The opioid epidemic has hit close to home, our 29 year-old niece almost died!

a reply to: badw0lf

No different to the demon an alcoholic has, but just more potent.

Not really more potent.

Both can require hospitalization as both can kill when going through withdrawal.

originally posted by: thesaneone
a reply to: lamphead444

Why not be civil?

We all got problems.

because when you're civil and use polite language people ignore you

that being said, and this being civil, this is the niece's problem

a reply to: WeRpeons

First of all, I am sorry to hear about your niece. I am a little blown away by your solutions, however.

Force every single addict into treatment, then make sure they pay every penny of their treatment costs back to the government, even if that means garnishing their paychecks?????

Your first assumption is that everyone that goes to treatment will stay clean. Opiate addiction is notorious for relapses. The stats vary but anywhere from 5-15 % are able to regain sobriety for an extended period of time. So, I'm not so sure there will be as many steady paychecks as you think there will be.

The next "solution": making them pay back every penny. Do you think smokers, obese, those with crappy eating habits that have caused diabetes and many , many more lifestyle diseases should pay for their treatments out of pocket as well? Why discriminate against addicts. They seem to be the only "group" that are not protected under the PC umbrella.

And labs or should we say big pharma are only going to develop drugs that make them lots of money. Check out the corruption of Purdue Pharma, makers of Oxycontin and see how altruistic that company is. They are nothing more than corporate drug dealers protected by the government..

While I appreciate your making the efforts to look for a solution, it's really a very complex problem. At the end of the day, it is the addicted that has to make the decision to stop and that is only the beginning of a very difficult journey. I believe the root of the problem is the hopelessness and lack of direction and meaning in the lives of many make them vulnerable to a quick fix that makes it all go away for a short while. Unfortunately, before you know what hit you, you are addicted and the cycle begins. I guarantee you that just the act of going to a treatment center will do little to nothing without the cooperation of the addicted.

a reply to: WeRpeons

but I still feel drug dealers should be held accountable for many of these overdose deaths.

They are, aren't they?

If a person overdoses and dies.

If Authorities have evidence/proof of where the illegal substance came from, the dealers are charged with something like involuntary manslaughter or something there abouts are they not?

Just because some of these dealers are trying to support their own addiction, shouldn't justify giving them any kind of sympathy for providing an easier means of access for other addicts to help carry on their addiction and continue to harm themselves.

But you are forgetting your suggestion of what to do with dealers even though you said it was a bit extreme.

So do these addict dealers get forced into rehab or into jail if execution is of the books?

originally posted by: WeRpeons
a reply to: FyreByrd

The fear has to come from inside them, has to be their decision.

The only problem is the addiction is stronger than the fear of losing their life. Case in point - my niece. Two minutes from losing her life yet she still has no concern heading down the path of drug addiction. I know my ideas on this seem extreme, but I honestly haven't heard many successful recovery stories.

There is a deeper issue,

a self esteem issue which is closely tied to to the self destructive nature.

A possible solution to look for is to try raise the persons self esteem but to do so without dealing with substance abuse and focusing on those issues.

Raise a persons self esteem, help them change their perception by raising their self esteem will give them a slightly different outlook where they might see a reason to live.

Then the realization by the addict becomes less closed and more clear that are causing not just issues to themselves but to many around them.

originally posted by: the owlbear

originally posted by: rickymouse
It's hitting too close to a lot of people's homes. Lots of people are hooked on those opiates. I blame a big part of this on the medical industry, they use these meds to treat symptoms instead of educating the public on how to lessen the inflammation. If you use a proteinase to destroy the inflammatory chemicals sometimes, it lessens the need for blocking pain. It does not always work, but it does work half the time. Simple supplements or foods can stop the need for many medicines like this, common mustard in your fridge can stop muscle cramps too. .

Just curious, don't want to derail the thread, but I have chronic nerve pain due to injuries in several places. Is there anything I can eat to lessen it?
And no, I don't take anything for it, sciatic nerves and radial nerve injuries.

