ER Nursing Stories ping.
But remember: if we just legalize it and make it available to the general public, this wouldn’t happen.
There is always a “Big Bad Drug de Jour”, from Heroin in the 70s to Crack in the 80s and now Methamphetamines. But I gotta say the horror stories about Meth are so bad, I really believe they are true. These people are wacked!
This is Meth. This is what it does to us. Why have we as a society allowed our leaders and law enforcement agencies to pussy-foot around with this?
Because they are somebody to somebody ELSE
I know the horror of being addicted.
I know the horror of having close friends addicted while you are not.
Luckily, I had the strength to break the addiction. Others do not, even when help is offered and accepted.
I really believe that there are personalities that are susceptable to addiction and personalities that are not susceptable to addiction.
Does that make it right for society to turn a blind eye? No.
But society CAN'T care unless a vast majority within the society care.
Most people have not been addicted. Most people don't know the agony of deciding between the next fix and that months rent. Most people haven't seen someone they know waste away before their eyes and become a zombie, looking for the next fix no matter what the cost, and the cost can be extremely high.
So society will continue to turn a blind eye because most people don't know.
I’ve never seen somebody on Meth, but if it’s anything like Herion, I get the picture. That guy had no idea what was going on until he got the Narcan. I know it save his life that day.
Those aren't necessarily "sores." Meth, like cocaine, constricts the blood vessels. Over time, this leads to the collapse of the vessels and blood cannot flow. Those sores could be dead flesh.
"meth use constricts the blood vessels and cuts of blood oxygen to EVERY tissue of the body."
Hey, thanks for the latest instalment, and for the work that you do in ER. I’ve been to the casualty ward a couple times and have always been grateful for the people there who have been there when I needed it. You guys are heroes in my estimation.
P-Methamphetamine is really nasty stuff: New Zealand has the dubious distinction of the highest per-capita consumption in the world, I am led to believe. Much of it is now being imported from China: most of the stuff that is cooked domestically is made in West Auckland, where I live.
Oddly enough, P-Methamphetamine is the reason why I am a Guardian Angel now. It’s a journey I’ve described here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1891248/posts
I hate the stuff, and I hate what it does to people. It takes three of my Angels to take down one person on “P” — they are *that* violent, as you would know. I think your cops are crazy if they take these people to ER: they are just asking for somebody at your hospital to get hurt.
I’ve started posting extracts from my Patrol Log to the FR — some of the unreal stuff that happens out there, you just couldn’t dream up as fiction: only in real life could these sorts of things happen, if they tried to make a TV show out of it nobody would ever believe it: too implausible.
Anyrate, thanks for the latest instalment, I enjoy reading your threads!
Kind regards
*DieHard the Hunter*
When I was a teen, marijuana was the thing. That, and alcohol. Part of small-town life where I lived was to get drunk and high on Friday and Saturday nights. Most of my friends and I left that behind. Some couldn’t, and went on to other drugs. One out of those that I know about died very, very young. It all seemed so inocuous back then, just a way to have a “good time”.
Thanks again for the ping. I really enjoy your posts.
This story typifies why I hate liberaltarians. (RINO’s)
Those who would call for the legalization of drugs are cruel and heartless.
I can’t imagine why anyone would - or could - look into the face of a lost individual on meth and still believe we should legalize this and other dangerous drugs.
Even their arguments that the costs of fighting the drug war would be reduced are specious and incorrect. We might reduce the money spent on local, state and federal law enforcement budgets in fighting the WOD, but our costs to house millions of drug addicts in state-run hospitals would bankrupt our country.
And the increased crime that would result from legalized drugs? Just guessing, but I’m sure our prison population would triple.
I hate and detest drugs and the lives they ruin.
I have enjoyed your writing for some time. Would you add me to your ping list, please?
It’s a horrible, awful thing. My husband grew up around users, and he has an even better eye for it than I do. We see them often in the Tacoma area! It’s bad enough what they do to themselves and their loved ones (we know a local son of a millionaire who has destroyed his life and every real relationship), but they also contribute so much crime to our area.
I think meth dealers should be hanged in public on the first offense, every time. I don't know what the answer for users is. Desert island exile for life, perhaps? In my experience, they never get clean, and will never be anything other than a burden and plague on the rest of mankind.
Note, I do NOT buy in to most of the anti-drug agenda. Marijuana is far safer and less addictive than alcohol, and this world would be a much better place if everyone who drank booze to excess would replace it with pot. I am totally in favor of marijuana legalization, with reasonable restrictions on use by minors and driving while stoned.
From what I’ve seen on “Cops,” “huffing” turpentine is just as bad, if not worse. Very sad. At bottom, drug addiction is a moral/spiritual problem, and is best addressed on that level. Law enforcement is a necessary means of controlling drug use, but it will never be very effective.
