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The Opiate and Heroin Epidemic in America (1 Viewer)

Huge issue here in NH. It's an ancillary issue related to what I do for a living, so I try to stay informed about the ongoings in our state on it. NH Public Radio is doing an hour-long piece on their program The Exchange right now - some really interesting info. They record these and make them available on their website or via a podcast, if anyone is interested.

 
TheIronSheik said:
HughHoney said:
GilbertGrape said:
HughHoney said:
It's a prescription drug problem more than a heroin problem. Young people aren't out searching for heroin. They're getting hooked on Oxy's and it's basically over from there.

Two people I knew personally from high school, ages 31 and 36, overdosed on heroin within a week of each other a month ago. Middle class, good upbringing, started by taking Oxy's.
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Disagree. Heroin is the popular drug right now among the young, it's not all because of Oxy. It's scary really. I do know a vet that came back with an injury that they gave him Oxy for, he turned to Heroin, that's another way it happens.
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How do you think heroin becomes popular?

Do you think young people, middle and upper class kids, are just jumping right into heroin?
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Probably started by smoking weed.
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i dont think weed factors into it anymore than coffee does in most cases. if youre looking for stepping stones id go alcohol>pills>dope. or alcohol>coke>dope. in some cases the person is just game to try anything from the get go.

 
Apple Jack said:
Sabertooth said:
Apple Jack said:
Spin said:
It's also expensive to break the habit. One of my best friend's fiancee was a hardcore pill addict, now trying to get clean. She goes to a clinic downtown and they charge $100 per week for the oxy-substitute (forget the name) that she takes to try to come down off of it. If she hadn't met my buddy (who is financing it) there's no way she'd fork over the ~430 to try to get clean.
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that's way too much money. you can google around and find doctor's who will write the subutex/suboxone scripts for $100 a visit or something like that. its extremely potent medication and you have to be very careful not to stay on it or coming off that takes months. no exaggeration. the detox off subs is excruciatingly long.
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Subbies.
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In fact, just use the subs for withdrawal and if you absolutely must keep taking something just do kratom which is legal and far less troublesome.
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Legal in most states (for now). If big Pharma has their way, it won't be eventually, which is a shame.

 
A friend of mine had a small cafe across from a pharmacy / pain clinic that was handing out tons of pills around 2010. People used to line up early in the morning, and the parking lot was always full of cars with out of state tags.

They ended up shutting the place down and a guy I work with was just on a federal jury for one of the pharmacist. They were making millions, and some where even exchanging cash for gold, etc. They all ended up flipping on each other. These were not hardened criminals.

Purdue Pharmacy was the one making the real money though.

Rolling stone had a good read recently on the problem in FL

http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/the-dukes-of-oxy-how-a-band-of-teen-wrestlers-built-a-smuggling-empire-20150409

On a side note, one of the Siegel's daughters (from the Queen of Versailles doc) was just found dead. The family put out a statement asking for privacy. The first thing I thought was OD.

 
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Apple Jack said:
TheIronSheik said:
HughHoney said:
GilbertGrape said:
HughHoney said:
It's a prescription drug problem more than a heroin problem. Young people aren't out searching for heroin. They're getting hooked on Oxy's and it's basically over from there.

Two people I knew personally from high school, ages 31 and 36, overdosed on heroin within a week of each other a month ago. Middle class, good upbringing, started by taking Oxy's.
Click to expand...
Disagree. Heroin is the popular drug right now among the young, it's not all because of Oxy. It's scary really. I do know a vet that came back with an injury that they gave him Oxy for, he turned to Heroin, that's another way it happens.
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How do you think heroin becomes popular?

Do you think young people, middle and upper class kids, are just jumping right into heroin?
Click to expand...
Probably started by smoking weed.
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i dont think weed factors into it anymore than coffee does in most cases. if youre looking for stepping stones id go alcohol>pills>dope. or alcohol>coke>dope. in some cases the person is just game to try anything from the get go.
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I have a hard time feeling sorry for people like this. They don't fear the dangers of anything. Darwinism at it's purest. Just like I don't feel bad when a mountain climber falls off a mountain or one of these windsuit guys crashes into the cliff. Sometimes you #### with a bull, you get gored.

 
I grew up in a party house. Lots of drinking but mostly weed. Parents smoked, grew, and sold for most of my childhood. I was young but the parties at my house were epic affairs, all night, full of people, and usually started off fun. I was kind of like a mascot during that time. Of course by the end of the night there were usually fights, police, and all kinds of nasty stuff I was probably to young to even realize. I would wake up in the morning and walk downstairs to get breakfast and step over passed out people on the floor, bottles, bongs, the whole deal. This wasn't nightly but probably weekly to monthly at some points in my life. It's kind of sad but when I smell weed it's almost like a nostalgic smell to me it reminds me so strongly of my childhood.

As my parents got older pot wasn't enough, they eventually moved to pills. All prescription but they had a few different doctors, ID's, and a notebook of places they had been, what they got, and when. A whole system but again I was still young so I don't understand all the specifics. As middle age approached the fun and parties stopped but the pills got worse. They were no longer weekend recreation but had become a daily thing just to get through the day. For a while if they ran out they could get by just drinking and smoking weed but eventually that wasn't enough.

For a while my step father moved to heroin. Not sure if my mom did or not, she was really pissed at him for it but not sure if she waded into the waters or not. He was able to pull back a little and still seems to goes back and forth a bit. Seems like when they can scrounge up the pills they stick with it but if money gets tight or pills dry up he falls back to heroin for a while and things get bad. It's a been a while though and it seems like they've been sticking to pills for a nice long stretch now.

My two older sisters and I got out before the hard core addiction started, we were old enough to be gone by that time. Sadly, my three younger sisters did not. Two of them are doing ok, hate the drugs, hate the lifestyle, but one of them lives with my parents now. She is just as bad, actually probably worse. Just this last year we convinced her to give up her daughter to one of my older sisters care for the foreseeable future. She has been committed short term a couple of times and the psychotropic drugs they have given her the past few years have completely changed her personality. There have been times she has come out and I swear she was just a step above the lobotomized McMurphy in Cuckoo's Nest and other times this girl who has been mild, sweet, and kind her whole life has this insane edge about here. Angry and edgy in a way she has never been in her entire 30+ years of life. She has cut herself a couple times now, a couple possible suicide or attention attempts. None of this happened before the psychiatrists' drugs got involved, they've really screwed her up. But now she feels like she can't live without them and the hooks are in too deep. She takes them for a while then when she does something crazy they bring her in, re-mix a different cocktail and try again. One night she was picked up standing in the middle of a giant road in our town at 3am playing hide nad seek with her 7yo daughter. Cops were on a frantic search for my niece, parents were to high to remember if she was there or not. She had actually been at a friend's house the entire time but nobody remembered dropping her off. This is normal stuff in the house, thank goodness, as mentioned above, my niece is now in a safe place.

I say all this to offer a few observations I have.

First, the legalize pot people just absolutely cannot admit that a lot of addiction begins with weed. Pot is like a cup of coffee in their eyes and can do no harm. It's BS. Not everyone who smokes weed becomes a meth head or heroin addict. MOST people who smoke don't become addicts. But pretending that it is not an avenue for a huge number of the people who ARE addicted, especially young people, is disingenuous and just not true. I know it doesn't fit the narrative they want but many addicts, junkies, and people whose lives have been wrecked by addiction started by smoking a joint with some friends. I know you don't like to hear it but it's absolutely true. It's true that there is a whole group of people moving to harder drugs through the avenue of legal prescriptions, opiates, etc. but pretending pot doesn't play a part for just as many people or more isn't helping anyone. I'm not saying it should or should not be legal, what I'm saying is that people need to stop pretending there is no connection and if we ARE going to legalize we need to stop pretending it's completely harmless and give it the same attention we give to tobacco and alcohol when it comes to prevention and our youth.

