Let's Talk About The Opioid Problem

[riser4]

Obviously it's because of the sentencing guidelines, but can someone please explain why this POS only got 3 months: https://www.wcax.com/2023/04/07/sout...atal-overdose/

[Dantheman]

I would agree with you in that ethanol is a very dirty compound with many different cellular targets in many different tissues, and that prolonged abuse often results in extensive damage to many different systems.

But I would disagree that with opioids the acute lethal dose isn’t what we are concerned about; I think the risk of OD is exactly what is troubling about these compounds.

There are many alcoholics who have destroyed themselves with a lifetime of drinking, but it’s hard to find junkies who have been on the horse for decades. Dee Dee Ramone had a good long run though, but I think he’s the exception.

This is what I was getting at regarding alcohol. Ethanol disrupts just about every cellular process in the body and you have to consume a shitload of it because it is so very low potency. Opioids have a peculiar knack for stopping your breathing, but are not broadly toxic in the same way.

Opioid OD should be taken very seriously. But, black market drugs with unknown dosages dramatically increase the risk of accidental OD. Also, prior to fentanyl a large percentage of "opioid" ODs were polysubstance ODs where opioids were combined with alcohol, antihistamines, and/or benzos.

Hmm the more you know. Could it possibly be the Russians?

Doubtful. There's no need to read any further into it than simple economics and logistics. Why would any drug trafficker go through the trouble of growing opium poppies, processing them into heroin, then smuggling a bulky product when you can make fentanyl in a warehouse and smuggle a 50x smaller amount.

If anything it's surprising it didn't happen a long time ago.

[XXX-er]

Doubtful. There's no need to read any further into it than simple economics and logistics. Why would any drug trafficker go through the trouble of growing opium poppies, processing them into heroin, then smuggling a bulky product when you can make fentanyl in a warehouse and smuggle a 50x smaller amount.

this ^^

as i have been lead to believe the average heroin user no longer gets heroin they get fentynal which is hard to regulate and it kills them

[SkiBall]

this ^^

as i have been lead to believe the average heroin user no longer gets heroin they get fentynal which is hard to regulate and it kills them

But they still hold out hope they just might get off this time. Or just not get sick.

[SoVT Joey]

I started at 15 with my wisdom teeth, 60 Percs. Used recreationally for a while after that. Then ski academy happened. Injuries were very common at ski academy and trainers weren’t taking scripts and dispersing them at that point. There were always hundreds floating around in the dorms. We didn’t know any better. It was 2003ish. In 2004, one of my schoolmates brought in Oxy 40s for us to try. That continued through highschool but on a fairly recreational path, I mean for blowing Oxy 40s, which is apparently not normal. I blew my knee up in easterns my PG year. Took a year off after my PG to rehab and essentially partied, “but I was finding my path”. Ya right. Rex use continued but it was more weekly. College came in the ADK and so did the pills, but these were what we call the “blues” other wise known as roxicet. OxyContin was starting to get in trouble at this point so it was harder to find them and people were getting scripts cut. Up til that point 40s and green monsters, 80s, were everywhere. Roxicet and generic perc 30s became my go to for years. I was fully addicted by 22 and doing 150-200mg per day. I was out of college, working full time and a fully functional addict for a couple years. I was linked into some pretty bad shit. I would keep suboxone on hand for when i couldn’t pick up, but quickly learned all about precipitated withdrawals and serious dope sickness. Pills started to climb in price heavily and then H entered the market. I dabbled and blew bags instead of doing pills. It was way cheaper and I needed way less. But the anxiety of running out continuously got worse and worse. At this point I was 24, and had lost my job/quit and walked away. The next 18 months was insane. I was scared to death of needles from a young age, until I was sick as hell and a guy I was painting with showed up with a couple balloons of black tar H. First and only time I’ve ever seen it. After watching him get high, I strapped my arm and laid it out for him. I remember the rush, the immediate relief, then puked the best I’ve ever puked in my life. From then on, there was only one way to get high. Right to the bloodstream. I got really deep, was making trips to Holyoke, Ma. I could buy fentynal patches from a lady and i could cook them with vinegar and extract them and shoot them. Then those OCs they changed to OPs, a nurse showed me how to shave and microwave and freeze them to make them usable. My addiction grew from a bag a shot to ten, to ten to get out of bed and 15 to go to sleep. And getting high 3-4 times a day to maintain. I was forced into rehab twice and relapsed both times after, the third time I asked to go. I got out of rehab after 30 days and spent 48 terrified hours packing my truck and left town for Montana before I could relapse again. I stayed clean out there, as there was no heroin, I looked. I moved back after two years and met my fiancé. I got a good job and was on the straight and narrow for 9 months. I got laid off going into winter and decided heroin could make that feel better. I had managed to call an old boss from early in my 20s and he had given me a job for the winter though, so now I was a functional junky again, sweet. Well my fiancé caught me, and that was the last time I ever did drugs again. I learned what caring was all about. She took my shit, took pictures, called my parents, my brother, my boss, my co-workers, and all of my friends who had just recently let me back into their lives. That was a day of reckoning. The next morning at work, I showed up to my boss staring at me with a couple of managers and as I rounded my work truck to get in it, I was met by my foreman with a open hand that went around my neck and pushed me again the dump bed. My feet were dangling off the ground and I couldn’t breath. He looked in my eyes and told me “If you wanna die I’ll kill you right now, you don’t need the heroin”.