I occasionally take a bromelain tablet for inflammation pain, but it will not help nerve pain from my past back injuries unless there is inflammation. The proteinase takes out the inflammatory proteins, it kind of fixes the problem and lasts for a few days. Too much can cause a different kind of pain so do not overdo it.

I will put mustard on a sandwich, about a half teaspoon, and it will take away muscle spasms from pinched nerves in the back, but the main pain remains. It is also real good for leg cramps, the wife actually discovered that and we tested it and we now use a half teaspoon of mustard when needed. Again, it does treat the secondary pain.

Jello or soup made with a cartilaginous soup bone actually helps my back pain. It takes a couple weeks of eating some jello to actually get good relief long term, but it does work. There is an almost instantanious mellowing of the pain, one of the amino acids in Jello must do that. If you look at the nutrition database on Jello, you will see glycine, proline, and argantine in pretty high amounts, they do help with the back pain. I also found if I make ground heart from a cow into a meatloaf and eat that, my back pain goes away after eating about about a half pound of that over the period of a day. I do not know what heart muscle contains that does that, it is high in elastin binding protein and high in a few other things, but I do not know what does it. I also found that methylcobalamin sublingually works to lower my back pain, I take that a couple times a week, it reduces the pain when I sleep and I sleep better. Cyanocobalamin does not do that, so it has something particular to the methylcobalamin for me.

These are things I noticed about myself, I have all sorts of different solutions I have found for different things. Now if you do not want to buy bromelain pills, beer has an active proteinase in it to keep it from clouding, it is either bromelain or papain. I don't drink anymore so I take the pill or eat some fresh pineapple or half a grapefruit which has another proteinase similar to bromelain. Grapefruit proteinases are also heat liable, falling apart at about the same one hundred twenty degrees F like bromelain so the pasteurized juices won't work.

Tylenol does nothing for me, Ibuprofen actually causes my kidneys to hurt after about two weeks of taking them. I can take aspirin, it works and does not have many bad side effects. Aspirin and Ibuprofen work way better for me than tylenol, but I cannot use Ibuprofen for more than three or four days. My brother has been deemed allergic to all opiods and even Ibuprofen and tylenol. He has severe symptoms if he takes them all the time, it is on his medical records. Funny how a medicine to help pain can make you more painful.

originally posted by: the owlbear

originally posted by: rickymouse


Just curious, don't want to derail the thread, but I have chronic nerve pain due to injuries in several places. Is there anything I can eat to lessen it?
And no, I don't take anything for it, sciatic nerves and radial nerve injuries.

There are exercises that can be very beneficial if the nerves are inflamed due to being pinched . You say that these are nerve injuries, that would be different than a pinched nerve but stretching can relieve pressures and encourage blood supply to the area which could help, greatly.

a reply to: hopenotfeariswhatweneed

I also wanted to comment on what you are proposing as a solution and it just wont work. In all seriousness if that's what you want ,then you should think about moving to the Philippines and from there you can just kill anyone who deals drugs.

LOL. I don't claim to have all the answers to fix this hideous epidemic. All my ideas to fix this problem has stemmed from the frustration and anxiety I've seen her parents experience on a daily basis. I appreciate you sharing your experience because it only confirms what my niece and the rest of her family have been going through.

Part of the reason I created this thread was to make people aware of how families are affected when their loved ones have an addiction. Hopefully parents who are currently raising young children can put enough fear into them so they won't succumb to peer pressure and experiment with drugs. I thank God my children did not succumb to taking drugs.

I asked my 2 kids one day what kept them away from taking drugs. Their answer kind of surprised me...

-My daughter said "dad, are you kidding me? You used to harp on us all the time about not taking drugs! You kept reminding us of your friend who died from a drug overdose." (His decomposing body was found a week later in his D.C. apartment). I really didn't know it had such an affect on my kids.

