4 ms·

From my anecdotal experience living in an area filled with fentanyl shooting drug addicts I've noticed they generally are substance abusers with other drugs, su

From my anecdotal experience living in an area filled with fentanyl shooting drug addicts I've noticed they generally are substance abusers with other drugs, such as meth or heavy drinking, ilegally procured prescription pills, cocaine etc., they have groups of fellow substance abusers they meet with daily to combine resources and when the money runs out switch to other drugs that are cheaper to buy like bags of heroin to snort which they quickly get hooked on and then I would see them on the street shooting up. Another question is why do some countries not even have a drug taking culture in the first place. Lot's of places I've been to where the population isn't interested in any drug use despite it being decriminalized or readily available.

maxxxxx 7y ago
Coming from Germany I found it interesting how much the US culture depends on ingesting substances to make you feel better. Be it painkillers or “superfood” or other things. That makes the US really vulnerable to all kinds of addictions. As a kid I remember only a few occasions where I took any kind of medicine but today’s kids know a ton about all kinds of drugs and it seems pretty standard to take some.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- baxtr 7y ago
  Hmm, makes me wonder if it is in any way related to the somewhat “lost” cooking culture in the states. My roommate in the States didn’t even know how to cook tea or how to boil an egg. And I am really not kidding. Might be a crazy theory but maybe...
  - NotSammyHagar 7y ago
    Who can't make tea? Or boil an egg. That's a terrible kind of exceptionalism. I've never seen that in the us.
  - tathougies 7y ago
    Lost American cooking culture? I think you'll have to back that one up
- clairity 7y ago
  as an american, i view such quick-fixes as a form of american exceptionalism and magical thinking. my mother had a tendency to reach for medicines whenever i got sick growing up, and i just found that they didn't usually help much (other than the occasional antibiotic for a bacterial infection). as an adult, i tend to avoid medications, especially for pain. i don't know about superfoods making you feel better. i generally eat what i crave, which tends to be "real" food (fresh meats, dairy, and fruits/veges) more than processed food, although i do still love sweet/salty/fatty treats (but not breads particularly). i don't think we know enough about food and our bodies yet to optimize more than that.
bilbo0s 7y ago
Around me a large portion are formerly employed who got injured, and then were prescribed pain relievers that turned out to be what I think were legal opioids. Then they couldn't get them when the prescription was done, and they started using others' prescription. Then people started selling extra doses from their prescriptions on the street. From there, the not so legal stuff came. All the way up that ladder to homeless heroin addict. It's just kind of a ladder they all climbed to the strongest, least legally available variant of what started out as simple pain relief prescriptions. One really underhanded thing that's happened around here is that there are these new apartment buildings that are "affordable". (But not really.) But if you're a homeless vet, there is a provision where they are obliged to give you a place in these kinds of buildings. One caveat though, it's not open to substance abusers. Which most of the homeless vets are. To add insult to injury, a lot of them got on the ladder because they were prescribed pain relievers by the VA. Now a lot are differently abled because of being wounded. Hooked on opioids due to climbing up the ladder I was talking about. And homeless to boot. It's sad.
briandear 7y ago
I could up until last year, by Codeine over the counter in France and there wasn’t a widespread opioid crisis. Some hysterical parents lobbied to get codeine prescription only in France and he hasn’t done anything for the levels of addiction— it only make it more obnoxious to have to go to the doctor to get a prescription for a €2.50 package of pills — pills that were amazing for coughs and headaches. I probably used that medicine once every few months when stricken by a bad cough or headache. Now, one has to spend €35 to visit a doctor just to get a pill that used to be readily available from the pharmacy. But hey, as long as we “protect the children” right? I can still buy liquor over the counter and it does more harm than most products one can consume.
- pbhjpbhj 7y ago
  I don't really get the justification for not allowing adults to buy any (legal) drugs they wish. If you have free public healthcare, I can sort of see that there's a right for the state to have control over drugs because the state then has to handle any harm caused by it. But what's the reasoning for not completely liberalising drugs? Is there a reasoning, or is it just a means to keep control over a population one feels they own? I'm not necessarily for complete liberalisation, just curious about how/why the system is as it is. In the UK the only apparent motivation for the original legislation in restricting drug sales, the Pharmacy Act 1868, appears to be that particular groups wanted to be the sole parties legally allowed to distribute those substances. Deaths fell, according to Wikipedia's mixed up statistics. But the motivation appears to have been unrelated to public safety. Meanwhile, of course, anyone with sufficient funds could simply buy the substances they wished. Wartime motivation (WWI) was to keep soldiers battle-ready. Then it seemed to become an international issue.
newhotelowner 7y ago
My business is in a county with high drug addicts. This used to be a growing county in the mid-70s with a high number of manufacturing jobs with good pay. As manufacturing started to decline, drug usage started to go up. I moved from California. One thing I noticed that doctors in this area will easily prescribe pills compare to Calfornia. Everyone takes pain killers. Pretty much everyone carries pain killers all the time.

