Heroin-related overdose deaths quadruple since 2002

[Anti Federalist]

Heroin-related overdose deaths quadruple since 2002

http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/07/health/heroin-deaths-quadruple/index.html

Atlanta (CNN)Heroin use is increasing rapidly across the United States among all age, race, income and ethnic groups, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Tuesday. And the increase comes with a devastating price: Deaths from heroin-related overdoses nearly quadrupled between 2002 and 2013.

"What is causing the increase? Our best information suggests two main reasons," CDC director Dr. Thomas Frieden told CNN. "First, more and more people are susceptible to heroin because they have been prescribed prescription opiates, like OxyContin. And the second reason is that heroin itself seems to be cheaper and more widely available."

<snip>

Well 'natch...what did you think was going to happen? - AF

<snip>

Afghan Opium Production Increases 35-Fold Since U.S. Invasion

http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2015/02/10/afghan-opium-production-increases-35-fold-since-u-s-invasion/

Estimated opium production in Afghanistan, an important source of funding for the Taliban, has increased 35-fold since the U.S.-led invasion, from 185 tons in 2001 to 6,400 last year, data maintained by the United Nations shows.

Estimated opium production decreased from 3,276 tons in 2000 to 185 tons the following year, marking a decrease of over 94 percent.

The dramatic drop was attributed to Afghanistan’s 2000 drug eradication program under the Taliban.

<snip>

Only in Idiot AmeriKa, can these dots not be connected.

The Taliban stopped the opium growing, thus, since drug running is one of the favorite means that the intelligence apparatus of this country uses to fund "off budget" and "black ops", the Taliban had to go.

I am convinced, to this day, it was knowledge of this, and the platform with which to make it widely known, that got Pat Tillman killed.

http://www.interference.cc/wp-content/uploads/You-put-the-hero-in-heroin.jpg

[Ronin Truth]

Would seem to be well on the road to becoming a self-liquidating problem.

Killing off your customers is really rarely an intelligent business plan or marketing schema. ;) :(

[r3volution 3.0]

https://i.imgflip.com/o462b.jpg

[Working Poor]

All that Cheney White and, Halliburton Blue making it to the streets

[ThePaleoLibertarian]

It'll continue to get worse, because late last year the feds have enacted these new regulations to painkillers, where you can't get any refills on any of them anymore. If I didn't know any better, I'd think they want people to go to the dealers to get their shit... Hmmm...

[Warrior_of_Freedom]

Where is it all coming from?

[Ronin Truth]

Where is it all coming from?

Opium.

[tod evans]

US drug laws are the problem not any particular drug.

The idea of penalizing folks for getting high is flawed from the onset.

Penalizing them for seeking affordable pain relief is insane!

[asurfaholic]

Estimated opium production in Afghanistan, an important source of funding for the Taliban, has increased 35-fold since the U.S.-led invasion, from 185 tons in 2001 to 6,400 last year, data maintained by the United Nations shows.

My understanding is that the Taliban are against opium production because they view it as an evil and contrary to their Islamic beliefs. That they oppose it and they secular puppet led government supports it is a source of conflict. Does anyone have any more input on this statement?

[AuH20]

Where is it all coming from?

They are getting hooked on prescription painkillers and then transitioning over to heroin.

[specsaregood]

US drug laws are the problem not any particular drug.
The idea of penalizing folks for getting high is flawed from the onset.
Penalizing them for seeking affordable pain relief is insane!

Thanks preacher; what else do you have to say to the choir today?

[tod evans]

They are getting hooked on prescription painkillers and then transitioning over to heroin.

"They" may not be hooked, it could be they're actually in pain and seeking effective relief that doesn't destroy their liver...

The junkie personna is another MSM tool that I try to avoid using....

Opiates in their various forms are the most effective pain relievers going...

[AuH20]

"They" may not be hooked, it could be they're actually in pain and seeking effective relief that doesn't destroy their liver...

The junkie personna is another MSM tool that I try to avoid using....

Opiates in their various forms are the most effective pain relievers going...

The physician community tends to over-prescribe these products for obvious reasons. There are people in serious pain who need relief, but the experts throw around these potential life destroyers around like candy. Not everyone needs vicodin or hydrocodone. I had a minor dental procedure and they gave me a large prescription of hydrocodone. It's still sitting in my cupboard untouched.

[tod evans]

The physician community tends to over-prescribe these products for obvious reasons. There are people in serious pain who need relief, but the experts throw around these potential life destroyers around like candy. Not everyone needs vicodin or hydrocodone. I had a minor dental procedure and they gave me a large prescription of hydrocodone. It's still sitting in my cupboard untouched.

The amount of Tylenol in that prescription will kill 2 men whereas the amount of hydrocodone won't....

Something to think about..........

