U.S. health panel recommends doctors screen all adults for illicit drug use

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Simply make it mandatory to report the results to the Feds, declare illicit drug use a symptom of mental illness, and, combining this database with the calls to lock up the mentally ill, you'll have those private mental hospitals filled in no time.

What could go wrong?

U.S. health panel recommends doctors screen all adults for illicit drug use

Link to tweet

[rickford66]

1. Start with elected officials.

[EndGOPPropaganda]

2. .

[Clash City Rocker]

3. Actually, some mandatory penalties for marijuana use were abolished in 1970

No doubt because white kids started smoking pot in the sixties. Before that, marijuana was widely associated with Mexican immigrants and black people.

Most Americans don’t realize how much of our national drug policy is rooted in racism.

[Freethinker65]

4. Unless there is a public health issue of spreading disease, it is government overreach

And, like testing welfare recipients for "drugs", I am interested in who is profiting from administrating the actual tests? Who owns the testing companies/labs, potential treatment centers, etc?

Will people avoid needed medical care because of such a policy?

[Hoyt]

5. Before anyone gets bent, it's just adding some questions at an encounter. It's not a lab test, or

anything.

People can just answer "No." Most physicians' intake forms already ask those questions, this will just be a little more detailed. It's like screening for depression, anxiety, etc.



"However, Karina Davidson, co-chair of USPSTF, noted that the task force is not recommending providers use drug tests to screen their patients. Instead, USPTF said providers could ask their patients a series of questions to determine whether they are using drugs illicitly."

https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2019/08/14/illicit-drug

[mopinko]

6. this is not bad.

as a long time toker, most of my docs did not know that. they almost never asked. if they did, i answered truthfully. but i never really trusted the privacy of medical records, so i wasnt going to volunteer that i committed a crime.

it would have been useful info in a lot of cases, like treating my asthma.
and it really could be a useful discussion about mental health. self medicating is so common.

of course, the conversation isnt complete w/o talking about alcohol, too.
but it is an important conversation that a lot of docs duck.