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Comment by tomohawk | Hacker News Reader

Given the choice between not being able to get adequate pain relief due to DEA intervention, and legalizing drugs, I would choose legalizing them, provided legalizing them would not limit dosage to insufficient levels for pain relief.

It is incomprehensible to me that it is somehow acceptable to solve the "opioid crisis" by making people with serious pain suffer and by persecuting their doctors for trying to help them.

However, it would be totally appropriate to allow limits on employment, insurance, and government benefits due to drug use. While I support their right to choose, I shouldn't be required to subsidize someone else's destructive choices.

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There is a running experiment in Seattle, WA, to have more palliative care facilities for chronic public inebriates [0]. "It's a lot cheaper having them spend the night at 1811 than at the E.R. or at the drunk tank," Mr. Meyers said.

It still seems that "1811 Eastlake" is operating as of 2016 [1] and is looked as a model for San Francisco as of 2011 [2].

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/05/us/05homeless.html

[1] https://www.desc.org/what-we-do/housing/1811-eastlake/

[2] https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/S-F-looks-at-Seattle-...

If you limit an addict's ability to get medical insurance, you'll end up subsidizing them anyway. Hospitals are prohibited from turning patients away in the US (and I wouldn't want to live in a world where they could do so). So addicts show up, get treated, and default on any bills they incur. The expense from this treatment gets passed on to everyone else. Try visiting an emergency room at 1am on a Saturday night and you'll see what I mean.

Incidentally, do you have the same views on employment, insurance, and government benefits as they pertain to alcohol consumption?

Although "Hospitals are prohibited from turning patients away in the US (and I wouldn't want to live in a world where they could do so)." is technically true. For instance if you have aquired Hepatitis C and went to a hospital in the US with no insurance, they will not consider treatment to cure the disease. They will help make you comfortable with your chronic disease until it kills you.

Medicaid is one of the largest buyers of the Hep C cure.

You don't just magically get medicaid though. You have to apply for it and follow up with things if they send you stuff in the mail. If you don't do that you go back to being uninsured which leads back to what JudasGoat said where you will get the minimum amount of care in order to get you out of the hospital.

I disagree that it's appropriate to limit their benefits. I used to feel the same way (regarding health insurance) about people who don't do exercise or eat healthy, why am I subsidizing all these people who chose to be unhealthy then get type 2 diabetes? It seemed to me that running a few times a week and eating vegetables is so simple but we still give them benefits. I eventually came to the conclusion that you really just need to treat anyone that wants to get better

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