WTF is up with the heroin?

[cat in january]

So sad and scary. I know nobody affected, as far as I know. For what ever reason, is doesn't seem to have gained traction in this rural area of North Central Colorado. I'm fixing to go on a road trip through the Heartland to my father-in-laws in Northern Vermont. I'm honestly a little afraid of what I'll see.

Thing is you won't see it. Rural areas keep it hidden pretty well until the ambulances show up.

[XXX-er]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/britis...ters-1.3753765

the Vancover downtown east side^^ is sposed to be the worst place in NA for drug use


right now the probelm is the Fentynal crisis, recently up here 4 people did what they thot was cocaine turned out to be Fentynal the last of then called 911 as he was nodding off and they were saved, 9 people OD'ed from that batch but didn't die, it sounds like lots of stuff out there is laced SO ... anything could be Fentynal


the brits sold huge amounts of opium in china for years there is a netflix flick you can watch about it, on the tail end of the opium wars back in the day my family was in the drug business, before WWII Grandpa was an engineer in the opium factory in singapore but after the war opium was illegal so dad who was a cop busted all the junkies that grandpa had indirectly supplied, pa said during the day the coolies functioned/worked really long & hard loading ships on the docks and relaxed with a pipe at night, so pa and his workmates would go in and clean out apartment blocks full of junkies

I had hospitol opiates for 2 broken ankles and I found them most disappointing ... rather smoke MJ

[Bobby Stainless]

[XXX-er]

yeah so with me I get that^^ dopamine rush from gear

[stuckathuntermtn]

The thing about opioids, is that apart from making you feel great, they can eventually start to replace your body's ability to produce its own endorphins and you need something just to not be sick and in pain.
Opioids are not meant for long term care, and they can be extremely addicting.

[XXX-er]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/britis...adly-1.3760244

good story^^ on what Fentynal is

[rideit]

Is Canada experiencing a heroin epidemic too, or just us yanks?

[XXX-er]

Heroin has always been around its the Fentynal crisis that is killing people

[BmillsSkier]

People that say that this is overblown and that H has always been around haven't spent one minute, or at least watched a nightly newscast, in any city along I-95 from FL to Northern Kentucky-Southeast Appalachian OH and on up through NH.

It's already been said how it started and this corridor was the pill mill highway. Spend two seconds in any city, rural or big, up and down that path and tell me that it's not an absolute epidemic. Fucking clueless.

I've been lucky in that it hasn't touched anyone I know (that I know of) but the daily, and I mean every single fucking day, stories of junkies passed out at the wheel drifting along the jersey wall on the highway with their toddler strapped in back makes me madder than hell. Just die already junkies and let the kids grow up with someone who doesn't get behind the wheel with their kid in back and a needle in their arm.

[old goat]

[QUOTE=TheFugitive;4807482]

While opiate addiction is certainly a big problem I don't think it is as huge as it is being made out to be. QUOTE]

Sorry OG but this is bullshit. Its a huge problem that is absolutely devistating areas of the country. Its a problem with a different scale of stakes. Everything is on line when playing with this shit.

Im a fourty something from Florida that ran with a fast crowd but we all grew up to some extent. I cant count on both my hands the people I know, full grown ass men and women with jobs and kids and houses that are in the ground from pills/H over the last 10 years. I know pro athletes that lost it all to pain pills and selling them. There was a pharmacy in florida that was filling scripts for 100k pain pills a week. Then the florida gov finally put a registry together and made it hard to get pills, prices go up and some entrepenuar comes in with H. Its so bad In my hometown anything that isnt tied down is stolen. Shit like plastic porch furnature, kids toys, dog bowls. Its as bad as Ive ever seen it and getting worse. I wish it wasnt as bad as its being made out to be but its worse.

