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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

#41

Post by strainer »

Theodores wrote: post #18
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…

That is rare information. Never heard of MacFarlan Smith before. To add to the cocktail of drugs there is also glue sniffing. South of the border you will never see anyone sniffing glue and I doubt there are many people in England who wake up in the morning with a burning desire to sit in the street sniffing glue. But this goes on in Glasgow. I found this shocking to see. There is also 'Bucky' that alcohol that is no…

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.

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

#42

Post by fulafel »

Teever wrote: post #32

Does anyone know what is going on with Estonia in that first graph? The first spike in deaths for Estonia seems to happen after the 2008 financial crisis, but I'm surprised to see that the dfinancial crisis hit Estonia harder than the US? What other facts give Estonia a surprisingly high mortality rate from opiates?

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.

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

#43

Post by ubermonkey »

Theodores wrote: post #18
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…

That is rare information. Never heard of MacFarlan Smith before. To add to the cocktail of drugs there is also glue sniffing. South of the border you will never see anyone sniffing glue and I doubt there are many people in England who wake up in the morning with a burning desire to sit in the street sniffing glue. But this goes on in Glasgow. I found this shocking to see. There is also 'Bucky' that alcohol that is no…

Bucky is absolutely available everywhere in England. I sought it out last summer on vacation in the Lakes, largely as a joke to share (via social media) with other friends of mine who are also fans of Ted Leo. (Leo has a song that references Buckfast, and has had to explain what it is at concerts for years.)

It is terrible.

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

#44

Post by spoovy »

"The reasons behind Scotland’s drug crisis are varied: Economic policies left areas deeply impoverished."

Glasgow was in decline in the 70s mainly because of global economic tides and the movement of manufacturing jobs from west to east, not because the subsequent government attempts to deal with the issue had limited success. You see this "blaming the imperfect treatment instead of the illness" in these kind of trendy PC journals constantly it's infuriating.

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

#45

Post by kenneth »

shellac wrote: post #23
matthewmacleod wrote: post #10

This is a particularly active political issue too – drug policy is at present a reserved matter of the UK government, which means the devolved government of Scotland is missing some important tools they could use to help deal with the issue. This something that the pro-independence Scottish government are making quite a bit of noise about now; some of it is probably opportunism, but Scotland's drug culture is differe…

The UK used to prescribe heroin for addicts, which I understand inspired the Swiss treatment of addicts. Rolling that back as part of the war on addiction seems to have been counterproductive in terms of overall health.

The Swiss experiment was a massive disaster. Wish we had never done it, and it certainly took a few decades to clean up its effect on parts of Zürich. It attracted junkies from all over Europe and with it brought crime and violence. I spent a few years going to primary school near the epicenter of it in the late 90s. The number of times I saw people shooting up in broad daylight right in front of my school… is shocking. Even more shocking were the parks littered in used needles. Parks kids would play in… can you imagine what can happen? They'd be cleaned up on the regular, and staff would literally have bags full of used needles!

It was pretty traumatic to see, not that I really understood it as a kid.

It was way worse than the streets of San Francisco today, which are an absolute disaster too!

Good riddance, getting rid of that "treatment" was the best thing we ever did.

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

#46

Post by welly »

Theodores wrote: post #18
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…

That is rare information. Never heard of MacFarlan Smith before. To add to the cocktail of drugs there is also glue sniffing. South of the border you will never see anyone sniffing glue and I doubt there are many people in England who wake up in the morning with a burning desire to sit in the street sniffing glue. But this goes on in Glasgow. I found this shocking to see. There is also 'Bucky' that alcohol that is no…

> South of the border you will never see anyone sniffing glue and I doubt there are many people in England who wake up in the morning with a burning desire to sit in the street sniffing glue

This is quite an unsubstantiated claim. Never? Of course you will, and do.

> There is also 'Bucky' that alcohol that is not sold south of the border.

This is patently false. It's made in Devon at Buckfast Abbey, so of course it's sold south of the border. And you see it south of the border all over the place. I know several places off the top of my head in Leeds and London where you can buy it. You can buy it on Amazon as well.

https://www.buckfast.com/stockists

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

#47

Post by adam-a »

lucideer wrote: post #5
arethuza wrote: post #2

Scotland is a tiny country but it never ceases to horrify me at the depth of the social and health divisions between different parts of the country, Scotland is often described as the "sick man of Europe" and Glasgow in particular has a remarkably bad life expectancy - the "Glasgow Effect": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasgow_effect I can strongly recommend Darren McGarvey's Poverty Safari a personal account of a d…

While this is most pronounced in Glasgow, this is something that's seen at smaller but significant levels throughout the UK (outside of Scotland), so I don't think it's particular to that country. Wales, Northern Ireland, and the north of England (Liverpool and Manchester are specifically mentioned in the Glasgow effect Wikipedia article) have similar stories.

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

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

#48

Post by lucideer »

adam-a wrote: post #47
lucideer wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While this is most pronounced in Glasgow, this is something that's seen at smaller but significant levels throughout the UK (outside of Scotland), so I don't think it's particular to that country. Wales, Northern Ireland, and the north of England (Liverpool and Manchester are specifically mentioned in the Glasgow effect Wikipedia article) have similar stories.

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.

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

#49

Post by giobox »

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 Macfarlan Smith link is interesting and not something I’ve ever heard before. Is there any other information on this on the web or elsewhere? A google for “Macfarlan Smith” and “Heroin” only returns your comment here as best I could find in a few minutes of searching.

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

#50

Post by soylentcola »

CalRobert wrote: post #40
Theodores wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is rare information. Never heard of MacFarlan Smith before. To add to the cocktail of drugs there is also glue sniffing. South of the border you will never see anyone sniffing glue and I doubt there are many people in England who wake up in the morning with a burning desire to sit in the street sniffing glue. But this goes on in Glasgow. I found this shocking to see. There is also 'Bucky' that alcohol that is no…

Ah, Buckfast is viewed with a bit of affection in Ireland (the Republic) as well. Though I've never seen anyone actually drink it.

I did a semester in Ireland back in the 90's and it was an occasional purchase by myself and other college students. Basically along the lines of how we'd get 40oz malt liquor in the states (or later on, those alcopops with caffeine like Sparks).

They don't taste good but they're cheap and strong so they were popular with college kids looking to hang out and get buzzed with friends. Even then we sort of did it with a wink and a grin, knowing that we were drinking some pretty "trashy" stuff.

"Buckfast gets you fucked fast!" was the common joke.

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