10 ms·

El Chapo and the History of the Heroin Crisis

79 points by coris47 10y ago

leftnode 10y ago
If you haven't, I highly suggest you read Don Winslow's two books about this: The Power of the Dog and The Cartel. Both are fantastic.
- charlangas 10y ago
  Agreed! It is also interesting to try to match the characters to the real life drug lords that inspired them by the crimes and strategies detailed in the book, though it can get confusing since Winslow often merges two real drug lords into a single character or branches out a single drug lord into two or more characters. For example, Adán Barrera—the main antagonist in The Cartel—is based on one of the Arellano Felix brothers in The Power of the Dog, but then takes on Chapo Guzman's persona in The Cartel. But when you realize that a lot of what Winslow describes actually happened in real life it puts a lot of things into perspective—especially the US's involvement on both sides of the coin.
joering2 10y ago
I stopped reading after the lead: > If you wonder why America is in the grips of a heroin epidemic that kills two hundred people a week About 3,000 people died today and about 60,000 got seriously injured in car accidents TODAY, according to ASIRT. I think the word "grips" is a bit of stretch here, no? > take a hard look at the legalization of pot, which destroyed the profits of the Mexican cartels. How is that legalizing sales of Apples will somehow made Oranges' lovers to switch? Hard to believe. Any proof of that??
- placeybordeaux 10y ago
  Well you stopped reading at a bad point for a silly reason.
- mjevans 10y ago
  You stopped reading too soon. This is like a train-wreck of unintended consequences.
- devopsproject 10y ago
  Multiple people working on multiple things. Tesla is trying to solve the car death problem, others are trying to stop deaths from super potent mexican heroin. Both are noble pursuits and will save thousands of lives.
- thenewwazoo 10y ago
  > I think the word "grips" is a bit of stretch here, no? No, because there isn't a $50bn domestic and >$10bn international market in car deaths. There isn't a massive machine that perpetuates car deaths; indeed, quite the opposite. > Hard to believe. Any proof of that?? Yes: a 40% drop in profits from marijuana, and a corresponding spike in the rate of production (and because supply/demand, a drop in the price) of heroin in (and from) Mexico. You really should have kept reading.
- triplesec 10y ago
  I forget he name of the fallacy you are committing but it is some kind of a decoy or red herring one, whereby you are attempting to deny the problem is real because of another problem you hold is more important.
delbel 10y ago
We need a stronger border to prevent heroin from entering our country.
- 6stringmerc 10y ago
  ...but in the case of pills, one of the predominant causes is from within our borders.
- coders 10y ago
  Make borders great again!
- justinhensley 10y ago
  There is no evidence to suggest that would be successful. A "stronger border" and "higher walls" are nothing but campaign slogans.
  - devopsproject 10y ago
    Bullshit: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5323928 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5323928
    - jjulius 10y ago
      OP's comment was about the smuggling of drugs, specifically heroin, into the country. You said "bullshit" and then cited that NPR article as your source. The article discusses a decrease in apprehensions, but it clearly states the following: > This is still an active smuggling route, especially for drugs. I'm a little confused as to how this article supports the argument that building a wall helps limit drug smuggling. Care to explain?
      - burnitdown 10y ago
        Not the op, but it seems to me that stopping huge numbers of bodies crossing the borders illegally would free up resources to focus on the smaller amount getting through and the drugs in particular.
Crito 10y ago
Of the people I've known who died due to heroin, all of them got started off on narcotic pain killers prescribed by unscrupulous doctors. One of my friends in university got hooked on pills his doctor prescribed for his back pain. The guy was 300+lbs, maybe that had something to do with the pain? Who cares, pump him full of pills! A year later he was on heroin. Three years later he was dead. Nobody but a complete degenerate wakes up one day and says "You know what, I think I'm going to mainline some heroin." Opioid addiction starts with pills. If you take heroin out of the equation, they're going to start making krokodil or some other shit. You can't solve the drug problem until you solve the doctor problem.
- koolba 10y ago
  > Nobody but a complete degenerate wakes up one day and says "You know what, I think I'm going to mainline some heroin." Opioid addiction starts with pills. If you take heroin out of the equation, they're going to start making krokodil or some other shit. You can't solve the drug problem until you solve the doctor problem. It doesn't have to be pills. Snorting and smoking opioids is another way to start as well. The rest of your comment checks out though. I can't even stand getting a flu shot so the thought of shooting up heroin gives me chills.
