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60 journalists all spend one week covering Cincinnati's battle with heroin

cincinnati.com

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Re: 60 journalists all spend one week covering Cincinnati's battle with heroin

#71

Post by toomanybeersies »

mulmen wrote: post #20
kolbe wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know everyone pictures the kid with a broken arm getting it set when they hear about socializing medicine, but all I picture is the US paying large corporations to make more people OD on opioids.

We don't have socialized (single-payer) medicine but we are still over-prescribing painkillers. Why do you think socializing medicine would change this? Do countries that have single-payer healthcare have more or less problems with heroin and prescription drug abuse?

1 in 3 Americans are prescribed opioids in any given year. 80% of the world opioid supply is consumed by the USA.

I can't say whether opioid prescription rates have an inverse relationship with single-payer healthcare, but the USA has astonishing rates of opioid prescription compared to the rest of the world.

Re: 60 journalists all spend one week covering Cincinnati's battle with heroin

#72

Post by xrd »

nnfy wrote: post #66

For anyone who may be struggling with chronic pain and/or opioid addiction, I implore you to research kratom. As far as anyone can tell, it is safe, minimally addictive, and in my experience it is good for head pain, stomach pain, anxiety, minor depression, not to mention potentiation of all kinds of other drugs. Of course, use at your own risk. It may interact dangerously with many compounds, because it inhibits the…

I'm seeing lots of addicts wandering about Portland, OR. I read your comment with interest. I wonder if someone distributed this to addicts on the street if it would make a difference. I feel very helpless in reclaiming our city from an addiction crisis.

Re: 60 journalists all spend one week covering Cincinnati's battle with heroin

#73

Post by KGIII »

xrd wrote: post #69
KGIII wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're most welcome. I am not 'clean' in that I maintain with Suboxone. For me, it is about harm reduction. I'm in a position where I was fortunate. I can say these things with my moniker and not have to worry about my reputation or future employment opportunities. Most of the addicts that I know wear suits to work. They don't have the luxury to admit these sorts of things.

Fascinating and brutally honest comment. Very interesting to see the economic realities and how that moved you to more illicit drugs over time. Do you think the solution is legalization then? If the drugs you needed were cheaper and safer, would that change things? Would the Mexican drug cartels ever permit that?

I am pro legalization. I say we don't give the cartels a choice in the matter. Much of the harm from drug use comes from the illegality of them. Consistent quality supplies would go a long ways.

Tax, educate, and treat.

I use 'safe' drugs, namely Suboxone. I doubt I'd change back to other opiates because I like the protection Suboxone offers me. Namely, I can pretty much only do it. It then blocks the receptors and doing additional opiates is mostly futile. I like that control.

Re: 60 journalists all spend one week covering Cincinnati's battle with heroin

#74

Post by prawn »

new_hackers wrote: post #3

Wow, just wow. As someone not affected by the heroin epidemic, this was very hard to read. I was almost brought to tears at how many stories involved children of heroin users and how their lives are affected.

The children celebrating a birthday in a time-limited jail room got me. They're a similar age to my own children. It's probably far better than a lifetime of health issues, but it seriously saddened me that those children didn't get to do that at their pace, in their family home, without third-party supervision, with friends, etc. Their "normal" gets entirely defined by mistakes of their parents compounded by their parents' inability to control that mistake.

Re: 60 journalists all spend one week covering Cincinnati's battle with heroin

#75

Post by prawn »

julianz wrote: post #60

One thing not mentioned in the article is the size of the area and the population. I have no idea how big Cincinatti is or how many people live in those counties. So I don't know if those are big numbers or not.

It's probably an oversight given they're writing first for a local audience?

Re: 60 journalists all spend one week covering Cincinnati's battle with heroin

#76

Post by KGIII »

joe_the_user wrote: post #68
KGIII wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Err... Heroin was available before the current epidemic. It was easy to find. There were plenty of sellers and users. It may be that you are not a user? However, it was there and easy to find. A user can spot another user, though I'm not sure why. They look just like normal people, to you. Most users aren't homeless and dirty. They have jobs and houses. They have cars and families. Heroin has been here for a long, lo…

You may find it hard to believe but I've been around heroin all my adult life as well (though not using). I've seen a lot of people die, whole groups of friends and so-forth. Certainly you have the fully functioning addicts. But you also have a lot of people driven by despair. Plus - the fully functioning addicts functioned a lot more when the economy functioned. Heroin, at the minimum, is one more heavy ball to keep…

I am not sure what causes what. I also have a bit of a different view than some others. I've never had a habit larger than I could afford.

I can't speak to the experiences of others. The point was, mostly, that heroin has been readily available for a long time, well before the current epidemic. I can be dropped into most any city and score within a few hours. I don't even have to speak the language.

Re: 60 journalists all spend one week covering Cincinnati's battle with heroin

#77

Post by xrd »

Does anyone know of anyone using the drugs listed here (ibogaine was one) to help addicts? Because of the FDA, is this something illegal? It would be fascinating if cryptocurrencies permitted a black market for drug trade that allowed concerned citizens to buy these drugs and distribute them to addicts without fear of interference by the federal government. A silk road that we could all stand behind.

Re: 60 journalists all spend one week covering Cincinnati's battle with heroin

#78

Post by xrd »

xrd wrote: post #77

Does anyone know of anyone using the drugs listed here (ibogaine was one) to help addicts? Because of the FDA, is this something illegal? It would be fascinating if cryptocurrencies permitted a black market for drug trade that allowed concerned citizens to buy these drugs and distribute them to addicts without fear of interference by the federal government. A silk road that we could all stand behind.

That would be an interesting YC non profit.

Re: 60 journalists all spend one week covering Cincinnati's battle with heroin

#79

Post by rocketperson7 »

as a Lyft driver in Cincinnati, this is really making me rethink my main source of income

most of my passengers during the day are lower income, and while I personally haven't had any major issues there are definitely times when I'm glad certain passengers are out of my car. I feel like if the drug problem is really this bad, it's only a matter of time until one of these stories is in the back of my car

Re: 60 journalists all spend one week covering Cincinnati's battle with heroin

#80

Post by joe_the_user »

KGIII wrote: post #76
joe_the_user wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may find it hard to believe but I've been around heroin all my adult life as well (though not using). I've seen a lot of people die, whole groups of friends and so-forth. Certainly you have the fully functioning addicts. But you also have a lot of people driven by despair. Plus - the fully functioning addicts functioned a lot more when the economy functioned. Heroin, at the minimum, is one more heavy ball to keep…

I am not sure what causes what. I also have a bit of a different view than some others. I've never had a habit larger than I could afford. I can't speak to the experiences of others. The point was, mostly, that heroin has been readily available for a long time, well before the current epidemic. I can be dropped into most any city and score within a few hours. I don't even have to speak the language.

I am not sure what causes what.

Well, if you mean whether misery 'cause addiction or addiction causes misery; given that people actually vary a lot in how they react to things, I'm pretty sure that each causes the other some significant part of the time. And maybe life out-of-control just cause habit out of control. But if so, "same difference" as they said in the eighties.

Add peer pressure causing a lot of this too.

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