The opioid epidemic isn't hitting LA as hard as the rest of the country. Why?

[Shawn]

I remember hearing an All Things Considered podcast last winter about this, and the takeaway was that doctors - of ALL races - are less likely to prescribe opioids to non-white patients, especially black ones. If the patient is black, the doctor is more concerned about the patient becoming addicted, or maybe they're more concerned about the patient selling their pills, or maybe they are less concerned about pain in that population. But the black patient is less likely to be prescribed narcotics, and therefore less likely to wind up becoming addicted to the medication. Or so the reasoning went. Seems plausible to me.

Systemic racial bias may actually be helping blacks for once!

[Doug]

Originally Posted by LA21st

This and LA's love of weed, yes. The other reasons listed so far don't make sense.

Unless 70’s rock was wrong, isn’t LA the capital of coke?

[jd3189]

Originally Posted by Shawn

I remember hearing an All Things Considered podcast last winter about this, and the takeaway was that doctors - of ALL races - are less likely to prescribe opioids to non-white patients, especially black ones. If the patient is black, the doctor is more concerned about the patient becoming addicted, or maybe they're more concerned about the patient selling their pills, or maybe they are less concerned about pain in that population. But the black patient is less likely to be prescribed narcotics, and therefore less likely to wind up becoming addicted to the medication. Or so the reasoning went. Seems plausible to me.

Systemic racial bias may actually be helping blacks for once!

Well, my oral surgeon was the exception to that.

[LA21st]

Originally Posted by Doug

Unless 70’s rock was wrong, isn’t LA the capital of coke?

I heard that was Miami/south Florida.

LA is a weed town. It's everywhere.

[ocman]

Originally Posted by LA21st

It's lilkely more because LA is a weed town. Isn't this drug use big in Miami?

That, and LA is rich enough to afford coke. Joking of course. I haven’t seen coke in nearly 20 years. Or, at least, people are much more discreet about it nowadays.

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by pizzaguy

Black people have been systematically fucked with for 400 years. I don’t blame them for getting high.

What’s whitey’s excuse? Too many immigants making Bubba sad?

Thats what I thought. You think black people, born in the last 30 years have zero self-control, so becoming a crackhead makes sense, if youre black!

Your thoughts are so regressive.

[ocman]

Originally Posted by Shawn

I remember hearing an All Things Considered podcast last winter about this, and the takeaway was that doctors - of ALL races - are less likely to prescribe opioids to non-white patients, especially black ones. If the patient is black, the doctor is more concerned about the patient becoming addicted, or maybe they're more concerned about the patient selling their pills, or maybe they are less concerned about pain in that population. But the black patient is less likely to be prescribed narcotics, and therefore less likely to wind up becoming addicted to the medication. Or so the reasoning went. Seems plausible to me.

Systemic racial bias may actually be helping blacks for once!

White people tend to complain about everything though. This hurts, that hurts, I think I have cancer, are you sure I don’t have cancer, I think I’ll allergic to gluten.

[pizzaguy]

Originally Posted by ocman

White people tend to complain about everything though. This hurts, that hurts, I think I have cancer, are you sure I don’t have cancer, I think I’ll allergic to gluten.

Can I speak to your manager?

[pizzaguy]

Originally Posted by jtown,man

Thats what I thought. You think black people, born in the last 30 years have zero self-control, so becoming a crackhead makes sense, if youre black!

Your thoughts are so regressive.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by ocman

White people tend to complain about everything though. This hurts, that hurts, I think I have cancer, are you sure I don’t have cancer, I think I’ll allergic to gluten.

I can't find HGTV or the Hallmark channel on TV! God dammit Harold, toss me my bottle of Hydrocodone!

[sopas ej]

Originally Posted by pizzaguy

Can I speak to your manager?

"How is this prepared?"

"Could I have it on the side?"

"Could I have it lightly seasoned?"

It's like come ON, that's the way they cook it here. And often they'll ask for something that isn't on the menu. Like "do you have...?" or "don't you guys have...?"

A number of times, I've been to a very good Japanese restaurant where a white person (often with an out-of-state accent) complains about how a certain meat was cooked, even though that's the way the Japanese cook salmon, or beef, or whatever.

[mrnyc]

Originally Posted by pizzaguy

Black people have been systematically fucked with for 400 years. I don’t blame them for getting high.

What’s whitey’s excuse? Too many immigants making Bubba sad?

something trumpian about heavy is the crown?

[Sun Belt]

Originally Posted by ocman

That, and LA is rich enough to afford coke. Joking of course. I haven’t seen coke in nearly 20 years. Or, at least, people are much more discreet about it nowadays.

It's out there and the California drug market is dominated by stimulants and a worrisome trend that has arrived is the mixing opioids like fentanyl with cocaine and meth. Fentanyl deaths in CA tripled from 2016 to 2017.

One reason Calif. has a lower death rate is that west of the Mississippi, black tar heroin is sold, east of the Mississippi it's white powder. Black tar is more difficult to mix with fentanyl and therefore has a less deadlier effect than what is consumed east of the Mississippi.

In the last year the D.E.A. has been seizing shipments of drugs like meth, cocaine, ketamine all mixed with fentanyl. Here's a map of significant fentanyl seizures last year:
https://www.dea.gov/druginfo/MAP-Sig...ylSeizures.pdf

Only 2% of the nation has tried heroin before, but 16% has used cocaine and 7% meth. If fentanyl is mixed in with these other drugs, it exposes many more people to opioids that otherwise would not have tried it.

[homebucket]

I see a lot more meth being used in California than cocaine. I think doctors and medical groups, namely Kaiser, are really focused on reducing opioid usage also.

[dave8721]

Originally Posted by Capsicum

If it were about ethnic diversity, then you'd expect it to be similarly low in other diverse cities like NYC, though.

Unless the specific groups involved are more specific to LA vs the rest of the country.

Using that health dashboard thing in the other thread, other very non-white cities like NY and Miami also had way below average opioid death rates.

[jd3189]

Yeah, I haven't heard much about the opioid epidemic in South Florida. But then again, I live in a very discreet area.

[dubu]

Maybe it has something to do with alcohol in the family. If your parents were alcoholics it passes to you. Once you are addicted to it you arnt going to do other drugs that much because your body just wants the thing that has been adjusted to it. You have to not drink for a year to be normal and not want it. In not a expert but that sorta what I have, it's not as addicting as pills but it's real addicting.