- graycat 10y ago
  Once I worked too hard trying to get some bad software installed. I clenched my teeth and cracked two molars. One molar soon got a root canal procedure and a crown. Some years later the other cracked molar got sore. Apparently the crack let bacteria into the core of the tooth. One day about each 30 minutes, the pain was awful. Eventually the explanation was that the bacteria generated CO2; that built up pressure inside the tooth and pressed on the nerve; at the peak of the pressure and pain, finally the CO2 escaped out the crack and the pain went away for another 30 minutes or so. I tried this and that. It was a weekend, and I had a dental appointment on Monday, but for the weekend the pain was beyond belief. I called around, and eventually a sympathetic person in a hospital emergency room explained that people commonly rushed in for opioid prescriptions. No such thing occurred to me at all. But eventually I just drove to an emergency room and said "I'm fine now, but in about 30 minutes I will be climbing the walls in pain." They let me stay and wait. When the pain started, right away the attending physician dipped a Q-tip or some such and painted my tooth. Pain gone. He explained that he just used benzocaine which is the same as dentists use just before giving an injection of a stronger local anesthetic and is over the counter and not very expensive. GOOD! The dentists had told me to take one of the standard aspirin alternatives -- I did; took enough to threaten damage to my kidneys; and it was useless. Not good dentists. So, I left the emergency room with a bottle of benzocaine and a prescription. I looked at the prescription -- it had lots of super serious markings about a controlled substance, special numbers, etc. Okay, maybe it was an opioid. No thanks. I rushed to a pharmacy and stocked up on little bottles of benzocaine and Q-tips and didn't suffer again. At the dentists on Monday, I still didn't like their work and walked out. In a few days, the pain quit. A week or so after that, the tooth was loose. A few days after that, an oral surgeon extracted the tooth. No problem. So, sometimes, really, whenever possible, to heck with opioids. Instead, just get some benzocaine for the night or the weekend and then go for some good medical care. As far as I know, I never took an opioid. Dangerous stuff.
graycat 10y ago
Deleted.
- jjulius 10y ago
  You're using a browser version from January 2015 (it's currently at 48.0 as of 8/2/16), and your OS has not had support from Microsoft since 4/8/14. Your system is in desperate need of an upgrade, which could help prevent viruses. The longer you operate an outdated system, the likelier you are to encounter a virus.
  - graycat 10y ago
    Deleted.
    - rjsw 10y ago
      One reason to upgrade from XP to something newer is to be able to use WiFi, my one remaining XP laptop won't do WPA.
      - graycat 10y ago
        I have no access to, interest in, use for, or patience with WiFi. My computer is a desktop. My Internet connection is via a cable modem via my cable TV vendor. I have nothing that is wireless, not even a cell phone. For my desktop computer, I don't want to do the outrageous, absurd, vague, risky, mud wrestling of struggling to understand what the security risks are for wireless. For a while, I tried a wireless mouse, but it seemed to eat through a lot of batteries and otherwise didn't work very well. I returned to a wired mouse connected via USB. My laser printer? Connects via USB. My old daisy wheel printer (great for envelopes) connects via async serial. I just don't have any wireless. So, that's a lot of system management, monitoring, maintenance, security, etc. surface I don't have to worry about. Apparently a lot of the interest in wireless is having computing devices growing around the home or office like weeds for a lot of toys. I have no interest in such things and am concentrating on my startup. Gee, a lot of HNers got really, really, really totally off the top of the charts PISSED OFF at me. Strange. WPA stands for what, the old Great Depression Works Progress Administration? I know; I know; in computer land supposed to use TLAs (three letter acronyms) as much as possible.
mjevans 10y ago
It worked for marijuana, so do it for the other things too (but with more regulation for the harder drugs). Instead of reacting to the symptoms we need to look in the other direction. * Cartels are a symptom of opportunity for profit that isn't being serviced in a legal way. * Drug addiction is a symptom of a sick society. * People chemically (or psychologically) addicted to the affects of drug treatment are a symptom of incomplete medical treatment. Maybe if everyone had a place to be and a job they could do, a sense of security in work and health, as well as the opportunity to have a life worth living we could actually win the 'war on drugs'.
DigitalJack 10y ago
So with people here talking about opioids from docs leading to heroin, a question came to mind: If you have been given opioids for pain, did they work? I ask because for me they don’t. I get buzzed, euphoric, but they don’t do squat for pain for me. Same with marijuana. No effect on my pain at all. In fact, for me, marijuana makes me even more accutely aware of physical discomfort. Am I just an oddball?
