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My experience of losing a friend to heroin (2020)

mattlakeman.org

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Re: My experience of losing a friend to heroin (2020)

#131

Post by Clubber »

skyechurch wrote: post #110
wespiser_2018 wrote: post #24

Good write up. The US is really grappling with diseases of despair, and heroin/fentanyl addition is on of the biggest ones impacting the wellbeing of our society. A massive slice of talent and raw human resource is just dying every year, but the solutions that have worked in other countries are just impossible to implement here due because the the methods that are known to work are politically dead on arrival. I'm a…

>A massive slice of talent and raw human resource is just dying every year, but the solutions that have worked in other countries are just impossible to implement here due because the the methods that are known to work are politically dead on arrival. From the essay, it sounds like Jack was not possessed of any great "talent", or of any particular value as a "raw human resource". He was just a dude, probably easily r…

>From the essay, it sounds like Jack was not possessed of any great "talent" ... probably easily replaceable from a HR perspective

I think part of our problem is we put first value on people by their economic output. We need to realize there's more to being a person other than how much money you can make some rich dude.

Re: My experience of losing a friend to heroin (2020)

#132

Post by jorts »

stef25 wrote: post #124
wespiser_2018 wrote: post #24

Good write up. The US is really grappling with diseases of despair, and heroin/fentanyl addition is on of the biggest ones impacting the wellbeing of our society. A massive slice of talent and raw human resource is just dying every year, but the solutions that have worked in other countries are just impossible to implement here due because the the methods that are known to work are politically dead on arrival. I'm a…

It's a really complicated problem but one thing that just stands out to me is the role the doctors play: It's not normal to send people home with these massive prescriptions for opiates. Here in Europe doctors are very, very conservative with that stuff (and meds in general) while it seems to me that in the US if your "medical experience" even entails the slightest bit of discomfort people get all up in arms over it.…

The amount of pain meds my wife came home with after her c-section was like 100x what she ever used. I’m sure there are some folks who need that much but I doubt it’s the median.

Re: My experience of losing a friend to heroin (2020)

#133

Post by etempleton »

Opioids are over prescribed in the US and that is only now starting to changed.

There is too much focus on eliminating any and all pain. Sometimes you are injured or recovery from surgery is going to be horribly uncomfortable. Opioids should probably only be administered in hospitals and not sent home with patients. They are simply too addictive.

Re: My experience of losing a friend to heroin (2020)

#134

Post by skyechurch »

Sebb767 wrote: post #121
skyechurch wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A massive slice of talent and raw human resource is just dying every year, but the solutions that have worked in other countries are just impossible to implement here due because the the methods that are known to work are politically dead on arrival. From the essay, it sounds like Jack was not possessed of any great "talent", or of any particular value as a "raw human resource". He was just a dude, probably easily r…

> From the essay, it sounds like Jack was not possessed of any great "talent", or of any particular value as a "raw human resource". He was just a dude, probably easily replaceable from a HR perspective, I've seen a lot of smart people fall to drugs. Sure, if they get in too deep too early, they won't have a degree when they die, but they could have had one. And yes, as an HR person in a comparatively small company,…

>How so?

He waged war like a war. I don't personally recommend waging wars on chemical compounds or the desperate predestined "losers" of the economy, but there's something to be said for winning a war with cruelty vs losing the war with half the cruelty.

"It was the communist revolution that erased opium from mainland China. Mao Zedong , with his political apparatus that reached into every hamlet and home, was able to lay the beast low. He used a mixture of carrot and stick. Addicts were not condemned, but offered medical help and rehabilitation. But those who were unco-operative were sent to labour camps or imprisoned. Dealers were summarily executed, often without trial." [0]

"Smart" people getting hooked on drugs is exactly as tragic as "losers" like Jack, any competition which ignores this is one we should be enormously proud to lose.