maxxxxx 7y ago

Coming from Germany I found it interesting how much the US culture depends on ingesting substances to make you feel better. Be it painkillers or “superfood” or other things. That makes the US really vulnerable to all kinds of addictions. As a kid I remember only a few occasions where I took any kind of medicine but today’s kids know a ton about all kinds of drugs and it seems pretty standard to take some.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
baxtr 7y ago
Hmm, makes me wonder if it is in any way related to the somewhat “lost” cooking culture in the states. My roommate in the States didn’t even know how to cook tea or how to boil an egg. And I am really not kidding. Might be a crazy theory but maybe...
- NotSammyHagar 7y ago
  Who can't make tea? Or boil an egg. That's a terrible kind of exceptionalism. I've never seen that in the us.
- tathougies 7y ago
  Lost American cooking culture? I think you'll have to back that one up
clairity 7y ago
as an american, i view such quick-fixes as a form of american exceptionalism and magical thinking. my mother had a tendency to reach for medicines whenever i got sick growing up, and i just found that they didn't usually help much (other than the occasional antibiotic for a bacterial infection). as an adult, i tend to avoid medications, especially for pain. i don't know about superfoods making you feel better. i generally eat what i crave, which tends to be "real" food (fresh meats, dairy, and fruits/veges) more than processed food, although i do still love sweet/salty/fatty treats (but not breads particularly). i don't think we know enough about food and our bodies yet to optimize more than that.

bilbo0s 7y ago

Around me a large portion are formerly employed who got injured, and then were prescribed pain relievers that turned out to be what I think were legal opioids. Then they couldn't get them when the prescription was done, and they started using others' prescription. Then people started selling extra doses from their prescriptions on the street. From there, the not so legal stuff came. All the way up that ladder to homeless heroin addict. It's just kind of a ladder they all climbed to the strongest, least legally available variant of what started out as simple pain relief prescriptions. One really underhanded thing that's happened around here is that there are these new apartment buildings that are "affordable". (But not really.) But if you're a homeless vet, there is a provision where they are obliged to give you a place in these kinds of buildings. One caveat though, it's not open to substance abusers. Which most of the homeless vets are. To add insult to injury, a lot of them got on the ladder because they were prescribed pain relievers by the VA. Now a lot are differently abled because of being wounded. Hooked on opioids due to climbing up the ladder I was talking about. And homeless to boot. It's sad.

briandear 7y ago

I could up until last year, by Codeine over the counter in France and there wasn’t a widespread opioid crisis. Some hysterical parents lobbied to get codeine prescription only in France and he hasn’t done anything for the levels of addiction— it only make it more obnoxious to have to go to the doctor to get a prescription for a €2.50 package of pills — pills that were amazing for coughs and headaches. I probably used that medicine once every few months when stricken by a bad cough or headache. Now, one has to spend €35 to visit a doctor just to get a pill that used to be readily available from the pharmacy. But hey, as long as we “protect the children” right? I can still buy liquor over the counter and it does more harm than most products one can consume.

pbhjpbhj 7y ago
I don't really get the justification for not allowing adults to buy any (legal) drugs they wish. If you have free public healthcare, I can sort of see that there's a right for the state to have control over drugs because the state then has to handle any harm caused by it. But what's the reasoning for not completely liberalising drugs? Is there a reasoning, or is it just a means to keep control over a population one feels they own? I'm not necessarily for complete liberalisation, just curious about how/why the system is as it is. In the UK the only apparent motivation for the original legislation in restricting drug sales, the Pharmacy Act 1868, appears to be that particular groups wanted to be the sole parties legally allowed to distribute those substances. Deaths fell, according to Wikipedia's mixed up statistics. But the motivation appears to have been unrelated to public safety. Meanwhile, of course, anyone with sufficient funds could simply buy the substances they wished. Wartime motivation (WWI) was to keep soldiers battle-ready. Then it seemed to become an international issue.

newhotelowner 7y ago

My business is in a county with high drug addicts. This used to be a growing county in the mid-70s with a high number of manufacturing jobs with good pay. As manufacturing started to decline, drug usage started to go up. I moved from California. One thing I noticed that doctors in this area will easily prescribe pills compare to Calfornia. Everyone takes pain killers. Pretty much everyone carries pain killers all the time.