- k-mcgrady 10y ago
  >> "In fact, for me, marijuana makes me even more accutely aware of physical discomfort. Am I just an oddball?" Nope. It's the same for me. What I eventually worked out (I'm not 100% sure of this but I'm pretty certain) is that the strain of marijuana is important. Unfortunately I don't get to choose in my country :) But if it's a strain that gives a body high I become more aware of the pain, if it's not I become less aware. Edit: If someone with knowledge on this matter can confirm (or refute) my assumption I'd appreciate it.
  - pm90 10y ago
    Here is another reason for the decriminalization of Marijuana: I'm pretty sure there would be a lot more research into genuine medical benefits of marijuana if it wasn't dissociated with breaking the law. I'm curios if Federal research grants can be allowed to study the medical benefits of Marijuana? I know states have made medical marijuana legal but most funding in research comes from Federal agencies.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- betenoire 10y ago
  depends on the type of pain for me. deep pains, cannabis helps. if it involves my extremities, or skin, or I dunno, often it has the opposite effect like you described. Getting a light indica-HEAVY edible can have good body effects without the heady effects.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
misiti3780 10y ago
If anyone wants to read a really great book about this topic i suggest "Chasing the Scream"[1]. This book made me think about drug addiction in a completely different way and also change my mind about legalization -- of all drugs, including heroin. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Chasing-Scream-First-Last-Drugs/dp/1620408902 https://www.amazon.com/Chasing-Scream-First-Last-Drugs/dp/16...
- dmix 10y ago
  I'm curious if there are any other analogies in history of societal problems that was so widely misunderstood yet spent ungodly amounts of human time, money, and jail time was spent trying to stop in all the wrong ways. The war on drugs really are the crowning achievement of anti-scientific public policy. Decades of ignoring the results and continuing to try the same thing. The west isn't the only one with this problem. The DEA has been exporting this failed strategy to other countries for decades. The Philippines has taken the American style war to the extreme: http://www.wsj.com/articles/in-philippines-war-on-drugs-dealers-choose-retirement-over-death-1468509951 http://www.wsj.com/articles/in-philippines-war-on-drugs-deal... They've demonstrated that the only way to actually win it like a war is via death squads and the total destruction of human rights. Otherwise governments have to face reality and accept it doesn't work.
  - hackaflocka 10y ago
    Marijuana has been consumed in India forever. It was smoked just like tobacco is today. By a lot of people in society (including high and low status women). Never was a problem. Probably led to some of the spirituality and mathematics of ancient India. However, it was the natural variety. Not the genetically optimized powder keg stuff available today.
    - stuaxo 10y ago
      True, though they made some pretty strong stuff like charas.
- nickysielicki 10y ago
mattnewton 10y ago
> If you wonder why America is in the grips of a heroin epidemic that kills two hundred people a week, take a hard look at the legalization of pot, which destroyed the profits of the Mexican cartels. How did they respond to a major loss in revenue? Like any company, they created an irresistible new product and flooded the market. That seems like an unfair potshot. Why not emphasize: "An increasing number of Americans were addicted to prescription opioids such as Oxycontin."
- rcarrigan87 10y ago
  Agreed, the cartels are just reacting to an increase in demand for heroin.
  - MichaelGG 10y ago
    And it's the strict scheduling, the intimation tactics with doctors, that causes people to resort to buying street opiates instead of certified, regulated, opiates like OxyContin (or cheaper alternatives).
- bsder 10y ago
  > That seems like an unfair potshot. Why not emphasize: "An increasing number of Americans were addicted to prescription opioids such as Oxycontin." And even THAT is an unfair potshot. Oxycontin specifically has problems that practically induce addiction. http://www.latimes.com/projects/oxycontin-part1/ http://www.latimes.com/projects/oxycontin-part1/
- gozur88 10y ago
  It's not just that. It's Americans getting hooked on prescription opiods and the government deciding to fix the problem by cracking down on pill mills without addressing the addiction. They may as well have the Mexican cartels a business plan. This has nothing whatsoever to do with pot.
nobleach 10y ago
