anyone hear newstalk this morn, i think a junkie may have declared war! (1 Viewer)

[therealjohnny]

Why can’t all the addicts go to pharmacies?? Surely that would make more sense.

cos of the thieving scum baggery

 

[KokaneeCowgirl]

there's a difference between profiting and profiteering.

pharmacies in ireland are an anachronism; they are a regulated business (and with good reason, seeing as a lot of what they sell could be harmful or fatal if taken by the wrong person), but the pharmacists have used this situation to their advantage to create and maintain a cartel which can charge, essentially, whatever they think they can get away with. they don't have to fear the open market, where another pharmacist down the road is cheaper. so they gouge people. that's not a 'normal' business, and it shouldn't be treated as one.

Fair enough -- but I still wouldn't expect them to work for free or sell something and not make a profit.

 

[egg_]

Pharmascists want more payments from the hse.

Naw, they're objecting to the HSE to giving them less money. The HSE have decided that they're going to pay a lower price for drugs, and they say the drugs companies have agreed to the price drop. The pharmacists say the drugs companies haven't agreed, but instead they've just sent letters to the pharmacists to saying "we'll do what we can" ... so what the pharmacists expect will happen is that the drugs companies will continue to charge more or less the same wholesale prices for the drugs, and that the state will buy the drugs from the pharmacists for less than what it costs the pharmacists to buy them.

Pharmacists are protesting against this by withdrawing from the methadone thing, which was an opt-in scheme to begin with.

Should be easy enough to sort out, really. If the state has agreed a price drop with the drugs companies, all they have to do is get the drugs companies to tell the pharmacists about it and away we go. If they haven't, then they need to do so

 

[Wobbler]

I'm not saying heroin's not vile. But a certain amount of responsibility lies with the addicts themselves.

Indeed. There are lots of different view points on this (I personally subscribe to the pinko middle class liberal viewpoint that they're mostly victims) but this is academic. Whatever one might think, most people agree that the more people have drug problems the more society suffers. Punishing people for becoming addicts is probably not going to help matters.

 

[Hector Grey]

you see, next the army will be patrolling the streets, handing out meth and beatdowns. you'll see.

 

[jane]

The people who go to pharmacies for methadone aren't the ones strung out on the street for obvious reasons. Many of them work full time and pay taxes.

This is the impression I was getting.

And yeah, there were a lot of addicts interviewed who sounded like a stereotypical 'addict', but some were making the point that the goal was to get to a point where getting methodone was the same as any other prescription. The clinic is a step backward for a lot of people. There is also a huge stigma, and every effort should be made to make getting clean into something stigma-free.

Try putting into the perspective of people trying to get off cigarettes. It's in both the HSE's and the 'user's' interest to quit, so there should be a range of options that do not involve being stigmatised. No matter how keen you are to quit, sometimes you need a little incentive.

But does anyone know about the other hting I mentioned? Are there other drugs involved? I seem to remember hearing about something like that, but that methodone wasn't the only one affected. Like generic versions of other drugs that weren't profitable to sell? I could be totally wrong.

The problem seems to be between the HSE and the pharmacists, and it's the recovering addicts who are suffering for it. I don't begrudge people their businesses, but I am wary of Ireland going the way of the US in health care becoming a totally for-profit industry where access is based on means instead of need.

In other words, this is not about smackheads, it's symptomatic of a problem that's going to affect everyone. It's easier to be cavalier about an addict than it is about a cancer patient.

BUZZZZZOOOOO!? Where are you with your giant brain?

 

[Hector Grey]

Naw, they're objecting to the HSE to giving them less money. The HSE have decided that they're going to pay a lower price for drugs, and they say the drugs companies have agreed to the price drop. The pharmacists say the drugs companies haven't agreed, but instead they've just sent letters to the pharmacists to saying "we'll do what we can" ... so what the pharmacists expect will happen is that the drugs companies will continue to charge more or less the same wholesale prices for the drugs, and that the state will buy the drugs from the pharmacists for less than what it costs the pharmacists to buy them.

Pharmacists are protesting against this by withdrawing from the methadone thing, which was an opt-in scheme to begin with.

Should be easy enough to sort out, really. If the state has agreed a price drop with the drugs companies, all they have to do is get the drugs companies to tell the pharmacists about it and away we go. If they haven't, then they need to do so

you know as well as i do that this kind of post has no place here.

 

[taubstumm]

Fair enough -- but I still wouldn't expect them to work for free or sell something and not make a profit.

i'm not saying that they should work for free, or even for cheap. they are, in the main, skilled professionals who are entitled to earn a living. however, they aren't playing by the same rules as the rest of us. in addition, their lobby groups have in the past justified their anomalous regulated position by saying that their businesses exist as a social good, as well as a simple enterprise. if they claim this special position, then the hypocrisy of their decisions regarding methadone become all the more galling when put in the context of their supposed high-mindedness.

