Hacker News Reader

Comment by SmkyMt | Hacker News Reader

Wouldn't it look different if you adjusted for the number of persons who take none? [disclaimer - self: none]

What percentage of the population 1) is taking any? 2) needs to be taking any? Not everyone has had accident/surgery/cancer/etc.

View on HN

I mean, I don't know what those numbers are. But when people give a per capita value for something that occurs over time, nearly always, that value is per annum. But here it wasn't, it was over several years.

It'd be like saying "the per capita income of New York State is $185,688!" When that's actually the per capita income over six years.

The 6 year scope is in the sentence immediately before, and it is clear that it means per capita over all the shipments (it says so!) and not per year/unit of time.

I was replying to the comment, which left out that context from the quoted statement. Context which I knew because I read the article.

Fair enough, I didn't think about that the isolated quote here in the comments could be misleading.

As a WV resident well aware of the drug problem (In the 'major' WV city I live next to, 28 people OD'd in one day recently), I'm wondering what this would look like if it DID in fact account for people that take none, myself included. I know of TONS of families around me that have been torn apart from opioid addiction. It is hard to describe the impact because to be an addict in this area especially, is to be stigmatized and essentially cast out from the society. I'm not sure if it's due to the prevalence of fire-and-brimstone religious folk in this area, but a lot of the folks around here would rather lose the drug addicts completely than rectify the problem and help them. The only input I can offer is that the current model of Rx drug abuse can't be sustained and is ruining lives while certain people/organizations are profiting greatly...

Just wanted to add the explosion in fentanyl and other synthetic heroin ODs in your community is also related. I'm not going to pretend the users are innocent, maybe they a teenagers who start off buying pills to get high -- point being that RX drugs are a very real and literal gateway drug to street narcotics, which are cheaper and far more dangerous.

I agree, it was never clearly divulged if the ~28 OD's were fentanyl-related (I assume the majority were), or for anything else - I can attest that the lion's share of people I have known to have opioid drug problems did start out with Rx abuse and progressed from there. As much as it pains me to say it, the culture around my area seems to perpetuate the idea that doctors generally do no wrong unless they botch a surgery, in which case, you sue.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com