It's also really important to understand the mechanism by which opiods cause harm and death. Many people naturally assume that decreasing the consumption of unnecessary opiods is the superior policy outcome but that is often going to be wrong.
After all, the best ways we have to treat opiate addiction are by giving the patient large but stable doses of opiates. When possible this is now via partial mu-agonists like buprenorphine which have the benefit of both a ceiling effect and of blocking the effect of other opiates but the older (and still appropriate for those with pain or very high tolerances) treatment was just administering methadone -- basically just a cheap long lasting strong opiate.
These treatments are effective because the actual harm caused by opiate addiction is largely as a result of people going through cycles of withdrawal and intoxication -- especially when that cycle results in a drop in tolerance and an overdose. In itself the intoxication isn't harmful but it can certainly lead to bad deciscions.
This suggests that optimal opiate policy may not actually always want to reduce overall unnecessary consumption -- treatment may be better but absent that it's still better for addicets to have steady rather than intermittent access.
Indeed, it actually raises the question if it wouldn't be superior for the government to flood the illicit market with cheap (generally somewhat less euphoric) long acting partial agonists like buprenorphine.
"These treatments are effective because the actual harm caused by opiate addiction is largely as a result of people going through cycles of withdrawal and intoxication"
My first dumb thought on reading this was "Ah! What a perfect example of utility from consumption smoothing!" (It isn't really, though.)
It's also really important to understand the mechanism by which opiods cause harm and death. Many people naturally assume that decreasing the consumption of unnecessary opiods is the superior policy outcome but that is often going to be wrong.
After all, the best ways we have to treat opiate addiction are by giving the patient large but stable doses of opiates. When possible this is now via partial mu-agonists like buprenorphine which have the benefit of both a ceiling effect and of blocking the effect of other opiates but the older (and still appropriate for those with pain or very high tolerances) treatment was just administering methadone -- basically just a cheap long lasting strong opiate.
These treatments are effective because the actual harm caused by opiate addiction is largely as a result of people going through cycles of withdrawal and intoxication -- especially when that cycle results in a drop in tolerance and an overdose. In itself the intoxication isn't harmful but it can certainly lead to bad deciscions.
This suggests that optimal opiate policy may not actually always want to reduce overall unnecessary consumption -- treatment may be better but absent that it's still better for addicets to have steady rather than intermittent access.
Indeed, it actually raises the question if it wouldn't be superior for the government to flood the illicit market with cheap (generally somewhat less euphoric) long acting partial agonists like buprenorphine.
"These treatments are effective because the actual harm caused by opiate addiction is largely as a result of people going through cycles of withdrawal and intoxication"
My first dumb thought on reading this was "Ah! What a perfect example of utility from consumption smoothing!" (It isn't really, though.)
Well it kinda is :-). But sure not in the traditional way.
What a fantastic read!