“Food tasted like wet noodles and grill gristle"
September 22, 2015 1:46 AM   Subscribe

"I Reviewed Jail on Yelp Because I Couldn't Afford a Therapist." Why people are using sites like Yelp to vent and offer tips about prison and jail.
posted by Harald74 (18 comments total) 13 users marked this as a favorite
 
How is Ambien even still prescribed for unsupervised use? Every story I hear about it is terrifying.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 2:56 AM on September 22, 2015 [2 favorites]


I just wanted to stop in and applaud the vision of our political leaders not to provide free mental health to our future and former criminals what we really need is more tax relief for the 1% and corporations. If Democrats weren't complicit in this scam they would propose legislation that would spend money collected through estate taxes on getting our mental health system up to standard.
posted by any major dude at 5:34 AM on September 22, 2015 [8 favorites]


Right??? Why is that stuff legal? Two out of two of the people I know who have taken Ambien became... well, I don't know how better to put this: they became rum-soaked space hobos.
posted by Don Pepino at 6:48 AM on September 22, 2015 [7 favorites]


There's a reason why doctors who can (ab)use the best use propofol and not ambien when they just need a few winks.
posted by MattD at 7:26 AM on September 22, 2015 [2 favorites]


This is a perfect example of how these problems all connect like a jigsaw puzzle, lack of mental health supervision, lack of pharmaceutical oversight, lack of prison system reform, lack of anything that might reduce profits. Yet the media seems genuinely surprised that Sanders grassroots campaign keeps moving forward despite their lack of interest in him. The disconnect is terrifying.
posted by Beholder at 7:26 AM on September 22, 2015 [5 favorites]


I had nothing but wonderful experiences with Ambien. The parasomnia I experience unmedicated actually went away. I'd be taking it to this day except the beneficial effect wears off eventually. Maybe I'm an outlier, but I really miss it.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:27 AM on September 22, 2015 [1 favorite]


One of my colleagues has a great/terrifying Ambien story that starts on a plane in San Francisco, and ends with him waking up in handcuffs facedown on the tarmac in Amsterdam.
posted by mollymayhem at 7:48 AM on September 22, 2015 [4 favorites]


once we ban ambien can we please abolish prisons too?
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 8:17 AM on September 22, 2015 [1 favorite]


It's amazing to read even relatively positive reviews of prisons/jails. From the prison/industrial complex we have in the US, it's a little odd to see people leave a with a (relatively) good impression of the place. It makes you wonder if it's all from perspective - like, "Cook County doesn't viciously murder me with boiling water and add jail time assaults that never happened so 4 stars!"

I could see it being very helpful for families though who don't have experience with the system for what to wear, what you can bring, etc etc (kind of the same way some mental health facilities have FAQs about visiting hours).
posted by Suffocating Kitty at 8:24 AM on September 22, 2015


Thanks for introducing me to the Marshall Project. I think it deserves five stars*****!
Fascinating articles.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 8:38 AM on September 22, 2015 [1 favorite]


Metafilter: rum-soaked space hobos
posted by blue_beetle at 9:17 AM on September 22, 2015 [3 favorites]


Could folks please stop stigmatizing ambien? I need it to sleep and function, and do not need your ableist commentary about a private matter between myself and my doctor.

Great article, I love unusual reviews.
posted by bile and syntax at 6:31 PM on September 22, 2015 [3 favorites]


It's not remotely ableist to point out that Ambien has cataclysmic life-ruining Brobigliesque side effects for many people and therefore it's completely wrong that physicians don't supervise patients' taking of it more effectively, but the Ambien discussion has been unfortunate nevertheless in that it overemphasizes the "US drug 'n' healthcare policies are sociopathic" side-topic of this horrifying post over the main point, which is that the US prison-industrial complex is sociopathic and a terrifying Katamari juggernaut that we seem to be powerless to change so we're reduced to leaving Yelp reviews about our many and varied Bastilles.
posted by Don Pepino at 5:25 AM on September 23, 2015


I always think about this when people say they "just pop a pill and wake up in Europe" or however they want to put it. Well first I think about sexual assault and then I think about being arrested.