We've had marijuana epidemics, crack and cocaine epidemics, quaalude epidemics, meth epidemics, and of course an alcohol pandemic--at the moment the drug problem du jour seems to be opiates (plus all of the above except quaaludes--my mom was fond of those). Overall the incidence of substance abuse seems to have gone up perhaps one percent in the last decade or so.
What is different about opiates is that a) many people, but not all, get started on prescription drugs, b) they are physically addicting (alcohol and other sedatives have a withdrawal syndrome but are not technically considered addicting in the way that opiates are; stimulants are also not technically addicting although people feel like shit when they stop; nicotine is more physically addicting than are opiates) and c) as others have mentioned, they are particularly dangerous when overdosed.

It is important to understand that a lot of people use opiates for many years for chronic pain without adverse effects, because they use them infrequently enough to avoid physical dependency and tolerance.

I believe that the opiate epidemic can be partly dealt with by judicious prescribing and patient instruction, although that won't help people who are already hooked, nor will it help people who start with heroin rather than pills or with stolen pills. There is a danger is that patients with severe pain will be denied opiates when they are appropriate to use; this is certainly happening now.
And then people will switch to something else.
My question is--is there some number of people in any society who for biologic reasons will abuse drugs, including alcohol, as long as they are available legally or illegally, or is there something wrong with a society in which a tenth of the population needs to stay high or low?

[AK47bp]

Wow.

Ton of experts in this thread.

[mcski]

A recent article made the point that every human society that has ever existed has used some type of reality altering substance. He was arguing the point that perhaps in addition to hunger, sex, thirst that drugs needed to be added to the list of basic instincts.

[bgrayvy]

As usual, Frontline nails it.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/chasing-heroin/

Great documentary. Main girl they followed was our neighbor about 10 years ago. We knew her as a sweet, smart, straight A middle schooler with good parents. Scares the shit out of me now that we've got 10 and 13-year-old girls.

[Tippster]

The fact that opiates are addicting, unlike drugs like cocaine and alcohol,

The members of AA and NA would disagree with you there, doc.

Scares the shit out of me now that we've got 10 and 13-year-old girls.

My kids are 16 and 13. Yep.

Odd side effect of the OD crisis: So many people are dying of drug overdoses that they’re easing the donated organ shortage.

[FLS]

Just die already junkies and let the kids grow up with someone who doesn't get behind the wheel with their kid in back and a needle in their arm.

You ok?

[SkiBall]

A good read on addiction...
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blo...p-stigmas-with

[BmillsSkier]

You ok?

Yeah, shit just pisses me off. I see it on the news every day - kids in car seats in a car crashed through a building or bouncing down the highway with their junkie parent passed out OD' behind the wheel.

[stuckathuntermtn]

Heroin has always been around its the Fentynal crisis that is killing people

That's a good point. A had a patch with that stuff once, for pain management. It was not fun.
Wasn't it also what the Russians pumped into that theater to put everyone to sleep?

[old goat]

The members of AA and NA would disagree with you there, doc.

I'm sure they would, but the pharmacology is different. I should have used the more technical term habituation, rather than the psychosocial term addiction. All drugs of abuse produce a craving in those who abuse them; these is what most people mean when they say addiction. Where opiates differ is that they produce a cellular tolerance; a patient with an acutely patient condition requiring around the clock opiate treatment for over about two weeks will require increasing doses to maintain the same effect and will suffer a withdrawal syndrome if the opiate is abruptly stopped. If the opiate is gradually reduced no withdrawal symptoms will occur and for 90% of patients there will be no craving. These patients are habituated--addicted if you will. The habituation is produced independent of any craving for the drug--the only craving most people experience is freedom from pain. This is qualitatively different than the addiction to other classes of drugs and alcohol, where the psychological craving is the mechanism of addiction. (Alcohol and other sedatives do cause a tolerance in heavy users, due to increased liver metabolism of the drug rather than due to tolerance in target cells in the brain. This kind of tolerance is considerably less in degree than that for opiates.) How much all this matters in the success or failure of treatment I don't know. I do think it probably matters in the frequency of OD--the opiate addict experiencing withdrawal is in no position to be discriminating in the source or quality of their drug. The majority of abusers of other classes of drug don't have the same physiological compulsion to maintain a constant blood level.