Second, I am a law and order guy. I believe we should strip away criminals conveniences and make jail a harsh and terrible place to be. No more satellite tv, weight rooms, internet access. Four walls, three meals, and a yard to walk around in a couple hours a day. Then all of the books and educational/rehabilitative/spiritual outlets you want but NOTHING else. Also, we need to stop letting violent criminals out of jail so quickly. Armed robbery, rape, molestation, murder... you're not going to see the outside of this horrible prison until you're an old man, especially for the latter 3. I'm all about harsher penalties for criminals. Saying that, I just don't see the benefit in sticking people in prison for possession of drugs. If we emptied the prisons of all the people put away for possession we'd have plenty of room to keep the real criminals in there for a long time. And we'd have plenty of money to treat people. I know that prison wouldn't do my mother, step father, or my sister any good. They may have to detox a little bit, at least until they found some kind of connection inside. But they're not criminals, they're addicts. Now when they drive around high, steal, or if they ever hurt people they should go to jail for that... but not just for having the drugs. It's counter intuitive and not going to make them stop. Honestly the only thing that will ever make them stop is reaching a point where they decide they've had enough or death. If they reach that bottom point, as a society, we should be there waiting for them without judgement, with resources to help, and with whatever we can provide for their recovery. Not just for their own good but for our own.

Third, this problem IS an epidemic and heart breaking. Everyone's lives seem to be touched by someone they care about who is strung out and living a life of daily addiction. It has not always been this way, it is getting worse, and we need to face up to it. We're moving in the wrong direction. We're pushing a false truth about the "health benefits" of gateway drugs on our young kids. We are glorifying and romanticizing in every possible form of media a lifestyle that leads to addiction for not all, but many people. We've adopted a failed philosophy that harsher punishment for addicts can save our society from drugs. We've decided that every single psychosis or even neurosis we come across should be handled with pills and prescriptions, starting as young as possible, instead of actually dealing with the core problems causing them. That nobody should ever suffer even a moment of pain or anxiety without medication.

My parents and my sister are addicts. One of them is probably going to OD eventually and it's going to be horrendous, the guilt and regret and pain is going to wash over everybody in my family, even though there is nothing that they can do. They're not criminals they're junkies. They take drugs every single day to kill the pain and until the pain of taking the drugs is greater than the pain they feel from the other hurts in their lives, they're going to continue. In or out of jail. Nobody can convince them, treat them, or force them to do otherwise. Everyone around them just hurts and prays and waits for them to change... or die. Whichever comes first.

 
Apple Jack said:
Spin said:
Apple Jack said:
Spin said:
It's also expensive to break the habit. One of my best friend's fiancee was a hardcore pill addict, now trying to get clean. She goes to a clinic downtown and they charge $100 per week for the oxy-substitute (forget the name) that she takes to try to come down off of it. If she hadn't met my buddy (who is financing it) there's no way she'd fork over the ~430 to try to get clean.
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that's way too much money. you can google around and find doctor's who will write the subutex/suboxone scripts for $100 a visit or something like that. its extremely potent medication and you have to be very careful not to stay on it or coming off that takes months. no exaggeration. the detox off subs is excruciatingly long.
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I'm not sure of too many specifics, all I know is she has to go downtown everyday to the clinic and they give her the pill for the day. She sometimes has to see a counselor, sometimes gets tested and sometimes just gets the pill and leaves.
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that sounds like old school methadone. im not a doctor, but i am a successfully recovered junkie and i would strongly advise a friend to get away from methadone and use a swift, quick suboxone detox. but i cant emphasize enough how important it is to be aggressive getting off suboxone as soon as possible. especially if you have real life responsibilities where you dont have the luxury of shutting things down for a month or two. its a horror show of non-stop relentless vicious heavy depression for weeks on end which is exponentially awful if you have to maintain a work life.
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This is exactly what she's taking, methadone.

But it's apparently not enough. My buddy and his fiancee were over at the house last night, and she said she had to go to the bathroom. I had to piss, and forgot that she had just excused herself and went to the downstairs bathroom but she wasn't in it. I figured she went out to smoke. I pissed then came out of the bathroom at the exact moment she was walking down the stairs. I didn't really think it was weird, I have people over all the time, and so it's not uncommon for someone to use the upstairs bathroom. After the GS/Cavs game when they went home, I went upstairs to take a shower before going to sleep and when I opened my towel closet I noticed something was off. My wife and I keep all our pills in a basket, one of which is Hydros from when I had wrist surgery. I didn't need the full bottle and had probably 10-12 (those things are amazing at getting rid of hangovers). The bottle of Hydros was on top, when normally it was on the bottom from not being used, and the lid was on crooked.

I knew immediately then what happened, because I'm super anal about making sure the child proof lids are on. Even though we have two "child proof" door knob covers (on the bathroom door and then on the linen closet), and the basket is on a shelf about 5 feet high, I'm paranoid that my 3 year old will get into them. And there was only 1 pill left. I text my buddy that it happened again. The first time we met her, about 6 months ago, she had stolen a bottle of hydrocodone cough syrup, admittedly before she started seeking help. She's been over to the house a dozen times since then and nothing has gone missing (that I know of). But this time he didn't believe me. I told him she took around 10 pills, so she either swallowed them all. (They were the ones with ibuprofen in them, I think each pill has 7.5 of hydrocodone and 200 ibuprofen) or she still has some on her somewhere. I know her pill of choice was oxy 80s, so not sure if 10 of the 7.5s = 1 oxy 80. But I was on the phone with him for about an hour and he was convinced she didn't take them, and that she's getting help so she wouldn't need to take them.

What a mess, and now they're moving back to Florida in 3 weeks where all her old druggie friends/family is. He's convinced she's going to get clean, and I thought she had a chance too. Maybe last night was an isolated relapse, but no way. I'm afraid it's not going to end well for him, but he won't listen.

 
cstu said:
What a mess, and now they're moving back to Florida in 3 weeks where all her old druggie friends/family is.
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Florida, where everyone goes to get off drugs...
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Nah, she's "clean now". They're moving back because her deadbeat sister (also a junkie) stopped paying rent on the house she's upside down in, and they can't afford two mortgages, because she quit her job. So they choose Tallahassee over Nashville, because "she doesn't have any friends here and misses her house"... :rolleyes:

 
First, the legalize pot people just absolutely cannot admit that a lot of addiction begins with weed. Pot is like a cup of coffee in their eyes and can do no harm. It's BS. Not everyone who smokes weed becomes a meth head or heroin addict. MOST people who smoke don't become addicts. But pretending that it is not an avenue for a huge number of the people who ARE addicted, especially young people, is disingenuous and just not true. I know it doesn't fit the narrative they want but many addicts, junkies, and people whose lives have been wrecked by addiction started by smoking a joint with some friends. I know you don't like to hear it but it's absolutely true.

It's true that there is a whole group of people moving to harder drugs through the avenue of legal prescriptions, opiates, etc. but pretending pot doesn't play a part for just as many people or more isn't helping anyone. I'm not saying it should or should not be legal, what I'm saying is that people need to stop pretending there is no connection and if we ARE going to legalize we need to stop pretending it's completely harmless and give it the same attention we give to tobacco and alcohol when it comes to prevention and our youth.
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I support decriminalization of all drugs, including weed, but not because I think any of them are harmless. Young people who smoke weed are at a high risk of developing more serious drug issues.

 
cstu said:
First, the legalize pot people just absolutely cannot admit that a lot of addiction begins with weed. Pot is like a cup of coffee in their eyes and can do no harm. It's BS. Not everyone who smokes weed becomes a meth head or heroin addict. MOST people who smoke don't become addicts. But pretending that it is not an avenue for a huge number of the people who ARE addicted, especially young people, is disingenuous and just not true. I know it doesn't fit the narrative they want but many addicts, junkies, and people whose lives have been wrecked by addiction started by smoking a joint with some friends. I know you don't like to hear it but it's absolutely true.