The opener really frustrates me. It's basically saying that if these folks have no choice but to engage in illegal activity. If their product somehow becomes legal, well.... we shouldn't have done that... because now they have to sell something worse. OR, OR, they could stop manufacturing poison and perhaps get a legitimate job and stop making money off of people with serious problems. Weed doesn't kill.... heroin does nothing but kill. I guess I can't lay the blame totally on the manufacturers, but my god.... quit acting like their careers somehow deserve to exist one way or another and it's the USA's fault.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- placeybordeaux 10y ago
  It doesn't seem like the author was trying to make a moral or ethical argument that what the cartels are doing is either right or proper. It is rather that it flows naturally. As far as I could tell it was common knowledge that the cartels would turn to some other source of income if cannabis was legalized in the US. It was unclear exactly what, but corruption and violence would still play a part as they were large parts of how the cartels functioned.
- tmp-20150107 10y ago
  > Weed doesn't kill.... heroin does nothing but kill Not at all. There are plenty of people using heroin that are not your typical junkie, just like there are many recreatioal weed users that aren't unemployed stoners. Take me - I've been working in IT for twenty years, and have been a heroin addict for just about the same length of time. My career is going pretty well, I'm in charge of a team of engineers, I speak about my particular subject at conferences around the world regularly, I have plenty of work up on GitHub that people use. What does kill people is stigmatizing addicts, and preventing them from getting the help they need to allow them to live a normal life and become usefully employed. Instead, attitudes like yours mean they are forced to become criminals and marginalized.
bluedino 10y ago
Heroin is cheap. Really, really cheap. It's really, really addicting. It's easy to overdose on. And people mix it with shit like fentanyl which makes it even easier to kill yourself with. It's a really terrible drug.
- MichaelGG 10y ago
  Heroin can be a useful medication. Street opiates are bad because there's no regulation. It's not inherent in the medication. Take _anything_ and vary the strength/purity by 50x and see how many people die. A 50x dose of Tylenol will kill you just as well (more painful, actually).
  - x1798DE 10y ago
    You don't really need regulation to get consistent strength/purity, branding (Buy Mack's Heroin - guaranteed 99.99% pure with no adulterants!) and tort law (you said this contained 20mg of heroin, it contained, dangerously, twice that amount, you are liable for my consequent overdose) should be enough to handle that, if producers were competing on quality and not "ability to operate in a black market".
rwallace 10y ago
Okay, here's a warning if you haven't read this article yet. Up near the beginning, there's a really, really unfortunate line about pot legalization being the cause of this and that. I'm sure it's tongue in cheek, but that doesn't come across in text, and people are tripping over it. Just skip over that line and keep reading. The rest of the article is excellent.
- burnitdown 10y ago
  It's not tounge in cheek. Pot sales dropped by 40% so they pivoted to heroin.
bogomipz 10y ago
Firstly what has happened with the quality of journalism in Esquire, you can not call this serious journalism when the author writes: "You can't make this shit up ...", "The story's goes ..." "The Mexican authorities had a line on the little bastard." This is like listening to a person in a bar recounting a story. Second, the increasing legalization marijuana in the US and the current flow of heroin into the US are orthogonal. Legalization of marijuana is not the cause of an influx of heroin. Mexican marijuana has always been considered cheap and inferior quality. The fact is that US has developed a taste for highly cultivated quality weed, the same as the US has with coffee and craft beer. Its "conspicuous consumption", quality weed, is a status symbol - a sign of discerning taste. The people that were hurt by the legalization of marijuana were the small time neighborhood dealers not the Mexican cartels. Mexican cartels most significant revenues have always been Cocaine which needs to transit Mexico to get to the US. While Cocaine production is still centered in South American the trafficking and logistics were taken over from the Colombian Cartels by the Mexican Cartels after the demise of the Medellín Cartel in Colombia. The real reason the US is seeing an uptick in Mexican heroin is because there has been a market created for it by those who have become hooked on prescription opioids. When they run out or can no longer obtain their Oxycodone or Hydrocodone they satisfy their withdrawal with street dope.
- John23832 10y ago
  I think that's what they were going for... They're following the "Vice" model (which I actually like). News the averge modern person can relate to. Walter Cronkite is dead and gone man.
  - bogomipz 10y ago
    That would be the Vice of 15 years ago then. Vice the news channel(HBO) is respectable journalism. Shane Smith had the good foresight to see that they could grow with their audience. It doesn't have to Cronkite but it doesn't have to be "brah" either.