-They also said they didn't hang around kids who were taking drugs. Which probably had a much bigger affect.

-My daughter did say she tried marijuana but didn't like the way it heightened her anxiety so that experience kept her from even trying other drugs. I have to admit the same thing happened to me in high school. I didn't like how it made me feel so I stayed away from it and other drugs. I do remember the drug addiction movies they showed us in middle school had an impact on me.

I think some families are genetically inclined to succumb to addiction. My wife and I are not drinkers, and I and my wife personally don't like the taste of beer. It seems like families who have alcoholism in the family tree have siblings who are more prone to addiction. This is true with my nieces family. They have a history of alcohol addiction. Their son who is also an addict, has also become an alcoholic.

I understand people are angry when they have family members who are addicted and almost overdose. They feel helpless. But instead of their first reaction being to murder everyone involved with their family members addiction. Especially when that evil dealer probably has just as much of a sob story as the innocent addicted family member. The evil dealer probably started out as an innocent addict, and I guarantee that the dealer is someones family member.

Why don't they ask why their loved one would choose the path they have chosen. It is not like people do not know what these opiates do. They absolutely know. But they choose to take them anyway. So maybe start out by asking why your family member was so unhappy that they chose a life of living hell, that will almost certainly lead to their death. Why is the family member choosing death over life. To me that is the bigger problem. You can kill every dealer but that problem will always exist. Drugs can be found in nature or made in a homemade lab.

Of course exceptions exist. Some people slowly become addicted due to the pain medication they have to take because of an injury. Some kids become addicts when they are children and have no say, because parents don't want to have to deal with their children. They would rather just give them a pill.

But I guess everyone wants to take the easy path these days.

a reply to: InhaleExhale

There is a deeper issue, a self esteem issue which is closely tied to to the self destructive nature.

I agree that is part of the problem with many addicts.

This thread hits home for me. My experiences with family and friends with Opioids is scary and numerous. It doesn't matter what class you are in. This has been a deliberate act on so many levels.

First of all people who sell these pills, heroin, coke, and even mary jane, are lacing these drugs with Fentanyl. I had a friend almost OD and he took a test which confirmed the highly potent pain med, Fentanyl. Before she sold him the pills she too said to be careful as they are "stronger". Most overdoses are because of this drug. I have at least someone I know of whose OD'ed at least once or twice a month now. They ALL took or injected a drug which was LACED. I just had a friend who lost her son now her husband to Fentanyl being disguised as something else. I also just had a friend who lost his wife to a drug being laced with Fentanyl. HOW are these people able to distribute something like this (powerful pain med) without our Govt. knowing?

I live in Nashville, TN for anyone who wants to know.... it's a huge thing here as well as KY.

The root of the problem stems from Big Pharma and it trickles. These drugs are very addictive and our world calls for self medication or self meditation by which society is learning the latter but we have been programmed to seek help from a practicing physician. These Dr's have people all across the monetary board addicted to pain meds. Now, they want to take them off.. Zombie Apocalypse is here. What is going to happen is people being take off their meds will begin to buy heroin from the street. 9 out of 10 people who are addicted to heroin first stared out on pills.

But you are forgetting your suggestion of what to do with dealers even though you said it was a bit extreme.

a reply to: InhaleExhale

...and it was exactly that, a suggestion.

I created this thread to generate ideas to tackle the opioid epidemic. I clearly said my ideas were extreme which doesn't mean I disagree with many of the suggestions that members posted. I respect everyone's opinions and many feel my death penalty idea was over the top.

I still feel these dealers should go to jail for selling the drug to the addict. If they're also an addict maybe they should be placed in a separate area of the prison where they can be away from hardened criminals. Rehab specialists can than work on rehabilitating them while they serve out their term.

I'm totally against putting addicts who are found with drugs in their possession in jail. Jail is not a place where these people will get drug rehabilitation. In fact most will come out worse than when they went in.