It's true that there is a whole group of people moving to harder drugs through the avenue of legal prescriptions, opiates, etc. but pretending pot doesn't play a part for just as many people or more isn't helping anyone. I'm not saying it should or should not be legal, what I'm saying is that people need to stop pretending there is no connection and if we ARE going to legalize we need to stop pretending it's completely harmless and give it the same attention we give to tobacco and alcohol when it comes to prevention and our youth.
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I support decriminalization of all drugs, including weed, but not because I think any of them are harmless. Young people who smoke weed are at a high risk of developing more serious drug issues.
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Well that's great. I don't know quite where I come down on complete decriminalization but I probably lean more towards treatment over punishment for all possession but continued yet improved prosecution and disruption of distribution and dealing. That's not my point though. My point is the harm in selling the false idea that pot is completely harmless and more than that, almost like a medicinal cure-all. Not only are we giving young kids, who aren't terribly clear thinkers to begin with, just the rationalization they need but we're pushing public policy away from any kind of condemnation of the ill effects of long term marijuana use and the very real potential as a gateway to more destructive drug use and addiction for many (but not all) people.

 
There are just as many studies and statistics telling me pot is a gateway drug as there are telling me it isn't. Lies, damned lies, and statistics. They'll say what the people paying for them want them to say. And if they don't the producers will be discredited, it's they way of the modern political-science machine.

I just know what my life experience has told me. Almost all of the people I know personally, not just my parents, but friends and people I've known for years or gone to school with, who are strung out all started by smoking pot in high school or even younger. If you spend any real time around real addicts, if you've been to NA meetings and ministered to addicts and spent a lot of time with people, MOST of their stories start with pot at young ages and then something harder. Usually booze also, but almost always weed. It's the same story over and over and over again.

Yes, there are more and more older people becoming addicts after prescription addiction but the majority of people have been struggling since they were teens and it almost always started drinking in the basement and smoking weed with their friends. Then pills or mushrooms or ecstacy or something else, then more hard core pills, then meth or heroin. Almost nobody goes straight to a needle.

I'm not talking about legalization. I'm talking about pushing a false narrative that pot doesn't lead to addiction for many, many young people. Legal or not, as long as this myth that pots as harmful as a cup of coffee exists then we're lost.

 
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Vanilla Guerrilla said:
I had an instructor in high school that said that all drugs are okay if used for the appropriate purpose. The issue is that some people choose to use them not to reduce pain so that they could function, but rather to feel better/get high. I think individuals have a responsibility to take what they need, not max out the scrip and finish off their plate. I think it is a mindset in society that these drugs can/should be used to improve their day even when the pain could be dealt with as an inconvenience.

Not sure on moving on to heroin from painkillers. I don't know anyone that ever did and I don't think I know anyone that actually went through an official treatment thing.
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I was always under the impression that they were to reduce pain to a manageable level.....not completely eliminate it.

 
General Tso said:
In the span of two weeks last year I lost my 25 year old niece and my best friend's 27 year old nephew, who I was very close with and had been helping recover from addiction. He got his one year anniversary chip at a meeting I was at on Wednesday night. The next night after a meeting he ran into a few of his old using buddies, and a few hours later he was dead in their basement. They made sure to take his wallet off his hands though. He wasn't going to need it, right? I spent the one year anniversary a couple months ago with his Mom - all day - just comforting her and remembering all the fun times we had with Norm. It was brutal. One of the saddest days of my life.
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That's terrible. Studies have shown that people are much more likely to overdose on heroin if they have been clean for awhile because their tolerance significantly decreases during periods of sobriety. My brother's best friend seemed to be doing great in his recovery leading up to his death. He had been clean for about 5 months after entering rehab in January. After losing so much weight while using heroin, he got back in the gym and put on about 50 pounds of muscle. He was telling my brother that he no longer had any desire to use and that he was really embracing life and leaving his dark past behind him. Then, he got drunk one night after work, picked up some heroin in Atlanta, and was found unresponsive in his car the next morning. It's heartbreaking to have all of the hope and promise of recovery crushed in a single relapse that results in a fatal overdose.

 
Spin said:
Apple Jack said:
Spin said:
Apple Jack said:
Spin said:
It's also expensive to break the habit. One of my best friend's fiancee was a hardcore pill addict, now trying to get clean. She goes to a clinic downtown and they charge $100 per week for the oxy-substitute (forget the name) that she takes to try to come down off of it. If she hadn't met my buddy (who is financing it) there's no way she'd fork over the ~430 to try to get clean.
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that's way too much money. you can google around and find doctor's who will write the subutex/suboxone scripts for $100 a visit or something like that. its extremely potent medication and you have to be very careful not to stay on it or coming off that takes months. no exaggeration. the detox off subs is excruciatingly long.
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I'm not sure of too many specifics, all I know is she has to go downtown everyday to the clinic and they give her the pill for the day. She sometimes has to see a counselor, sometimes gets tested and sometimes just gets the pill and leaves.
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that sounds like old school methadone. im not a doctor, but i am a successfully recovered junkie and i would strongly advise a friend to get away from methadone and use a swift, quick suboxone detox. but i cant emphasize enough how important it is to be aggressive getting off suboxone as soon as possible. especially if you have real life responsibilities where you dont have the luxury of shutting things down for a month or two. its a horror show of non-stop relentless vicious heavy depression for weeks on end which is exponentially awful if you have to maintain a work life.
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This is exactly what she's taking, methadone.

But it's apparently not enough. My buddy and his fiancee were over at the house last night, and she said she had to go to the bathroom. I had to piss, and forgot that she had just excused herself and went to the downstairs bathroom but she wasn't in it. I figured she went out to smoke. I pissed then came out of the bathroom at the exact moment she was walking down the stairs. I didn't really think it was weird, I have people over all the time, and so it's not uncommon for someone to use the upstairs bathroom. After the GS/Cavs game when they went home, I went upstairs to take a shower before going to sleep and when I opened my towel closet I noticed something was off. My wife and I keep all our pills in a basket, one of which is Hydros from when I had wrist surgery. I didn't need the full bottle and had probably 10-12 (those things are amazing at getting rid of hangovers). The bottle of Hydros was on top, when normally it was on the bottom from not being used, and the lid was on crooked.

I knew immediately then what happened, because I'm super anal about making sure the child proof lids are on. Even though we have two "child proof" door knob covers (on the bathroom door and then on the linen closet), and the basket is on a shelf about 5 feet high, I'm paranoid that my 3 year old will get into them. And there was only 1 pill left. I text my buddy that it happened again. The first time we met her, about 6 months ago, she had stolen a bottle of hydrocodone cough syrup, admittedly before she started seeking help. She's been over to the house a dozen times since then and nothing has gone missing (that I know of). But this time he didn't believe me. I told him she took around 10 pills, so she either swallowed them all. (They were the ones with ibuprofen in them, I think each pill has 7.5 of hydrocodone and 200 ibuprofen) or she still has some on her somewhere. I know her pill of choice was oxy 80s, so not sure if 10 of the 7.5s = 1 oxy 80. But I was on the phone with him for about an hour and he was convinced she didn't take them, and that she's getting help so she wouldn't need to take them.

What a mess, and now they're moving back to Florida in 3 weeks where all her old druggie friends/family is. He's convinced she's going to get clean, and I thought she had a chance too. Maybe last night was an isolated relapse, but no way. I'm afraid it's not going to end well for him, but he won't listen.
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It's crazy the things that opiate addiction will drive you to do. I'm sure that, prior to her addiction, this girl could have never imagined that she would be stealing from friends at a social gathering at their house. I hope she finds a way to escape the destructive cycle of addiction.

