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

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

#111

Post by Broken_Hippo »

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…

it goes further, though. I think folks in the states wind up working and doing other things well before they are healed enough to do so because of lack of job security and lack of paid sick leave. This puts folks in more pain, furthering the cycle.

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

#112

Post by girvo »

KGIII wrote: post #85
girvo wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey man. I've got 5 years on Suboxone after 6 years of addiction. Frankly I consider myself clean (and I'm down to 1.6mg this week from 32mg at the start) -- my DOC was always heroin and I've not touched it since beginning treatment. Anyway thanks for your post. There's quite a few of us in the tech community who battle the same demons, a lot have reached out to me to talk about it when I comment on my experience.

Well, find a way to make it on-topic and post it. ;-) I expect to be on the Subs for the rest of my life. I'm okay with that. Tangentially related: It is damned difficult to find a provider who will treat your addiction as well as my doctor. They are just fine with me staying on the Subs and are very much happy with the idea of harm reduction. It's absurdly expensive, but worth it. They usually do my appointments rig…

> It's absurdly expensive

How much do you pay?

Mine is $4.50 AUD per day, regardless of dose.

RE. Customs: it depends on where I'm travelling. I get a letter from the Queensland government (signed by the Attorney-General, interestingly) and have zero issues with even months worth of take-home doses.

Downside is, some countries (like Dubai, which I wanted to go over to for a conference) won't let me in at all with it. Oh well, only another 24 weeks and I'm off it entirely -- though I'm not looking forward to my depression returning, its an amazingly effective anti-depressant for myself.

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

#113

Post by BoiledCabbage »

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…

> I dunno what it is I just have a decent amount of faith in America's ability to generally move forward over time.

So with this, you just happened to touch upon an only tangentially related strongly held opinion of mine. So I'll rant for a sec: It is my strongly held belief that society and life does not just get better over time. All of the improvements we've seen in society have been from people fighting incredibly hard against entrenched systems in order to improve live for future people. Rights to vote for women and minorities, child labor laws, ending slavery, workplace improvements, anit-discrimination laws. Absolutely none of those improved "with time". All of them involved difficult, confrontational and frankly uncomfortable fights to improve society for everyone.

I think your view (and i'm not selecting you) is endemic in a lot of people in this country (particularly younger generations) that think life will improve if we just sit back and do nothing and give it time. This has never been the case in American society. People have been pushing hard to improve society and I really feel like a lot of people now have a view of "just wait and it will just happen". I personally believe this is an extremely misguided and hazardous view.

I'm definitely not looking to start an argument about it, but I do ask people to think of any major social improvements of the last century+ that didn't involve a large associated active social fight for it. Without people pushing us forward systems and societies calcify and then begin to rot.

---

On the topic at hand I absolutely think the majority of police mean well and are trying to help. However I do think as an broad generalization - as an organization police departments (and their unions) don't take feedback well, often work to defend/justify their actions rather than find ways to improve, and have a view of being above the law or that they should be granted exceptions because of their circumstances. This makes it difficult to root out those offices who condone and commit bad behaviors.

There is a reason why teachers choose goodie-two-shoes types to be hall-monitors. When given power over others, people need to be held to an even higher standard of behavior, vs be granted exemptions from rules/laws/accountability because of their job. Everyone should feel 100% at ease and trusting of their encounters with police. For whatever reason in today's society a lot of people justifiably don't feel that way. And we as Americans should make it a priority to fix that. Police and society should be on the same side - both against criminals.

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

#114

Post by BoiledCabbage »

aklemm wrote: post #97
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…

It IS absurd and I'm with you in thinking it is a perfect storm. Possibly even a fundamental crisis of freedom. My latest tactic is to label these people "copsuckers". It makes me feel good anyway.

Labeling people does nothing to help change the situation other than alienate people from agreeing with you and understanding that things need to improve.

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

#115

Post by mattbierner »

swayvil wrote: post #63
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…

People abuse that stuff when life sucks. So widespread opiate abuse is a symptom of a "sick society", right?

> People took such awful chances with chemicals and their bodies because they wanted the quality of their lives to improve. They lived in ugly places where there were only ugly things to do. They didn't own doodley-squat, so they couldn't improve their surroundings, so they did their best to make their insides beautiful instead — Breakfast of Champions

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

#117

Post by KGIII »

girvo wrote: post #112
KGIII wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, find a way to make it on-topic and post it. ;-) I expect to be on the Subs for the rest of my life. I'm okay with that. Tangentially related: It is damned difficult to find a provider who will treat your addiction as well as my doctor. They are just fine with me staying on the Subs and are very much happy with the idea of harm reduction. It's absurdly expensive, but worth it. They usually do my appointments rig…

> It's absurdly expensive How much do you pay? Mine is $4.50 AUD per day, regardless of dose. RE. Customs: it depends on where I'm travelling. I get a letter from the Queensland government (signed by the Attorney-General, interestingly) and have zero issues with even months worth of take-home doses. Downside is, some countries (like Dubai, which I wanted to go over to for a conference) won't let me in at all with it.…

~$300 US/week. $400 for my doctor, but my doctor comes to my house. That also enables me to attend a couple of group sessions that I never go to.

I literally stomped around the planet with forged prescription stickers (they go on the box) on a couple dozen boxes of fentanyl patches, long-since expired insulin (I'm not diabetic), and insulin needles.

The closest inspection that I got, customs noticed that I had no test strips and told me where to get them. I got away with this for years.

That really speaks to the difference between having money and not having money. Nice suit, flew in on first class, costly luggage, paperwork in order, frequent traveler with appropriate length stays, and just about half the legal limit in cash. Imagine the stereotypical junkie trying to do that.

Good luck when you get off. I know this is moving into off topic, but, seriously watch out for the depression. Have someone else note any behavioral differences, maybe? Be mindful of your own physiological cues, perhaps? I don't actually have depression issues, or any diagnosable mental health problems besides addiction, I just like being high. I wasn't treating anything but boredom.

I seriously wish you the best of luck. Email is uninvolved@outlook.com if you need to yell at the wind.

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

#118

Post by joe_the_user »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #111
joe_the_user wrote: post #8

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 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…

it goes further, though. I think folks in the states wind up working and doing other things well before they are healed enough to do so because of lack of job security and lack of paid sick leave. This puts folks in more pain, furthering the cycle.

Yeah, my point isn't that I have calculated the X factors leading to the opium explosion but that the causes are multidimensional and economic insecurity combined with rapacious companies magnify all the other factors.

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

#119

Post by tjorganism »

KGIII wrote: post #73
xrd wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 d…

Funny how addicts are always pro legalization.

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

#120

Post by KGIII »

tjorganism wrote: post #119
KGIII wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 d…

Funny how addicts are always pro legalization.

Would you expect something else? I'm not seeing anything funny about it. The vast majority of harm comes from the illegality, not from the drugs themselves. Do you want to reduce harm, or do you want to impose your morality on other people?
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