Comments by "Brad Griffin" (@BradGryphonn) on "America's Opioid Epidemic is a Public Health Emergency" video.

From experience of friends, I've come to the opinion that drug addicts who commit suicide do so because they cannot face the assumed shame and condemnation they might receive from their closest family members. There is also a fear (I can't think of a more succinct word) of judgement and loss of freedom if they seek treatment. My view is that the 'War on Drugs' has nurtured not only an industry that innovates to thwart the drug laws (think synthetic 'marijuana'), as well as drug users that are so paranoid they will resort to suicide, rather than be exposed as a drug user. EDIT: Society as whole needs to break the archaic belief that non-prescription drug users are just bums and realise that people from all walks of life use them (drugs). We need to accept the reality that people will always use mind altering substances and modify our approach to this reality. Doing so would reduce organised crime profiteering and would also seriously disrupt the commercialisation of prisons.
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