 
Lombardi lost me at his pot rant. However, right before that he seems to put his sisters blame on the psychiatrist or drugs. Maybe the crappy upbringing screwed her up? And who knows if she is taking the doctor's recommended dosage &/ or using with alcohol/ other drugs. I'm all for blaming the "over prescribing" by doctor's these days, but that's not always the case.

 
roadkill1292 said:
TheIronSheik said:
roadkill1292 said:
Even if cannabis is a gateway for a small percentage of users, it's not a valid reason for making pot illegal.
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Where do you stand on gun control?
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Let's save that for the gun control thread.
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The very valid point is that many will say we can't change rules because a very small percentage of people are harmed when they want something legal but then ignore that exact same logic when they want something to be illegal.

I think the idea that it's only a small percentage is the problem with your argument, but Sheiks observation was dead on.

 
lombardi said:
There are just as many studies and statistics telling me pot is a gateway drug as there are telling me it isn't. Lies, damned lies, and statistics. They'll say what the people paying for them want them to say. And if they don't the producers will be discredited, it's they way of the modern political-science machine.

I just know what my life experience has told me. Almost all of the people I know personally, not just my parents, but friends and people I've known for years or gone to school with, who are strung out all started by smoking pot in high school or even younger. If you spend any real time around real addicts, if you've been to NA meetings and ministered to addicts and spent a lot of time with people, MOST of their stories start with pot at young ages and then something harder. Usually booze also, but almost always weed. It's the same story over and over and over again.

Yes, there are more and more older people becoming addicts after prescription addiction but the majority of people have been struggling since they were teens and it almost always started drinking in the basement and smoking weed with their friends. Then pills or mushrooms or ecstacy or something else, then more hard core pills, then meth or heroin. Almost nobody goes straight to a needle.

I'm not talking about legalization. I'm talking about pushing a false narrative that pot doesn't lead to addiction for many, many young people. Legal or not, as long as this myth that pots as harmful as a cup of coffee exists then we're lost.
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I don't think there is any logical connection between marijuana use and the substantial increase in heroin use that we are currently seeing. As I stated earlier, states with legal medical marijuana have actually had 25% less overdose deaths due to opiates and heroin than non-legal states, presumably because people are using legal marijuana rather than opiate presciption medication that ultimately leads to heroin use. People who are more inclined to experiment with drugs are, of course, going to try marijuana before moving on to harder drugs. But it strains credulity to suggest that marijuana is somehow an underlying cause of the opiate and heroin problem in America today.

 
johnnycakes said:
http://www.wcvb.com/news/mother-teen-crash-victim-had-heroin-needle-in-arm/33503402?absolute=true
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You could probably find one of those a day, if not more.When I was at rehab 3 years ago we used to have a daily session called Chapel. It was a 15 minute session right before lunch and it would usually consist of something meditative - a reading, poem, music...

This one day the leader comes in with a pile of papers. Each piece of paper is a picture of a prior patient who had graduated from the program, but subsequently relapsed and died. I expected it to be a quick session. This is a small rehab with mostly upper middle class clients with good support structures in place. The Leader said they started keeping the list about 10 years ago. Given the size of the rehab, I expected maybe 10 or so names to be read.

As he read each name he would raise the piece of paper showing the face of the person. Most of them were kids - like the picture of the girl in the link above.

This went on relentlessly for about 20 minutes. When all was said and done there must have been over 100 names read. And this is one of the leading rehabs in the country. By the time it mercifully came to an end there wasn't a dry eye in the place, and not a word was spoken by anyone for about 5 minutes, even as we walked to lunch. Will never forget it as long as I live.

 
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lombardi said:
roadkill1292 said:
TheIronSheik said:
roadkill1292 said:
Even if cannabis is a gateway for a small percentage of users, it's not a valid reason for making pot illegal.
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Where do you stand on gun control?
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Let's save that for the gun control thread.
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The very valid point is that many will say we can't change rules because a very small percentage of people are harmed when they want something legal but then ignore that exact same logic when they want something to be illegal.

I think the idea that it's only a small percentage is the problem with your argument, but Sheiks observation was dead on.
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Oh. Well, I guess I'm gonna have to think about gun control a little before I answer this. I'm not very interested in that issue. But generally I'm not in favor of making more things illegal.

 
Quez said:
Lombardi lost me at his pot rant. However, right before that he seems to put his sisters blame on the psychiatrist or drugs. Maybe the crappy upbringing screwed her up? And who knows if she is taking the doctor's recommended dosage &/ or using with alcohol/ other drugs. I'm all for blaming the "over prescribing" by doctor's these days, but that's not always the case.
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My sister did have a crappy upbringing. Her parents were drug addicts, she was exposed to tons of drugs at an early age, and she had other really crappy things happen to her outside of our family which have caused tons of pain and emotional problems. I didn't mean to excuse her addiction and blame anyone else. I had two points with that.

My sister has had a hard life and she always struggled. She struggled with alcohol and pot for a long time. Sometimes she was high as a kite or really depressed or struggling with emotional stuff but it never changed her personality. She remained the person she was. Kind, gentle, loving, naive... but an addict with lots of emotional problems. The psychotropic drugs changed her completely. It was like a light switch. She was getting state assistance for just about everything and through that ended up w/ a therapist who immediately put her on medication. Her changes were abrupt. Up until this point in her life, with ALL of her problems, she maintained her personality and was not prone to anything more destructive than her addiction. Right after the medication she began cutting, she had really crazy emotional outbursts, sobbing, "episodes". Then she cut herself really bad and went into a short term commitment. When she came out a couple weeks later she was like a zombie. She trembled, her tongue stuck out, she couldn't hold a conversation. It was like she was mentally disabled. They said they were working out her dosage. Eventually she came a bit more back to normal. After that came the rage and anger and more cutting. Things that had never occurred up until this point, always blamed on a medication imbalance and whose solution was more but different medications. Then the hallucination episode mentioned above put her away again, more mixing, more changes. Another suicide attempt. At this point her spirit completely broken she continued to talk about how crazy she was, she was hopeless and despondent, I just don't feel myself or normal anymore. She stopped seeing the docs, stopped that medication and, predictably, because of her absolute despair and depression began self-medicating with pills, with my parents.

Did my sister have a choice? Kind of. Is she responsible for her own actions? Yes, of course she is. But as a society we can't pretend that our actions and our solutions to many of these problems is working and blame the addict for everything.

This leads to the second point. We love to put all of the blame on the addict and their inability to control themselves. I'm not a bleeding heart, anyone can spend 10 minutes searching my threads and posts over the years and see that I'm about as conservative as you can get and I'm all about personal responsibility. However, we as a society have a serious, epidemic size problem and our solutions are not working. The left and right solutions aren't working. We need a new paradigm. Drug addiction is part choice and responsibility but it is also part a symptom of a deeper sickness in our society as a whole. It affects crime, education, the ballooning of government assistance, our economy, etc., etc. Something has changed and as a people we need to recognize it and deal with it, if not for the sake of the addict, for the sake of the rest of us who are so adversely affected.

I know it feels "just" and "right" to blame people for what we believe are ultimately their own mistakes and leave them to the fruits of their choices. But their choices are hurting us all and when the problem gets so big that it begins to swallow entire neighborhoods and cities it's time to put our righteous indignation aside and start looking for some solutions that do more than satiate our pride and fit a pre-defined political narrative.

 
Buckfast 1 said:
lombardi said:
There are just as many studies and statistics telling me pot is a gateway drug as there are telling me it isn't. Lies, damned lies, and statistics. They'll say what the people paying for them want them to say. And if they don't the producers will be discredited, it's they way of the modern political-science machine.

