I am a heroin user. I do not have a drug problem • Hacker News Board

Re: I am a heroin user. I do not have a drug problem

#371

Post by ericol » Thu, Feb 18, 2021, 5:18 PM UTC

vntok wrote: post #348

ajkdhcb2 wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just threw out your own anecdotal nonsense. Responsible drug users are invisible to society and to judgemental people like you. You have no data to discredit it.

Responsible drug users sounds like an oxymoron. Is there any data that shows those people even exist?

Obviously this is highly anecdotal, but for the 5 years that I lived in Spain, I was a regular drug user.

With the exception made of MDMA & speed (That I'll consume both on occasions) I was consuming weed, hash and mushrooms on a weekly basis.

And everybody on a certain group of friends was doing the same. We had a surplus of mushrooms, as we had somebody in our group (A neurobiologist) growing them.

13 years ago I came back to Argentina, and then stopped consuming cold turkey.

Re: I am a heroin user. I do not have a drug problem

#372

Post by mdoms » Thu, Feb 18, 2021, 5:20 PM UTC

fbelzile wrote: post #274

nimbius wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fully agree. Carl is a white collar professor. The worst thing that can happen if his drug indulgence becomes a problem is he knocks over the water cooler or loses his job. I work a blue collar job servicing heavy diesel engines. Casual hard drug users are aggravatingly cavalier to work alongside. They forget important things constantly. They show up late and lose things often. You'll spend all day repeating things t…

Not defending drug use at work, but if you're to be fired it should be for the performance related issues you mentioned caused by the drug, not because of the drug itself. Edit for more context: Depending on the drug, substances consumed outside of working hours would still show up in a drug test. Firing someone for something they do outside of work shouldn't be acceptable. If you can prove they consumed drugs that w…

Do you have the same attitude to other safety procedures? If an electrician routinely, consciously failed to check the mains had been turned off before working do you think he shouldn't be reprimanded until he electrocutes himself or someone else?

Re: I am a heroin user. I do not have a drug problem

#373

Post by DanBC » Thu, Feb 18, 2021, 5:20 PM UTC

vmchale wrote: post #369

konfusinomicon wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on the addiction. Opiate addiction comes along with flu like symptoms, insomnia, restless legs/arms AKA crazy legs, and an ever present anxiety that you really really want some that will make you do some weird shit just to get it. Other addictions are more subtle, some worse, but all of them I've experienced have the same feeling of stress/anxiety that can only be cured by the vice they are caused by. Many…

> Opiate addiction comes along with flu like symptoms, insomnia, restless legs/arms AKA crazy legs, and an ever present anxiety that you really really want some that will make you do some weird shit just to get it. ... Many are all in your head, or, can be overcome by willpower, but definitely not opiates Sure, but one can be dependent on e.g. SSRIs or SNRIs. But they aren't addictive! Dependence + addiction is a spe…

You can't die from opioid withdrawal. It's unpleasant and many people need help. But it's not like alcohol dependence which can kill people if they stop suddenly.

SSRI/SNRIs can be problematic. The difference is that SSRIs tend not to have the other features of dependence:

Seeking the meds when you run low; preoccupation with the meds; continuing to take the meds even though you know they're doing harm.

Re: I am a heroin user. I do not have a drug problem

#374

Post by mrwh » Thu, Feb 18, 2021, 5:21 PM UTC

My only direct experience of opioids is a one week prescription for percocet after surgery. It got me through, and probably was safer short-term than taking massive amounts of Tylenol. But I was glad to stop taking it. It felt insidious: it didn't make the unpleasantness go away so much as remove my ability to care about the unpleasantness. Everything felt fine, kind of light and bouncy. I can easily imagine being trapped in that.

Re: I am a heroin user. I do not have a drug problem

#375

Post by ardy42 » Thu, Feb 18, 2021, 5:21 PM UTC

capableweb wrote: post #231

lazide wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who decides that someone is a responsible and healthy adult? Do we have any data on how many responsible and healthy adults try heroin? Anecdata and broad brush strokes of course - In my experience anyway, the actually responsible and heathy adults I know haven’t felt the need to use heroin. The people who somehow are able to delude themselves into thinking they are responsible and healthy while obviously in cripplin…

> Who decides that someone is a responsible and healthy adult? You do. It's not up to someone to decide, you're responsible for your own body and your own decisions to improve/harm it. I don't think they are saying advising governments to setup some sort of screening process for this. It's more for the people who are interested in the drugs themselves. When I first started getting interested in drugs, many pushed the…

>> Who decides that someone is a responsible and healthy adult?

> You do. It's not up to someone to decide, you're responsible for your own body and your own decisions to improve/harm it.

That's obviously not that black and white. If it was, then breathalyzer interlocks wouldn't be a thing, for instance.

Re: I am a heroin user. I do not have a drug problem

#376

Post by mdoms » Thu, Feb 18, 2021, 5:21 PM UTC

ryanmarsh wrote: post #300

GordonS wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author is not suggesting you take heroin at work, any more than it would be acceptable to drink alcohol at work.

Are we equating alcohol with heroin?

The article does this numerous times.

Re: I am a heroin user. I do not have a drug problem

#377

Post by omginternets » Thu, Feb 18, 2021, 5:21 PM UTC

Uberphallus wrote: post #362

omginternets wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good grief, yes it is. It's not nearly as addictive. It's not nearly as deadly. It's much easier to control dosage. It has modes of consumption that are non-pathological. This is typical of the distorted anglo-saxon view of alcohol as a tool for getting flat-out drunk. This is not how most of the world relates to alcohol, nor is it a healthy relationship with it. Honestly, this says more about you than about booze.

