Posted by Chairman_MAO on February 28, 2004, at 8:18:40
In reply to Re: Methadone for depression for me??, posted by Festus on February 27, 2004, at 22:28:27
I should have been clearer by what I meant by "overdose risk", and that is UNINTENTIONAL overdose (and I foolishly forgot to mention that methadone is perhaps the worst in this regard for the reason you stated), the kind that gets the most bad publicity--and happens most often with IV use. I missed the obvious due to my overzealous desire to remind people that, as another poster mentioned, the opiates are not even as "dangerous" as the TCAs are in overdose. I'm glad you corrected me, as I feel irresponsible.
Also, if someone wants to kill/poison themselves, do they not have a RIGHT to? I'm not saying that it is MORAL to kill oneself, but it is not up to others to decide what is moral for another when only themselves are concerned. I'm going to get flamed for this, but I have my [libertarian] principles ...
As a depressive, there have been many times where I've strongly desired to end my life. I would tell my therapist that if I had a certain, painless way to do it, I would do it. But if I had an IV with loads of Nembutal and Heroin in it and all I had to do was push the button, I do not know that I would have. Deep down inside I'm not sure that I could ever consider suicide a viable solution to depression. However, some would say that I simply wasn't depressed enough, and this may be true.
If one isn't directly trying to kill themselves or medicate themselves into oblivion, prescription opiates are not any more dangerous than many other classes of drugs. There are no precautions put in place to prevent depressive people from obtaining all sorts of drugs/chemicals that they could off themselves with. The only ones our government seems to care about are the ones that get you high.
After all, psychostimulants ARE virtually impossible to fatally overdose on (have a better therapeutic index), intentionally or unintentionally, and yet TCAs are dispensed way more freely. And mentioning marijuana here is a moot point ...
I'm assuming the poster asking about 10mg methadone/day doesn't WANT to kill himself/herself, but rather live in a different state of mind.
Also, kids doing things such as playing around with scraping the time-release coating off of [the now discontinued] 180mg tablets of OxyContin do not count here either, because OxyContin should be available--time release or not--at the corner store with instructions on how to use it safely. Of course, if one bought Paregoric at the Vitamin Shoppe, this would be even less of a danger.
If opiates are so incredibly "dangerous", how did people manage to use them, mostly without incident, for thousands of years?
Perhaps my rant is meaningless, but it comes down to this fact: some people that engage in reckless behavior will die. This shouldn't prevent people from being able to improve their quality of life.
poster:Chairman_MAO
thread:318084
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040228/msgs/318470.html