Do viral videos of heroin overdoses make you uncomfortable? They should | Maia Szalavitz

We’ve all had viral cat videos find their way onto our Facebook and Twitter feeds. We’ll click, watch and continue with our day with a smile. But not all viral videos are cute, or uplifting. Lately, another kind of video is making the rounds. Instead of cute roly-poly pandas frolicking among bamboo shoots, they feature something very different: humans overdosing on heroin.

The viral images are truly shocking, showing overdose victims – often in the presence of little children – unconscious and near death. One featured a couple in East Liverpool, Ohio, who were passed out in their car. Their four-year-old boy sat in his carseat behind them. Another involved the mother of a two-year-old, who overdosed in front of her child at a Family Dollar store in Lawrence, Massachusetts. The latest shows an unconscious couple splayed in strange positions on a Memphis street – thankfully, without kids this time.

Police and others argue that posting these photos and videos will deter drug use. The East Liverpool police said on Facebook: “We feel it necessary to show the other side of this horrible drug. We feel we need to be a voice for the children caught up in this horrible mess.” The argument is that if more people knew what overdose really looks like, the epidemic of deaths would end.

Research, unfortunately, shows exactly the opposite. Studies find that the more coverage focuses on the ravages of addiction, the less likely the public is to support effective policies that favor treatment over punishment. These images also have a counterproductive effect on people with addiction themselves: they increase shame, which is associated with relapse, not recovery.

Many still think otherwise, though. It seems like a self-evident truth that no one would willingly choose to wind up in such a situation. And so, the thinking goes, if we can only show people how bad it really is to take drugs, that no one will ever misuse them.

Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of addictions begin during teenage years – a time in which the brain responds to risk in a quite different way than the adult brain does. While some data suggests that scare tactics work to stop adults from engaging in risky behavior, they do not work for teens. They may even backfire by making youth more curious about drugs.

And once people are addicted, fear and shame don’t work either. The data shows that treatments that involve confronting and humiliating people with addiction backfire. Greater confrontation is associated with increased alcohol and other drug use in four decades worth of studies reviewed here. Showing people videos of their own intoxicated behavior fails to prevent relapse – it actually increases use. Research finds that the more shame people with addiction feel, the less likely they are to recover.

But perhaps the most insidious effects of these videos is on the general public. Studies show that images and stories of active addiction, without information about recovery, cut support for help, like expanding drug treatment.

The problem faced by people with addiction is not that they are unaware of the negative consequences of their condition, but that they can’t see a way out. If we want to end the opioid crisis, we need viral videos of recovery, not overdose.

Do viral videos of heroin overdoses make you uncomfortable? They should | Maia Szalavitz

Prescription Addiction: What Can Be Done About Increasing Rx Overdoses?

The evening information is filled with fatal automobile crashes and shootings. But drug overdoses destroy practically 40,000 individuals a year, accounting for much more deaths than vehicular accidents or homicides.

Drug overdoses are on the rise in America, fueled largely by prescription meds. Reversing the course of this epidemic will require some dramatic adjustments.

The Details

Drug overdose charges climbed more than 100 % amongst 1990 and 2012. But what most men and women don’t recognize is that nearly 60 percent of drug overdoses end result from prescription medicines. In truth, 3 in four drug overdose deaths involve an “opioid analgesic” discomfort killer such as oxycodone, hydrocodone or methadone.

Opioids can precise an enormous toll on human lives. Opioid use damages families and communities, and fees U.S. employers a fortune.

Non-healthcare use of prescription opioids charges the U.S. upward of $ 53 billion, in accordance to the Clinical Journal of Discomfort. That’s $ 42 billion from misplaced workplace productivity, $ 8.2 billion in criminal justice costs, $ two.two billion from treatment method and $ 944 million from health care problems.

The chemical construction of morphine, an opioid that was isolated, synthesized and marketed commercially in the 1800s. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

These devastating results are not isolated to any 1 local community. They’re located in all communities: rural and urban, affluent and lower cash flow, minority and bulk.

The History

For about 6,000 many years, opioids have been used to treat soreness and other medical problems. The initial source of opioids was opium, derived from the Eurasian poppy. In the 1800s, morphine was isolated and synthesized, generating it commercially offered for the first time.

For numerous decades major up to the 21st century, doctors debated the most suitable use of these effective drugs and their spot in the therapeutic arsenal.

In the 1960s, America saw a sharp boost in the abuse of each prescription and illicit medicines. In response, the federal government began a crackdown on prescription medication as Congress tightened restrictions to limit counterfeit prescriptions.

In parallel, there was a cultural shift within the area of medication, resulting in a important lessen in how regularly doctors used opioids to deal with acute and chronic discomfort.

The Pendulum Swings

These developments drove down the quantity of opioids prescribed for soreness, but some critics were concerned medical professionals and politicians had gone as well far. Scientific studies conducted in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s confirmed overall health care providers have been, in some situations, beneath-treating discomfort.

So, the pendulum swung however once more. The field of medication shifted its stance on pain management in the mid-1990s, viewing the broader use of opioids as a reasonably secure treatment method approach. There was a belief that a patient experiencing ache must be given as higher of a dose of opioids as necessary for as lengthy as essential, regardless of the actual trigger of discomfort.

Concurrently, ache management authorities – some funded by the makers of these effective medications – began assuring participants at continuing medical schooling meetings that dependence and addiction would not take place in the encounter of genuine pain.

We have since realized these assertions were incorrect. But the injury was completed.

Prescription Addiction: What Can Be Done About Increasing Rx Overdoses?