 

[classic seanc]

now there's a fact!
back this one up, just for me.

All your favourite rock stars.

cos of the thieving scum baggery

So we should have all the thieving scum bag addicts, and everyone else who's addicted to heroin but can't afford to buy it, and have them all going to the same place regularly, meeting up, hanging out, getting high, and robbing the locals on a weekly basis, the one’s that don’t want to quit pressuring the ones who do, and so on??

 

[KokaneeCowgirl]

Indeed. There are lots of different view points on this (I personally subscribe to the pinko middle class liberal viewpoint that they're mostly victims) but this is academic. Whatever one might think, most people agree that the more people have drug problems the more society suffers. Punishing people for becoming addicts is probably not going to help matters.

I'm not suggesting people be punished but I don't think they should be sheltered from the consequences of their actions.

 

[egg_]

The problem seems to be between the HSE and the pharmacists, and it's the recovering addicts who are suffering for it.

It is, and it is ... though the head of the IPU (who, funny enough, I know pretty well, he used to sit beside me in school) said on the radio yesterday "any action we take is going to affect some group of patients in some way", and I spose there's no getting around that.

 

[Wobbler]

The problem seems to be between the HSE and the pharmacists, and it's the recovering addicts who are suffering for it. I don't begrudge people their businesses, but I am wary of Ireland going the way of the US in health care becoming a totally for-profit industry where access is based on means instead of need.

I agree, I think in an ideal world medical care would be as close to state funded as possible. I don't think it fair to criticise the pharmacists for our current health care system. Since the reality is that much of the health system is run on a for-profit basis, it's natural that pharmacists will be out to make a profit. Same as builders and accountants. The issue is with the state and the priorities of the citizens who elect our representatives

 

[therealjohnny]

So we should have all the thieving scum bag addicts, and everyone else who's addicted to heroin but can't afford to buy it, and have them all going to the same place regularly, meeting up, hanging out, getting high, and robbing the locals on a weekly basis, the one’s that don’t want to quit pressuring the ones who do, and so on??

Perfect! Why didn't I think of that?

 

[jane]

I'm not suggesting people be punished but I don't think they should be sheltered from the consequences of their actions.

I don't know anyone who has come off heroin recently, and I don't know anyone who has been hooked enough to require methadone treatment, but I don't think stigmatising them is necessarily the best incentive.

Part of the recovery process is about learning to accept and deal with consequences, but that's very much a separate part of the process and in many ways much more difficult than the chemical addiction. That doesn't mean that it's appropriate to take every opportunity to teach them about consequences -- in order to get to the deeper work of psychological recovery, they need help breaking the chemical addiction. Going to a chemist isn't sheltering them from consequences, it's part of the moving on process, where they can break away from the world of using and move on to the real work of getting themselves cleaned up.

Surely being an addict has enough consequences elsewhere in people's lives that this is one place where there should be real ease of access without much fuss. Most addicts are going to be dealing with the consequences of addiction for the rest of their lives.

 

[Wobbler]

I'm not suggesting people be punished but I don't think they should be sheltered from the consequences of their actions.

I doubt there's very many heroin addicts who don't feel the consequances of their actions on a very regular basis.

 

[HMD]

i blame the culchies/immigrants for getting the people from dublin onto the gear and then taken their jobs and their women.

 

[jane]

i blame the culchies/immigrants for getting the people from dublin onto the gear and then taken their jobs and their women.

I'm sorry I took all your women.

 

[KokaneeCowgirl]

Surely being an addict has enough consequences elsewhere in people's lives that this is one place where there should be real ease of access without much fuss. Most addicts are going to be dealing with the consequences of addiction for the rest of their lives.

I will be absolutely honest here - my older brother is a meth addict and I actually hate him. I hate what he has done to my family (using people for money, manipulating, etc. etc.) not to mention the hell he has put my mother through. And he has been an addict for such a long time that I haven't known him any other way. I guess I'm beyond being appalled by the humanity of these sorts of situations and think more along the lines of how people who are addicted affect those around them (family, friends, even strangers). So I'm not an unbiased opinion as I will readily admit to having a predisposition to despising drug addicts and basically thinking they are scum.

 

[classic seanc]

Perfect! Why didn't I think of that?

Just sayin that letting them “Just go a clinic” isn’t a great idea really. At all.

 

[therealjohnny]

Sorry to hear it and thanks for posting that. Too often these kind of threads are full of uniformed opinion and wishful thinking.

Thanks for the dose of reality