Just the other morning I got off of bart in downtown Oakland, 12th street and there was a guy just laid out, unresponsive right on the steps outside the station. He had smoked something out of a can. I stuck with the guy while the paramedics came, but the most tragic part was that he had a plastic "No Allergies" bracelet on. When the paramedics took off his shirt he still had adhesive on his skin from the EKG straps…
> I'm not sure what we need to do
Fund recovery centers and programs to rehabilitate users and provide them with ongoing assistance so they can get by and stop using. Most addicts who come out of prison say this because they know they will immediately relapse.
Serious questions...if you’ve used an opioid more than once for recreational purposes, I’d like to hear (1) what prompted you to try it (2) how old you were (3) cost (4) where did you get them (5) why did you stop Treat me like an idiot, I don’t understand this stuff and I’d like to know more. * obviously feel free to use a burner account if you’d rather not speak publicly.
Took a few at once of my hydrocodone prescription from a wisdom tooth removal (only two of them at once) at 18 to 20 or so, then did the same thing next time when I had the other two removed. No idea what their real cost is besides the copay. Just wanted to see what it was like. I don't think I really got anything out of it besides a bit of a placebo effect. Didn't seem very appealing.
Serious questions...if you’ve used an opioid more than once for recreational purposes, I’d like to hear (1) what prompted you to try it (2) how old you were (3) cost (4) where did you get them (5) why did you stop Treat me like an idiot, I don’t understand this stuff and I’d like to know more. * obviously feel free to use a burner account if you’d rather not speak publicly.
I can only speak to Heroin, not prescription painkillers. 1) I had tried just about every other drug, and I felt at that point like they had been unfairly demonized. A high school friend was doing heroin, and so I wrongfully assumed Heroin would fall into the same category. I was pretty young. 2) 14 3) My usual habit for the ten years of my addiction was around 100-150 a day. I simply couldn't find a way to reliably…
1) is an important insight. The fable of the Boy Who Cried Wolf works for everyone, not just children. Unfounded alarmism will destroy one's credibility, ultimately to the detriment of both sides.
Glad you kicked the habit. A friend of mine did so too, but was left with some very real permanent damage. Hope you got off easier.
> Local jails have been overrun with people locked up and in need of treatment Why. Do. People. End. Up. In. Jail. Seriously this one is beyond my comprehension - they need treatment, not jails filled with hardened criminals, rapists and probably more (and nastier) drugs than on the street.
Right wing idiots pushing a failed war on drugs. Keep electing republicans, keep getting the same garbage. Can anyone point to a republican who is advocating sane drug policy (genuinely curious?)
You have to be an idiot to think voting on party lines is a good way to solve complex social issues.
Sorry to hear. Partaking in heavy drugs to any degree invites those dark unknowns. The number of hands these drugs pass through to reach the end-user is more than a couple. I recall on average it's 8 different turnovers. Each time, likely being cut down. They operate a margin business without concern for where it ends up. It's likely safe to say that a vast majority of drugs are cut these days. A friend I grew up wit…
I can see how people move to something like heroin after being on pain meds and getting addicted, but who really just 'tries' heroin? At this point, the mix danger and addiction danger is well known and publicized. I'm asking, because I cannot mentally put it together, particularly if someone has life going in the right direction.
Drug users often take as a group, so if the group has no money to buy their regular drugs that day and one of them has heroin to snort or inject they will do it. That's how most addicts I met while living in a shitty drug filled area got addicted. Heroin is the cheapest street drug here right now too since it's cut with dirt cheap and easy to import fentanyl. For years it wasn't even illegal to export it from China, so anybody could get it direct off sites like Alibaba and try and smuggle it in.
As do people who are infected with Rabies. Or rare forms of violent schizophrenia. Indeed, violent offenders are often not users of drugs, but from my understanding: the cutthroat underground distributors. Which is why cops should continue to focus on the violent distributors of drugs. But social workers and hospital workers should step up their responsibility and start treating drug abusers better. Or perhaps, more…
> Hint: throwing drug USERS in jail, where they only get more underground connections and better learn to become a criminal, will start a cycle where they have to end up in jail again What is: the most profitable outcome you can hope for when your prison system is privately owned?
The US prison system is not privately owned. Less than 20% of prisoners are in private jails.
> Local jails have been overrun with people locked up and in need of treatment Why. Do. People. End. Up. In. Jail. Seriously this one is beyond my comprehension - they need treatment, not jails filled with hardened criminals, rapists and probably more (and nastier) drugs than on the street.
> Local jails have been overrun with people locked up and in need of treatment Why. Do. People. End. Up. In. Jail. Seriously this one is beyond my comprehension - they need treatment, not jails filled with hardened criminals, rapists and probably more (and nastier) drugs than on the street.
Like that one guy weef or weev, the iPad exploits guy, who went to jail and came back as a white supremecist. Was quite surprised to read that, worse thing is he wasn't in prison like 10 hard years or anything extreme, he was in there a minute though. Oddest thing I ever read. On the other hand... Norway has some of the nicest prisons in the world. Worth checking out prisons in Norway if you never heard of how nice t…
It's a myth Norway's prisons are the nicest, maybe for low security offenders otherwise they keep you in solitary for years at a time or worse transfer you to other countries to do your time like how they ship inmates off to Netherlands to a rented prison.
The country with the best drug policy is Portugal which quietly decriminalized all personal amounts and they have one of the lowest OD rate now
For more background on why we've got a dope problem, check out this LA Times piece on Oxycontin's 12-hour Problem: http://www.latimes.com/projects/oxycontin-part1/
That article was written by someone not that familiar with the pharma market. It would be illegal for Purdue to promote on any other than 12 hours. It's called off-label promotion and companies pay multi-billion dollar fines for it.
While it is factually true that it would be illegal for Purdue to promote off-label, they also need to be held accountable for playing fast and loose with the research studies (even altering the definitions used in the trials) in order to be able to claim 12h coverage when nearly half the patients weren't getting 12h coverage. This, combined with the recommendation to push higher doses to achieve 12h coverage, combined with the gap in coverage, drove a lot of people into a cycle of unhealthy and deadly dependency.
At the very least it's a case of consumer product safety liability and negligence fueled by profit motive.
Just the other morning I got off of bart in downtown Oakland, 12th street and there was a guy just laid out, unresponsive right on the steps outside the station. He had smoked something out of a can. I stuck with the guy while the paramedics came, but the most tragic part was that he had a plastic "No Allergies" bracelet on. When the paramedics took off his shirt he still had adhesive on his skin from the EKG straps…
I recently re-read the story about the rat park experiment. http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comic/rat-park/ The gist of it is that yes, rats do get addicted to morphine and prefer it to food, but only if kept in cages . The rats living in a much less confined space with other rats, allowed to play, nest, have sex and do pretty much all the rat fun things not only did not get addicted to morphine but even waned themselv…
Something I often think about is whether having a job - the agency to by one's own hand change one's prospects in life, to "provide for one's family" - is our equivalent of this "less confined space." In a post-automation post-scarcity world, despite boundless entertainment and resources (things that would make rats perfectly happy)... would ennui still drive people towards self-destructive behavior? And in fact, would the optimization of that entertainment (see: usedopamine.com ) actually prime people's brains towards addiction, towards whatever form the next opioid epidemic might take? We understand so little about our own minds and how they might respond to the world we are ushering in.