I just know what my life experience has told me. Almost all of the people I know personally, not just my parents, but friends and people I've known for years or gone to school with, who are strung out all started by smoking pot in high school or even younger. If you spend any real time around real addicts, if you've been to NA meetings and ministered to addicts and spent a lot of time with people, MOST of their stories start with pot at young ages and then something harder. Usually booze also, but almost always weed. It's the same story over and over and over again.

Yes, there are more and more older people becoming addicts after prescription addiction but the majority of people have been struggling since they were teens and it almost always started drinking in the basement and smoking weed with their friends. Then pills or mushrooms or ecstacy or something else, then more hard core pills, then meth or heroin. Almost nobody goes straight to a needle.

I'm not talking about legalization. I'm talking about pushing a false narrative that pot doesn't lead to addiction for many, many young people. Legal or not, as long as this myth that pots as harmful as a cup of coffee exists then we're lost.
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I don't think there is any logical connection between marijuana use and the substantial increase in heroin use that we are currently seeing. As I stated earlier, states with legal medical marijuana have actually had 25% less overdose deaths due to opiates and heroin than non-legal states, presumably because people are using legal marijuana rather than opiate presciption medication that ultimately leads to heroin use. People who are more inclined to experiment with drugs are, of course, going to try marijuana before moving on to harder drugs. But it strains credulity to suggest that marijuana is somehow an underlying cause of the opiate and heroin problem in America today.
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I don't disagree with this, I think prescribed opiates have more to do with the spike in heroin addiction and overdose. I don't even disagree w/ medical usage of marijuana and some of its benefits.

I may be overstating to some extent but I think that as we become more permissive with pot and it becomes something we talk about as being better than cigarettes and alcohol, something that's natural and doesn't hurt anybody, something that cures our ills and has no negative benefits, and we legalize and accept it as something completely normal and common in our society there is a serious cost. Pot will no longer be something a kid shouldn't do because it's illegal or bad for them or dangerous, it becomes something they can't do until a specific age. When it becomes as ubiquitous as beer and a Marlboro we can't pretend it's not going to cause any problems.

 
Buckfast 1 said:
lombardi said:
There are just as many studies and statistics telling me pot is a gateway drug as there are telling me it isn't. Lies, damned lies, and statistics. They'll say what the people paying for them want them to say. And if they don't the producers will be discredited, it's they way of the modern political-science machine.

I just know what my life experience has told me. Almost all of the people I know personally, not just my parents, but friends and people I've known for years or gone to school with, who are strung out all started by smoking pot in high school or even younger. If you spend any real time around real addicts, if you've been to NA meetings and ministered to addicts and spent a lot of time with people, MOST of their stories start with pot at young ages and then something harder. Usually booze also, but almost always weed. It's the same story over and over and over again.

Yes, there are more and more older people becoming addicts after prescription addiction but the majority of people have been struggling since they were teens and it almost always started drinking in the basement and smoking weed with their friends. Then pills or mushrooms or ecstacy or something else, then more hard core pills, then meth or heroin. Almost nobody goes straight to a needle.

I'm not talking about legalization. I'm talking about pushing a false narrative that pot doesn't lead to addiction for many, many young people. Legal or not, as long as this myth that pots as harmful as a cup of coffee exists then we're lost.
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I don't think there is any logical connection between marijuana use and the substantial increase in heroin use that we are currently seeing. As I stated earlier, states with legal medical marijuana have actually had 25% less overdose deaths due to opiates and heroin than non-legal states, presumably because people are using legal marijuana rather than opiate presciption medication that ultimately leads to heroin use. People who are more inclined to experiment with drugs are, of course, going to try marijuana before moving on to harder drugs. But it strains credulity to suggest that marijuana is somehow an underlying cause of the opiate and heroin problem in America today.
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The unfortunate problem with studies is that even when older ones are disproven, they are still out there and used to muddy the waters. Lombardi's situation sounds sad, and I feel for him and his families struggles with addiction, but the gateway argument has been largely debunked. There are pretty strong ties to alcohol, and even some ties to nicotine/caffeine, but marijuana isn't that gateway drug that we were told it was in the 80s. Addicts take all kinds of substances, so it's easy to point to one and say a-ha, but it doesn't really work that way. Anecdotal stories are tough to hear, but they don't really sway the findings.

The main issue is using pot when you're young, due to the damage it does to forming minds. The damage to the frontal lobe can certainly cause issues later in life, as well as start general life-long dependance due to the damage to their sense of risk assessment/avoidance and getting an adolescent brain used to getting high for years. You'd find similar issues with other drugs being taken during the formative years because of the chemicals you are flooding your brain with. While it isn't a gateway, we have to be careful to keep it away from kids, because its easy to do too much with little ill effect, and the cumulative effect of flooding young, forming minds with cannabinoids seems to be bad, based on a couple new studies. Much like any other drug, it's bad to take while your brain is still forming.

 
The Football Freak said:
Buckfast 1 said:
lombardi said:
There are just as many studies and statistics telling me pot is a gateway drug as there are telling me it isn't. Lies, damned lies, and statistics. They'll say what the people paying for them want them to say. And if they don't the producers will be discredited, it's they way of the modern political-science machine.

I just know what my life experience has told me. Almost all of the people I know personally, not just my parents, but friends and people I've known for years or gone to school with, who are strung out all started by smoking pot in high school or even younger. If you spend any real time around real addicts, if you've been to NA meetings and ministered to addicts and spent a lot of time with people, MOST of their stories start with pot at young ages and then something harder. Usually booze also, but almost always weed. It's the same story over and over and over again.

Yes, there are more and more older people becoming addicts after prescription addiction but the majority of people have been struggling since they were teens and it almost always started drinking in the basement and smoking weed with their friends. Then pills or mushrooms or ecstacy or something else, then more hard core pills, then meth or heroin. Almost nobody goes straight to a needle.

I'm not talking about legalization. I'm talking about pushing a false narrative that pot doesn't lead to addiction for many, many young people. Legal or not, as long as this myth that pots as harmful as a cup of coffee exists then we're lost.
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I don't think there is any logical connection between marijuana use and the substantial increase in heroin use that we are currently seeing. As I stated earlier, states with legal medical marijuana have actually had 25% less overdose deaths due to opiates and heroin than non-legal states, presumably because people are using legal marijuana rather than opiate presciption medication that ultimately leads to heroin use. People who are more inclined to experiment with drugs are, of course, going to try marijuana before moving on to harder drugs. But it strains credulity to suggest that marijuana is somehow an underlying cause of the opiate and heroin problem in America today.
Click to expand...
The unfortunate problem with studies is that even when older ones are disproven, they are still out there and used to muddy the waters. Lombardi's situation sounds sad, and I feel for him and his families struggles with addiction, but the gateway argument has been largely debunked. There are pretty strong ties to alcohol, and even some ties to nicotine/caffeine, but marijuana isn't that gateway drug that we were told it was in the 80s. Addicts take all kinds of substances, so it's easy to point to one and say a-ha, but it doesn't really work that way. Anecdotal stories are tough to hear, but they don't really sway the findings.