79 points by coris47 10y ago

If you haven't, I highly suggest you read Don Winslow's two books about this: The Power of the Dog and The Cartel. Both are fantastic.

charlangas 10y ago
Agreed! It is also interesting to try to match the characters to the real life drug lords that inspired them by the crimes and strategies detailed in the book, though it can get confusing since Winslow often merges two real drug lords into a single character or branches out a single drug lord into two or more characters. For example, Adán Barrera—the main antagonist in The Cartel—is based on one of the Arellano Felix brothers in The Power of the Dog, but then takes on Chapo Guzman's persona in The Cartel. But when you realize that a lot of what Winslow describes actually happened in real life it puts a lot of things into perspective—especially the US's involvement on both sides of the coin.

joering2 10y ago

I stopped reading after the lead: > If you wonder why America is in the grips of a heroin epidemic that kills two hundred people a week About 3,000 people died today and about 60,000 got seriously injured in car accidents TODAY, according to ASIRT. I think the word "grips" is a bit of stretch here, no? > take a hard look at the legalization of pot, which destroyed the profits of the Mexican cartels. How is that legalizing sales of Apples will somehow made Oranges' lovers to switch? Hard to believe. Any proof of that??

placeybordeaux 10y ago
Well you stopped reading at a bad point for a silly reason.
mjevans 10y ago
You stopped reading too soon. This is like a train-wreck of unintended consequences.
devopsproject 10y ago
Multiple people working on multiple things. Tesla is trying to solve the car death problem, others are trying to stop deaths from super potent mexican heroin. Both are noble pursuits and will save thousands of lives.
thenewwazoo 10y ago
> I think the word "grips" is a bit of stretch here, no? No, because there isn't a $50bn domestic and >$10bn international market in car deaths. There isn't a massive machine that perpetuates car deaths; indeed, quite the opposite. > Hard to believe. Any proof of that?? Yes: a 40% drop in profits from marijuana, and a corresponding spike in the rate of production (and because supply/demand, a drop in the price) of heroin in (and from) Mexico. You really should have kept reading.
triplesec 10y ago
I forget he name of the fallacy you are committing but it is some kind of a decoy or red herring one, whereby you are attempting to deny the problem is real because of another problem you hold is more important.

delbel 10y ago

We need a stronger border to prevent heroin from entering our country.

6stringmerc 10y ago
...but in the case of pills, one of the predominant causes is from within our borders.
coders 10y ago
Make borders great again!
justinhensley 10y ago
There is no evidence to suggest that would be successful. A "stronger border" and "higher walls" are nothing but campaign slogans.
- devopsproject 10y ago
  Bullshit: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5323928 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5323928
  - jjulius 10y ago
    OP's comment was about the smuggling of drugs, specifically heroin, into the country. You said "bullshit" and then cited that NPR article as your source. The article discusses a decrease in apprehensions, but it clearly states the following: > This is still an active smuggling route, especially for drugs. I'm a little confused as to how this article supports the argument that building a wall helps limit drug smuggling. Care to explain?
    - burnitdown 10y ago
      Not the op, but it seems to me that stopping huge numbers of bodies crossing the borders illegally would free up resources to focus on the smaller amount getting through and the drugs in particular.

Crito 10y ago

Of the people I've known who died due to heroin, all of them got started off on narcotic pain killers prescribed by unscrupulous doctors. One of my friends in university got hooked on pills his doctor prescribed for his back pain. The guy was 300+lbs, maybe that had something to do with the pain? Who cares, pump him full of pills! A year later he was on heroin. Three years later he was dead. Nobody but a complete degenerate wakes up one day and says "You know what, I think I'm going to mainline some heroin." Opioid addiction starts with pills. If you take heroin out of the equation, they're going to start making krokodil or some other shit. You can't solve the drug problem until you solve the doctor problem.

