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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

#101

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

KGIII wrote: post #52
gregmac wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Perhaps you could include poverty and despair (and trace back from there to a collapsing education system, ideological pathology...). It's really not about that -- although that certainly contributes to some drug use. "The opioid epidemic began in the 1990s, when doctors became increasingly aware of the burdens of chronic pain. Pharmaceutical companies saw an opportunity, and pushed doctors — with misleading market…

I should probably use a throwaway, but I won't. I'm an addict. I was a functional addict, for many years. When I retired, I no longer needed to be functional. Things went downhill quickly. Today, I am on Suboxone. It reduces the harmful behavior. I tell you that as a way to share that I have some experience. Anyhow, it was in the early-to-mid 70s when I first started. My first exposure was to codeine and morphine. Th…

Bravo!

Confession time...

At the height of my drug addictions I was injecting methamphetamine three to five days a week, taking benzos to sleep, and Heroin or Suboxone two to three days a week to come down from the meth.

Wanna know what caused me the most suffering: a close brush with the law, narrowly avoiding a drug trafficking trial.

I'm clean ~4 years now. I go to work every day, pay the bills, I bought a house. Fairly normal.

In my opinion one of the major problems with illicit substances is the lack of healthy social norms around any kind of recreational use, having to hide that you're a drug user.

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

#102

Post by KGIII »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #101
KGIII wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I should probably use a throwaway, but I won't. I'm an addict. I was a functional addict, for many years. When I retired, I no longer needed to be functional. Things went downhill quickly. Today, I am on Suboxone. It reduces the harmful behavior. I tell you that as a way to share that I have some experience. Anyhow, it was in the early-to-mid 70s when I first started. My first exposure was to codeine and morphine. Th…

Bravo! Confession time... At the height of my drug addictions I was injecting methamphetamine three to five days a week, taking benzos to sleep, and Heroin or Suboxone two to three days a week to come down from the meth. Wanna know what caused me the most suffering: a close brush with the law, narrowly avoiding a drug trafficking trial. I'm clean ~4 years now. I go to work every day, pay the bills, I bought a house.…

We junkies have a worse PR department than nuclear energy. We're addicts, we're supposed to be degenerate perverts that live under bridges, beat our spouses, and leave our children.

It couldn't be further from the truth, in many instances. Having to hide it, or hang out with those who are more criminally minded as being your junkie peers, probably stems from the illegal nature of the beast.

I'm pretty sure legalization is a good idea. Let's face it, if you want to try drugs then you can get drugs. Drugs are plentiful, that's why we have drug users. Making them legal seems unlikely to create more users. "Hey, heroin is legal! I'm going to try it!" Said nobody, ever.

Actually, now that weed is legal, it's not nearly as much fun growing it.

So, yeah, there could be healthy societal norms, but not while it's illegal.

Related: I'm still not sure why coke users always seem to end up in the bathroom. It can be in a house in the middle of nowhere, but they'll still congregate in the bathroom. I don't mind coke, but crowding into a bathroom always seemed strange.

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

#103

Post by mynameishere »

vermontdevil wrote: post #57
free_everybody wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that ibogaine, a drug with little if any neurotoxicity, is a Schedule 1 drug in the U.S. while millions of opioid pills get handed out every year to hopelessly addicted poor people makes me very, VERY upset. Does your government care if you live or die?

Only if you are an embryo.

What country are you in? In most Western countries, embryos are pretty much fair game.

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

#104

Post by Balgair »

rhcom2 wrote: post #12

> They’ve tried spraying naloxone into his nostrils, but it’s had no effect. He’s not breathing. They’re running out of time. > One of the medics takes a drill out of his bag and turns it on. It whirs like a dental drill as he pushes it into the man’s shin bone, trying to create a more direct path for the naloxone to enter the bloodstream. Wow. Just wow. edit: more info, I'd never heard of it: https://en.wikipedia.or…

Pretty cool huh?! They used to have to auger the bit right into the bone by hand. As you can imagine, trying to twist them into the bone while the patient is alive is not easy. Also, once you punched through, there was usually enough momentum and force by the MD's hand, that they would then punch on through the other side of the bone and then right into their other hand that was stabilizing the procedure. Now you had two patients instead of one. Many MDs would really hesitate in doing it, as expected. These little sterile and disposable drill have saved a lot of lives. These are a 'poster boy' of modern bioengineering in general.

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

#106

Post by leggomylibro »

codyb wrote: post #98
BoiledCabbage wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They don't have time to dwell on what went wrong. But damnmit the bigger issue and what I'm really mad at is people protesting Police abuse! /s It's absurd how skewed this country has become in the "Police can do no wrong" mentality. When spoken in the abstract people are quick to say of course there is corruption and things can be improved in policing. But when it comes to specifics or even specific instances popu…

Hmm, I do agree with you but when I read that I read that as literally meaning "these police officers have no time to dwell on whats wrong". With that many deaths and overdoses in just one week a lot of these departments are pretty taxed. A lot of these guys are doing the best they can with what little time they have and showing compassion where they can. Fortunately for those battling these addictions I suspect, thi…

Yeah, it's just a terrible situation all around. I'm sure the cops don't go after innocent people just to spite us, but they are clearly overworked and lacking acvountability. And it shouldn't be their job to deal with all of this, anyways. It's a public health issue.

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

#107

Post by api »

joe_the_user wrote: post #8
baldfat wrote: post #4

Let's not forget who to blame for this. Pharmaceutical companies and Doctors. West Virgina is the most effected - http://www.pulitzer.org/winners/eric-eyre These articles shouldn't make you sad but MAD. "In six years, drug wholesalers showered the state with 780 million hydrocodone and oxycodone pills, while 1,728 West Virginians fatally overdosed on those two painkillers" That's 433 pills for every man, woman and ch…

Perhaps you could include poverty and despair (and trace back from there to a collapsing education system, ideological pathology...). It's hard not to see the opioid crisis as anything but an "ensemble effort" of everything that's falling apart in America - punctuated by the refusal of pundits and politicians to acknowledge these problems or move towards solving them. Edit: you could even say the willingness of drug…

Politicians and pundits mostly live in coastal megacities. Everything is fine there. Why do they not eat cake?

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

#108

Post by burntrelish1273 »

mynameishere wrote: post #103
vermontdevil wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if you are an embryo.

What country are you in? In most Western countries, embryos are pretty much fair game.

I think it's a dig at the US Republican Christian Right, whom are "Pro-life" but anti-"taking care of that, or the mother's, life." Considering Republicans control the majority of all three branches of government, they have an opportunity to ram through their unpopular ideological agenda.

Disclaimer: Neither party is currently relevant to the average US citizen. People ought to seek post-partisanship and post-identity to side-step divide-and-conquer polarization and unify to attack the corruption.

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

#110

Post by nnfy »

xrd wrote: post #72
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.

There are numerous anecdotal reports online of heroin users using kratom to kick the habit. At the very least, one can be functional on kratom, contribute to society, and withdrawal shouldn't be terrible enough to motivate violent crime.
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