11-17-2017, 01:26 PM
There is the big pharma issue. We know profit comes before people e.g. any medicine people have to take for long periods of time (or ideally the rest of their lives) has loads of well funded research, but compare to something like antibiotics that are usually used for a week and so less incentive to invest in R&D, and so we are heading for an antibiotics crisis. So that's a market failure, and in my view an area where governments might try and do something helpful for once!
Going back to the original question, there is a different way of looking at it. So does the substitution route offer people a higher level of functioning than if they continue with drugs/alcohol? So it doesn't cure, but in some cases might offer better management. GElias has given us his account, and suspicion he'd be dead otherwise.
I'm not for one second defending big pharma, bit if substitution minimises the negative consequences of addiction, then is it worthwhile (despite not actually curing the addiction)? Is this a lesser of two evils issue?
Going back to the original question, there is a different way of looking at it. So does the substitution route offer people a higher level of functioning than if they continue with drugs/alcohol? So it doesn't cure, but in some cases might offer better management. GElias has given us his account, and suspicion he'd be dead otherwise.
I'm not for one second defending big pharma, bit if substitution minimises the negative consequences of addiction, then is it worthwhile (despite not actually curing the addiction)? Is this a lesser of two evils issue?