I would add a footnote here. You can travel into a fairly rural county in the south, with 100,000 residents, and find that between Opioids and Heroin...at least a thousand residents use one or both, and you could easily bump into one of these people every single day. Some got on the binge because of football or work-place injuries, and found that it was the only way to control the pain. Some found drifting over to Heroin was pretty easy with the Opioid usage.
I have a relative who up and disappeared six months ago for three days. Missing persons report turned in...cops searching...major effort of one single family and community. Then the young gal just turns up and acts like nothing occurred over the past seventy-two hours. It’s obvious that she was on some drug episode, but won’t admit to anything. Cops just accept it. The family never digs into it. You see this as a common theme now...disappearances are becoming an acceptable form of lifestyle while on some binge.
On this topic I think that the city of Highland, Utah ought to fire their City Attorney Tim Merrill and bar his law firm from any more business with them. I would be happy to publicly debate anyone on this topic and have all the evidence and issues involved on this brought forward with complete honesty.
Firebombing the poppy fields in Afghanistan will go a long way toward putting the CIA out of business.
When the supply dissipates, then we can address the addicted.
In the rural SE GA areas for the age groups around 18-40 we still see about an equal amount of methamphetamine and THC addiction, most. Next comes an equal amount of benzodiazepines and opiates, then cocaine, and then random exotics like mdma and synthetic pot. Heroin is not on the list. At this time.
In this area, the major opiate abusers are 80% women in their late-20s and 30s, but this “opioid epidemic” focus that the government is pushing ignores this area’s actual problems, outlined above, and I fear we are going to see incredible amounts of focus and money going to an issue that is no worse than ones we have already been working on (with very little focus or money).
ie, another ham fisted and poorly focused campaign pushed by the Fed govt which will misdirect time, money, and attention from equal or worse issues.
AIDs was an issue of a disease that affected homosexuals by massive margins, But because of PC the govt/CDC refused to be honest and more people died than should have (continues to this day). I see similar issues with this opioid focus and the information and “cure” being pushed by the govt.
I’m already getting casual social questions about “our opioid epidemic.” No, we have a family unit break down epidemic. We have a fatherless generation epidemic. We have a “Church is bad/boring/pointless” epidemic. And we have a society that has become immoral and immature.
Fix ^ that and the drug problem goes away. Personal opinion.
Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their drugs, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts.
Rev. 9-21.
What's happening is folks who truly need these medications are finding it more difficult to obtain them. Then, they go to the streets. Chronic pain will leave a once strong, healthy man into a whimpering ball. It robs folks of a quality life, always focused on the pain.
My dad and F-n-law both elderly, both have conditions that causes severe pain. More often than not, they'll spend their dayz trying to make it, often times crabby, bad mood, lethargic and immobile to a large degree.
Given their pain meds, they are completely opposite of this. The medication does not eliminate the pain, but takes the sharp edge off of it. They can then focus, move and enjoy life. Many people have the notion these meds cause folks to be sloppy fools, slurring their speech with needles hanging out their arms. Leave it to the gubbamint to create a “crisis”.
If the federal government were TRULY concerned about opioid addiction, they'd have sealed that border along Messy-co decades ago.
Some war on drugs.
On my first visit to Singapore I saw this on the landing card that they gave us on the plane.As I was standing in line waiting to get to the Immigration Officer there was another sign in several languages,including English.Next to the sign there was an "amnesty bin" into which,I assume,one could drop any heroin they had on them.I was so spooked that I was tempted to drop my blood pressure meds into it...just in case.
Americans who misuse opioids/have an opioid misuse disorder = 1,900,000
That's 0.558% of the population.
Typical MSM/Socialist "Hey! Look over there! A dog with a fluffy tail" crisis.
Well I’m not going to get in a huge, drawn out argument on this subject but I have Neuropathy in both feet, lower legs up to my knees and now in the last 3 months my hands.
The pain gets so bad that I can’t walk, sleep or pick things up. I’ve tried lyrica and gabapentain and they don’t give me any relief. The lyrica just knocks me out for 2 days and I urinate and defecate while out and I refuse to live like that!!! The gabapentain rips my gastrointestinal system up so that’s not a option. Neither does anything to help with the pain.
I take pain Meds to be able to have somewhat of a normal life, walk, do dishes, take out the trash and the “normal” things that most people take for granted.
I still have bad days that I just have to stay in bed because nothing helps.
The pain can get so bad that sometimes I get so nauseous from it that I can’t even eat!
It’s a royal pain in the ass to get Meds. I have to see my Doctor every month to get the Rx filled. That’s $100.00+ just to see Him, then I have to go pay $129.00 for 100 of one pill and the other one I’m supposed to take is $900.00 for 60 pills!!! I can’t afford that one!!! I also have 18 other Meds I’m supposed to take for Heart and Renal problems. I live on $1288.00 @ month Disability and have rent, water, gas, electric, food and would like to have TV and Internet. So I play the “what bill or other item do I get this time?”
When I got my SSDI out of the blue I get Medicaid from the state. That helped a lot, $3.00 Doctor and Rx co-pays. Then suddenly I got a letter from the state saying that I make “too much money” and I lose that coverage. I asked what happened? I get told that the Fed Poverty level is $1009.00 @ month and at $1288.00 I don’t qualify for coverage. “Sorry that’s the way it is, can’t help You.”
Thank God for the Mission Pantry so I can have food from there but they don’t have everything all the time so I still have to go to the store.