The main issue is using pot when you're young, due to the damage it does to forming minds. The damage to the frontal lobe can certainly cause issues later in life, as well as start general life-long dependance due to the damage to their sense of risk assessment/avoidance and getting an adolescent brain used to getting high for years. You'd find similar issues with other drugs being taken during the formative years because of the chemicals you are flooding your brain with. While it isn't a gateway, we have to be careful to keep it away from kids, because its easy to do too much with little ill effect, and the cumulative effect of flooding young, forming minds with cannabinoids seems to be bad, based on a couple new studies. Much like any other drug, it's bad to take while your brain is still forming.
Click to expand...
We get so fixated on the term gateway, but don't the statements that you typed above seem like they're going to make a kid more susceptible to other, harder and more addictive drugs? General life-long dependency, damage to risk assessment, making an adolescent brain used to getting high for years, brain is still forming? Pot is introducing kids to a feeling and a desire that they're imprinting in their brain for the rest of their life and doing long term damage to the parts of the brain that would help them to properly assess the consequences of giving into it. Call it a gateway or not, I just can't understand how people cannot see that making pot use normal isn't going to make kids who wouldn't normally try it, try it, and introduce them to a world of hurt they may not have otherwise been exposed to? I'm not saying everyone who smokes pot is going to be a meth addict, but nobody believes this is possible and even likely for a lot of kids going the way we're going?

 
lombardi said:
The Football Freak said:
Buckfast 1 said:
lombardi said:
There are just as many studies and statistics telling me pot is a gateway drug as there are telling me it isn't. Lies, damned lies, and statistics. They'll say what the people paying for them want them to say. And if they don't the producers will be discredited, it's they way of the modern political-science machine.

I just know what my life experience has told me. Almost all of the people I know personally, not just my parents, but friends and people I've known for years or gone to school with, who are strung out all started by smoking pot in high school or even younger. If you spend any real time around real addicts, if you've been to NA meetings and ministered to addicts and spent a lot of time with people, MOST of their stories start with pot at young ages and then something harder. Usually booze also, but almost always weed. It's the same story over and over and over again.

Yes, there are more and more older people becoming addicts after prescription addiction but the majority of people have been struggling since they were teens and it almost always started drinking in the basement and smoking weed with their friends. Then pills or mushrooms or ecstacy or something else, then more hard core pills, then meth or heroin. Almost nobody goes straight to a needle.

I'm not talking about legalization. I'm talking about pushing a false narrative that pot doesn't lead to addiction for many, many young people. Legal or not, as long as this myth that pots as harmful as a cup of coffee exists then we're lost.
Click to expand...
I don't think there is any logical connection between marijuana use and the substantial increase in heroin use that we are currently seeing. As I stated earlier, states with legal medical marijuana have actually had 25% less overdose deaths due to opiates and heroin than non-legal states, presumably because people are using legal marijuana rather than opiate presciption medication that ultimately leads to heroin use. People who are more inclined to experiment with drugs are, of course, going to try marijuana before moving on to harder drugs. But it strains credulity to suggest that marijuana is somehow an underlying cause of the opiate and heroin problem in America today.
Click to expand...
The unfortunate problem with studies is that even when older ones are disproven, they are still out there and used to muddy the waters. Lombardi's situation sounds sad, and I feel for him and his families struggles with addiction, but the gateway argument has been largely debunked. There are pretty strong ties to alcohol, and even some ties to nicotine/caffeine, but marijuana isn't that gateway drug that we were told it was in the 80s. Addicts take all kinds of substances, so it's easy to point to one and say a-ha, but it doesn't really work that way. Anecdotal stories are tough to hear, but they don't really sway the findings.The main issue is using pot when you're young, due to the damage it does to forming minds. The damage to the frontal lobe can certainly cause issues later in life, as well as start general life-long dependance due to the damage to their sense of risk assessment/avoidance and getting an adolescent brain used to getting high for years. You'd find similar issues with other drugs being taken during the formative years because of the chemicals you are flooding your brain with. While it isn't a gateway, we have to be careful to keep it away from kids, because its easy to do too much with little ill effect, and the cumulative effect of flooding young, forming minds with cannabinoids seems to be bad, based on a couple new studies. Much like any other drug, it's bad to take while your brain is still forming.
Click to expand...
We get so fixated on the term gateway, but don't the statements that you typed above seem like they're going to make a kid more susceptible to other, harder and more addictive drugs? General life-long dependency, damage to risk assessment, making an adolescent brain used to getting high for years, brain is still forming? Pot is introducing kids to a feeling and a desire that they're imprinting in their brain for the rest of their life and doing long term damage to the parts of the brain that would help them to properly assess the consequences of giving into it. Call it a gateway or not, I just can't understand how people cannot see that making pot use normal isn't going to make kids who wouldn't normally try it, try it, and introduce them to a world of hurt they may not have otherwise been exposed to? I'm not saying everyone who smokes pot is going to be a meth addict, but nobody believes this is possible and even likely for a lot of kids going the way we're going?
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Only in the sense that the damage caused by flooding a forming brain with drugs damages the ability to make those better choices. It's an important distinction. Remember, your brain produces cannabinoids on it's own, too. Every drug of these types will damage an adolescent brain, this is just how pot might do it.

Also, what I am mentioning is not a definitive problem of pot use, and it might come down a cause or effect argument once more studies come out to back up that study. It is relatively harmless for adults but, if this frontal lobe damage turns out to be true, it may be a danger to kids. I tend to agree with those that say it is relatively harmless for adults, because I am part of a crew that has been doing it for 20+ years, and we're all lawyers, entrepreneurs and successful business-people. I understand that this is anecdotal on my part, but there are no wastrels with bad memory, twinkie crumbs in our beards or track marks on our arms in my crew.

It is so easy to get, I think legalizing it and regulating it might make it harder to get for kids, and also maybe get us to focus more on rehabilitation, rather than incarceration, to help addicts better. Pot use has been "normal" for decades.

 
lombardi said:
The Football Freak said:
Buckfast 1 said:
lombardi said:
There are just as many studies and statistics telling me pot is a gateway drug as there are telling me it isn't. Lies, damned lies, and statistics. They'll say what the people paying for them want them to say. And if they don't the producers will be discredited, it's they way of the modern political-science machine.

I just know what my life experience has told me. Almost all of the people I know personally, not just my parents, but friends and people I've known for years or gone to school with, who are strung out all started by smoking pot in high school or even younger. If you spend any real time around real addicts, if you've been to NA meetings and ministered to addicts and spent a lot of time with people, MOST of their stories start with pot at young ages and then something harder. Usually booze also, but almost always weed. It's the same story over and over and over again.

Yes, there are more and more older people becoming addicts after prescription addiction but the majority of people have been struggling since they were teens and it almost always started drinking in the basement and smoking weed with their friends. Then pills or mushrooms or ecstacy or something else, then more hard core pills, then meth or heroin. Almost nobody goes straight to a needle.

