Reddit reviews The Pill Book (15th Edition): New and Revised 15th Edition (Pill Book (Mass Market Paper))

I was kinda that guy in the 90s among my friends. Although the options were much more limited for research. But I loved The Pill Book. https://www.amazon.com/Pill-Book-15th-Revised-Market/dp/0553593560

Before I go into it -- I want to say that I agree with the sentiment that medication is hard as fuck to get, and that there is certainly a sense that perhaps they go too far in trying to protect people from themselves. It doesn't feel fair, and maybe it isn't fair, so none of the following is to suggest that it isn't frustrating. I think that there should be attention paid to the side effect of obtaining medication and how onerous that can be -- if someone has been medicated with no concern or problems for 5 years, there is a point where throwing up roadblocks only harms them, without protecting anyone. But some roadblocks for the person who is just starting out... those are still important, I believe.

>Sucks, but even if you're just "stupid" isn't that a kind of condition? I don't think stupidity is anyone's fault, just like anything.

I guess part of what I was getting at here is that I think so many of the medication effects are so complicated and hard to predict without medical knowledge, that we're not talking about the idiot who jumped on a porcupine.

It isn't that I think the world should be structured for people who need to be told not to use a blender as a sex-sleeve... but more that I think that medications (as a broad group of substances) are so unpredictable and complicated that the average layperson cannot be expected to understand the cautions, side-effects, limitations, contraindications, etc. They might be able to read the list that says, "old people shouldn't take this," but they won't have the knowledge to realize that it says that because elderly individuals have less effective immune systems, which is relevant to this person because they have a medical condition that compromises their immune system.

>Although I'm diagnosed and prescribed, I still don't think I know enough to rely on my own opinion for prescribing these drugs to myself.

This makes sense for your current condition and current meds. You're cautious, and recognize the limitations of your knowledge with just changing this one med you were already prescribed. There are so many other substances out there that it would be this multiplied by thousands.

Natural selection makes sense for natural environmental threats. However, imagine that there was a pill you could give people but before it could help them, they had to solve a really complex calculus problem. Some get easy-ish intro-to-calc problems (i.e., the person who is average and uncomplicated on everything) but others get real doozies. And any time they add another kind of pill, they have to solve another calculus problem -- except it is guaranteed to be at least 2-3 levels harder than the initial problem. Also, whenever there is a change in their life (e.g., pregnancy, passing into old age, getting a concussion), they have to solve another one that is again, 2-3 levels harder than the initial problem.

If they don't solve the problem correctly, they die, or get really sick. And sometimes, they blow up and take others with them -- most of the time, they at least injure some people in their immediate environment (in the sense that, for instance, addiction can injure the nuclear family).

Would you say, "well, it's natural selection -- they should have been able to do calculus!" Of course not. But I genuinely believe medications are analogous to this. Figuring out the right medication might be eh... okay-ish if you're right in the middle of the bell-curve. You're healthy, middle aged, no other issues, no other medications, no odd supplements, very typical environment, very typical job, very typical diet... you get the easy calculus problem. It's still work, but you can do it. However, for most people, they get harder problems, and for most people, calculus isn't even in their skill set to begin with and it doesn't matter how easy the problem is in the first place.

Would you still pass out those pills? No, what you would probably do is employ people who could solve calculus problems so that they could hand out these magic pills. Enter psychiatrists, pharmacists, and other physicians.

>If someone has a medical condition that effects their ability to make informed decisions then they probably shouldn't be taking anything unless recommended by a doctor.

Also, the point I was trying to make here is that some medications affect the brain in a way that removes the ability to make informed decisions if not taken correctly -- wherein defining "correctly" requires solving that metaphorical calculus problem. The average dose might be 20mg... but there could be 300 variables that vastly increase or decrease that amount, or contraindicate that medication entirely. So that person tries 20mg and their brain shuts off and then Bad Stuff. Addiction, psychosis, etc.

In other words, some substances will break people in a way that doesn't make it fair to say, "they should have known better." It is easy when it is a purely recreational drug like meth, to say they should have known better. (There are mental health issues that still challenge at this a bit, but that's outside the scope of this conversation.) However, there are a LOT of regular therapeutic meds that could also really damage people's thinking and decision making unless they can do some really tough and complicated math that most people can't do.

>Clearly there's no perfect system, but what we have now isn't exactly working. People take drugs illegally all of the time and there's a lot of deaths because of it.

Absolutely true! There are some problems still with the current system, and I think the punative tone that is taken is a part of it. For instance, treating drug addiction as a moral issue instead of mental health issue. Or having other terrible environmental issues that we tolerate (e.g., poverty) that lead to the conditions that would encourage drug abuse.

>It's easy to just assume that if they were made legal that there would therefore be more deaths, but I don't think that's necessarily the case.

However, I do think that this is necessarily the case. On a small scale, with just one or two substances, no. But with every medication ever created to treat anything? It's way more complicated than the average person can handle without advanced training and the consequences of mishandling those issues includes not only death or injury to that person, but also the social and emotional costs to those that love them, employ them, depend on them, or who are around them at a time that their decision making is impaired.

>People will always take drugs, regardless of whether they're legal or not. So why make it less safe?

I am from the United States, but it sounds like that won't affect the conversation too much -- there is a definite war on drugs here, too. The issue here I think is two-fold. (1) A punative approach to drug addiction is actively harmful -- treatment needs to be made accessible, and the punishing attitude towards drugs needs to be removed from the user and the burden placed only on those who distribute the most harmful substances (e.g., meth), and (2) We can't refuse to solve basic social issues and quality-of-life issues and then be surprised when drug abuse is rampant.

I find myself thinking of the experiment done with rats -- they drugged water and put it in cages where rats had nothing else going on (they were alone, no toys, etc), and cages where rats had toys, playmates, friends, happiness, etc. The sad rats got addicted, the happy rats didn't. More words could be used to describe that study, but that was the gist of it. Allowing people to be desperately poor, to have their sicknesses not treated or to result in bankruptcy, allowing their employers to overwork them just so they can afford to support themselves, reducing access to public resources that are stimulating -- e.g., such as parks or libraries in rural areas... Those are a part of the drug abuse equation probably MORE than the availability of illicit substances.

>People are clearly going to take them anyway

Essentially, this is what I am disagreeing with -- or at least disagreeing with to an extent. I don't think that rampant drug addiction is necessary. (And I know not all drug use is drug addiction -- however, the costs to society of addiction are large enough that it is legitimate to protect against.) I think it is a byproduct of a lot of dysfunction in society. I think the current approach to drug addiction needs to be changed in a lot of ways. I don't think making all substances available to everyone would solve it though -- and a concise way of saying why I believe that would be to point "The Pill Book" which is 1296 pages long. To solve that and prescribe yourself what you need is to ask laypeople to do advanced calculus. (Not sure of the UK equivalent, but at least in the United States, only 27% have a bachelors degree -- so we're not talking "the average college student" when saying layperson, here.) However, it is true and sad that we suffer for the shitty approach to drug abuse even if neither of us abuse drugs.

I do think that more accommodations for reliable and non-problematic clients would be useful, to lessen their burden in obtaining the substances they need to survive and function well. I think for things to get much easier than that though, society needs to be changed in ways that those in power are poorly incentivized to actually change it...

The Pill Book.

Its a book thats been published and updated forever...you can usually find a copy at any bookstore or even walmart.

It has pictures, descriptions, interactions...everything on 99.9% of pills available in the US.

The Pill Book Amazon