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As Scotland's 'Trainspotting' Generation Ages, the Dead Pile Up

nytimes.com

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Re: As Scotland's 'Trainspotting' Generation Ages, the Dead Pile Up

#81

Post by jdietrich »

dls2016 wrote: post #63
jdietrich wrote: post #3

Not mentioned in the article: The Scottish heroin epidemic started in Edinburgh, the more prosperous of Scotland's two largest cities. This was largely due to the presence of MacFarlan Smith, which was at one point the world's largest producer of pharmaceutical opiates. That initial cohort of heroin users in the 1980s predominantly used drugs that were diverted from the legitimate pharmaceutical supply rather than sm…

> The majority of overdose deaths in Scotland involved multiple drugs; for reasons that are not entirely clear, Scottish addicts are particularly prone to concurrently use opiates, benzodiazepines and alcohol in an indiscriminate manner. I don't believe this is specific to Scotland. My layperson understanding is that heroin is relatively safe in the sense that most opioid deaths fall into one of the following categor…

59% of drug overdose deaths in Scotland involved a benzodiazepine, compared to less than 16% in England and Wales. Scotland has an unusually serious and rapidly increasing problem of benzodiazepine-related deaths.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsde...

Re: As Scotland's 'Trainspotting' Generation Ages, the Dead Pile Up

#82

Post by adventured »

ocschwar wrote: post #65
fulafel wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Googling some gdp graph tells you that Estonia's GDP dipped -14% in 2009 while some other countries featured in the article's drug graphs had it a lot easier (around -5% for Scotlan, Denmark, USA). Seems like the # of unemployed quintupled as well. Combined with the country's rather light social safety net and relatively low GDP to begin with it must have been pretty nasty.

A lot of young Estonians went west to make money to send home, and that money counts towards GDP in France/England et cetera, not Estonia, even though it then was sent home. Meanwhile, they were not home to add to the public health statistics, while those who couldn't do that stayed behind, including those who fell into opiate addiction. So the stats make the Estonian situation look more miserable than it was. (Which…

> A lot of young Estonians went west to make money to send home, and that money counts towards GDP in France/England et cetera, not Estonia, even though it then was sent home.

If that money was sent home to Estonia, then it is getting measured in the impact it has on GDP. It shows up in, for one example, household consumption data.

Jane takes remittance money, goes into a shop in Tallinn, makes a purchase. Now that's part of GDP. Jane pays her rent with remittance money, now that's part of GDP.

That's exactly how it should work. Further, those remittances are a small minority share of all generated production by that person - leftover savings (which can then be shifted) after expenses necessary for existing in France/England.

Mexico as one famous example often leads the world in remittance figures, money coming from the US ($20-$30 billion per year). The impact of that remittance money shows up directly in the measured GDP figures of Mexico. It's still only 2% of the Mexico economy each year however.

If you look at Estonia's remittance numbers, you see a modest increase after the great recession. That increase difference would be a trivial share of their economic results, 0.3% or so. Total annual remittances today are higher now than they were in 2010-2013. Back then it was typically 200m-300m euro annually, or roughly 1% of GDP (nowhere near meaningfully denting the 14% decline figure referenced by the parent).

Re: As Scotland's 'Trainspotting' Generation Ages, the Dead Pile Up

#83

Post by jdietrich »

giobox wrote: post #72
jdietrich wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a pharmaceutical product, heroin is called diamorphine, which should turn up more information. This article from The Scotsman newspaper mentions the theft of diamorphine from the MacFarlan Smith factory. https://www.scotsman.com/news-2-15012/drug-menace-off-the-st...

Thanks for the link!

You may also be interested in this interview with Dr Roy Robertson, who was one of the first to identify the heroin problem in Edinburgh and the subsequent outbreak of HIV/AIDS.

https://www.holyrood.com/articles/inside-politics/choose-lif...

