In this thread we learn that the state of Maine has, inexplicably, spent $10 million dollars from it’s $6 b-b-b-billion dollar budget on prescriptions meant to help people get off of heroin.

Whoa, we better stop that right away!

We wouldn’t want people getting off heroin and onto the worst addiction of all: the government gravy train.

Besides just being generally astoundingly stupid, this thread is specific example of that conservative ideological phenomenon known as the Unless-It-Happened-To-Me principle: “Government spending is bad, and government spending recommended by experts who have spent years gaining knowledge about a subject is even more bad, UNLESS I had one personal experience in this area and saw it benefit me or someone I love, in which case that particular thing is GOOD but everything else is still bad.”

User “Woodcanoe” sums this up: his wife had an addiction problem. She used a prescription to help break the addiction. Hey, he says, maybe treating people is better than the inevitable incarceration or death that happens from untreated drug problems.

Well, at least he values his wife’s life more than tax cuts. Sometimes on AMG I question whether this is true for most posters.

Unfortunately other personal experiences come into play, and they are negative, and are equally determinative despite all expert opinion.

For instance, “Ugenetoo” says that someone he knew was “suckered” into joining a methadone program and his doctor seems intent on keeping him on it.  Wow, that’s some damning stuff. You’ve got the story as interpreted by an admitted heroin addict versus some doctor guy who probably, like, went to school and has treated hundreds of patients. I’d definitely go with the heroin addict.

News flash: Sometime drug addicts try to avoid treatment. Sometimes a doctor wants to keep a person on a prescription because the drug works best when the patient is on a gradual reduction plan, and suddenly cutting off the prescription leads a situation where a desperate addict overdoses on heroin in his bedroom a few days later.

But hey, maybe I’m just crazy- here I am taking the expert’s view, versus this anonymous poster’s anonymous heroin addict friend. I’m going to lose that argument on AMG every single time.

“Jeepn” has a similar story about a family member who was told to stay on methadone and “give it time.” Yeah, you think maybe doctors have done studies on this? Nah, they just want to sell more government drugs. They must be evil. There are tax dollars involved!

And because it is impossible to read a thread without Naran saying something stupid, it is impossible for me to comment on the stupidity in a thread without saying something about Naran. Her basic problem seems to me that the doctors are prescribing two different drugs, one of which is more expensive. And they’re both for the same thing: heroin addiction! So, obviously Dr. Naran thinks Mr. Actually-A-Real-Doctor should only prescribe the cheaper drug. She laments:

– isn’t it amazing, that the longer the new administration has a chance to explore the murky state funding cesspool, the more of these sordid albatrosses float to the surface?

So there you have it. Naran is against government getting between a patient and their doctor, unless that doctor thinks the more expensive drug does the job better. Than Naran is ready to jump out from behind the nurse’s station, spoon in hand, to yell “No suboxone! As the angry old lady of Kennebunk, I demand you prescribe something else for this patient I’ve never met! I am the good and the holy! Obey me!”

I am only slightly exaggerating about Naran on this one. She probably wouldn’t yell the “angry old lady” part.