koolba 10y ago
> Nobody but a complete degenerate wakes up one day and says "You know what, I think I'm going to mainline some heroin." Opioid addiction starts with pills. If you take heroin out of the equation, they're going to start making krokodil or some other shit. You can't solve the drug problem until you solve the doctor problem. It doesn't have to be pills. Snorting and smoking opioids is another way to start as well. The rest of your comment checks out though. I can't even stand getting a flu shot so the thought of shooting up heroin gives me chills.
graycat 10y ago
Once I worked too hard trying to get some bad software installed. I clenched my teeth and cracked two molars. One molar soon got a root canal procedure and a crown. Some years later the other cracked molar got sore. Apparently the crack let bacteria into the core of the tooth. One day about each 30 minutes, the pain was awful. Eventually the explanation was that the bacteria generated CO2; that built up pressure inside the tooth and pressed on the nerve; at the peak of the pressure and pain, finally the CO2 escaped out the crack and the pain went away for another 30 minutes or so. I tried this and that. It was a weekend, and I had a dental appointment on Monday, but for the weekend the pain was beyond belief. I called around, and eventually a sympathetic person in a hospital emergency room explained that people commonly rushed in for opioid prescriptions. No such thing occurred to me at all. But eventually I just drove to an emergency room and said "I'm fine now, but in about 30 minutes I will be climbing the walls in pain." They let me stay and wait. When the pain started, right away the attending physician dipped a Q-tip or some such and painted my tooth. Pain gone. He explained that he just used benzocaine which is the same as dentists use just before giving an injection of a stronger local anesthetic and is over the counter and not very expensive. GOOD! The dentists had told me to take one of the standard aspirin alternatives -- I did; took enough to threaten damage to my kidneys; and it was useless. Not good dentists. So, I left the emergency room with a bottle of benzocaine and a prescription. I looked at the prescription -- it had lots of super serious markings about a controlled substance, special numbers, etc. Okay, maybe it was an opioid. No thanks. I rushed to a pharmacy and stocked up on little bottles of benzocaine and Q-tips and didn't suffer again. At the dentists on Monday, I still didn't like their work and walked out. In a few days, the pain quit. A week or so after that, the tooth was loose. A few days after that, an oral surgeon extracted the tooth. No problem. So, sometimes, really, whenever possible, to heck with opioids. Instead, just get some benzocaine for the night or the weekend and then go for some good medical care. As far as I know, I never took an opioid. Dangerous stuff.

graycat 10y ago

Deleted.

jjulius 10y ago
You're using a browser version from January 2015 (it's currently at 48.0 as of 8/2/16), and your OS has not had support from Microsoft since 4/8/14. Your system is in desperate need of an upgrade, which could help prevent viruses. The longer you operate an outdated system, the likelier you are to encounter a virus.
- graycat 10y ago
  Deleted.
  - rjsw 10y ago
    One reason to upgrade from XP to something newer is to be able to use WiFi, my one remaining XP laptop won't do WPA.
    - graycat 10y ago
      I have no access to, interest in, use for, or patience with WiFi. My computer is a desktop. My Internet connection is via a cable modem via my cable TV vendor. I have nothing that is wireless, not even a cell phone. For my desktop computer, I don't want to do the outrageous, absurd, vague, risky, mud wrestling of struggling to understand what the security risks are for wireless. For a while, I tried a wireless mouse, but it seemed to eat through a lot of batteries and otherwise didn't work very well. I returned to a wired mouse connected via USB. My laser printer? Connects via USB. My old daisy wheel printer (great for envelopes) connects via async serial. I just don't have any wireless. So, that's a lot of system management, monitoring, maintenance, security, etc. surface I don't have to worry about. Apparently a lot of the interest in wireless is having computing devices growing around the home or office like weeds for a lot of toys. I have no interest in such things and am concentrating on my startup. Gee, a lot of HNers got really, really, really totally off the top of the charts PISSED OFF at me. Strange. WPA stands for what, the old Great Depression Works Progress Administration? I know; I know; in computer land supposed to use TLAs (three letter acronyms) as much as possible.

mjevans 10y ago

It worked for marijuana, so do it for the other things too (but with more regulation for the harder drugs). Instead of reacting to the symptoms we need to look in the other direction. * Cartels are a symptom of opportunity for profit that isn't being serviced in a legal way. * Drug addiction is a symptom of a sick society. * People chemically (or psychologically) addicted to the affects of drug treatment are a symptom of incomplete medical treatment. Maybe if everyone had a place to be and a job they could do, a sense of security in work and health, as well as the opportunity to have a life worth living we could actually win the 'war on drugs'.

