose to play when they have any other choice.

[shetlandpeat]

Sadly, there are folk who are addicted to food, or the chemicals it releases in the brain, similar too, yup opiates, the bodies own way of pain control.

Eating enough food is a necessity. Too much is not. The comparison was to compare the two, and show that there are probably less accidents where methadone is the contributory factor than with those who have had a good filling meal. Christmas time is one period where this is known to happen the most with the eating.

 

 

 

 

 

During binges compulsive overeaters might consume anything from 5000 to 15000 kilo calories in a day, which results as an addictive "high" not unlike those experienced through drug usage, and a release from psychological stress. In bulimics, this high may be intensified by the act of purging. Researchers have speculated there is an abnormality of endorphin metabolism in the brain of binge eaters that triggers the addictive process. This is in line with other theories of addiction that attribute it not to avoidance of withdrawal symptoms, but to a primary problem in the reward centers of the brain. For the Compulsive Overeater, the ingestion of trigger foods causes release of the neurotransmitter, serotonin.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsive_overeating

 

I know this relates to compulsive over eating, but if we eat too much, just in one period, it can be the same, hence the snooze after Sunday dinner.

 

BUT

 

As we know, anyone on replacement treatment is seeking help and addressing their addiction.

[zebbidy]

Drugs r bad

 

 

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZPK5WjIp_l0/TVSlYiNoYRI/AAAAAAAAAmk/r-TQCk86k8w/s1600/mr_mackey.jpg

[OP8S]

 

Ive only ever had morphine once and I was not fit to walk from the bed to the wheelchair at a dose that was the same level as your maintance dose.

What dose is that paulb, your's or mine. I'm interested to know what dose of morphine you were on & what opioid conversion table you used to convert it into the similar dose of methadone. I've never said what my dose is so I would be quite interested to find out how you know. Also taking medication on a one off basis would probably knock you of your feet even if it was a relatively small dose, so you can't really make the comparison with someone who has been on a medication for years, can you ?

[unlinkedstudent]

Sadly, there are folk who are addicted to food, or the chemicals it releases in the brain, similar too, yup opiates, the bodies own way of pain control.

 

WRONG!

 

Years ago, I had a motorcycle accident resulting in some severe nerve damage. The pain was absolutely intense and no painkillers would touch it. Gradually, the pain subsided yet the tests carried out by the neurologists concluded that the nerves affected were still badly damaged and would take at least another two years in order to return to some degree of moderate functionality.

 

So why has a lot of the pain gone? I asked.

 

Reply: Because the nerve receptors get turned off and the brain no longer accepts signals from them.

 

So SP, it isn't the body's way of dealing with pain. The body's way of dealing with pain is neurological.

 

Perhaps this is why I am in some disagreement with those on methadone - you don't want to go cold turkey, perhaps because of the discomfort you will go through. Spare a thought for those of us who have had NO CHOICE but to suffer until our own bodies regained their natural balance. By taking methadone, you are delaying your body's own natural response. Granted, a lot of the bodily functions may well be impaired and yes, those going cold turkey will suffer but, to be honest, NOTHING compared to what many people have to live with re pain, day in, day out WITHOUT painkillers to relieve their symptoms.

 

Now SP, pass me that very large bar of Green & Black dark chocolate with real cherry pieces before I keel over and die.

[paulb]

you said in an earlier post that you were on 5mg. its stronger than morphine

the british national formulary is a very good source for the med levels.

 

The pupose of replacing street drugs with methadone is to stablise the user so that they can come off drugs gradually.

 

Why if you had been clean for 6 months would the doctor then give you the drug again. You were physically clear of the drug and I can't believe he would restart you on it. Did you not get any counciling in those 6 months.