Jim Taylor's Columns - 'Soft Edges' and 'Sharp Edges'

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Published on Monday, August 14, 2017

Turning antidotes into addictions

B.C. is heading for another record year for fentanyl overdose deaths. Despite making Naloxone antidote kits widely available, the death rate is up 88 per cent over last year, which was also a record year.

            Last year, according to figures available online, B.C. had 935 deaths from drug overdoses. This year, the province had 780 deaths by the end of June. If the rate continues, the province will hit 1400 deaths by the end of the year.

            But in the welter of data, I find two facts interesting.

            Excluding fentanyl-related deaths, the overdose rate has held more or less constant, below 300 a year.

            And there has been not one overdose death at a supervised injection site. Not one.

            That suggests to me that Naloxone antidote kits are largely a public relations gesture, a placebo to placate a public that refuses to consider legalizing drugs.

            Yes, hard drugs. Not just marijuana and alcohol.

 

Secret addictions

            Here’s another statistic -- only 10 per cent of drug overdose deaths have happened in public places. Put another way, 90 per cent of overdose deaths happened in people’s homes, apartments, and offices.

            That implies that these are respectable people with secret addictions. Who don’t want parents to know that their children’s teacher is addicted to heroin. Who don’t want investors want to know that their broker uses cocaine.

            That’s pure hypothesis, of course. After all, the whole point of a secret addiction is keeping it secret.

            But it’s no secret that professional people can function quite effectively while dependent on addictive substances -- as long as they have a dependable supply, of a reliable quality. They don’t get either when they have to buy their drugs on the street.

 

Happy hunting grounds

            Fentanyl, as news reports endlessly remind us, is about 100 times more potent than heroin. It’s also cheaper. Drug dealers can enhance profits by lacing expensive heroin with fractions of fentanyl. The user gets the same high; the dealer gets the dollars.

            I expect fentanyl deaths will spike during July and August. Summer is music festival season in B.C. Put a lot of partying young people together with intoxicating music, and you’ve got a ready market for drug dealers.

            There’s currently a controversy about allowing Naloxone kits at music festivals.

            Some festivals allow people to bring their own Naloxone kits. The underlying assumption would be that people are going to do drugs anyway, so let’s prevent as many deaths as possible.

            Some festivals banned the kits entirely. On the assumption, I suppose, that if the risks of overdose are high enough, people won’t use drugs. A few centuries ago, the same mindset reasoned that if you make the penalty for stealing a loaf of bread harsh enough (hanging, say) starving people won’t steal.

            Still other festivals permit only medical personnel to have Naloxone on hand. Perhaps they’re assuming that you can’t trust people to use the antidote properly. They might inject themselves with an antidote when they don’t really need it.

 

Abusing the antidote

            I think the third group may have grasped the real potential for misuse.

            Naloxone is not without risks. It can, I gather, lead to hallucinations, loss of consciousness, pulmonary edema, and cardiac arrhythmias, to say nothing of withdrawal symptoms.

            So far, Naloxone is not considered addictive. But I remember that not long ago methadone was promoted as a cure for heroin addiction. Now some former heroin addicts depend on a daily dose of methadone.

            Heroin itself was originally considered a non-addictive substitute for morphine. Just as morphine was seen substitute for opium.

            There is nothing, literally nothing, to which we cannot become addicted.

            Anne Wilson Shaeff wrote two books about our addiction to addiction: When Society Becomes an Addict and The Addictive Organization.

            Yes, organizations can become addictive -- when church or Rotary, work or Little League baseball become all-consuming obsessions.

            Alcoholics Anonymous has had great success in overcoming alcohol addiction. But I’ve heard it said that AA hasn't fully succeeded until you feel that, for your sanity and sobriety, you HAVE to attend your weekly meetings. AA itself becomes an addiction.

            Anorexics get addicted to starving; bulemics, to throwing up. Carnivores are addicted to steak; politicians to power.

            The underlying dogma of addiction is simple -- if this much is good, more must be better.

            The history of the human species suggests that if it can be drunk or swallowed, ingested or injected, we humans will do it.

            There’s no evidence yet that Naloxone can become addictive. But I wouldn’t bet against human nature.

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Copyright © 2017 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups encouraged; links from other blogs welcomed; all other rights reserved.

