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Sorry to hear. Partaking in heavy drugs to any degree invites those dark unknowns. The number of hands these drugs pass through to reach the end-user is more th

Sorry to hear. Partaking in heavy drugs to any degree invites those dark unknowns. The number of hands these drugs pass through to reach the end-user is more than a couple. I recall on average it's 8 different turnovers. Each time, likely being cut down. They operate a margin business without concern for where it ends up. It's likely safe to say that a vast majority of drugs are cut these days. A friend I grew up with just shot himself to death. He was on a TV show, model and had it all going for him..until the night he tried black tar heroin through a needle, off a spoon. An older friend convinced him and four others to try it one night at a wrap party for the TV show. Grew up affluent but drugs immediately nosedived his life. Ended up in and out of jail, losing it mentally, mental institutions, broke every window at his parents house, just living a really rough existence. The part that got me: the older friend who introduced him to it showed up to his funeral. The other one of the four is on his third strike for heroin, just got his second DUI trying to "live it up" – drugs i.e. heavy drugs, are a game that you do not win.

jstarfish 9y ago
> Sorry to hear. Partaking in heavy drugs to any degree invites those dark unknowns. The number of hands these drugs pass through to reach the end-user is more than a couple. I recall on average it's 8 different turnovers. Each time, likely being cut down. They operate a margin business without concern for where it ends up. It's likely safe to say that a vast majority of drugs are cut these days. Drugs have always been cut. Historically it was just cut with OTCs or detritus, which was a problem that could be solved in most cases by simply doing more. The problem as of late has become when they lace it with things like fentanyl, which is a cheap filler that actually improves the high (thus encouraging repeat business) but can be lethal in large doses.
- Maarius 9y ago
  Unfortunately "larger doses" in terms of Fentanyl is not that much: https://www.statnews.com/2016/09/29/fentanyl-heroin-photo-fatal-doses/ https://www.statnews.com/2016/09/29/fentanyl-heroin-photo-fa...
- BenchRouter 9y ago
  > Historically it was just cut with OTCs or detritus, which was a problem that could be solved in most cases by simply doing more. Well, until you get a more pure batch and you try to do the same amount you do with the dilute batch.
  - toyg 9y ago
    This is how prohibition is killing people: by removing any sort of quality control for the customer. You can die by drinking bad wine or eating contaminated food, but we have processes and laws that make sure wine is done properly and food is not contaminated, so the consumer knows that, when she buys pasta, it's going to be pasta, not a bunch of random chemicals that look like pasta and might taste somewhat like pasta. Can you imagine buying unlabeled pasta from a shady guy in an industrial estate near a plant manufacturing yellow plastic? That's what buying drugs is today, thanks to prohibition.
Alex3917 9y ago
> Each time, potentially being cut down. Drug potency follows something like an S-curve. As enforcement increases a drug will get increasingly stepped on, until the purity is low enough that the drug gets replaced with a more potent analog. Consumer Reports wrote about this in their guide to drugs from the 70s.
- kakarot 9y ago
  > Consumer Reports . . . guide to drugs Whoa. Care to further elaborate?
  - Alex3917 9y ago
    It’s free online: The Consumer Union guide to licit and illicit substances.
    - kakarot 9y ago
      I will check it out today, thank you!
matwood 9y ago
I can see how people move to something like heroin after being on pain meds and getting addicted, but who really just 'tries' heroin? At this point, the mix danger and addiction danger is well known and publicized. I'm asking, because I cannot mentally put it together, particularly if someone has life going in the right direction.
- selectodude 9y ago
  Alcohol is the biggest gateway drug and it's not really close.
- TaylorGood 9y ago
  As someone posted below on his usage, his misunderstanding was thinking Heroin fell into same category of drugs "ok to try" .. but, it isn't just one trip. It's a shift chemically unless I'm mistaken.
  - throwanem 9y ago
    I think it is, but how quickly it occurs seems to depend on the person. I've known people who tried heroin once or a couple of times and never touched it again - one such person once said she stopped when she did because she knew that after another time she wouldn't be able to stop. With others, it's one and done - instant addiction. I don't really have a metric, but the existence of the variation is interesting in its own right. Terrifying stuff. I've had a run-in with it myself, when someone slipped me a cut pill of molly, in my younger or dancing-at-parties days lo these many years ago; luckily I had friends there who realized something was up and looked out for me, or almost missing a flight the next morning would no doubt have been far from the worst consequence. I've never had the urge to go back to that particular well, but what I remember of the experience makes it easy to understand why someone would; there is that about it which, while under its influence, makes it impossible for the world to touch one in any meaningful way. Of course, when not under its influence, the opposite is true and very emphatically so, which I think is in large part what keeps people going back even when they're as dedicated as they can be to the goal of kicking.
- jgtrosh 9y ago
narrator 9y ago
Yeah, people think they're too good to have a problem with this stuff, but there's a real physical damage going on that is not something that one can shake off. I lost a relative to drug abuse. I think one of the reasons they got into it was she they were very intolerant to boredom and just scoffed at everything. Nothing was serious, everything got a do over.
icantdrive55 9y ago
I do wonder how fentynl is getting in, or is it being made here? If a chemist is reading this, I would love your imput. I was under the assumption fentynl complicated to produce. That said, my wish is the government would provide generic bupenorpine to any person that wants the drug. It needs to be easily available to anyone. No b.s., just give out the drug. Save all the drama. Give them a long half life drug that will get them off the hard stuff. Let them taper off the bupenorpine when they see fit. Now--they will say the addict needs counseling, nalaxone, and blah, blah, blah. Just give out generous bupenorpine. It has a long half life, and you have to be determined to overdose on it. I will be shocked if anything is done for most addicts. Hell--when my psychiatrist retires, I honestly don't know what I'm going to do. I'm on two very controlled substances, and so tired of hearing the experts opinion, and their outlandish prices. So yes, we will see commercials, etc., but just give out bupenorpine. Most addicts don't need extensive counseling--I believe. They are just afraid of widhdrawls. Withdrawals that might be less severe than they imagine?
- jstarfish 9y ago
  > I do wonder how fentynl is getting in, or is it being made here? Imported from China. Wasn't regulated at all there until recently, then the producers started messing with the formula.