[0] https://www.scmp.com/article/547678/maos-drug-lesson-world

Re: My experience of losing a friend to heroin (2020)

#135

Post by gonehome »

yholio wrote: post #76
germinalphrase wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“ The effect on new users would be profound as well: as all the current users naturally age out of wanting to use hard drugs, the majority of drug dealers (other users themselves), won't have the capability to introduce new people to hard drugs” Why do you believe this to be true?

Giving free, safe drugs will depress demand for illegal drugs: most dealers are users, and are pushed to a high risk criminal activity - drug dealing - in order to finance their expensive habit. They take extraordinary risk for this, including actively seeking out new clients. If you give out free product, you not only kill the primary demand, but most dealers themselves don't have a reason to continue taking risks -…

I also have a hypothesis that if it's freely available and boring then more people are likely to quit. The focus required to get it I think is part of what keeps people addicted - the reward is uncertain.

If addicts can go to a boring clinic and get it daily for free maybe they'll at some point look up and wonder why they're doing what they're doing.

Especially if the clinic has easily available assistance and things that can help people quit.

Even in the worst case where they remain addicts, at least they won't OD and they're not funding organized crime.

Probably not as easy with meth though - it's one thing to be addicted and still responsive to incentives, psychosis is a harder problem to handle.

Re: My experience of losing a friend to heroin (2020)

#136

Post by secondaryacct »

somethoughts wrote: post #80
wespiser_2018 wrote: post #24

Good write up. The US is really grappling with diseases of despair, and heroin/fentanyl addition is on of the biggest ones impacting the wellbeing of our society. A massive slice of talent and raw human resource is just dying every year, but the solutions that have worked in other countries are just impossible to implement here due because the the methods that are known to work are politically dead on arrival. I'm a…

It'd be interesting if there were any country wide experiments that are similar to the approach that has been taken with tobacco. Basically legalize it for those over 18, slap it silly with warning labels and then tax the heck out it to make it prohibitively expensive. And raise the tax every year. And then fund ad campaigns and social media campaigns which make it generally look dumb and unfashionable as well as tre…

I don't know. As a smoker, I m guilty of smoking, Im not really a victim even if one could argue it will be hard to stop - it's a lot of personal responsibility, a bit of laziness and a minority the product itself.

With heroin, I d argue people are definite victims. It's absolutely not like tobacco, the craving is physically painful for long, not just the mild annoyance of tobacco.

To give you a few exemples: it takes me 3 days to a week of being irritated to stop cigarets for a full year, cold turkey. For injected heroin, it's 2 weeks of extreme pain with possibility of hospitalisation, for Subutex, an alternative pill, it's around a month (so many addict complain it s easier to take a break from heroin than the progressively reducing alternative medicine).

My dad is a pharmacist in France where we treat drug addicts who want to recover as victims and help them get alternative subutex or methadone for free: he told me he never saw someone truly stop. They can reduce and live with it, but they cannot possibly stop.

Your increasing tax solution seems unfair, while it seems fair for me with cigarets: it's my fault and I can stop. Not an heroin addict. I dont have a magical solution, in France we focused on stopping the violence due to the craving with free Methadone in pharmacies and it changed the criminal landscape, but destroying the product supply at the source while keeping the last addicts on Methadone seems like the only path, if the goal is to free people from opioids in France.

In the US it's different: opioids became a for profit pharmaceutical entreprise, and most of the crisis there is due to opium sold hidden as painkillers totally legally on a large scale.

