Not to mention the government's own rigorous review into the topic and strong international evidencehttps://twitter.com/DrBastianSeidel/status/958100192300953600 …
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But surely that isn't an argument against this policy per se, but more about our moralistic attitude to addiction in general?
No, but it IS a very good reason to criticise the incompleteness of the policy. Allow me to make an analogy of the situation this policy attempted to fix, & what it has done instead. 1/18
Harm from opioids (addiction or toxicity) is a dam. There is a town that may be flooded if the dam breaks - this is our health system. 2/18
We have a group of volunteers who are watching the water level to warn the town below. It's not perfect, but it's what we have - this is MedsASSIST. 3/18
The river that leads to the dam is steadily filling it with more water that it can hold - these are people exposed to opioids. 4/18
The solution that we need are as follows: 5/18
1) slow down the rate of flow from the river - this equates to codeine scheduling, but also involves the TGA's review of opioid prescribing. 6/18
2) Improve the monitoring system - replace the volunteers with an automated system that detects cracks & spillage - this equates to #RTPM 7/18
3) Siphon off some of the water & divert it to other purposes - this equates to pain specialists & the infrastructure needed to refer to & support them. 8/18
4) Install sluices that allow some of the water to escape in a controlled way - this equates to addiction medicine specialists & the infrastructure needed to refer & support them, plus law reform. 9/18
What has been achieved, however, is an attempt at slowing the river by putting in a smaller dam upriver, & asked the volunteers monitoring the water level to go away for now, since a high-tech solution is coming (& hope we don't flood in the mean time). 10/18
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