> It's not nearly as addictive. Strangely I know more ex-heroin addicts than ex-alcoholics, and there are way more alcoholics out there, but that's just anecdotal data I guess :) > It's not nearly as deadly. Maybe if you leave out all of the DUI and accidents where alcohol played a role, you'd be right, but overall alcohol causes way more damage than heroin. While David Nutt ranked heroin as more addictive than alcoh…

>Strangely I know more ex-heroin addicts than ex-alcoholics, and there are way more alcoholics out there, but that's just anecdotal data I guess :)

Indeed it is! You conveniently ignore all alcohol consumers except the ones with dependency problems.

>Actually no.

Actually, yes! You're arguing that there is variance in absorbtion, and you are right. That is different, however, from e.g. the LD50 or the ability of people to measure dosage accurately.

>I guess you have preconceptions about what heroin use implies.

You're conveniently ignoring that non-pathological use of heroin is extremely small. It's a rounding error when compared to alcohol usage. You are cherry-picking.

> Strangely I know more ex-heroin addicts than ex-alcoholics, and there are way more alcoholics out there, but that's just anecdotal data I guess :)

Good thing this has been formally studied

>Maybe if you leave out all of the DUI and accidents where alcohol played a role, you'd be right [...]

Yes, and people with pools in their back-yards experience more drowning. Color me surprised.

You're also leaving out all the incidental damage from heroin use in your analysis. Shall we factor in drug-related murders? How about secondary complications like pneumonia?

Again, cherry-picking.

>Ah, ad hominem to finish, a classic.

An observation, actually. I've rarely seen this level of bad-faith argumentation.

Re: I am a heroin user. I do not have a drug problem

#378

Post by lazide » Thu, Feb 18, 2021, 5:22 PM UTC

valuearb wrote: post #306

jessebro wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with that attitude is when the body count gets high enough, there is incredible pressure to 'do something' - because enough people are terrible at judging this (or don't have the right friend group, or whatever) that we end up with huge crime problems, destroyed lives, and other social ills. The libertarian 'you can do what you want and it's your own responsibility' is great until the people who obviously…

You don’t have to murder anyone to fund a legal drug habit. Legal drug habits are easier to treat. Some might not even have a drug habit if not for illegal drugs laced with addictive substances they didn’t even know were there.

Oxycodone is legal [albeit controlled]. There are plenty of pill doctors that will prescribe oxycodone to anyone that doesn't look like too big of a mess. A cousin of mine stole oxycodone from my grandmother when she couldn't afford the ever increasing costs of her spiraling out of control oxycodone habit. People have murdered and gone bankrupt acquiring oxycodone, and continue to do so. [https://www.pharmacytimes.com/news/pharmacist-killed-after-r...]

If you're saying 'I meant it should be legal to buy over the counter for cheap and/or given away for free', then that might decrease the number of people being robbed for it - but doesn't seem to decrease the number of overdose deaths, area crime rate, or urban decay by as huge an amount (or maybe it just concentrates it?), at least based on the experiment in Vancouver, BC, Canada's lower east side. The Netherlands is also problematic, and not a solved problem. [https://www.areavibes.com/vancouver-bc/downtown+eastside/cri..., and overdose deaths have continued to skyrocket in Vancouver [http://www.vch.ca/Documents/CMHO-report.pdf] despite harm reduction, decriminalization, and other means.

Areas like San Francisco with de-facto decriminalization also have major problems with people, for lack of a better word, rotting of neglect on the street - something that I've also seen first hand in Vancouver. I also have friends who have seen this first hand in Seattle. Resident complaints around muggings, being assaulted unpredictably by unstable mentally ill people (on drugs or not is hard to say, but there is a high correlation with this and these areas in my personal experience) are hard to ignore.

This isn't a solved problem, and I'm not advocating for 'lock them up' policies - but pretending this will all be cool if everyone can walk down to the corner store and buy heroin if they think they're up for it isn't helping anyone either.

Re: I am a heroin user. I do not have a drug problem

#379

Post by wuxb » Thu, Feb 18, 2021, 5:22 PM UTC

Just ask the man two questions: Would you like to give heroin to your children, relatives, and colleagues. Would you like to pay for them if they don't have the money to get enough doses in their life? Many "leaders" I know tell people "this company is great". But they ended up sending their kids to other (better) places.

Re: I am a heroin user. I do not have a drug problem

#380

Post by red0point » Thu, Feb 18, 2021, 5:22 PM UTC

slfnflctd wrote: post #270

jboog wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jesus, I thought I drank too much but it's still hard to believe 10% of Americans drink the equivalent of 10 drinks EVERY DAY. On my worst weeks when I think "i need to cut back" I might average ~3 drinks a day, maybe 5 on a holiday bender.

From direct personal experience totaling well over a decade, 10 drinks is not hard to get to, especially for a larger person. 2-3 to get things going, and 1 an hour after that, for up to 7 hours. On weekends, I split it up; 3-4 in the morning & before lunch, then eat/sleep, then 6-7 through the afternoon & evening. Beer usually seems to be easier on the system than anything else, but that may vary by physiology. Once…

Consider doing absolute abstinency for at least 6 weeks every few years.

Really, not a single drink or sip.

That way your liver has time to heal itself again, lest it will develop a cirrhosis, which will signifanctly decrease your quality and expectancy of life. If you have a cirrhosis of the liver, it's too late, you're going to die in at most 5 years, and it won't be pleasant until then, either.

That's got nothing to do with "doing better", "perfection" or whatever, just hard facts.