DigitalJack 10y ago

So with people here talking about opioids from docs leading to heroin, a question came to mind: If you have been given opioids for pain, did they work? I ask because for me they don’t. I get buzzed, euphoric, but they don’t do squat for pain for me. Same with marijuana. No effect on my pain at all. In fact, for me, marijuana makes me even more accutely aware of physical discomfort. Am I just an oddball?

k-mcgrady 10y ago
>> "In fact, for me, marijuana makes me even more accutely aware of physical discomfort. Am I just an oddball?" Nope. It's the same for me. What I eventually worked out (I'm not 100% sure of this but I'm pretty certain) is that the strain of marijuana is important. Unfortunately I don't get to choose in my country :) But if it's a strain that gives a body high I become more aware of the pain, if it's not I become less aware. Edit: If someone with knowledge on this matter can confirm (or refute) my assumption I'd appreciate it.
- pm90 10y ago
  Here is another reason for the decriminalization of Marijuana: I'm pretty sure there would be a lot more research into genuine medical benefits of marijuana if it wasn't dissociated with breaking the law. I'm curios if Federal research grants can be allowed to study the medical benefits of Marijuana? I know states have made medical marijuana legal but most funding in research comes from Federal agencies.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
betenoire 10y ago
depends on the type of pain for me. deep pains, cannabis helps. if it involves my extremities, or skin, or I dunno, often it has the opposite effect like you described. Getting a light indica-HEAVY edible can have good body effects without the heady effects.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

misiti3780 10y ago

If anyone wants to read a really great book about this topic i suggest "Chasing the Scream"[1]. This book made me think about drug addiction in a completely different way and also change my mind about legalization -- of all drugs, including heroin. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Chasing-Scream-First-Last-Drugs/dp/1620408902 https://www.amazon.com/Chasing-Scream-First-Last-Drugs/dp/16...

dmix 10y ago
I'm curious if there are any other analogies in history of societal problems that was so widely misunderstood yet spent ungodly amounts of human time, money, and jail time was spent trying to stop in all the wrong ways. The war on drugs really are the crowning achievement of anti-scientific public policy. Decades of ignoring the results and continuing to try the same thing. The west isn't the only one with this problem. The DEA has been exporting this failed strategy to other countries for decades. The Philippines has taken the American style war to the extreme: http://www.wsj.com/articles/in-philippines-war-on-drugs-dealers-choose-retirement-over-death-1468509951 http://www.wsj.com/articles/in-philippines-war-on-drugs-deal... They've demonstrated that the only way to actually win it like a war is via death squads and the total destruction of human rights. Otherwise governments have to face reality and accept it doesn't work.
- hackaflocka 10y ago
  Marijuana has been consumed in India forever. It was smoked just like tobacco is today. By a lot of people in society (including high and low status women). Never was a problem. Probably led to some of the spirituality and mathematics of ancient India. However, it was the natural variety. Not the genetically optimized powder keg stuff available today.
  - stuaxo 10y ago
    True, though they made some pretty strong stuff like charas.
nickysielicki 10y ago

mattnewton 10y ago

> If you wonder why America is in the grips of a heroin epidemic that kills two hundred people a week, take a hard look at the legalization of pot, which destroyed the profits of the Mexican cartels. How did they respond to a major loss in revenue? Like any company, they created an irresistible new product and flooded the market. That seems like an unfair potshot. Why not emphasize: "An increasing number of Americans were addicted to prescription opioids such as Oxycontin."

rcarrigan87 10y ago
Agreed, the cartels are just reacting to an increase in demand for heroin.
- MichaelGG 10y ago
  And it's the strict scheduling, the intimation tactics with doctors, that causes people to resort to buying street opiates instead of certified, regulated, opiates like OxyContin (or cheaper alternatives).
bsder 10y ago
> That seems like an unfair potshot. Why not emphasize: "An increasing number of Americans were addicted to prescription opioids such as Oxycontin." And even THAT is an unfair potshot. Oxycontin specifically has problems that practically induce addiction. http://www.latimes.com/projects/oxycontin-part1/ http://www.latimes.com/projects/oxycontin-part1/
gozur88 10y ago
It's not just that. It's Americans getting hooked on prescription opiods and the government deciding to fix the problem by cracking down on pill mills without addressing the addiction. They may as well have the Mexican cartels a business plan. This has nothing whatsoever to do with pot.