Re: As Scotland's 'Trainspotting' Generation Ages, the Dead Pile Up

#84

Post by jamienicol »

GordonS wrote: post #77
strainer wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buckfast doesn't deserve to be lumped with glue sniffing. It is more an icon of revelry than alcoholism with it costing about twice as much as cheap wine. Its herbal stimulants give it an immediate effect similar to doing shots of a spirit but with half the alcohol load.

I never realised it was anything other than alcohol. I had a quick look, but didn't see anything about "herbal stimulants"?

Never heard of any herbal stimulants myself, and I drank a few bottles in my youth. It does have a disclaimer on in saying "the name tonic wine does not imply any medicinal properties". I think it's just the combination of alcohol and lots of caffeine which gives the desired effect

Re: As Scotland's 'Trainspotting' Generation Ages, the Dead Pile Up

#85

Post by christoph »

petepete wrote: post #30

For the record, I love Scotland and visit at least once per year. The North East coast is beautiful. For people outside the UK, I'd recommend tracking down a BBC documentary called The Scheme. It's quite old now (~2010) but still pretty relevant. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scheme

It's all available on YouTube, although the quality isn't great, it's still watchable. It might be a struggle for people not used to Scottish accent though.

Episode 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X6KfCYJx_g

Episode 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgwELFu6Erw

Episode 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9YV4aJ49SI

Episode 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bK0bleFCuI

Episode 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E90kfvhSS7E

Re: As Scotland's 'Trainspotting' Generation Ages, the Dead Pile Up

#86

Post by xnyan »

GordonS wrote: post #77
strainer wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buckfast doesn't deserve to be lumped with glue sniffing. It is more an icon of revelry than alcoholism with it costing about twice as much as cheap wine. Its herbal stimulants give it an immediate effect similar to doing shots of a spirit but with half the alcohol load.

I never realised it was anything other than alcohol. I had a quick look, but didn't see anything about "herbal stimulants"?

It's caffeine, which can be extracted from natural herbal sources.

Re: As Scotland's 'Trainspotting' Generation Ages, the Dead Pile Up

#87

Post by ralfd »

chrisfinne wrote: post #80
panzagl wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US one of the most persistent areas of poverty and opioid abuse (Appalachia) was largely settled by Scots displaced during the 18th Century. I wonder if anyone has done any research into a correlation, it not there's at least a master's thesis in it for some sociology student somewhere.

Thomas Sowell digs into this in his book "Black Rednecks and White Liberals" quote from the book's Wikipedia page: Sowell argues that the black ghetto culture, which is claimed to be "authentic black culture", is actually a highly dysfunctional white southern redneck culture which existed during the antebellum South. This culture came, in turn, from the "Cracker culture" of the North Britons and Scots-Irish who migra…

That reminded me of Slatestarcodex excellent review of „Albion’s Seeds“:

https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/04/27/book-review-albions-se...

Re: As Scotland's 'Trainspotting' Generation Ages, the Dead Pile Up

#88

Post by laurencerowe »

lucideer wrote: post #48
adam-a wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The comparison to Liverpool and Manchester is that Glasgow sees worse life expectancy despite similar climate, population, wealth etc.

Yup. It brings them up as similar, but less severe comparisons. I commented because I thought the implication that Glasgow/Scotland is anomalous seemed odd, rather than simply being the extreme low-point in a general regional trend.

The Glasgow effect is notable because it’s not explained by the usual factors of poverty. If you graph life expectancy vs poverty, Glasgow is an outlier, an anomaly from the trend line.

Re: As Scotland's 'Trainspotting' Generation Ages, the Dead Pile Up

#89

Post by yostrovs »

thedudeabides5 wrote: post #55
yostrovs wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Redheads are known to have greater pain tolerance. Perhaps there's a relationship to that phenomenon here.

Watch out @yostrovs, HN is not a safe space for humor attempts.

Though I did find my comment amusing, I do believe there may be something to it.

It is a fact that redheads have higher pain tolerance and respond differently to anesthesia compared to the rest of the population. Considering these phenomena are related to drug abuse, I feel like the downvoting is a matter of ignorance.

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