Thursday 14 July 2011

Two deaths.

Two people died.

First, a woman dies after taking ecstacy in a nightclub. No, I've never tried it and at my age it would be unwise. Besides, I need my brain. Not much else works. That death is due to evil, evil, eeeevvviill, EVIL drugs.

Second, a man dies because doctors gave him drugs that killed him. Those are good drugs. Nice drugs, happy drugs, puppies and fluffy bunnies drugs and this was just a one-off. Apart from all the other one-offs. I won't take those either.

Can someone please explain the difference? I'm having trouble differentiating between death by drugs and death by drugs here.

I've smoked for three decades and drunk booze to excess for longer. I'm not dead. If I went to the drug pusher or the doctor, I might be.

Someone explain. How are they different?

11 comments:

Oldrightie said...

it's all about scale. Drugs not prescribed are cheap, those presribed very expensive. Ergo one cheap death, one costly!

jones said...

Now really......It's obvious.

The first are DRUGS.......

The second are medicines........

Trust me.....

George Speller said...

I usually describe Pharma as drug dealers.
When I worked in doctors' surgeries I quite often came across the "pharmacy reps" who had deep expense accounts and happily plied all the staff with free buffet lunches. Goodness knows what the docs got behind closed doors. I always referred to them as the drug dealers, and I got a range of incredulous respones from people.

Time Traveller said...

LI - It's what we in the medical profession know as the 'If you know what's good for, we'll tell you what's good for you paradox'.

It's very common. For example, if you smoke, drink or eat anything remotely palatable, you've irresponsibly elected to risk your life and you're a bloody fool who has to be protected from himself.

If you go to shoot at arabs (note - this has to take place in some foreign hellhole), you can eat, smoke and drink anything you like (while getting shot at into the bargain) but you're a responsible, selfless hero who has foregone the right to protective equipment by electing to risk your life.

It's for our freedoms, you see.

Er...

Does that help?

prog said...

Legal or illegal, often makes no difference. Champix is certainly being pushed...

The pusher don't care
if you live or if you die....
God damn the pusher man

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GN6eTXA0VlI

'Hair on the back of the neck' track...

digitalized, legalized, industrialized negligence from cradle to grave said...

one of the drugs was designed to enhance the happiness of someone healthy, the other to palliate the suffering of someone extremely sick.

one of these tragic deaths was due to misadventure, the other to corporate manslaughter.

the nhs was envisaged as a prescription for good health, but has become a recipe for disaster - as a system, the national health service is terminally dysfunctional, primarily at management level, and the conceited nature of its bureaucracy inhibits the delivery of a prompt and appropriately responsive care-package for the individual customer - who always has to demand proper service before it is offered. it would be preferable to abolish the sytemically-obsessive management and to place responsibility for the patient's welfare upon the patient himself (or his family). in the nhs there is no functional relationship between the actual shop-floor service-providers and the patient (or his family), save for that which is engendered on the hoof - and this situation is crucially exacerbated by the fact that there is no financial incentive for providing a quality service, nor any disincentive for providing a bad one. the nhs is always looking to save costs by cutting services, as opposed to offering every available form of service and thereby raising income - this is essentially why, in the nhs, it is common for patients to be 'killed by the system', because 'the system' views patients as an 'expense', or 'outgoing'.

i recently read an article which depicted the european union as a voracious wealth-devouring system, totally out of the control of those who are in its employ - the nhs is a similar entity, it is not run by moral individuals with independent intellects who take responsibility for their actions, it is operated via remotely controlled clinical automatons pre-programmed by, and emotionally beholden to, the system. scary stuff.

Leg-iron said...

Time Traveller - the military have already stried to stop soldiers smoking for the good of their health. They've also told them not to shoot at the enemey in case it upsets them.

The soldiers aren't responsible for where they're sent. Those in charge - who eat, drink and smoke as they please while making us subsidise it - are the ones to blame here.

Leg-iron said...

prog - I think I still have that Steppenwolf album.

Time Traveller said...

LI Just to be clear - I'm not having a go at the military!

My point was that politicians and others do not permit us the responsibility to eat, drink and smoke freely because we may damage our health. However, we are considered responsible enough to get ourselves killed to fight for our supposed freedoms.

All possible harm or even death to our own bodies has to be state-sanctioned.

Leg-iron said...

TT - in fact, kids can join the army and die before they are legally allowed to smoke or drink.

We are not allowed to damage our own health. That's the government's job.

Surreptitious Evil said...

"in fact, kids can join the army and die before they are legally allowed to smoke or drink."

Yes - in accidents. No going to war before your 18th birthday, though.

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