firecat

firecat

"Overzealous use of the CDC’s opioid prescribing guideline is harming pain patients" by Kate M. Nicholson, Diane E. Hoffman, and Chad D. Kollas: "Opioid prescribing is currently at an 18-year low. The rate of prescribing opioids has dropped every year since 2011. Yet drug overdose deaths have skyrocketed since then." (The media company STAT is associated with the Boston Globe.)
The cat woodblock prints of Kiyoshi Saito!: The site is run by L. A. Vocelle.
"How Myst Taught a Generation of Gamers to Explore New Worlds" by Evan Nicole Brown: "In its first seven months on the global market, the game sold 200,000 copies and held its title as the top-selling game (to the tune of six million copies, and counting) until The Sims usurped it in 2002."
Artists Crochet Giant Sea Urchin Installations That Interact with Their Surroundings" by Kelly Richman-Abdou, from June 2017: "during the day, The Urchins rely on natural light to cast ephemeral, ever-changing shadows. Similarly, each suspended sculpture organically moves when touched by the wind or even visitors, who are invited to handle the polyester cords and panels that compose it."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

ysabetwordsmith

>>"Overzealous use of the CDC’s opioid prescribing guideline is harming pain patients"<<

Well duh. People don't like being treated as criminals. But also, people in pain don't have the energy to jump through hoops. If they can't get what they need from a doctor, they will get it from a less-socially-approved dealer instead. Naturally this leads to overdose deaths -- or for those who can't hook up, a spike in suicides.

On the bright side, states legalizing marijuana had a one-third drop in overdose deaths. I expected a drop, but I thought it'd be 10% or so, nowhere near that big. \o/

From:

cjsmith

I get SO RAGEY when I see the kind of stuff that happens to pain patients. :/ Thank you for the statistic on marijuana. That's hopeful!

From:

ysabetwordsmith

Yeah, you can either have privacy, dignity, and civil rights; or you can have health care. America doesn't permit people to have both. Many places have simply quit treating chronic pain at all because they fear legal action more than they care about people in pain. Most pain clinics have closed. Most emergency rooms won't help, and many doctors won't either.

And then they wonder why the suicide rate is so high.

Here's a link for the overdose drop:
https://drugabuse.com/legalizing-marijuana-decreases-fatal-opiate-overdoses/

From:

cjsmith

Ugh, no kidding. Grrrrrr. Thanks for the link!

From:

jesse_the_k

Amen.

I just read a really great article which explores this in even more depth:

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/12/06/opioid-nation/

It's nominally a book review, by Marcia Angell, who used to edit JAMA.