Ping!
Interesting discussion on this thread re addiction.
The boy, who was about six, have just got a piece of cake and sat down to eat it when his mother screamed at him that it was time to go. She ripped the fork out of his mouth and threw away the plate of cake. The purpose of this tirade was apparently only so that she could go outside to have a cigarette.
This woman has two sisters, both of whom are married and have happy families. When my wife came home she called her friend and said that in her opinion this sister should never be left alone with her child. We have thought about calling CSD as well although the friend said that her family tries to keep the sister with them when she is with her son.
Do you really think they pussy foot around with it? I’m a public defender in an area where meth use is rampant. They don’t seem to be pussy footing around with it where I live. I see an awful lot of people going to prison over meth. The “meth laws” have gotten a lot more harsh. The legislature has added a lot of special sentence enhancements and made it such that people have to spend a greater portion of their time before being eligible for parole. Law enforcement seem to be really out there looking for it too, figuring out ways to pull people over and search them if they look like the type who do meth or if the cops know they are into meth. And our drug task force is really out looking for it. They lean on people who get busted and try to get them to go out and set up at least three people. These “confidential informants” are going around to anyone they know who does meth trying to get them to go and pick up a gram or whatever for them and getting the whole thing on tape. The laws in my state now are such that delivery of any amount of meth, no matter how tiny, can get a person up to life in prison, and probably a lot of these people set up by these confidential informants setting people up to save their own butts aren’t even really dealers, they’re just dopers trying to help fellow dopers. Facing a possible life sentence if they go to trial, they’ll settle for some pretty long prison sentences in a plea bargain. Sometimes I think it’s really crazy because these dopers selling tiny amounts of dope to fellow dopers are getting a lot worse punishments than people caught stealing, forging checks, burglarizing homes, etc. I’d much rather a doper pick up a half a gram of dope for another doper rather than break into my home at night and rip me off.
I don’t think law enforcement and our leaders are pussy-footing around on this. There just isn’t a whole lot that can be done short of taking everyone out suspected of using meth and shooting them in the backs of their heads. That might change things, but it won’t happen. We can’t put them all in prison a lot longer either. Our prisons are bursting at the seams. We don’t have enough room in them to keep the really bad scary people in very long anymore. In my state now the same legislators who keep passing harsh drug laws keep having to pass emergency measures to let people out of prison sooner because we can’t build prisons fast enough and we don’t have room for all the new convicts sentenced to prison. It used to be that if someone was sentenced to prison they’d transport them from the jail by the end of the week. Now almost all are released on reporting bonds and they have to call in every night until a prison bed opens up, usually several months later. Our parole board is now granting parole to people in almost every case the first time they come up before the board, even habitual offenders, because by necessity they have to be more concerned with freeing up bed space than public safety. Nationwide we hit a new all time per capita incarceration rate in 1979, after seeing the rate remain relatively flat through the first three quarters of the century. Now our incarceration rate is up several times past what it ever was at any time prior to 1979. We’ve got more people locked up in total than any nation in the world, even those with much larger populations that ours. Our national per capita incarceration rate is the highest in the world, much, much higher than the world average, much, much higher than the average of Western nations. We are not pussy footing around on meth.
One thing that might be of interest to you though is that if you look at the national drug use statistics, meth use really isn’t on the rise anymore. It’s actually trending down. I think people are seeing how bad it is. I represent juveniles as well as adults, and a lot of the kids at least in my area have watched what meth does to their parents and other older relatives and family friends and they’re a lot less interested in messing with it than young people in our area in years past. Hopefully, meth use in this country will become more like heroin use, in that only a very tiny percentage of people will do it. As it is only a very small percentage of Americans use meth, but an even smaller percentage use heroin. I think a big part of that is that heroin has been available for more than a century and by now everyone knows that heroin users become junkies and lead miserable lives. People have been a little more naive about meth, but I think they’re learning the hard way not to be so naive, or at least I hope they’re learning. Meth is a terrible terrible drug. I wouldn’t wish that addiction on anyone.
Some more meth pix. How can people do this to themselves? Pathetic.
In Christchurch recently, a P-Methamphetamine lab exploded, causing $1.133 Million Dollars in property damage and medical bills.
The galling part? $1 Million of that total was for medical treatment for the scroat who was doing the Meth cook-off. The remaining $133,000 was to repair the rented house.
The explosion happened when the scroat was heating toluene — naturally an idiotic thing to do at the best of times.
I wonder how many hip operations and triple-bypasses and cancer treatments could have been done for the $1 Million it cost to save that mungrel’s filthy stinking meth-cooking hide?