I stopped. Cold turkey. Detoxed. Got my shit together. I spent another two years working with them, until the guy who choked me and I left to work with each other on our own. He’s my best friend, my mentor and my life would never be where it is without my fiancé and him. It’s been 8 years now. I started skiing 8 years ago. I don’t know what the moral of that story is but that’s some perspective from my life and what I’ve gone through. I’ve lost friends to the drugs, I’ve witnessed ODs before narcan.

there is one thing I can say has definitely helped me, my counselor that I see weekly. But he’s the right counselor for me and my situation.

[SkiBall]

Good shit Joey. I went through absolute hell with the drink. But other than a possible more peaceful death, the opioid path seems like triple hell. At least I had liquor stores and not having to shoot it. Some of us make it (so far), more don’t. What gets us there is usually pretty similar. If I have been born 15 years later or so, I might have gone the opioid path instead of booze. But I was going to take a path of some kind.

[neckdeep]

i have been lead to believe the average heroin user no longer gets heroin they get fentynal which is hard to regulate and it kills them

To repeat: heroin is now a boutique business. Finding real oxy is like catching a unicorn. Counterfeiting is the norm. There is fentanyl in everything, except the fentanyl. If someone offers you fentanyl, it's probably full of tranq which is even worse than fentanyl.

[SumJongGuy]

To repeat: heroin is now a boutique business. Finding real oxy is like catching a unicorn. Counterfeiting is the norm. There is fentanyl in everything, except the fentanyl. If someone offers you fentanyl, it's probably full of tranq which is even worse than fentanyl.

True, unless you have a legit prescription you are filling at a legit pharmacy yourself.

[old goat]

I wonder hw long it will be before the Fentanyl makes it into the legit drug supply--and not just opiates and other psychoactives.

[Dantheman]

Damn, Joey.

[S_jenks]

I wonder hw long it will be before the Fentanyl makes it into the legit drug supply--and not just opiates and other psychoactives.

Just keep it out of my coffee beans, hops, and nugs.

[SkiBall]

I wonder hw long it will be before the Fentanyl makes it into the legit drug supply--and not just opiates and other psychoactives.

If by legit, you mean some of those farmacias in Mexico, then it has already happened.

Edit: from today-now Monday am
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation...ds-knew-threat

“MISSION, Texas — There was the teenager from Texas. The father from San Diego. The runner from Indiana.
They went for a day trip. Or a wedding. Or a winter vacation. But they all died after taking counterfeit pain pills purchased at drugstores in Mexico. And they all got those medications in the more than three years between the time the federal government learned of the threat and officials finally warned the public.

A Times investigation published last month showed that both the U.S. State Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration have known since at least 2019 that some pharmacies in Mexico are selling pills made of powerful drugs such as fentanyl and methamphetamine and passing them off as legitimate pharmaceuticals”

And now there is bluster about bombing the “cartels”. This is their best thinking.

[Trackhead]

He looked in my eyes and told me “If you wanna die I’ll kill you right now, you don’t need the heroin”.

I stopped. Cold turkey. Detoxed. Got my shit together. I spent another two years working with them, until the guy who choked me and I left to work with each other on our own. He’s my best friend, my mentor and my life would never be where it is without my fiancé and him.

Pretty inspiring, to say the least. Good for you, your wife, and your nearly homicidal buddy.

[Meadow Skipper]

Why would any drug trafficker go through the trouble of growing opium poppies, processing them into heroin, then smuggling a bulky product when you can make fentanyl in a warehouse and smuggle a 50x smaller amount.

This is fucking with my plan/dream that, when I see that I’m ready, I’ll get a kilo +/- of quality smack and some decent works and ride out my last few years watching the world go by, with a slight smile, in a rocker with a good view.

A really progressive nation would offer that sort of program when someone’s glide path was running down.