I am a proponent of using the death penalty for hideous murders and when the evidence is clearly overwhelming. I also feel a convicted murderer shouldn't sit in jail for years on death row while their sentence continues to be appealed. The killer never cared about taking their victims life, so why should the courts care? So I really have no sympathies for people who intentionally take another person's life or put another person's life in danger. It's what I consider justice for the victim and their families. Why should our tax dollars be used to feed and house someone who has clearly demonstrated they have no place in a civilized society? The U.S. clearly gives more rights to the criminal than to it's victims. Even after all the evidence points to their guilt. This belief is probably why my idea was so extreme.

a reply to: pointessa

My solutions are a result of this hopeless situation these addicts find themselves in and the torment they put their families through. Everyone here seems to agree that there is an extremely low success rate to rehabilitate these addicts. So if rehabilitation doesn't have anything close to a positive success rate, do we continue to allow dealers to make these drugs accessible to addicts? Attacking the source and the distribution of these drugs with extreme consequences is the only solution I feel would put us on a path to eliminate this problem affecting many families.

If rehabilitation doesn't fix the problem what choice do we really have? Unless they come out with a magic pill where it would stop addiction dead in it's tracks, we really don't have a concrete solution to deal with this problem.

originally posted by: Edumakated
I think it should be decriminalized and and the resources we use to jail people put towards rehabilitation.

20 years ago a friend of mine who was on drugs told me this story [uk] to give everyone a free fix to stop crime etc would cost 50 million but that is too sensible , they just let them commit crime and it costs BILLIONS , but it does keep all those pedo judges , social workers , police and prison staff in jobs and keep all those government buildings open .

took me a lot of years to get my head round that and to believe people would stick a needle in their veins to get high

a reply to: WeRpeons

There is a pill that stops the user getting high from a hit .

addicts come in all shapes and sizes and have many different reasons as to what led them to that lifestyle, one big reason is that doctors were over prescribing opiates for a very long time. instead of curing the pain they put a band-aid on the problem, creating millions of opiate addicts by doing so. now doctors are cutting back on the opiate prescriptions leaving the addicts in withdrawl and leading them to the black market where they find even stronger deadlier cheaper heroin and heroin laced with fentanyl etc etc. this coupled with the opium fields back in action after the u.s. ousted the taliban (taliban banned the opium plants) and mexico stepping up the supply to meet the high demand in the u.s. (mexican cartels lost a lot of marijuana profits when a lot of u.s states decriminalized or legalized marijuana) so they had to make up the profits somehow, now they are flooding the u.s with cheap fentanyl laced heroin.

in my opinion if you want to stop the opiate problem you have to stop the supply and the demand.

wage war against the cartlels, afghanistan opium producers and the golden triangle in southeast asia. go after their pocketbooks, do this by cutting down the demand at home and firebombing their production facilities and fields.

i say jail all addicts for 3 years in a strict mandatory rehab type/work/detox program followed by a lifetime of drug tests, meetings etc etc. not all addicts are "functioning" most eventually commit crimes in order to score their fix, we have to nip this social problem in the bud before we are living in a "walking dead" type world filled with opiate addicted zombies.

originally posted by: WeRpeons
a reply to: InhaleExhale

There is a deeper issue, a self esteem issue which is closely tied to to the self destructive nature.

I agree that is part of the problem with many addicts.

and its an extremely difficult situation to try and help one issue before moving on the really destructive one.

Especially if the person has developed low self esteem from substance abuse.

If the person had a low self esteem prior to substance abuse via counseling there should be methods that will fit a variety of differing situations where as if a persons low self esteem is directly linked to their substance abuse and dependency then a more personal approach I think is necessary, finding a method that suits only that person.

However, this depends on the person looking to treat themselves, they must be as open with themselves and their therapist/counselor as possible and willing to explore new avenues of explaining why they are the way they are to find the best solution to help the person past this dark period in their lives.

