Hacker News Reader

Comment by StilesCrisis | Hacker News Reader

I think this description is deceptive because it assumes bucket sizes ("many," "some," "a few"). Those bucket sizes work for alcohol and some recreational drugs. But they're tragically wrong for others--very very few people partake of heroin "occasionally with no real harm." You're almost certainly heading towards the last two buckets.

View on HN

True, but if you start counting codeine as an opiate the bucket gets a lot larger. And includes the Purdue Pharma scandal. Lots of people use opiates under medical supervision, with varying degrees of help and harm.

> assumes bucket sizes ("many," "some," "a few")

I was trying to be as vague as possible here!

Actually there's been studies that show the majority of heroin users self limit their use to, yes, no real harm. The idea of the heroin user that's immediately thrown into an addiction where they start pawning Grandma's TV is propaganda.

yeah - this is a flawed example, post-Purdue opioid epidemic. Brief tidbits include: real pharm science showed that pain killing effects of opioids are not as effective as some existing, non-opioid medications; sales agents were paid in commissions and bonuses for sales objectives; laws were changed at a Federal level just before the epidemic; the top of the sales pyramid financially benefited in the billions of dollars.

Those pills are actually similar to heroin, yet all of that happened legally in real life, with profits flowing through legitimate financial institutions on a very large scale.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com