[Ronin Truth]

Has it ever been firmly established that many heroin drug addicts are really just actually schizophrenic, and are merely attempting to self-medicate?

[tod evans]

Has it ever been firmly established that many heroin drug addicts are really just actually schizophrenic, and are merely attempting to self-medicate?

Knowledge;

https://www.erowid.org/chemicals/heroin/heroin.shtml

[asurfaholic]

Knowledge;

https://www.erowid.org/chemicals/heroin/heroin.shtml

That does not look like anything I would want to try ever. (Don't care if other people do, but not for me)

[tod evans]

That does not look like anything I would want to try ever. (Don't care if other people do, but not for me)

I've tried it.

I'm not a downer fan though.

Given the cost of pharmaceuticals and physicians I can say if/when I become ill enough to require pain relief it'll be my first choice, well opium first, then heroin if that doesn't cut it...

[kcchiefs6465]

The physician community tends to over-prescribe these products for obvious reasons. There are people in serious pain who need relief, but the experts throw around these potential life destroyers around like candy. Not everyone needs vicodin or hydrocodone. I had a minor dental procedure and they gave me a large prescription of hydrocodone. It's still sitting in my cupboard untouched.
What's a "large prescription"?

16 pills? One every four-six hours for four days? Were they the 500-5s?

ETA: I have had various 'minor' oral surgeries and know people who have had 'major' oral surgeries.

The prescription is always the same.

I don't even take the stuff because of its harmful effects on the liver. The "500-5" reference was to say that the pills are 500 mg of acetaminophen with 5 mg of hydrocodone (the opiate). Literally a hundred times more acetaminophen than hydrocodone.

[ord33]

The United Nations even predicted it would happen back in October 2006!

"Deadly heroin overdoses could soar with surge in Afghan opium production, UN warns"

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=20140&Cr=Afghan&Cr1=drug#.VaSJMGA-CfQ

[Occam's Banana]

The United Nations even predicted it would happen back in October 2006!

"Deadly heroin overdoses could soar with surge in Afghan opium production, UN warns"

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=20140&Cr=Afghan&Cr1=drug#.VaSJMGA-CfQ

And in other news ...

Just Say No to Drugs
https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/just-say-no-to-drugs/
Charles Burris (09 July 2015)

Journalist Jack Balkwill’s “Strange Victory: How the US Managed to Make Afghanistan the World’s Top Heroin Exporter (http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/07/09/us-managed-to-make-afghanistan-the-worlds-top-heroin-exporter/),” cogently outlines the latest “victory” in the empire’s Drug War. It’s time for the narco-state (http://archive.lewrockwell.com/burris/burris10.html) to “just say no” to its long-running campaign to foster and enhance the international narcotics trade and the Wall Street/Fed covert money-laundering which enables it. (http://www.amazon.com/How-The-U-S-Government-Created-America-s-Drug-Problem/lm/228OW3Z6J6O37/ref=cm_lm_byauthor_title_full/lewrockwell)

[twomp]

It hasn't been said yet in this thread but I guess I'll jump on the grenade and say it. This is obviously all the Libertarians fault.

[Mani]

My understanding is that the Taliban are against opium production because they view it as an evil and contrary to their Islamic beliefs. That they oppose it and they secular puppet led government supports it is a source of conflict. Does anyone have any more input on this statement?


The old Taliban yes, they destroyed most of the crop and required invasion to stop destroying it. The New and improved CIA supported Taliban is OK with it.

[presence]

most of these OD's are actually from smack laced with fentanyl. The fentanyl is orders of magnitude more potent; with much lower LD50; albeit higher therapeutic ratio.

[presence]

most of these OD's are actually from smack laced with fentanyl. The fentanyl is orders of magnitude more potent; with much lower LD50; albeit higher therapeutic ratio.

Its the same thing that happened during prohibition with moonshine being cut with methanol.

[tod evans]

What's a "large prescription"?

16 pills? One every four-six hours for four days? Were they the 500-5s?

ETA: I have had various 'minor' oral surgeries and know people who have had 'major' oral surgeries.

The prescription is always the same.

I don't even take the stuff because of its harmful effects on the liver. The "500-5" reference was to say that the pills are 500 mg of acetaminophen with 5 mg of hydrocodone (the opiate). Literally a hundred times more acetaminophen than hydrocodone.

Every time I've needed oral surgery I screen the Dr. before hand, my pain pill of choice is Percodan.

If a Dr. has a problem proscribing it I go elsewhere.

About 20 years ago they started taking thumbprints in order to have your script filled...:rolleyes:

Imagine standing in the pharmacy still groggy from surgery, face swollen, beard matted with drool and blood while some pencilneck calls 12 federal and a few state agencies to inform them that they're turning loose of a few pills....