nobleach 10y ago

The opener really frustrates me. It's basically saying that if these folks have no choice but to engage in illegal activity. If their product somehow becomes legal, well.... we shouldn't have done that... because now they have to sell something worse. OR, OR, they could stop manufacturing poison and perhaps get a legitimate job and stop making money off of people with serious problems. Weed doesn't kill.... heroin does nothing but kill. I guess I can't lay the blame totally on the manufacturers, but my god.... quit acting like their careers somehow deserve to exist one way or another and it's the USA's fault.

deleted 10y ago
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placeybordeaux 10y ago
It doesn't seem like the author was trying to make a moral or ethical argument that what the cartels are doing is either right or proper. It is rather that it flows naturally. As far as I could tell it was common knowledge that the cartels would turn to some other source of income if cannabis was legalized in the US. It was unclear exactly what, but corruption and violence would still play a part as they were large parts of how the cartels functioned.
tmp-20150107 10y ago
> Weed doesn't kill.... heroin does nothing but kill Not at all. There are plenty of people using heroin that are not your typical junkie, just like there are many recreatioal weed users that aren't unemployed stoners. Take me - I've been working in IT for twenty years, and have been a heroin addict for just about the same length of time. My career is going pretty well, I'm in charge of a team of engineers, I speak about my particular subject at conferences around the world regularly, I have plenty of work up on GitHub that people use. What does kill people is stigmatizing addicts, and preventing them from getting the help they need to allow them to live a normal life and become usefully employed. Instead, attitudes like yours mean they are forced to become criminals and marginalized.

bluedino 10y ago

Heroin is cheap. Really, really cheap. It's really, really addicting. It's easy to overdose on. And people mix it with shit like fentanyl which makes it even easier to kill yourself with. It's a really terrible drug.

MichaelGG 10y ago
Heroin can be a useful medication. Street opiates are bad because there's no regulation. It's not inherent in the medication. Take _anything_ and vary the strength/purity by 50x and see how many people die. A 50x dose of Tylenol will kill you just as well (more painful, actually).
- x1798DE 10y ago
  You don't really need regulation to get consistent strength/purity, branding (Buy Mack's Heroin - guaranteed 99.99% pure with no adulterants!) and tort law (you said this contained 20mg of heroin, it contained, dangerously, twice that amount, you are liable for my consequent overdose) should be enough to handle that, if producers were competing on quality and not "ability to operate in a black market".

rwallace 10y ago

Okay, here's a warning if you haven't read this article yet. Up near the beginning, there's a really, really unfortunate line about pot legalization being the cause of this and that. I'm sure it's tongue in cheek, but that doesn't come across in text, and people are tripping over it. Just skip over that line and keep reading. The rest of the article is excellent.

burnitdown 10y ago
It's not tounge in cheek. Pot sales dropped by 40% so they pivoted to heroin.

bogomipz 10y ago

Firstly what has happened with the quality of journalism in Esquire, you can not call this serious journalism when the author writes: "You can't make this shit up ...", "The story's goes ..." "The Mexican authorities had a line on the little bastard." This is like listening to a person in a bar recounting a story. Second, the increasing legalization marijuana in the US and the current flow of heroin into the US are orthogonal. Legalization of marijuana is not the cause of an influx of heroin. Mexican marijuana has always been considered cheap and inferior quality. The fact is that US has developed a taste for highly cultivated quality weed, the same as the US has with coffee and craft beer. Its "conspicuous consumption", quality weed, is a status symbol - a sign of discerning taste. The people that were hurt by the legalization of marijuana were the small time neighborhood dealers not the Mexican cartels. Mexican cartels most significant revenues have always been Cocaine which needs to transit Mexico to get to the US. While Cocaine production is still centered in South American the trafficking and logistics were taken over from the Colombian Cartels by the Mexican Cartels after the demise of the Medellín Cartel in Colombia. The real reason the US is seeing an uptick in Mexican heroin is because there has been a market created for it by those who have become hooked on prescription opioids. When they run out or can no longer obtain their Oxycodone or Hydrocodone they satisfy their withdrawal with street dope.

John23832 10y ago
I think that's what they were going for... They're following the "Vice" model (which I actually like). News the averge modern person can relate to. Walter Cronkite is dead and gone man.
- bogomipz 10y ago
  That would be the Vice of 15 years ago then. Vice the news channel(HBO) is respectable journalism. Shane Smith had the good foresight to see that they could grow with their audience. It doesn't have to Cronkite but it doesn't have to be "brah" either.