...and it was exactly that, a suggestion. I created this thread to generate ideas to tackle the opioid epidemic. I clearly said my ideas were extreme which doesn't mean I disagree with many of the suggestions that members posted. I respect everyone's opinions and many feel my death penalty idea was over the top.

Yes, I was pointing out how when it gets personal its hard to keep an unbiased view and have more rational suggestions that wont clash with each other like the how a dealer dealing to feed his own habit would be where?

Thats all I was pointing out, not that you were wrong or disagreeing with other suggestions, just my own way pointing out how difficult it is to find resolve, which is what you are also saying.



Yes, it was over the top and you did say that, which I too pointed out, i didn't miss that you later said it was a little over the top.

However, considering you are human and these issues can hit hard then its not really extreme to suggest something when its so close to home.

All it took was 1 or 2 replies and you responded saying that yes you too realize it is a bit extreme and go on top say how difficult it is to find a resolve that will benefit more than less.

I still feel these dealers should go to jail for selling the drug to the addict. If they're also an addict maybe they should be placed in a separate area of the prison where they can be away from hardened criminals. Rehab specialists can than work on rehabilitating them while they serve out their term.

But this is the situation we are facing now.

Dealers are going to jail,

So are addicts for possession.

Chances are 1 in 10 dealers for small time dealing will be rehabilitated

9 out of 10 will find better contacts and learn better methods of business.

the laws to put people in prison for possession are a little out of control, this has a chance to actually create more criminals. A person that was law abiding citizen other their personal drug use for recreational fun had no history of any violence or crime related violence comes out of jail for possession and instead of being rehabilitated has molded themselves into into a more violent person because they needed to to survive their stint in prison.

These are just hypothetical to show a point I am trying to make about decriminalization.

The prison system, large companies like Blackwater operate many prisons, even prisons here in Australia.

Prisons get more funding if they have more inmates, these large companies running the prisons lobby and give funds for the campaigns of the next upcoming politicians running for leader to keep the laws as they are which jails people for non violent crimes.

I'm totally against putting addicts who are found with drugs in their possession in jail. Jail is not a place where these people will get drug rehabilitation. In fact most will come out worse than when they went in.

It happens in many other countries but I feel as though the laws in the States (3 strikes and your out) are kept that way because of the money being exchanged by companies running prisons and Government funding the prisons because of the inmate population.

I believe the best option is to start making moves to decriminalize illicit substances.

Create taxable income and either implement the sales into existing industries or create a new industries to sell what was previously black market.

Bringing it all out into the open and removing the stigma and taboo will help on many different levels.

Just of the top my head, another hypothetical, Low self esteem is developed in a person after they began using heroin could be linked to the negative view society has on the users of the drug. The person realizes they have become dependent and they become depressed, they start to look at themselves in a depressed state and start believing in the negative outlook society has on heroin addicts and loses whatever self esteem they might have had.

If society didn't have such a negative outlook and it was more open and more factual information about all substances was widely available and how the now illegal substances compare to substances that are legal many will realize that nicotine and alcohol should be in the same class of drug that are now illegal.

But nicotine and alcohol don't have anywhere near as bad reputation as some illegal substances do.

So basically public image needs to be changed,

decriminalize will benefit a wider society in the short and long run,

There is just way toooooooo much money involved, having the substances illegal keeps it raining money across many industries. many industries.

Sorry to ramble on, Its also personal for me, I was ....am an addict, I just don't use anymore.

Look into decriminalization of drugs, Articles in the MSM as well as alternative media like ATS has threads on discussing such but its a touch subject and due to terms and conditions someone always has to talk about personal use and gets the threads closed.

anyway

All the best,

A drug dealer supposed to be a business man whose really good at math. Dead customers won't buy that Lambo.

originally posted by: InhaleExhale
a reply to: CriticalStinker

But 90% of the world's supply comes from Afghanistan....