Absolute insanity!

[Ronin Truth]

I've had some very pleasant pain-free experiences with Tylox-3. Though the driving option seems to be off the table, experiment shows. :D

[Anti Federalist]

The old Taliban yes, they destroyed most of the crop and required invasion to stop destroying it. The New and improved CIA supported Taliban is OK with it.

Yes, this.

[Working Poor]

How Medical Marijuana could save lives (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/07/14/how-medical-marijuana-could-literally-save-lives/)

[Ronin Truth]

It hasn't been said yet in this thread but I guess I'll jump on the grenade and say it. This is obviously all the Libertarians fault.

Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do (pdf) (http://www.bushforpresidentofiraq.com/aint.pdf)

[tod evans]

How Medical Marijuana could save lives (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/07/14/how-medical-marijuana-could-literally-save-lives/)

I'm all for weed therapy for anything a person wants to use it for but if I'm diagnosed with something terminal, (likely given my past behaviors), I'll be looking to traditional opioids for my pain relief....

I won't be visiting Dr.'s or pharmacists for synthetics either....

[fisharmor]

My nephew is hooked on Heroin.

I got in trouble with the law as a teenager with drugs, myself, but my experience was before things got totally out of control with the drug war.
Back then there was plenty of pot. If pot and booze wasn't enough, there was still acid around, the occasional mushrooms and PCP.
Coke, of course, but nobody I knew had the money to go on coke benders. (Well, that's a lie, my older brother and sister did, but I had no desire to bloom into the kind of young man who drunk drives the family van into a house, so I tread a bit more lightly than they did.)

And crack. Crack was huge and I knew people who smoked it, but I wasn't into stimulants... and crack was a black drug. Nobody I knew developed a problem with it but the propaganda was strong in the early 90's, and I just stayed away.

I stayed away because there was plenty of pot, shrooms, and acid. Dry spells happened, sure, but I somehow managed not to smoke pot for a month without putting random bath products in my body.

The point is, I remember why I did it back then. The second time I was really into drugs, in my 20s, it was about experimentation and finding shit out about myself. But that first time, it was because my first experiences as a young adult showed me that life is pretty horrible.

Oh, I know fully (now) that life in Virginia in 1991 wasn't Sierra Leone horrible, or Rwanda horrible. But at the time I didn't know anything else... all I knew is what I was experiencing. And what I experienced was that I was going to prison for half my life, and in that prison they divided us into categories. I was in the category of "smart" people. And the message to us was clear: if we didn't do exactly as we were told, and spend the other half of our life doing prep work for the next day of prison, we were going to end up being worthless. No, strike that... we were worthless, and doing these things was the only way for us to have worth.

Extracurricular activities were church, and Boy Scouts. Church was an unmitigated disaster, and had been since before I was born, and the early 1990s was a time when the disaster accelerated. My parent's church was ( IS! ) a Jesus-themed country club for retired military officers. You can imagine how much attention a kid with long hair and little desire to kill brown people got there.
And Scouts... well, scouts had just enough going on to keep me from getting violent with everyone, although I did get talked to on more than one occasion about wandering off from the group in the middle of the wilderness.
But the bulk of that experience was training in how to serve the state as an adult.
The actually useful stuff I could have crammed into one summer camp.

So from my own experience... you get a full set of pubes, your final shoe size, start wearing clothes you picked out yourself, start picking out music you like and music you don't, and you realize that you probably have at least 60 years ahead of you... and that you're currently in prison.
Junior prison.
And you're told constantly that if you don't do exactly what junior prison says, you're gonna end up in grown-up prison.
And Church and Boy Scouts both made it clear from day 1 that they were on prison's side.

And these people have the balls to wonder why so many of us turned to drugs? It was a way to not deal with that reality, even if it was only for two hours.
To explore what things could be like outside of prison.

And I've watched my nephew go through the exact same thing, at the exact same ages I did. Only he had it worse, because I'm not sure he was ever given the carrot in that routine: he was probably told really early on (he lives in NY) that even if he did everything right, he still had a good chance of getting beaten up or shot or strangled by a cop for no fucking reason at all.

I don't know what he had access to for drugs. I haven't heard anyone talk about acid like it's something still done in about 20 years. I suppose the 20 year sentences they started handing out had something to do with that.
Is Heroin similarly sentenced? I already know the answer.

I think if my nephew had the opportunity to go on one of those horrible 5 hour introspective trips, where he really escaped and had to ride the 7 mile snake, he might have seen the whole thing for what it is, and found some other way to be ok with himself.

He might even figured out the truth - which is that it's not him, it's everyone else.


He's been in and out of rehab places about a dozen times. I went to camp once... I know what they're telling him. They're telling him that he has the problem.
That's why he's just going to keep ending up there.