            To send comments, to subscribe, or to unsubscribe, write jimt@quixotic.ca

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YOUR TURN

 

Tom Watson disagreed with part of last week’s column, about the nuclear standoff between two unpredictable and hair-trigger leaders. I had said that if the worst came to the worst, there was nothing we could do.

            Tom wrote, “But, Jim, you're not doing ‘nothing.’ You're continuing to do something worthwhile, and that's to raise, within your sphere of influence, the issues as you see them. There is an abundance of red flags afoot and if we all persist in pointing them out I think it may well help sanity prevail. Here's hoping, anyway!”

 

Rob Brown wrote, “Strangely, I can think back to the Grenada invasion, as well as to the Cuban Missile Crisis. I was in grade 13 when Kennedy was trying to sort out the possible from the insane. I just starting to bravely figure out what my Christian life would be like — the graces and principles that would guide me. And while I didn’t use your words they expressed what I felt. Because there was absolutely nothing I could do in the situation, except pray and carry on. ‘Keep calm and carry on’ was instrumental in getting the Brits through WW2. If it worked for them, it can work for us. And it will.

            “I also remember seeing Stanley Kramer’s 1959 version of Nevil Shute’s On the Beach. I was an impressionable (I suppose) 14 years old when I saw that, and sensed the sorrow and futility of the process. While frightening, it was a ‘keep calm and carry on’ moment.

            “Perhaps there are a lot of those kind of moments in our lives. Best we keep on keeping on, as faithfully as we can.”

 

Ralph Milton asked, “I seem to recall that the excuse ‘I was only following orders’ wasn’t enough to exonerate war criminals in the Nuremberg war crimes trials. Do you remember?”

            History suggests that criterion is only applied to the losers.

 

I had described Donald Trump and Km Jong Un as a pair of “tinpot dctators.” Steve Roney took offence: “Jim, it is the height of false moral equivalence to equate Trump and America with Kim Jong Un’s North Korea.

            “Both are ‘increasingly isolated?’ North Korea has no firm ally anywhere. The US is de facto leader of a worldwide web of formal military alliances with most of the world’s most powerful nations…

            “Trump is the elected leader of a constitutional democracy, with less real personal power than, say, a Canadian prime minister. Kim Jong Un runs a totalitarian dictatorship. He was elected by no one, and answers to no one. His government does not hesitate to let its own people starve to death. They are at the two extremes, in other words, of freedom and oppression.”

            I counter that both men have a finger on the red button, solely at their own discretion.

 

Margaret Carr had some thoughts about the previous week’s column, on infant Charlie Gard: “No one has mentioned the fact that Charlie Gard had a genetic condition.  If his parents do not have some genetic counselling they could have another child with the same problem. I fear that this appears to have been overlooked.”

 

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TECHNICAL STUFF

 

If you want to comment on something, write me at jimt@quixotic.ca. Or just hit the “Reply” button.

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            My webpage is up and running again -- thanks to Wayne Irwin and ChurchWeb Canada. You can now access current columns and five years of archives at http://quixotic.ca

            I write a second column each Wednesday, called Soft Edges, which deals somewhat more gently with issues of life and faith. To sign up for Soft Edges, write to me directly at the address above, or send a blank e-mail to softedges-subscribe@lists.quixotic.ca

 

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PROMOTION STUFF…

            Ralph Milton ’s latest project is called “Sing Hallelujah” -- the world’s first video hymnal. It consists of 100 popular hymns, both new and old, on five DVDs that can be played using a standard DVD player and TV screen, for use in congregations who lack skilled musicians to play piano or organ. More details at www.singhallelujah.ca

            Ralph’s HymnSight webpage is still up, http://www.hymnsight.ca, with a vast gallery of photos you can use to enhance the appearance of the visual images you project for liturgical use (prayers, responses, hymn verses, etc.)

            Wayne Irwin's “Churchweb Canada,” an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. <http://www.churchwebcanada.ca>

            I recommend Isabel Gibson’s thoughtful and well-written blog, www.traditionaliconoclast.com

            Alva Wood’s satiric stories about incompetent bureaucrats and prejudiced attitudes in a small town -- not particularly religious, but fun; alvawood@gmail.com to get onto her mailing list.

            Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” -- ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at tomwatso@gmail.com or twatson@sentex.net

 

 

 

 

 

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