Yep. My uncle died from an OD earlier this year. Drugs cut with fentanyl. It's truly a terrible epidemic.
A friend I grew up with just shot himself to death. He was on a TV show, model and had it all going for him..until the night he tried black tar heroin through a needle, off a spoon. An older friend convinced him and four others to try it one night at a wrap party for the TV show. Grew up affluent but drugs immediately nosedived his life. Ended up in and out of jail, losing it mentally, mental institutions, broke every window at his parents house, just living a really rough existence. The part that got me: the older friend who introduced him to it showed up to his funeral.
The other one of the four is on his third strike for heroin, just got his second DUI trying to "live it up" – drugs i.e. heavy drugs, are a game that you do not win.
Drug potency follows something like an S-curve. As enforcement increases a drug will get increasingly stepped on, until the purity is low enough that the drug gets replaced with a more potent analog. Consumer Reports wrote about this in their guide to drugs from the 70s.
Whoa. Care to further elaborate?
Terrifying stuff. I've had a run-in with it myself, when someone slipped me a cut pill of molly, in my younger or dancing-at-parties days lo these many years ago; luckily I had friends there who realized something was up and looked out for me, or almost missing a flight the next morning would no doubt have been far from the worst consequence. I've never had the urge to go back to that particular well, but what I remember of the experience makes it easy to understand why someone would; there is that about it which, while under its influence, makes it impossible for the world to touch one in any meaningful way. Of course, when not under its influence, the opposite is true and very emphatically so, which I think is in large part what keeps people going back even when they're as dedicated as they can be to the goal of kicking.
I've come to realize that the concept of gateway drugs is bullshit. Kids are going to try whatever they have available. If heroin suddenly enters the scene, then heroin is what they're going to try. Same thing for meth.
Also, it's a different sort of high. When you want to get drunk, you drink. When you want to feel stupid, you smoke weed. But when you just want to feel like everything is beautiful and nothing is wrong, you try opiates (or amphetamines).
Interesting, this is exactly what weed is giving me, without any nasty effects and addictions of hard drugs. If in nature, this effect is super strong. I came up with most important decisions in my life when high, and they are still solid and best choices possible, even when looking back after 10 years. Different perspective on situations, in some cases really proactive thinking and resolving issues before they arise and so on...
I guess it really affects us differently. I've seen few people get weird/aggressive on it, but then again I would never want to drink with them either. Something badly broken deep inside, with no real chance of fix, ever.
And once you're in the throes of addiction from smoking it, I'm guessing injection seems less and less objectionable.
Some people are just attracted to the crazy unknown. Many can’t believe they could become addicts because they’ve never been addicted. Others still don’t care because they’re just one step removed from suicide.
Yes. "Find what you love and let it kill you" somebody said. And most people don't feel safe unless they're living fearfully close to the edge of what is possible for them. In the past men worked till they dropped dead in their 40s to keep their families alive through the winter; women had baby after baby until they died or couldn't otherwise cope.
The strange thing is that, absent those harsh historical conditions, people still want the feeling of an edge, an existential risk. So they gamble, they do drugs, etc.
But these aren't good edges to be on. There are many real, urgent problems the world faces that could benefit from obsessive, risk-seeking commitment to the 'crazy unknown'. Addiction-level commitment. It shouldn't have to be to drugs. How do we funnel ourselves towards these problems?
Heroin, tried once, is not instantly addictive for most people.
Natural. Selection.
Drugs have always been cut. Historically it was just cut with OTCs or detritus, which was a problem that could be solved in most cases by simply doing more.
The problem as of late has become when they lace it with things like fentanyl, which is a cheap filler that actually improves the high (thus encouraging repeat business) but can be lethal in large doses.
Well, until you get a more pure batch and you try to do the same amount you do with the dilute batch.
I lost a relative to drug abuse. I think one of the reasons they got into it was she they were very intolerant to boredom and just scoffed at everything. Nothing was serious, everything got a do over.
If a chemist is reading this, I would love your imput. I was under the assumption fentynl complicated to produce.
That said, my wish is the government would provide generic bupenorpine to any person that wants the drug. It needs to be easily available to anyone. No b.s., just give out the drug. Save all the drama. Give them a long half life drug that will get them off the hard stuff. Let them taper off the bupenorpine when they see fit.
Now--they will say the addict needs counseling, nalaxone, and blah, blah, blah.
Just give out generous bupenorpine. It has a long half life, and you have to be determined to overdose on it.
I will be shocked if anything is done for most addicts.
Hell--when my psychiatrist retires, I honestly don't know what I'm going to do. I'm on two very controlled substances, and so tired of hearing the experts opinion, and their outlandish prices.
So yes, we will see commercials, etc., but just give out bupenorpine. Most addicts don't need extensive counseling--I believe. They are just afraid of widhdrawls. Withdrawals that might be less severe than they imagine?
Imported from China. Wasn't regulated at all there until recently, then the producers started messing with the formula.