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Fentanyl, a stealth killer

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41–50 of 153 posts

Re: Fentanyl, a stealth killer

#41

It probably will sound cruel, but this is natural selection at work. We can't babysit adults. If someone wants to smoke or drink alcohol, we accept it, but when someone takes drugs, people start losing their minds, even though alcohol/cigarettes are worse than many recreational drugs. If someone wants to ruin their health, but experience something unusual, let them. The dangers are generally known.

You're right, that does sound cruel.

Moreover, the effects of addiction, the way choices made in childhood or under duress can affect the brain well into adulthood, and the fact that unregulated drugs sold can be far more dangerous than believed (you know, what the article was about) make this a hardly tenable position. "The dangers are generally known" is only said about opiate addiction by someone who doesn't know much.

Re: Fentanyl, a stealth killer

#42

The mention of Fentanyl here is pure clickbait. Fentanyl is pretty well known amongst opiate addicts (and has been for a while). Everyone knows it's dangerous, including dealers, who like to avoid killing their customers and catching murder charges, believe it or not. Aside from that and a bit of gateway drug BS towards the beginning, this is a solid and somewhat moving, if long, account of the standard Heroin story,…

The mention of Fentanyl here is pure clickbait.

Huh? That's the exact drug that killed the person in the story. It's made quite clear:

Lucas County chief toxicologist Robert Forney and his staff meticulously screened DJ’s blood for drugs. Forney’s team didn’t find any heroin.

What they did discover was a lethal dose of fentanyl.

Re: Fentanyl, a stealth killer

#43
post #41

It probably will sound cruel, but this is natural selection at work. We can't babysit adults. If someone wants to smoke or drink alcohol, we accept it, but when someone takes drugs, people start losing their minds, even though alcohol/cigarettes are worse than many recreational drugs. If someone wants to ruin their health, but experience something unusual, let them. The dangers are generally known.

You're right, that does sound cruel. Moreover, the effects of addiction, the way choices made in childhood or under duress can affect the brain well into adulthood, and the fact that unregulated drugs sold can be far more dangerous than believed (you know, what the article was about) make this a hardly tenable position. "The dangers are generally known" is only said about opiate addiction by someone who doesn't know…

Are you saying opiate addiction dangers are not known? Sounds like you're the one who doesn't know much. Even kids know drugs are bad for you.

And the article is about the adults.

Re: Fentanyl, a stealth killer

#44

I just want to say that that I lost one of my close friends Thom Simmons last April due to Fentanyl overdose. He was a young, voracious autodidact prodigy that was always way ahead of the curve especially with technology. I met him through the #django irc channel about 7 or 8 years ago when I was starting out with python and django and we developed a friendship that lasted until he overdosed on fentanyl and died in a…

Your friend and the others who died that weekend didn't "lose the battle". They were poisoned, murdered by an unscrupulous and/or clueless dealer.

Re: Fentanyl, a stealth killer

#45
Opiate addiction is a serious problem that affects people from all walks of life. My mother has had rheumatoid arthritis for decades. She was prescribed Fentanyl patches for the pain at one point, but the strength was too high. One day she wound up passing out in her kitchen after applying a patch. After that she stuck the patches in a drawer, intending for them to never to be used again.

She was fine after this incident, but my sister happened to mention the story to an acquaintance of my mother's from church. Upon learning that there was a box of unused Fentanyl patches in my mother's house, she suddenly became her best friend and volunteered to begin taking her to doctor's appointments. She would take her to doctor's appointments, then while my mother was there, would go back to my mother's house to "clean up" - do dishes, vacuum etc. This wasn't a mere act of charity; she also "cleaned up" not only the patches, but a significant percentage of my mom's other opioid pain medications.

At first my mother thought she was going crazy when pills began going missing. She finally told me about it, and while I was inclined to believe that she was simply starting to lose her mental acuity, I bought her a lockbox for her pills. It was only after this woman (an upper middle class mother of three young children) brought tools with her during a visit and actually destroyed the electronic lock on the box that I realized that her trusted "friend" from church was stealing her pain medications. When my mother told one of the leaders of her church what happened, the woman denied it, and three weeks later moved her entire family several states away.

You really can't make this stuff up. Addicts come in all shapes and sizes and will do anything to quench their addiction.

Re: Fentanyl, a stealth killer

#46
post #4
post #2

There would be far, far fewer deaths from overdose if all drugs were legal. There may be more addicts if they were legal, I don't know - but there would be a lot fewer deaths.

I'm not against legalization, but have you done the research to back this up? We have plenty of alcohol-related deaths (both indirect (traffic, etc), and direct (alcohol poisoning).

In the case of alcohol, there was a period of prohibition that did not decrease the death count nor reduce harm to individuals or the society. Granted it was a long time ago.

Better data about drug policy and harm reduction can be found by looking at results from Portugal or other countries with permissive policies. None of them supports the claim that prohibition reduces use or harm caused.

Re: Fentanyl, a stealth killer

#47
post #12
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not against legalization, but have you done the research to back this up? We have plenty of alcohol-related deaths (both indirect (traffic, etc), and direct (alcohol poisoning).

We do have tons of alcohol deaths. But the idea here is that no one dies from alcohol today because their alcohol dealer slips in unknown amounts of toxic potentiators to cut costs (which is effectively what is happening with heroin et al. today).

Yeah the increase from heroin to fent would be like drinking a wine cooler (2%) that's actually everclear (95%).

I don't know any user of any substance that would say "well 1 unit is likely to get me off a bit, so I think I'll take 20 just to be sure".

Re: Fentanyl, a stealth killer

#48
post #35
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not against legalization, but have you done the research to back this up? We have plenty of alcohol-related deaths (both indirect (traffic, etc), and direct (alcohol poisoning).

The Swiss have had a program legalizing medical heroin, I believe. That's a starting point.

Already legal in NL and UK.

Re: Fentanyl, a stealth killer

#49

It probably will sound cruel, but this is natural selection at work. We can't babysit adults. If someone wants to smoke or drink alcohol, we accept it, but when someone takes drugs, people start losing their minds, even though alcohol/cigarettes are worse than many recreational drugs. If someone wants to ruin their health, but experience something unusual, let them. The dangers are generally known.

Drug addiction is a mental health disease. We don't tell depressed people that this is just natural selection at work, "just shake it out". We get people treated with the right medication. A huge amount of drug addicts suffer from untreated psychological trauma, particularly childhood trauma.

http://drgabormate.com/book/in-the-realm-of-hungry-ghosts/

Re: Fentanyl, a stealth killer

#50

Found by a coworker within two minutes of passing out, but no one called an ambulance for thirty minutes. We ought to care more about the people around us.

Having been in non-drug, legal, harm situations, there's a huge pressure not to involve authorities. Embarrassment and hassle, costs (perhaps not in Canada) are bad enough. Legal and social repercussions due to officially having a problem on your record can really damage. (Applies to people seeking mental health help, too!) Add in potential to be arrested and it's not hard to see why someone might delay or even let someone die.

It's easy to visualize the damage of being wrong - you just "ruined" someone's life just because they might be in mortal danger.

If there was a guarantee of no investigation, no publicity, no named record, this might not happen as much. Also, making easy, cheap access to naloxone might mean more users would carry around antidote.

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