jstarfish 9y ago

> Sorry to hear. Partaking in heavy drugs to any degree invites those dark unknowns. The number of hands these drugs pass through to reach the end-user is more than a couple. I recall on average it's 8 different turnovers. Each time, likely being cut down. They operate a margin business without concern for where it ends up. It's likely safe to say that a vast majority of drugs are cut these days. Drugs have always been cut. Historically it was just cut with OTCs or detritus, which was a problem that could be solved in most cases by simply doing more. The problem as of late has become when they lace it with things like fentanyl, which is a cheap filler that actually improves the high (thus encouraging repeat business) but can be lethal in large doses.

Maarius 9y ago
Unfortunately "larger doses" in terms of Fentanyl is not that much: https://www.statnews.com/2016/09/29/fentanyl-heroin-photo-fatal-doses/ https://www.statnews.com/2016/09/29/fentanyl-heroin-photo-fa...
BenchRouter 9y ago
> Historically it was just cut with OTCs or detritus, which was a problem that could be solved in most cases by simply doing more. Well, until you get a more pure batch and you try to do the same amount you do with the dilute batch.
- toyg 9y ago
  This is how prohibition is killing people: by removing any sort of quality control for the customer. You can die by drinking bad wine or eating contaminated food, but we have processes and laws that make sure wine is done properly and food is not contaminated, so the consumer knows that, when she buys pasta, it's going to be pasta, not a bunch of random chemicals that look like pasta and might taste somewhat like pasta. Can you imagine buying unlabeled pasta from a shady guy in an industrial estate near a plant manufacturing yellow plastic? That's what buying drugs is today, thanks to prohibition.

Alex3917 9y ago

> Each time, potentially being cut down. Drug potency follows something like an S-curve. As enforcement increases a drug will get increasingly stepped on, until the purity is low enough that the drug gets replaced with a more potent analog. Consumer Reports wrote about this in their guide to drugs from the 70s.

kakarot 9y ago
> Consumer Reports . . . guide to drugs Whoa. Care to further elaborate?
- Alex3917 9y ago
  It’s free online: The Consumer Union guide to licit and illicit substances.
  - kakarot 9y ago
    I will check it out today, thank you!

matwood 9y ago

I can see how people move to something like heroin after being on pain meds and getting addicted, but who really just 'tries' heroin? At this point, the mix danger and addiction danger is well known and publicized. I'm asking, because I cannot mentally put it together, particularly if someone has life going in the right direction.

selectodude 9y ago
Alcohol is the biggest gateway drug and it's not really close.
TaylorGood 9y ago
As someone posted below on his usage, his misunderstanding was thinking Heroin fell into same category of drugs "ok to try" .. but, it isn't just one trip. It's a shift chemically unless I'm mistaken.
- throwanem 9y ago
  I think it is, but how quickly it occurs seems to depend on the person. I've known people who tried heroin once or a couple of times and never touched it again - one such person once said she stopped when she did because she knew that after another time she wouldn't be able to stop. With others, it's one and done - instant addiction. I don't really have a metric, but the existence of the variation is interesting in its own right. Terrifying stuff. I've had a run-in with it myself, when someone slipped me a cut pill of molly, in my younger or dancing-at-parties days lo these many years ago; luckily I had friends there who realized something was up and looked out for me, or almost missing a flight the next morning would no doubt have been far from the worst consequence. I've never had the urge to go back to that particular well, but what I remember of the experience makes it easy to understand why someone would; there is that about it which, while under its influence, makes it impossible for the world to touch one in any meaningful way. Of course, when not under its influence, the opposite is true and very emphatically so, which I think is in large part what keeps people going back even when they're as dedicated as they can be to the goal of kicking.
jgtrosh 9y ago

narrator 9y ago

Yeah, people think they're too good to have a problem with this stuff, but there's a real physical damage going on that is not something that one can shake off. I lost a relative to drug abuse. I think one of the reasons they got into it was she they were very intolerant to boredom and just scoffed at everything. Nothing was serious, everything got a do over.

icantdrive55 9y ago

I do wonder how fentynl is getting in, or is it being made here? If a chemist is reading this, I would love your imput. I was under the assumption fentynl complicated to produce. That said, my wish is the government would provide generic bupenorpine to any person that wants the drug. It needs to be easily available to anyone. No b.s., just give out the drug. Save all the drama. Give them a long half life drug that will get them off the hard stuff. Let them taper off the bupenorpine when they see fit. Now--they will say the addict needs counseling, nalaxone, and blah, blah, blah. Just give out generous bupenorpine. It has a long half life, and you have to be determined to overdose on it. I will be shocked if anything is done for most addicts. Hell--when my psychiatrist retires, I honestly don't know what I'm going to do. I'm on two very controlled substances, and so tired of hearing the experts opinion, and their outlandish prices. So yes, we will see commercials, etc., but just give out bupenorpine. Most addicts don't need extensive counseling--I believe. They are just afraid of widhdrawls. Withdrawals that might be less severe than they imagine?

jstarfish 9y ago
> I do wonder how fentynl is getting in, or is it being made here? Imported from China. Wasn't regulated at all there until recently, then the producers started messing with the formula.