I would point out that alcohol kills too, although primarily by means of trauma and violence, and the people killed are only sometimes the abuser. If we had a choice to get rid of opiates or alcohol--we don't--I would vote for getting rid of alcohol. Opiates have a socially useful purpose--the relief of pain; alcohol does not. (I do drink.)

As far as existing addicts the best way to prevent them from dying and committing crimes would be to provide them with an unadulterated and accurately dosed supply of opiate.

[Benny Profane]

It wasn't a big deal when black kids were dying and shooting each other over it, but, ever since white people got hooked and started dying, oh my, we have a problem, Houston.

[brutah]

People get hooked on pills, can't get pills anymore, move to heroin.......bing -bang - boom.

more like get hooked on prescribed pills, can't get/afford pills anymore, realize heroin is dirt cheap and a better high.

Then there's the relatively strength of heroin has grown increasingly over the years. see Phillp Seymour Hoffman.

it's crazy to think about but we probably all know someone who has died of a heroin OD. A childhood friend of mine died last summer, real sad stuff. My hometown of PC, just lost two 13 year old boys who OD on a synthetic opiod they
got off the internet from a chinese manufacturer. Sad shit.

I don't get it. The opiod high is okay I guess (only tried low dosage pills and cough syrup)..... I was never a fan of it really, too dopey, plus the itching side effect is super lame. Call me old fashioned but I'd rather smoke weed any day of the week.

[Tippster]

I'm sure they would, but the pharmacology is different. I should have used the more technical term habituation, rather than the psychosocial term addiction. All drugs of abuse produce a craving in those who abuse them; these is what most people mean when they say addiction. Where opiates differ is that they produce a cellular tolerance; a patient with an acutely patient condition requiring around the clock opiate treatment for over about two weeks will require increasing doses to maintain the same effect and will suffer a withdrawal syndrome if the opiate is abruptly stopped. If the opiate is gradually reduced no withdrawal symptoms will occur and for 90% of patients there will be no craving. These patients are habituated--addicted if you will. The habituation is produced independent of any craving for the drug--the only craving most people experience is freedom from pain. This is qualitatively different than the addiction to other classes of drugs and alcohol, where the psychological craving is the mechanism of addiction. (Alcohol and other sedatives do cause a tolerance in heavy users, due to increased liver metabolism of the drug rather than due to tolerance in target cells in the brain. This kind of tolerance is considerably less in degree than that for opiates.) How much all this matters in the success or failure of treatment I don't know. I do think it probably matters in the frequency of OD--the opiate addict experiencing withdrawal is in no position to be discriminating in the source or quality of their drug. The majority of abusers of other classes of drug don't have the same physiological compulsion to maintain a constant blood level.

I would point out that alcohol kills too, although primarily by means of trauma and violence, and the people killed are only sometimes the abuser. If we had a choice to get rid of opiates or alcohol--we don't--I would vote for getting rid of alcohol. Opiates have a socially useful purpose--the relief of pain; alcohol does not. (I do drink.)

As far as existing addicts the best way to prevent them from dying and committing crimes would be to provide them with an unadulterated and accurately dosed supply of opiate.

I hear you and I buy it, but alcohol and cocaine (two drugs I have some personal familiarity with) can both kill you if you OD and both build up a tolerance the more you use them. It also hurts like hell trying to cut either out of your life cold Turkey depending on that tolerance level. Not sure that the hair being split holds up to real world scrutiny.

I was never into the true opiates, tho. Maybe I have a relatively high pain threshold but other than a day or so I've never taken painkillers long-term (ie. long enough to get addicted.) Shit, I'd rather ride out a low grade headache than take a pill.

