4 ms·

People used drugs before.

by weeksie 6y ago

aspenmayer 6y ago
Yeah, probably before society even existed. They likely always will and that’s okay too. What’s your point?
- weeksie 6y ago
  My point is that pet social projects are fine, and I would absolutely agree that we need a more equitable society, but the root cause of these deaths is that the drugs people use right now are far, far more deadly than they were before the turn of the century. Change that, you change the surge in deaths. We deindustrialized in the 80s and 90s. The spike didn't start until 2000, just after OxyContin came out. That's your guy.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - grawprog 6y ago
    >far more deadly than they were before the turn of the century. The war in Afghanistan played a large part in this. Where do you think all the poppies came from to start mass producing oxycontin? https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/afghanistan-papers/afghanistan-war-opium-poppy-production/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/... Not only prescription opioids but heroin became a big problem again right around the early 2000's. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/afghan-heroin-swamps-canadas-streets/article1079707/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/afghan-heroin-... >Until a few years ago, most heroin came from an opium-producing region in Southeast Asia called the "golden triangle," a mountainous area of around 350,000 square kilometres overlapping Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam and Thailand. >Roughly 92 per cent of the world's heroin comes from opium poppies grown in Afghanistan, according to the 2007 World Drug Report, released in June by the United Nations Office on Drugs. >Afghan heroin typically flows into Canada through two main trafficking arteries, Mr. Nadeau said: via the porous border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and then onto India and, finally, Canada; and, from Afghanistan to western Africa, then through the United States into Canada. The one thing the Taliban was actually pretty good about was getting rid of the poppy fields. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0955395904000945 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09553...
    - weeksie 6y ago
      It's the synthetic stuff that's the problem. It's all bad, but this is directly related to Fentanyl and OxyContin. Oxies brought opiates to the suburbs and Fentanyl is what ends up killing you b/c it's in all the "normal" heroin these days. The cycle is: get hurt, get prescribed oxies. Either you or your kids or whoever gets addicted. The prescription runs out or you run out of money and you switch to heroin, which I can assure you, was widely available before the Afghan war. What makes it so deadly now is that it's frequently cut with Fent. Fentanyl is far easier to smuggle because it's _so_ much more potent than other opiates. Buy a bunch of precursor from China, smuggle a few kilos over the southern border, bam. In any case, the poppy supply was not the limiting factor on production of prescription opioids. There are two developments that have driven this crisis: prescription opioids and fentanyl.
      - grawprog 6y ago
        >Buy a bunch of precursor from China The precursor is opium. Even synthetic opiates are derived from morphine, codeine and thebane directly extracted from poppies. In the case of oxycontin it's the thebane that's used. Thebane lacks the euphoric properties of morphine and makes you sick but is equally if not more addictive. Oxycontin is typically not smuggled across borders but sold by people with prescriptions. Everyone I know hooked on oxys buys them from the people with oxy prescriptions. Fentynyl is cheap to produce and easy to smuggle in complete form. It's extremely potent and is extracted from unregulated fentynyl patches from China. These are stolen from hospitals etc, and are then processed to extract the fentynyl. This is then shipped on boats and such where it's easily concealed. It ends up being cut into heroin or coke or some other drugs by local dealers to extend their supply. Suddenly that gram of heroin they sell is going to get someone high for 3 days instead of a few hours. Most people od'ing on fentynyl aren't willingingly doing fentynyl, they're doing heroin or coke or something some asshole decided to cut with fentynyl.
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
        weeksie 6y ago
  - aspenmayer 6y ago
    It’s to be in a position of privilege to be able to say that healthcare reform or addition treatment are “pet social projects,” when they are not beside the point. It is the lack of such which causes these issues as much as it exacerbates them. I have hope that society can improve and not just in a hand-wavey “progress” kind of way.
    - weeksie 6y ago
      I stubbed my toe so let's talk about gun reform. Like, sure. Probably some good policy stuff that would make people's lives better but first get yourself a pair of boots. Some advice: move away from the use of privilege as a rhetorical device. It's a useful concept but it is virtually impossible to tell someone that they're privileged without making things contentious.
      - aspenmayer 6y ago
        I think we’re arguing past each other. I want things that help people move up the hierarchy of needs. You want folks to have boots. We’re not at odds here. I guess you don’t like how I worded it but my appeal is the same. I want everyone to have the bare essentials of life. I believe health care is a human right for the same reason doctors heal people. It’s better than the alternative.

