The dragon that kills cannot be caught.

mistersprinkles · 11 Mar 2018 at 14:52

Some of you may remember that my two best friends have died in the past couple of months. I didn't want to discuss the circumstances of their deaths but given the current opioid crisis in Canada and the US, and I assume other parts of the world, I feel that I should, perhaps more as a warning to others than anything else.

My two friends died because they were abusing opiates. My ex girlfriend and close friend who died first had a lot of health problems including chronic kidney infections that caused her a lot of pain, so she had been on hydro-morphone for well over a decade. It wasn't really affecting her properly any more and I'm pretty sure she switched over to actual heroin though I have no proof of this, though she did contact somebody else I knew looking to see if she could get some fentanyl at one point shortly before she passed.

My other friend, who I'd known since we were five years old, had been an opiate addict for a long time as well. It started with him taking perkiset that he would get from his friend who had chronic pain. He'd take one once in awhile because he found it entertaining. Then he met his long time girlfriend who he was with for ten years who was into hard drugs and she got him addicted to heroin. He overdosed twice that I know of. The first time was in his basement where his parents found him unconscious and the second time was on a commuter train where security personnel found him passed out in the bathroom. Both times he was given naloxone and survived. Eventually his heart couldn't take any more.

Both of these people died from cardiac arrest after abusing their bodies for over a decade. One of them had a 7 year old autistic child, who now has to live with his grandparents, who are close to 70 years old. I worry what will happen to him in the next ten years. Will he end up in foster care in his teens? Does he deserve that?

Did my friends deserve to die? I don't know. I think it was incredibly idiotic of my friend not to stop doing drugs after he almost died the first time. It was the pinnacle of idiocy for him to keep going after the second time he almost died. My ex gf was very depressed and had attempted suicide a couple of times and didn't want to live. For all I know she overdosed on purpose and killed herself. I don't know. her boyfriend didn't give me much information and has cut off communication with her friends so I don't really have a clear picture of what happened.

I know from talking to his girlfriend that my other best friend, her boyfriend, had gone to pick up drugs the night he died and that he died at the train station on his way back. I suspect he did some heroin in the bathroom at the train station and his heart couldn't take any more.

Don't do drugs. If you must do drugs, smoke weed, and leave it at that.

neil3k · 11 Mar 2018 at 14:57

Christ, that's horrific.

mistersprinkles · 11 Mar 2018 at 15:37

neil3k said:
Christ, that's horrific.

Yes it is.

Jokester · 11 Mar 2018 at 15:45

Sadly this is proving to be a major problem in the US (and I guess Canada as well). GP proscribed drugs for minor ailments so it must be safe drugs right? Fast forward a few years and they're now hopelessly addicted to the opiates they had been proscribed.

Chris Wilson · 11 Mar 2018 at 16:17

And when a strong leader like Duterte in the Philippines makes a stance to stamp out drug abuse
the UN get all hoity toity and go wet as a fish.... The UN is about as much use as a chocolate fire
guard with their obsession with `uman rights.

mistersprinkles · 11 Mar 2018 at 17:48

Chris Wilson said:
And when a strong leader like Duterte in the Philippines makes a stance to stamp out drug abuse
the UN get all hoity toity and go wet as a fish.... The UN is about as much use as a chocolate fire
guard with their obsession with `uman rights.

You don't think hunting down and murdering drug addicts and traffickers "extra-judicial" style is a bit much?
The point is to save these people, not murder them.

Chris Wilson · 11 Mar 2018 at 18:16

mistersprinkles said:
You don't think hunting down and murdering drug addicts and traffickers "extra-judicial" style is a bit much?
The point is to save these people, not murder them. Kind of a douchey insensitive post, I have to say.

No, they drag innocents into their cesspit, weak minded innocents often with major issues, they are easy prey. I saw it locally where a silver tongued druggie come drug dealer went out of his way to effectively groom a troubled but until then a drug free young woman until she became a reliant customer. Duterte has my support, the disease is so endemic it needs drastic action to effectively bring it under control again.

asim18 · 11 Mar 2018 at 18:17

Chris Wilson said:
And when a strong leader like Duterte in the Philippines makes a stance to stamp out drug abuse
the UN get all hoity toity and go wet as a fish.... The UN is about as much use as a chocolate fire
guard with their obsession with `uman rights.

You cant simply "stamp out drug abuse".

The causal factors of one man turning to drugs are rooted far deeper than you could possibly imagine. You will never fix a persons deep rooted problem just by removing access to the medicine which helps them cope.

Werewolf · 11 Mar 2018 at 18:21

Chris Wilson said:
And when a strong leader like Duterte in the Philippines makes a stance to stamp out drug abuse
the UN get all hoity toity and go wet as a fish.... The UN is about as much use as a chocolate fire
guard with their obsession with `uman rights.

The reason most people with a brain and a respect for the law and due process don't like Duterte is because he's basically said "it's fine to kill anyone you don't like, as long as you say they were involved in drugs, by the way here is a list of people who have annoyed or opposed me and my family, they're all drug dealers

"

Orionaut · 11 Mar 2018 at 18:40

I was given to understand that the opiate problem in the US isn't so much Heroin, as illegal Fentanyl. Fentanyl is 200 times as potent as diamorphine. It is both effective, and lethal, in tiny amounts.