[old goat]

I hear you and I buy it, but alcohol and cocaine (two drugs I have some personal familiarity with) can both kill you if you OD and both build up a tolerance the more you use them. It also hurts like hell trying to cut either out of your life cold Turkey depending on that tolerance level. Not sure that the hair being split holds up to real world scrutiny.

I was never into the true opiates, tho. Maybe I have a relatively high pain threshold but other than a day or so I've never taken painkillers long-term (ie. long enough to get addicted.) Shit, I'd rather ride out a low grade headache than take a pill.

You're right--I'm probably splitting hairs. I'm trying to explain, or just figure out, why the opiate situation seems to be so lethal. I've seen lethal cocaine overdoses--one was an inpatient in a VA hospital when he took the lethal dose. Alcohol poisoning seems to be particularly popular with college underclassmen.
The point of all my raving is that a lot of the blame for the current situation should be blamed not on the drugs themselves but on bad prescribing practices by docs--sometimes for money, sometimes because docs don't like to say no (unless the question is "do you make housecalls?"

[digitaldeath]

Booo hooo

People die from dope

I wonder what the margins are like on horse? Seems like a lot of b.s. to deal with... small bills and bags, sick customers.
Seems like the poppy is a beautiful plant with some cool benefits

[WTF is dat]

Ok so apparently I am the only one in this thread who has tried heroin (or at least is willing to admit to it).


A few years ago back in college I was at a friends party and walked into the back room to a bunch of people I knew smoking heroin (yes, you don't have to inject yourself). At first I didn't know wtf it was, I thought they were smoking coke or some shit... These were people that I would NEVER suspect of using heroin. I asked what it was and they told me it was heroin. At this point I was a little drunk so I said wtf I'll try it, and I took a couple hits.

Just a few moments later I was high as fuck. Sorta like if I had taken 8 percocets. Now, I enjoy opioids, but I much prefer weed, alcohol, blow, and molly. The opioid high has never seemed that enjoyable to me... Usually I just fall asleep.

So I was high fuck on heroin but honestly I didn't think it was that great. I blurred out at some point and fell asleep at the party. Next morning I woke up and realized that smoking heroin was probably the stupidest drunk decision I ever made. I couldn't believe how shitty a decision I made and the high (to me) was not that great.


I am glad that all of that is far behind me now that I am in grad school. I'm lucky if I can drink once a week now that I am working on my masters. Glad nothing worse came of that night, but I've never been that big a fan of opioids.


Anyhow, back in March I broke my shoulder at Keystone after overshooting a landing in the park and double ejecting. I managed to ski down to keystone medical clinic. They wrote me a prescription for 20 Percocet to hold me over before I could get to a real doctor. Next morning I go to Panorama Orthopedics, which is arguably the best orthopedic facility in the entire mountain west. Doctor writes me a prescription for an additional 60 Percocet and tells me to see him in a couple of weeks. 3 weeks later I go back to Panorama and the doctor asks if I need any refills. I'm no fool, so of course, I say yes... another 60 Percocet. I told the doctor that I had only been taking them a little in the day, and mostly at night to help with the pain while I sleep (truthfully). Doctor says to me; "Ok I will give you Vicodin so that you can use them to help sleep for the next few weeks. Take the Percocet sparingly during the day to help tolerate your daily activity."




He wrote me a script for another FIFTY vicodin.


If you do the math on this, in roughly 3 weeks I was prescribed nearly 200 painkillers.... For a fucking broken shoulder. And people wonder why there is a heroin epidemic??

The thing that really blows my mind about all of this is that a top notch orthopedic facilities with some of the best doctors between California and the east coast prescribed me this many pills. Wtf??



TL;DR : If you live in Denver Panoramic Orthopedics will prescribe you an obscene amount of pills if you are injured; People you don't suspect are using heroin; the high isn't that great if you don't like opioids.