I'm not talking about legalization. I'm talking about pushing a false narrative that pot doesn't lead to addiction for many, many young people. Legal or not, as long as this myth that pots as harmful as a cup of coffee exists then we're lost.
Click to expand...
I don't think there is any logical connection between marijuana use and the substantial increase in heroin use that we are currently seeing. As I stated earlier, states with legal medical marijuana have actually had 25% less overdose deaths due to opiates and heroin than non-legal states, presumably because people are using legal marijuana rather than opiate presciption medication that ultimately leads to heroin use. People who are more inclined to experiment with drugs are, of course, going to try marijuana before moving on to harder drugs. But it strains credulity to suggest that marijuana is somehow an underlying cause of the opiate and heroin problem in America today.
Click to expand...
The unfortunate problem with studies is that even when older ones are disproven, they are still out there and used to muddy the waters. Lombardi's situation sounds sad, and I feel for him and his families struggles with addiction, but the gateway argument has been largely debunked. There are pretty strong ties to alcohol, and even some ties to nicotine/caffeine, but marijuana isn't that gateway drug that we were told it was in the 80s. Addicts take all kinds of substances, so it's easy to point to one and say a-ha, but it doesn't really work that way. Anecdotal stories are tough to hear, but they don't really sway the findings.The main issue is using pot when you're young, due to the damage it does to forming minds. The damage to the frontal lobe can certainly cause issues later in life, as well as start general life-long dependance due to the damage to their sense of risk assessment/avoidance and getting an adolescent brain used to getting high for years. You'd find similar issues with other drugs being taken during the formative years because of the chemicals you are flooding your brain with. While it isn't a gateway, we have to be careful to keep it away from kids, because its easy to do too much with little ill effect, and the cumulative effect of flooding young, forming minds with cannabinoids seems to be bad, based on a couple new studies. Much like any other drug, it's bad to take while your brain is still forming.
Click to expand...
We get so fixated on the term gateway, but don't the statements that you typed above seem like they're going to make a kid more susceptible to other, harder and more addictive drugs? General life-long dependency, damage to risk assessment, making an adolescent brain used to getting high for years, brain is still forming? Pot is introducing kids to a feeling and a desire that they're imprinting in their brain for the rest of their life and doing long term damage to the parts of the brain that would help them to properly assess the consequences of giving into it. Call it a gateway or not, I just can't understand how people cannot see that making pot use normal isn't going to make kids who wouldn't normally try it, try it, and introduce them to a world of hurt they may not have otherwise been exposed to? I'm not saying everyone who smokes pot is going to be a meth addict, but nobody believes this is possible and even likely for a lot of kids going the way we're going?
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I don't know anyone that is advocating for children to use marijuana. Advocates for marijuana legalization agree with you on that point. That is why legal marijuana is a closely regulated industry that only allows sales to people over the age of 21. The state of Colorado has done a number of stings to see whether dispensaries would sell to underage people. Do you know how many dispensaries have been caught selling to underage people in these sting operations? Zero.Marijuana is already readily available to teenagers across the country in both prohibition states and legal states. Anyone who wants marijuana can typically find it without much difficulty, regardless of location. Marijuana prohibition clearly does not keep it out of the hands of teenagers. The major difference between prohibition states and legal states is that, when people go to buy marijuana in prohibition states, they must interact with a drug dealer who likely is also holding opiate painkillers and perhaps heroin. To the extent that marijuana can be considered a "gateway drug," I believe that it is mostly the product of its illegality, which drives the market underground to people who are also pushing harder drugs that can result in addiction and death. By legalizing marijuana, you create a legitimate, well-regulated industry that does not sell to children, which makes selling marijuana as a street dealer generally unprofitable, and which removes the ties to opiates and heroin that are killing people every day.

 
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Buckfast 1 said:
Niles Standish said:
Wouldn't a lot of painkiller deaths be suicides and not accidental overdoses?
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I'm not sure if those overdose numbers tease out intentional suicides or not, but the CDC reported that nearly 80% of overdose deaths were unintentional in 2010.
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Hmm, more than I'd guess. Either way it's a big problem I agree.

 
The public should be informed of marijuana's effects, both immediately and cumulatively, both on developing brains and matured ones. I don't think an addictive personality is going to be launched into a lifetime of addiction by the responsible use by others of marijuana. The addictive personality needs to be informed and helped to the best of our abilities and the criminalization of cannabis will have no positive effect on an addict's ability to become addicted.

If I am in a narrow agreement with lombardi in any way, it's that it's become pretty clear from early research that regular/heavy marijuana ingestion isn't very good for our yoot. Legalization, however, seems to have a positive impact on yoot usage rates.

 
Niles Standish said:
Buckfast 1 said:
Niles Standish said:
Wouldn't a lot of painkiller deaths be suicides and not accidental overdoses?
Click to expand...
I'm not sure if those overdose numbers tease out intentional suicides or not, but the CDC reported that nearly 80% of overdose deaths were unintentional in 2010.
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Hmm, more than I'd guess. Either way it's a big problem I agree.
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I lost a cousin to a heroin OD in the last month. We have no idea if it was accident or suicide. I'm not sure how the CDC can be sure either.

 
lombardi said:
I'm not talking about legalization. I'm talking about pushing a false narrative that pot doesn't lead to addiction for many, many young people.
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Well, I guess it depends on where you start your study.

Most hard drug addicts (lets say all) started with weed. That would indicate correllation

But if you start with all weed users and track them over time, counting the hard drug addicts as a small subset - that would indicate that the correllation is not there.

If the number of weed using young people is very large, then both statements above could be true and still many young people end up addicts from first starting with weed.

But then the main question becomes how many hard drug addicts are enough to outweigh the supposed/expected (potentially documented) benefits of legalization of weed? And a second important question: if weed is legally available will it still drive the same percentage of users to hard drug addiction?

These are very hard questions to answer. We should be getting hard data from CO and WA in 15-20 years

 
Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker announced a new plan to address opioid addiction, which is largely focused on improving access to treatment and making naloxone -- the heroin overdose cure drug -- more widely available to emergency workers. It is good to see that some states are proposing some new treatment-focused approaches to deal with the heroin and opioid problem.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/06/22/baker-release-findings-state-opioid-crisis/yP4me9jqa4flJSabUDiNuJ/story.html

 
Chaos Commish said:
Niles Standish said:
Buckfast 1 said:
Niles Standish said:
Wouldn't a lot of painkiller deaths be suicides and not accidental overdoses?
Click to expand...
I'm not sure if those overdose numbers tease out intentional suicides or not, but the CDC reported that nearly 80% of overdose deaths were unintentional in 2010.
Click to expand...
Hmm, more than I'd guess. Either way it's a big problem I agree.
Click to expand...
I lost a cousin to a heroin OD in the last month. We have no idea if it was accident or suicide. I'm not sure how the CDC can be sure either.
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lost my best friend eight years ago. we dont know either.

 
You know what sucks for the non drug user in this whole thing...and I'm being completely serious.

I have occasional back issues where my back goes out and the first 8-10 hours or so is some of the worst pain you'll ever feel - anyone who puts their back out knows what I'm talking about.

You can't go to an ER or Urgent Care anymore with back pain problems and get anything but Naproxen. I'm pretty sure it's almost wholly attributable to the last 10 years or so of abuse of prescription opiates taking off in the US. Typically, when it's bad enough to land me in the hospital - I'm in egregious pain and something high end like a Vicodin would be a huge help to getting around and continuing life (and I'm talking about maybe an Rx for 5 of them total - just during the initial 24 hours)

Had some dental surgery recently and wound up with Ibuprofen as a script. It does nothing for pain at that level.

Just rambling really, but it sucks for the responsible folks out there (most of them) that we no longer have access to these things when truly needed IMO.

 
not sure urgent care have ever written scripts for opiates. highly recommend researching GPs and dentists online to find those who arent hard line about pain meds. both my gp and dentist are perfectly willing to write small opiate scripts just at the asking. in fact, my dentist asked me if i wanted vicodin the last time i was in to tide me over until my next appointment to replace a filling.

 
John Bender said:
You know what sucks for the non drug user in this whole thing...and I'm being completely serious.

I have occasional back issues where my back goes out and the first 8-10 hours or so is some of the worst pain you'll ever feel - anyone who puts their back out knows what I'm talking about.

You can't go to an ER or Urgent Care anymore with back pain problems and get anything but Naproxen. I'm pretty sure it's almost wholly attributable to the last 10 years or so of abuse of prescription opiates taking off in the US. Typically, when it's bad enough to land me in the hospital - I'm in egregious pain and something high end like a Vicodin would be a huge help to getting around and continuing life (and I'm talking about maybe an Rx for 5 of them total - just during the initial 24 hours)

Had some dental surgery recently and wound up with Ibuprofen as a script. It does nothing for pain at that level.

Just rambling really, but it sucks for the responsible folks out there (most of them) that we no longer have access to these things when truly needed IMO.
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:goodposting:

 
John Bender said:
You know what sucks for the non drug user in this whole thing...and I'm being completely serious.

I have occasional back issues where my back goes out and the first 8-10 hours or so is some of the worst pain you'll ever feel - anyone who puts their back out knows what I'm talking about.