Like many designer drugs these days, Much of this stuff is made in china. It is so potent and cheap to manufacture that it doesn't need to be actively smuggled by mules etc. It is just sent through the post an ounce or two at as time. Even if most of the letters are intercepted, what gets through is still profitable enough to cover the losses. Customs cannot check every single letter.

I have always felt that there is something somewhat Karmic about the narcotic flow from China to the west. Something that I am sure would not be lost on the Chinese.

(If there really is anybody out there who does not know what I am referring to. Just do a bit of Googling on the historic relationship between Tea, Opium, and Hong Kong.)

Steampunk · 11 Mar 2018 at 18:56

The Portuguese experiment has shown that until you start treating drug addiction as a medical, rather than a criminal issue, nothing will change. Isn't there enough evidence over the years to show that the "war on drugs" can't ever be won if we keep using the same old ideology that continues to fail?

asim18 · 11 Mar 2018 at 19:00

Steampunk said:
Isn't there enough evidence over the years to show that the "war on drugs" can't ever be won if we keep using the same old ideology that continues to fail?

War on drugs is a charade. It simply allows governments to inflate prices of select vegetables, and then seize all money generated from said vegetables as opposed to just 20% tax.

Glaucus · 11 Mar 2018 at 19:00

Steampunk said:
The Portuguese experiment has shown that until you start treating drug addiction as a medical, rather than a criminal issue, nothing will change. Isn't there enough evidence over the years to show that the "war on drugs" can't ever be won if we keep using the same old ideology that continues to fail?

Most goverment choices aren't based on science though, but instead popular opinion. It would be the biggest benefit if we moved where possible to scientific reasoning.
People say are form of democracy is the best of a bad bunch. But it isn't.

Sorry to here that mistersprinkles.
But also realise it's an addiction,and why the choices are idiotic. They probably realised that themselves and still couldn't change. People massively underestimate how much power addiction has. You can know how bad something is, how much you want to change etc and not be able to.

Nate--IRL-- · 11 Mar 2018 at 19:13

Orionaut said:
I was given to understand that the opiate problem in the US isn't so much Heroin, as illegal Fentanyl. Fentanyl is 200 times as potent as diamorphine. It is both effective, and lethal, in tiny amounts.

Like many designer drugs these days, Much of this stuff is made in china. It is so potent and cheap to manufacture that it doesn't need to be actively smuggled by mules etc. It is just sent through the post an ounce or two at as time. Even if most of the letters are intercepted, what gets through is still profitable enough to cover the losses. Customs cannot check every single letter.

I have always felt that there is something somewhat Karmic about the narcotic flow from China to the west. Something that I am sure would not be lost on the Chinese.

(If there really is anybody out there who does not know what I am referring to. Just do a bit of Googling on the historic relationship between Tea, Opium, and Hong Kong.)

Read a great article from the BBC on the new culture surrounding illegal Xanax and other opiates just today. I'll see if i can find it, it was a bit of an eye-opener as to how "Drug culture" is changing.

Edit:- http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/fake_xanax_the_uks_largest_ever_dark_net_drugs_bust

Nate

Kutter · 11 Mar 2018 at 19:35

New Hampshire has a pretty bad opioids epidemic at the moment too. One of my workers was found unconscious in the bathroom at work with a needle in his arm.

LOAM · 11 Mar 2018 at 19:47

Louis Theroux: Dark States - Heroin Town was a very good, albeit sad insight into the American opiate catastrophe.

Woden · 11 Mar 2018 at 20:11

Chris Wilson said:
And when a strong leader like Duterte in the Philippines makes a stance to stamp out drug abuse
the UN get all hoity toity and go wet as a fish.... The UN is about as much use as a chocolate fire
guard with their obsession with `uman rights.

Duterte is carrying out executions without trial of anyone suspected to be linked to drugs. Not found guilty at trial, and not just suppliers/dealers.

FortuitousFluke · 11 Mar 2018 at 20:18

Jokester said:
Sadly this is proving to be a major problem in the US (and I guess Canada as well). GP proscribed drugs for minor ailments so it must be safe drugs right? Fast forward a few years and they're now hopelessly addicted to the opiates they had been proscribed.

I saw an interview about an artist prescribed oxy (I think). She got addicted and eventually transitioned to street heroin. Awful.

She kicked the habit and now tries to raise awareness.

Mr Badger · 11 Mar 2018 at 20:21

Woden said:
Duterte is carrying out executions without trial of anyone suspected to be linked to drugs. Not found guilty at trial, and not just suppliers/dealers.

Just in case you aren't aware Chris Wilson is a comedy caricature of a Daily Mail reading fascist little Englander that wants to see the population reduced by a third and knows exactly who that third is.

FortuitousFluke · 11 Mar 2018 at 20:23

Mr Badger said:
Just in case you aren't aware Chris Wilson is a comedy caricature of a Daily Mail reading fascist little Englander that wants to see the population reduced by a third and knows exactly who that third is.

Is it middle class white guys? I bet it's middle class white guys.