Could folks please stop stigmatizing ambien?
We can understand that many people need it and also see that some people are having bad experiences with it. That is the best way to start trying to mitigate the bad things while preserving access for those who need it.
posted by soelo at 8:08 AM on September 23, 2015


There's a world of difference between "some people have had bad experiences with this medication" and the discussion I see on here over and over and over about how ambien is bad and and shouldn't be legal. Pretending that you're doing the former when you're actually doing the latter is disingenuous at absolute best and it increases the stigma of being on medication for sleep, which is a form of ableism.
posted by bile and syntax at 3:02 PM on September 25, 2015 [1 favorite]


Did you not RTFA? "Some people have had bad experiences with this medication" does not describe the problem. The problem is that Ambien causes sleep-driving. Innocent people are creating havoc in their sleep and going to jail for things that they technically did do but for which they have no real culpability because they were asleep and dreaming when they did the things. If there is ableism and stigma associated with this drug, it is in the industry and in the judicial system, not among people who are derailing internet comment threads problematizing the drug. We are not ableist. I don't know anybody who sleeps well because nobody who does would reveal that unseemly fact to a world of suffering people. We are all either taking a drug to help us sleep or waiting to see when our occasional insomnia will become chronic and send us to the doctor so we can get something to help us sleep. I for one hope that by the time I get there they've worked out a way to determine who is and who is not likely to sleepwalk after taking Ambien. You know, the way they do with some other commonly prescribed drugs. For instance, one of the two out of two people I know who took Ambien and went buckwild is allergic to penicillin. They administered it to him in the hospital and then observed him beginning the swell-up-and-die process, so now he's permanently stigmatized and they don't administer it to him anymore, thank God. Hooray for stigma; let's apply a little of that miracle stigma ointment to Ambien so that cowboy doctors don't cavalierly prescribe it to me and my loved ones and shove us out the door.
posted by Don Pepino at 4:55 AM on September 28, 2015


I did read the article. I also read your comments.

The plural of anecdote isn't data, but if it were: I know dozens of people who have used Ambien with no adverse effects, and one who had mild hallucinations when she was given it in the hospital and never took it again. That's it. That's all. My anecdata sample size is bigger than yours.

Separately, people who are mixing ambien with alcohol or other drugs are not using it as prescribed, which is not an indictment of ambien but of mixing drugs.

I would love to see better healthcare and a better judicial system, especially as a person with chronic illness who works closely with both. However, saying that ambien is a bad drug that turns people into rum-soaked space hobos is ableism. There is not a way to separate stigma against the drug from stigma against the people who take it.
posted by bile and syntax at 5:54 PM on September 30, 2015


Here's a couple more anecdotes to not add up to anything.

It does sound like it would be an excellent recreational drug, except for the parts about ending up naked on the side of the road or erasing big chunks of memory--but so many of the more fun recreational drugs do have their downsides. Anyone who knowingly mixes drugs in order to rock out is taking a known risk and is not who I'm concerned about. The problem with Ambien is that for some people it's dangerous when taken as directed and the guidelines for prescribing it don't appear to take that into account, except inasmuch as they make abundantly clear that it's not industry's fault if someone takes Ambien and drives or falls off a building while asleep. Both my people were taking it as directed because they were trying to sleep, not because they wanted to have a fun drug romp. And they ended up precipitously ceasing to take it because it became evident that this drug was likely to get them killed. The industry weasels' solution for the effects Ambien has on some people is to put CYA language on the bottle: "stay in bed for X hours after you take this drug or we won't be responsible for what happens to you." Well, the woman in the article took the drug as directed while she was awake and capable of following directions. She defied their weasel directive not because she was an irresponsible drunk but because she was asleep. Ambien, like a whole lot of pharmaceuticals, should be monitored more carefully than it is.
posted by Don Pepino at 7:00 PM on September 30, 2015


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