People used drugs before.

aspenmayer 6y ago

Yeah, probably before society even existed. They likely always will and that’s okay too. What’s your point?

weeksie 6y ago
My point is that pet social projects are fine, and I would absolutely agree that we need a more equitable society, but the root cause of these deaths is that the drugs people use right now are far, far more deadly than they were before the turn of the century. Change that, you change the surge in deaths. We deindustrialized in the 80s and 90s. The spike didn't start until 2000, just after OxyContin came out. That's your guy.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- grawprog 6y ago
  >far more deadly than they were before the turn of the century. The war in Afghanistan played a large part in this. Where do you think all the poppies came from to start mass producing oxycontin? https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/afghanistan-papers/afghanistan-war-opium-poppy-production/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/... Not only prescription opioids but heroin became a big problem again right around the early 2000's. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/afghan-heroin-swamps-canadas-streets/article1079707/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/afghan-heroin-... >Until a few years ago, most heroin came from an opium-producing region in Southeast Asia called the "golden triangle," a mountainous area of around 350,000 square kilometres overlapping Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam and Thailand. >Roughly 92 per cent of the world's heroin comes from opium poppies grown in Afghanistan, according to the 2007 World Drug Report, released in June by the United Nations Office on Drugs. >Afghan heroin typically flows into Canada through two main trafficking arteries, Mr. Nadeau said: via the porous border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and then onto India and, finally, Canada; and, from Afghanistan to western Africa, then through the United States into Canada. The one thing the Taliban was actually pretty good about was getting rid of the poppy fields. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0955395904000945 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09553...
  - weeksie 6y ago
    It's the synthetic stuff that's the problem. It's all bad, but this is directly related to Fentanyl and OxyContin. Oxies brought opiates to the suburbs and Fentanyl is what ends up killing you b/c it's in all the "normal" heroin these days. The cycle is: get hurt, get prescribed oxies. Either you or your kids or whoever gets addicted. The prescription runs out or you run out of money and you switch to heroin, which I can assure you, was widely available before the Afghan war. What makes it so deadly now is that it's frequently cut with Fent. Fentanyl is far easier to smuggle because it's _so_ much more potent than other opiates. Buy a bunch of precursor from China, smuggle a few kilos over the southern border, bam. In any case, the poppy supply was not the limiting factor on production of prescription opioids. There are two developments that have driven this crisis: prescription opioids and fentanyl.
    - grawprog 6y ago
      >Buy a bunch of precursor from China The precursor is opium. Even synthetic opiates are derived from morphine, codeine and thebane directly extracted from poppies. In the case of oxycontin it's the thebane that's used. Thebane lacks the euphoric properties of morphine and makes you sick but is equally if not more addictive. Oxycontin is typically not smuggled across borders but sold by people with prescriptions. Everyone I know hooked on oxys buys them from the people with oxy prescriptions. Fentynyl is cheap to produce and easy to smuggle in complete form. It's extremely potent and is extracted from unregulated fentynyl patches from China. These are stolen from hospitals etc, and are then processed to extract the fentynyl. This is then shipped on boats and such where it's easily concealed. It ends up being cut into heroin or coke or some other drugs by local dealers to extend their supply. Suddenly that gram of heroin they sell is going to get someone high for 3 days instead of a few hours. Most people od'ing on fentynyl aren't willingingly doing fentynyl, they're doing heroin or coke or something some asshole decided to cut with fentynyl.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - weeksie 6y ago
- aspenmayer 6y ago
  It’s to be in a position of privilege to be able to say that healthcare reform or addition treatment are “pet social projects,” when they are not beside the point. It is the lack of such which causes these issues as much as it exacerbates them. I have hope that society can improve and not just in a hand-wavey “progress” kind of way.
  - weeksie 6y ago
    I stubbed my toe so let's talk about gun reform. Like, sure. Probably some good policy stuff that would make people's lives better but first get yourself a pair of boots. Some advice: move away from the use of privilege as a rhetorical device. It's a useful concept but it is virtually impossible to tell someone that they're privileged without making things contentious.
    - aspenmayer 6y ago
      I think we’re arguing past each other. I want things that help people move up the hierarchy of needs. You want folks to have boots. We’re not at odds here. I guess you don’t like how I worded it but my appeal is the same. I want everyone to have the bare essentials of life. I believe health care is a human right for the same reason doctors heal people. It’s better than the alternative.