I understand that there are some people that have a drug problem and that sucks for them and those of Us that have a real reason and need for pain control.
Jacking the price out of control doesn’t help. Making those of us that need those Meds suffer because of other people’s problems doesn’t help. Lumping us all into one group is pure BULLSHIT!!!
I don’t have the majic answer but I wish I did...
Folks, you think those numbers are high? Right now there is no public mechanism in place to count how many overdoses occur daily.
Heroin is particularly insidious because it goes from ingesting to get the pleasure to ingesting just to keep from getting the effects of not having it. There is no pleasurable effects, you just need it to function.
Either legalize it and dispense it, without it being cut with grandma’s medicine cabinet.
Or make dope dealing a death penalty offense. (Which will never happen because it would deemed racist and genocidal.)
Tough subject. I predict more stringent regulation to force MD’s to quit writing scripts. And when legal opioids dry up, we will see a massive move to heroin.
A book called “Dreamland” by Sam Quinones lays out the history and the roots of all this in ways that made a lot of things clear to me. From Perdue Pharma to the “brown tar” heroin which is set up to be delivered like damn pizza all over the country. I’ve lived through this up close and personal as a parent for almost 10 years. This book has only been out for 2 years so I’m looking in retrospect and, yes, the man’s timeline of events is dead-on accurate of the shifting horror of all this.
Our neighbor’s daughter was recently widowed.
Her husband was a county fire captain, that was injured, got strung out on pain meds, lost his job, his wife, and jumped off a bridge on the 5 freeway in Mission Viejo to his death.
He was NOT a guy with tats on his hands and his neck.
I blame the medical community a lot, since it could have happened to me four years ago.
My doctor and PA didn’t say one thing to me, about getting off pain meds quickly after a major surgery.
Fortunately I decided on my own (with my fading mental capacity) to kick the damn drugs if I could.
We need to spread TRUE education about how not to get addicted, to everyone from 10 to 90 years old. First, start with the goal of teaching people the pros and cons of prescription opioids. There are a lot of pros and a lot of reasons to take opioids. Explain how they work to bring pain and cough and diarrhea relief. Carefully explain how in each situation, overuse (using too long, not overdosing) brings nightmare side effects. Tell in no uncertain terms HOW TO KNOW WHEN TO STOP TAKING. Tell How to keep the drugs away from the patient and have someone else distribute them to him as needed.
Knowing the exact effects of opioids and taking those precautions, gives patients the wonderful benefits of the opioids with none of the life crushing harms.
Educating the non addict EXACTLY how these drugs need to be carefully used will PREVENT addiction and that is where to start. Tomorrow. It’s more important for us than teaching algebra.
Next educate addicts. This is much harder. During their addiction, and once they have been newly weaned. Educate them as to all the pitfalls of both legal and illegal forms, reach them. Force them to take literal written TESTS on opioids and addiction to prove they understand how opioids are working on them. Then give every addict people / agencies / online sources to get immediate help in crisis moments.
Eventually perhaps there should be addict “nursing home facilities” where people who had not gotten themselves free of abusing opiates would be locked in. It should keep them safe from themselves and each other, but it should not be a pleasant way to live, and they each should be motivated to attempt to get free of both the drug and the facility (by being ready for real life).
But education is entirely possible and should be very easy and not costly to do, if media methods offered public service time. Start with the non addicted and teach them how to not get addicted. Teach them how the “wonderful feeling” is fake and how it leads to hell. Teach them exactly how and when to stop their helpful pain relief.
I’ve had several major surgeries. Opium and I go way back. I know exactly how to stop pain meds, and when. Cold turkey, the VERY FIRST TIME I think, “well, it’s not hurting NOW, but I will take one for later.” BOOM, I don’t take another pill. Never had any problems if I stick to that.
#whitegenocide
And it's coming together nicely.
I cannot but recall when Rush Limbaugh went into rehab, and we had FReepers waxing self-righteous and claiming that Rush had been a big war-on-drugs guy while also being an oxy addict.But Rush was just in the van of the situation - he had a legit condition, and he had every motive to treat it with medication rather than surgery which would have endangered his vocal chords. He trusted his doctor, and found himself hooked on oxy. Thank God, he was able to recover.
I think if we knew the truth of the relationship between congress and the military complex, and big pharma and -keeping Afghanistan war alive and poppy protection-CIA/black ops, we’d start crying...I really think the cash flow therein is so lucrative and well hidden...and I do believe our rino pals in the Bush community are benefiting.
To stop opiods, this web of deceit has to be crushed. The duplicity in our congress is so disgusting. Wouldn’t surprise me if here in Ohio Kasich is on the take.
1.9 million opioid abusers is about 1% of the USA adult population. Compare that to the 15.1 million American adults who abuse alcohol.
Also, about one half of prescription opioid deaths are suicides. It's easy to understand why suicidal people choose Oxy - it's a pain free, fall asleep, non-traumatic death.
The other half who die are almost always idiot people who mix OxyContin-type pills with alcohol or other drugs that suppress breathing and heart rate.
Deaths from prescription opioids have increased about 5% per year since 2000, which is roughly one half the rate of increase in opioid prescriptions.
I have been taking opiates under prescription continuously since 1994. I stopped taking them a dozen times for one or two months at a time but since I suffer from chronic chronic pain I need to take them in order to be pain free. If I suffer from an addiction it’s an addiction of not wanting to be in pain all the time.