You can't go to an ER or Urgent Care anymore with back pain problems and get anything but Naproxen. I'm pretty sure it's almost wholly attributable to the last 10 years or so of abuse of prescription opiates taking off in the US. Typically, when it's bad enough to land me in the hospital - I'm in egregious pain and something high end like a Vicodin would be a huge help to getting around and continuing life (and I'm talking about maybe an Rx for 5 of them total - just during the initial 24 hours)

Had some dental surgery recently and wound up with Ibuprofen as a script. It does nothing for pain at that level.

Just rambling really, but it sucks for the responsible folks out there (most of them) that we no longer have access to these things when truly needed IMO.
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I understand why an ER doc wouldn't give you a prescription, but couldn't your primary care doctor give you one? Then just save one our two pills for the next time, do that if it strikes outside of office hours you can last until the next time your pcp had an opening?
 
Friend just lost her 19yo little sister to an OD. Had to make the call to pull the plug 6 days before she (friend) gave birth.

 
Buckfast 1 said:
Over the past three years, the number of fatal heroin overdoses in America has tripled to more than 8,250 deaths per year. Approximately twice as many people die each year from overdoses on prescription opiate painkillers. Drug overdoses, mostly from opiates and heroin, are responsible for more deaths each year in America than traffic fatalities. I think it is clear that the increased use of heroin in America is directly linked to the increased use of prescription opiates over the past decade, as many prescription opiate users eventually turn to heroin for a cheaper, stronger, and more accessible high on a molecularly similar compound.

This issue is really close to me on a personal level. My brother struggled with opiate addiction for years after being placed on opiate painkillers following a reconstructive knee surgery. Thankfully, he has been clean for over two years now, and he got out before moving on to heroin. However, the losses that he has suffered from opiate and heroin addiction over the past few years are absolutely devastating. About five years ago, his best friend died from an overdose of opiate prescription painkillers. A few months ago, another one of his good friends died from a heroin overdose. And two weeks ago, his current best friend died from a heroin overdose during a relapse after months of being clean. My brother had been talking to him everyday and trying to help and encourage him to embrace a better life without opiates and heroin. It was tragic to see how far he had come in his recovery, only to die from a momentary relapse.

Is there an answer to help alleviate the opiate and heroin epidemic in America today? Better access to drug treatment facilities? Increased regulation of the pharmaceutical opiate industry? Increased distribution and use of naloxone, a drug that can immediately revive someone from a heroin overdose? Perhaps the legalization of marijuana, as states with legalized marijuana have reported a significant decease in opiate deaths as people choose marijuana over opiate painkillers to treat pain? Is there anything that we can do to prevent more deaths from opiate and heroin addiction?
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Im dealing with this issue as i type this....a very good friend of mine was hurt in an accident at work in 2007 ...he lost 3 fingers ...they put him on pain killers ...he became an addict...didnt work ....had a lawsuit going ...his wife got tired of waiting for him to get a job while she worked and ghe didnt...they have 2 kids ...she divorced him...he was homeless ...never stopped taking pills ...they gave him 250 pills a month...thats not a misprint...he lost everything ...even his teeth rotted out of his head from the pills ...he doesnt take pain killers anymore ...he takes xanax now ...can pop 8 at a time ...how hes still alive is beyond me...he was in a homeless shelter in Boston almost 3 months ago ...called me and asked if i could let him stay with me util he got on his feet again...he said he was going to die out there ...i own a house and live alone s i do have the means to help...so i am...he was straight for a few weeks at my house ...went to a program called advocates ...told the woman dr that he has anxiety form not being able to find a job ...she prescribed him 3 refills of xanax at 60 pills per bottle without batting an eyelash....he was almost in a coma when i got home from work that day...i went to that office and and told them that they must be insane for prescribing a known addict pills like that ...they said they didnt know his history because he wouldnt sign a release stating his history...but they prescribed the pills anyways ...does that sound like a normal system to anyone ????? he struggles every day with this...i bought him a 500 $ #### box so he could get a job ,which he has, now hes working and saving for a place of his own...but i have zero faith he will stay sober the rest of his life ...once an addict always an addict...most dont have the strength to fight the urges off every day ...they get weak and give in...its a sad sight to see and no answers for this problem

 
My best friend has a daughter who has been in rehab 5 times, this last one for a mandatory year. Probably one of the most beautiful girls I've seen, destroyed by choices with friends and heroin. I hope she lives. Kid I coached in baseball was an absolute stud, thought he'd be a first round pick someday. Shocked to learn he got hooked on heroin after his first year in college. Became the stereotypical thief to support his habit, disowned by his family, on the streets at 20. Erik Kramer from the Bears had his son OD on heroin in our town. Just incredibly sad. I'm so blessed my kids never went there - pray they never do.

 
Along the lines of what JB posted, there are plenty of people who are harmed by the crackdown on prescription opiates.

My wife has been disabled since 1998 and has had 9 spinal surgeries. She has been suffering from intractable chronic pain for all of that time. The crackdown on prescription opiates harms her and others like her. It happens in a variety of ways:

- Some doctors are unwilling to accept her as a patient when they see her records, assuming she will ask for opiates, even if their specialties have nothing to do with pain.

- Healthcare professionals often treat her as if she is a drug addict and criminal without having any familiarity with her case at all.

- Pain management practices have stopped prescribing certain medications, or capped the dosage and/or number/amount they will prescribe. They have stopped providing specific treatments. Both happened to my wife in 2013. She had been a patient of the practice for 10 years when their management decided to cut off two treatments that she had been getting regularly for several years and also decided to stop writing prescriptions for one of her key medications. Her doctor became so upset by the situation that he ultimately left that practice and started his own. While my wife is his patient at the new practice, she was forced to go for the better part of a year without effective treatments and medications.

- Insurance companies also periodically try to cut off medications and treatments, though we have had reasonable success fighting off those situations. Still, it is stressful and frustrating.

And through all of this, my wife continues to suffer severe pain every single day. And when I say pain, thankfully most or all of you have no concept of how bad it is. As bad as most of us feel when we have a back problem like JB described, that is her life 24/7/365, except at least an order of magnitude worse.

Let me make sure I'm being clear. This crackdown on opiate prescriptions has made all of these situations much worse for people like my wife. She has suffered needlessly as a result of the crackdown. And there are tens if not hundreds of thousands of people out there suffering like her.

There must be a better way to address the problem without harming those with legitimate need for opiate medications.

 
General Tso said:
In the span of two weeks last year I lost my 25 year old niece and my best friend's 27 year old nephew, who I was very close with and had been helping recover from addiction. He got his one year anniversary chip at a meeting I was at on Wednesday night. The next night after a meeting he ran into a few of his old using buddies, and a few hours later he was dead in their basement. They made sure to take his wallet off his hands though. He wasn't going to need it, right? I spent the one year anniversary a couple months ago with his Mom - all day - just comforting her and remembering all the fun times we had with Norm. It was brutal. One of the saddest days of my life.

I've been in recovery since August 5, 1984, and in those 31 years I've probably known 25 people who have relapsed and died. And I'd say about 15 of them have been due to heroin in the last 4 years. It's a scourge unlike anything I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot. After the rash of deaths last year my sister and I contacted our local Congressman, who I've know for many years, to see if he would support police all having naloxone kits in their vehicles to help revive overdose victims. This guy is a big shot in the US Congress and he's pretty Liberal. And our families have known each other for decades. Heck, my Dad gave him his first job. In any event, this guy basically wanted nothing to do with this issue. He all but said that this was a non-starter politically.

There is not a lot of support for drug addicts out there. There is a very real stigma that exists. A lot of people, some in this very thread, view drug addiction as a moral failing and something that should just be overcome with willpower. So while I'm extremely passionate about this issue, I choose to stay out of the politics of it all at the moment, and focus my efforts instead where I know I can do the most good - helping people recover.
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No clue why cops having Narcan on hand would be a non-starter. Makes no sense to me.

 
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