Comment on Why are americans taking health advice from a former heroin addict ?
maccentric@sh.itjust.works 15 hours agoI don’t think heroin addiction necessarily damages your brain, and if you make it out the other side you will have learned quite the lesson (presumably)
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 14 hours ago
Anything that causes respiratory depression lowers available oxygen to the brain and can cause damage over time.
I understand the sentiment of destigmatizing addiction, but let’s not lie and say it can’t cause permanent damage. It’s a disease, right? And diseases can have aftermath.
deranger@sh.itjust.works 13 hours ago
If this was true those on chronic opiate medications would be given supplemental oxygen. There would also be studies demonstrating the neurodegenerative effects of opiates.
Opiates are rather safe outside of overdose and sequelae of unsafe injection / smoking. They are incredibly benign in the sense you could take 20-40-80-160mg OxyContin your whole life and not have any issues beyond constipation.
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 11 hours ago
Managed prescriptions are taken in safe doses. There’s no way to guarantee someone addicted to illicit opiates will stay below the threshold of dangerous consumption.
Even alcohol in large enough quantities kills brain cells. Stop pretending addiction is harmless, because it’s not helping addicts the way you seem to think it is.
deranger@sh.itjust.works 10 hours ago
I never said addiction was harmless. However, your claim that opiate addiction causes neurological issues due to oxygen deprivation outside of an acute overdose is unfounded. If this was the case, chronic opiate users (in the strictly clinical sense) would be given supplemental oxygen.
maccentric@sh.itjust.works 10 hours ago
This is true, but I didn’t suggest that it can’t cause brain damage, just that it doesn’t necessarily have to follow. People with sleep apnea or who live at high altitudes don’t all have brain damage either.