Re: My experience of losing a friend to heroin (2020)

#137

Post by arp242 »

skyechurch wrote: post #110
wespiser_2018 wrote: post #24

Good write up. The US is really grappling with diseases of despair, and heroin/fentanyl addition is on of the biggest ones impacting the wellbeing of our society. A massive slice of talent and raw human resource is just dying every year, but the solutions that have worked in other countries are just impossible to implement here due because the the methods that are known to work are politically dead on arrival. I'm a…

>A massive slice of talent and raw human resource is just dying every year, but the solutions that have worked in other countries are just impossible to implement here due because the the methods that are known to work are politically dead on arrival. From the essay, it sounds like Jack was not possessed of any great "talent", or of any particular value as a "raw human resource". He was just a dude, probably easily r…

I am "not a genius, but not dumb either" much like Jack. But for one reason or the other I seem to have an aptitude for this whole programming thing, and technical stuff in general. Is that "talent"? I guess it's not "talent" in the wunderkind sort-of way, but it is "talent" in the sense of "a decent aptitude allowing me to perform better at these kind of tasks than average in the general population".

I was never addicted to drugs, but for the first ~25 years I struggled in life in much the same way. No education, no real job, no real direction, future, or perspective, no real friends, no girlfriend, what's the point? I suppose my situation wasn't quite as hopeless, or maybe I'm just a different person, and it probably also helps that drugs usually just make me feel weird in a bad way and never enjoyed it much.

Plus, I never stopped programming, or lost my interest in it. It just took a long time to scrape together the confidence to actually apply for jobs. For a time I was either jobless and programming stuff at home, or working minimal wage jobs and programming after work. At one place I managed to "hack" the computer used to scan barcodes and during night-shifts (with often hours of nothing to do) I would write some toy programs to pass the time (more fun than smoking weed outside like some of the other people were doing). I sometimes wonder what would have become of me if I hadn't learned programming as a young teenager, or had lost interest somewhere along the way.

Either way, we'll likely never know what "talent" Jack did or did not posses as he never really seems to have developed any due to a combination of his personality, environment, and just "bad luck". Even the most talented and gifted programmers I know don't "just" do it automatically; they still need to apply themselves and develop their talent. For all you know you might have it in you to be a word-class guitar player, actor, soccer star, or some such. But if you've never played guitar, acted, played football, etc. and developed this talent then you'll never know.

Re: My experience of losing a friend to heroin (2020)

#138

Post by EamonnMR »

somethoughts wrote: post #80
wespiser_2018 wrote: post #24

Good write up. The US is really grappling with diseases of despair, and heroin/fentanyl addition is on of the biggest ones impacting the wellbeing of our society. A massive slice of talent and raw human resource is just dying every year, but the solutions that have worked in other countries are just impossible to implement here due because the the methods that are known to work are politically dead on arrival. I'm a…

It'd be interesting if there were any country wide experiments that are similar to the approach that has been taken with tobacco. Basically legalize it for those over 18, slap it silly with warning labels and then tax the heck out it to make it prohibitively expensive. And raise the tax every year. And then fund ad campaigns and social media campaigns which make it generally look dumb and unfashionable as well as tre…

It's a lot easier to be a hardcore smoker and still function though.

Re: My experience of losing a friend to heroin (2020)

#139

Post by refurb »

kyleee wrote: post #114
refurb wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it scary? Heroin isn’t unique in this aspect. I had a friend tell me “when I had the first drink ever my first thought was ‘I want to feel like this the rest of my life’”. He was sucked in right away and struggled for years to break that hold. Plenty of people feel that way and practically kill themselves with alcohol, opioids, cocaine and even food. And plenty of people take opioids equivalent to heroin and s…

Do you really struggle to see why that's scary?

I struggle to see why heroin is uniquely scary.

Re: My experience of losing a friend to heroin (2020)

#140

Post by codr7 »

nostromo wrote: post #14
codr7 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Decriminalizing use is the only sane solution; using and/or being addicted to a substance is not a crime, period.

I used to believe that — before I lived in a city that effectively decriminalized all drugs. The result has been a disaster. People on meth run around the streets at night causing chaos. Homeless people on heroin leave needles everywhere. People avoid transit and parks now because there is regularly someone losing his or her mind nearby. Long sentences aren’t the answer of course. But I do think that sending someone…

Sounds like any city where it's still illegal to me, the change won't happen overnight and I don't doubt it could get even worse initially.
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