Its estimated that about 90 or so percent of the Illegal heroin trade comes from poppies grown in Afgan.

However, the majority of legal growth and sales of poppies to pharmaceutical companies comes from Tasmanian (A state in Australia) farms.

In Melbourne, Australia, there is one of only 8 companies in the world that manufacture these opioid drugs that are sold legally.

This is true, but the world market rather than the specific location should be considered.
I mean, while a lot of our oil no longer comes from Saudi Arabia, we still purchase from the open market so they still get their demand to grow the stuff

a reply to: WeRpeons

I'll start by saying that I fully understand where you're coming from, but I strongly disagree. I think we've had a couple exchanges on this subject before.

When it comes to opioids specifically, one of the big issues is that these things are legal drugs. Doctors can prescribe them. There's some other legal drugs in the US that cause issues too. Alcohol is still the most destructive substance in our society and we've determined it to be socially acceptable, or at least determined that making it legal has fewer unwanted side effects than making it illegal did during prohibition.

I bring up alcohol because it's an analogy for what's going on now. During the days of prohibition, the mobsters and bootleggers (cartels of their day) were running campaigns of violence and delivering products that were more expensive and more dangerous. In order to fight them, the government actually started spiking and releasing tainted batches of alcohol, creating even more death and destruction just to scare people away from using. Then there were the battles to kill the competition.

I think that cracking down on the drug problem by threatening dealers is just going to increase the body count. We'll manage to kill a bunch of them, but do you really think the drug cartels who are already shooting it out with each other in bloody gang wars are going to care about shooting it out with yet another side too? If anything they'll fight for favor with law enforcement, and gain backing to wipe out their rivals under the philosophy that both sides want them gone. We already did this very thing with the Sinaloas and it hasn't gone well for us, but we still haven't learned from the mistake.

Another issue is forced rehab. These addictions are strong, and a few months or even years of rehab isn't enough to beat it. Go ask any alcoholic who is in recovery. Even the people who have been sober for 10 years still fight the addiction. Opioids, and heroin are 1000x stronger than that. You've seen it up close, but the best anti H message I've ever seen actually comes from reddit. Go look up the thread history of a user named SpontaneousH. The guy basically tries heroin on a whim and posts about it. Every few days there's another post, and over the span of 3 weeks you can see how the addiction forms and takes over their life. Even the thread titles explain it, you don't even have to read the threads.

Rehab is only going to work on those who want to get clean, but even then we have to enable a culture of sobriety and reward fighting the temptation to relapse. Putting large financial burdens on people doesn't help them stay clean, it makes them wonder why they should be punished for not using, and the added life pressures usually cause enough stress to trigger a relapse.

Wars on street gangs are already going on. When they commit crimes and we can prove it, they get arrested. In the case of drugs specifically we've even thrown away due process and enabled practices like asset forfeiture. I'm sure you've read plenty of threads here detailing how those extra powers have been abused. The last thing we're going to want is police going into neighborhoods shooting things up. They will make mistakes, and there will be a long string of innocents left dead.

When it comes to military action against cartels, what exactly are we supposed to do? We intercept shipments entering the US, and we patrol international waters. However, we don't have the right to invade another country in order to kill their citizens/residents. Flip the perspective around, how would you like it if Nigerians infiltrated the US and started killing our citizens in order to stop the dumping of toxic waste on their coastline? Unless a nation invites our soldiers in (and Trumps current relationship with Mexico makes that unlikely), then there's not really a whole lot we can do there.

If you want to know what I think we should do. I think we need to legalize all of it. Get it above the table, where products are pure and consistent. It would bring down costs, resulting in less crime to fund it. It would reduce overdoses, thereby lowering our medical expenses. It would get people out of jail or off the streets where they can't work, and into jobs where they can be productive. All of this would provide enough revenue/cost savings to open up actual clinics where we could offer free assistance to anyone that wants to get sober. Other nations, like Norway have already done this and they've had great results.