[XXX-er]

very recent Artical about drugs in the BC trades

https://northernbeat.ca/news/drugs-i...GzptW4GsdoFbr0

[AdironRider]

I'm sure Old Goat will disagree strongly, but I find it ridiculous that someone could be sent home with a prescription to take enough pain killers to require having narcan with them and not think that is part of the problem. If you need to take enough pain killers that they could kill you, you should take that under the actual supervision of a doctor in a hospital setting.

The fentanyl, heroin etc problems were not to the extent they are now without doctors/pharmacies as well as pharmaceutical companies playing fast and loose with pain killers and is going to require changes in the way they are prescribed as part of the solution. Full stop.

[ghosthop]

^^They've changed. My Dad is looking at getting a total knee and was told he would be on tylenol by day 2.

This is fucking with my plan/dream that, when I see that I’m ready, I’ll get a kilo +/- of quality smack and some decent works and ride out my last few years watching the world go by, with a slight smile, in a rocker with a good view.

A really progressive nation would offer that sort of program when someone’s glide path was running down.

Grow your own. I have multiple friends that have but they smoked it instead of injecting, YMMV.

Refining is the real bitch in the process. When I had access to real greenhouses we always talked about growing coca but it doesn't pencil out on a large scale.

[SumJongGuy]

Shit I'm sitting here in a back support alternating heat and ice nursing injuries that I've been making worse and worse since age 17. I have an option of waiting 6 weeks for steroid injections that do nothing but mask the pain, no repair, actually make worse.. that might last 6 months .. which is roughly how often it flares up, usually going away in 3-4 weeks.. so no real gain.

Honestly, the surgical option scares the shit out of be because of how much I liked Tylenol 3 last time I had surgery. I'm not going to roll the dice with that or anything stronger like Oxy unless it's the only way I'll be able to walk at all.

[XXX-er]

I'm sure Old Goat will disagree strongly, but I find it ridiculous that someone could be sent home with a prescription to take enough pain killers to require having narcan with them and not think that is part of the problem. If you need to take enough pain killers that they could kill you, you should take that under the actual supervision of a doctor in a hospital setting.

The fentanyl, heroin etc problems were not to the extent they are now without doctors/pharmacies as well as pharmaceutical companies playing fast and loose with pain killers and is going to require changes in the way they are prescribed as part of the solution. Full stop.

the pharmacist does not write the prescription they just fill it

they do know what the drugs are for and drug interactions

they also who is on what

[old goat]

This is fucking with my plan/dream that, when I see that I’m ready, I’ll get a kilo +/- of quality smack and some decent works and ride out my last few years watching the world go by, with a slight smile, in a rocker with a good view.

A really progressive nation would offer that sort of program when someone’s glide path was running down.

They show you a nature video and then turn you into Soylent Green.

Thinking about it the other night--before the Fentanyl contaminates legit pharmaceuticals it might show up in legit cannabis products--which don't have nearly the manufacturing scrutiny that pharma has.

[Meadow Skipper]

They show you a nature video and then turn you into Soylent Green.

I’m okay with that, but I’m more mutton than lamb.

[sb]

Careful what you ask for.

[Core Shot]

Shit I'm sitting here in a back support alternating heat and ice nursing injuries that I've been making worse and worse since age 17. I have an option of waiting 6 weeks for steroid injections that do nothing but mask the pain, no repair, actually make worse.. that might last 6 months .. which is roughly how often it flares up, usually going away in 3-4 weeks.. so no real gain.

Honestly, the surgical option scares the shit out of be because of how much I liked Tylenol 3 last time I had surgery. I'm not going to roll the dice with that or anything stronger like Oxy unless it's the only way I'll be able to walk at all.

Oxy is time released perc. It’s not scary.
I did perc and oxy when I broke my leg. Much needed. But also, I wanted off that shit to clear my head and clear my bowels.

Pain meds are good for pain.
After the big pain, let them go.

[AK47bp]

Pain meds are good for pain.
After the big pain, let them go.

Great advice here folks.

I’ll also add; if you’re hungry, eat something. If you’re tired, take a nap.

Life tips.

[Dantheman]

Oxy is time released perc. It’s not scary.
I did perc and oxy when I broke my leg. Much needed. But also, I wanted off that shit to clear my head and clear my bowels.

Pain meds are good for pain.
After the big pain, let them go.

Shockingly, you see to be misinformed. Oxycodone is generic Percocet. OxyContin is time-release oxycodone. OxyContin was indeed more dangerous, because the dosages were quite large and the time-release aspect never worked as well as Purdue claimed. However, OxyContin is no longer produced and the FDA has not approved generic formulations.