‘Heroin is the worst thing in the world’

Boston Globe ^ | 12/18/16 | Allen

[pabianice]

The story fit the grim emerging genre of the opioid epidemic: addicted caregivers who imperil their young children, their very public failings instantly held up for excoriation on social media. Tamara and Jacob had abruptly been added to a national tableau, fused in the popular imagination with the Ohio couple slowly turning blue in their SUV while a 4-year-old watched from his carseat; the Milwaukee pair revived with Narcan in front of the woman’s 2-year-old son; the woman who overdosed in the toy aisle of a Lawrence dollar store, while her toddler wailed and pulled at her arm.

Much less visible are the lives behind the headlines, especially of those who are trying to help the broken get whole again, and to bring life and hope to the children.

[Scrambler Bob]

Well, it might not matter much.

I suspect you may be buying only one bag.

[Robert DeLong]

Opiates rewire your brain’s network in a pretty short amount of time. After only a couple of weeks, you will have severe physical withdrawl symptoms and your brain chemistry will stop recognizing things other than heroin as being able to bring the brain pleasure.

While I agree with your overall statement that the time it takes to become addicted is much shorter for heroin than alcohol, I disagree with the two weeks time frame. Mainly because no one starting out experimenting with heroin does it that regularly, unless someone is forcing it upon them.

[Rusty0604]

He is out of his life as well as his other bad friends he made. Everybody gave him that advice and thankfully he took it.

[Robert DeLong]

Strange, I do not remember suggesting that prohibition needs to be brought back. In fact a lot of these overdoses are caused by the user getting hold of varying degrees of heroin purity, or the heroin being cut with a substance that makes it more potent, and as a result they are overdosing.

I do agree that education would help, but sadly it too will not eliminate the problem. Hopefully it would convince enough to reject experimentation. What you never try can never addict you. But honestly telling what any drug, including alcohol, can ultimately lead to would do a lot more than the scare tactics used, and even the threats of incarceration do.

Now I also have no issue with the government getting involved to the point of regulating drugs for their potency, and sale of substances, only to take the alluring motivations of huge profits that drive the illegal markets.

[fella]

You don’t hurt yourself without hurting those around you. I have seen it to many times.

[BwanaNdege]

I used to be a hardcore fan of the War on Drugs. Then back in the 90’s I made a trip back to Kenya and noticed lots of “parking boys” (street kids) with a tin can suspended under their chins by a loop of string. When I asked a friend what that was all about, he explained that the cans held gasoline. Breathing the fumes gave the kids a high. I hadn’t heard of “huffing” back then.

It suddenly struck me that not only could you NOT outlaw gasoline as a part of the War on Drugs, but that gasoline was just the latest in a long list of everyday items that have been attacked in that war. Model airplane glue, spray paint, OTC cough medicine, etc.

We are created for a joyful relationship with God. When we seek to fill that need with anything else, we are asking for trouble. “You shall have no other gods before Me.”

Once people turn their backs on God, they will try all sorts of things to fill that void. Food, Alcohol, Money, Power, Sex, Fame... AS the saying goes, “Candy is dandy, but Liquor is quicker.” As one runs through a succession of unsatisfying substitutes for fellowship with God, the temptation is to find quicker and stronger highs.

Gasoline, Marijuana, cocaine, mushrooms, heroin, meth... The problem is not with the various substances tried as substitutes for God. The problem is with individuals who seek answers other than God. If you add the promise of untold wealth for those who make & distribute these illicit substitutes, the problem is compounded many fold.

Take away the money and the allure of rebellion against “the Man” and the drug problem will be greatly reduced. Teach people the true nature of their hunger and void and the true fulfillment of that need and the drug problem will decline even further.

[NobleFree]

there’s a bunch of us that want to be able to decide whether or not we can hurt ourselves without having the government pile on top of us for our choice. Remember that time when we made alcohol illegal because “society knows best”? How did that turn out?

You don’t hurt yourself without hurting those around you.

But is that hurt the proper business of government - and can its attempt to suppress that hurt not create still greater hurts? The example of alcohol Prohibition is apropos.

[fella]

None so blind as those who refuse to see.

[wardaddy]

Heroin is the worlds best pain killer actually

[bIlluminati]

90 miles. That got repeated endlessly in the 1960s.

[wardaddy]

Alcohol deaths dwarf all others

Not to mention it turns decent people into first rate assholes

Heroin has a distinct medical use...pain reliever without equal

I’m pretty familiar with drugs

I think freebase cocaine or injecting as in mainlining cocaine is about the apex hunter of mind blowing drug depravity

Worse than meth or opiates both of which have practical use

Cocaine is only good for local anesthesia or optic anesthesia

[wardaddy]

If your brother in law is white he’s in deep dookie

I’ve known folks went to Parchmen

It’s no joke

[wardaddy]

Five pounds of H is enough for Des Moines to have root canals

Let’s stick with free grams

Prudence

[bIlluminati]

Ever seen a moderate heroin addict?

---

Yes. Including 20-year users. Never saw a moderate crack addict after 2 days. Or those who smoke meth (called shabu in the Philippines). Neutral observers say tobacco is harder to quit than heroin, if you smoke it long enough (more than three months).

Medically, naltrexone, when used at a correct dose, is effective treatment to addiction (heroin and alcohol, with better than 50% cure rate). Hell by chemicals, treated by other chemicals. But the top addictive drug sellers have a lot of economic, and therefore political, clout. Why else have U.S. troops stayed in Afghanistan for 15 years and counting?

[cherry]

"Alcohol is worse than all other drugs combined"

what a ridiculous statement....

I think that people who want legal drugs use this alcohol is worse crap as some kind of talking point...

let me tell you...when someone drinks, everyone KNOWS it...the smell, the speech, the loss of control, etc...

you can stop a person from driving a bus or a train when you know they have been drinking...

but some of these druggies can carry on, even being high...

its totally unknown how many car accidents, and bus accidents and killings etc have happened over the use of drugs...

alcohol will slowly destroy your body but it takes usually decades...

drugs can kill you with one use...it can destroy lives before your 30 yrs old....

[Robert DeLong]

I have no argument with you there. In fact alcohol related deaths are also a big problem.

[HLPhat]

>>start respecting we who purchase our own five-pound sacks of heroin at Walmart.

Doesn't sound very sustainable.

Shouldn't they be growing their own poppies in a sun-yurt?

[NobleFree]

You don’t hurt yourself without hurting those around you.

But is that hurt the proper business of government - and can its attempt to suppress that hurt not create still greater hurts?

None so blind as those who refuse to see.

What do you claim I'm not seeing? I acknowledged the collateral hurt.

[Patriotic1]

Only meth or most drugs destroying the parenting ability...?

[Patriotic1]

I know someone in my family who took bath salts. I think if they were around longer, they’d be higher up on your list.