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shame on an IGA posted:people online sell plain kratom leaf around $70/kg and seem to do okay so I'm sure all these retailers charging people who don't know better literally ten times that much have awesome balance sheets. the fact that you can buy kratom completely unregulated by the kilogram with a credit card and people are *not* dropping like flies from it is pretty good evidence that it's not that dangerous. 40 deaths that are "kratom related" over a few years is nothing. "alcohol related" incidents kill like 250 people in the US alone. per day. SHOULD you be able to buy kratom by the kilo unregulated? Maybe not. Idk what the ideal solution is. It is an addictive opiate but its one of few drugs that has a built-in ceiling on how much you can take at once. For most people at least.
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# ? Feb 9, 2018 23:06 |
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# ? May 15, 2024 03:09 |
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It took me a long time to stop conflating the words kratom and krokodil and I was very confused until I did.
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# ? Feb 9, 2018 23:27 |
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Danknificent posted:And I think about how something like legal heroin or supervised shooting up facilities would affect the world of child abuse and neglect and I just start laughing like the Mark Hamill joker. I imagine both of those things would greatly lessen child abuse and neglect since things like supervised injection facilities are shown to lower OD deaths and addiction rates. Who is more likely to neglect their child - a mother dead of an overdose? Or a mother who survives because she shot up in a supervised facility? Remember, opiate addicts shoot up no matter what, so the mother has to shoot up somewhere. Which place is less harmful to children to inject: their home, or a supervised site?
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# ? Feb 9, 2018 23:51 |
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the black husserl posted:I imagine both of those things would greatly lessen child abuse and neglect since things like supervised injection facilities are shown to lower OD deaths and addiction rates. That's not what I'm getting at; the system as it applies to these kids is already convoluted and not especially functional. These facilities and concepts would complicate it in ways that make me dizzy. I'm not saying they wouldn't help, only that they would be difficult if not impossible to actually execute and integrate with the law as it exists now. The one that'll really get people scratching their heads is: "Would the people working at the site be mandated reporters?" They'd have to be. And just because the heroin was pure and legally obtained doesn't make the baby any less dead in its crib when mom's tapped out in the other room. Or across town at the supervised injection site which doesn't have a daycare because everyone that works there is a mandated reporter. At least in my state; maybe there are more enlightened states that would let you bring your kid to these places, but that's hard to picture. People tend to be on one side or the other, but the problem is too complicated for any one side to be totally right.
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# ? Feb 10, 2018 00:48 |
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sea of losers posted:i'm not "randomly claiming," i'm giving you reasons why they'd pursue chemical isolation or modification instead of selling raw leaf and yr just kinda ignoring it. what's a raw leaf product sold by a pharmaceutical company that you can think of off the top of yr head? do they sell tree bark instead of aspirin? You're not giving reasons though. If you believe people want kratom leaves, then the companies will be able to sell kratom leaves just like companies sell tobacco leaves or tea leaves or any other kind. Even though you can and sometimes fdo also sell specifically refined products of them for particular purposes. It's just the same kneejerk "the man wants to shut this down because he can't make money on it" crap as with tons of other drugs. Anyone with a brain should realize by now that corporations monetize everything, period.
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# ? Feb 10, 2018 01:39 |
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Danknificent posted:People tend to be on one side or the other, but the problem is too complicated for any one side to be totally right. This is just wrong though, and you can't gesture at "it's complicated to implement!" as a reason why its not worth pursuing. Supervised injection sites are proven to reduce harm from drug addiction, full stop. That harm includes child neglect. There is no downside to this strategy and we have mountains of evidence to prove it. People seem unable to shake the instinct that SIS will increase or sanction drug abuse. I get it. You see kids with heroin addicted parents, you think "We can't just LET their parents keep shooting up! How can we ENCOURAGE this abusive behavior?" But that isn't what SIS ends up being at all. People don't show up smiling and happy to SIS sites and say "thank god I can finally enjoy my habit away from those irritating kids." They show up and survive what would have otherwise been a lethal overdose. If you are someone who works with abused kids (and god bless you for that), SIS would make your job easier because there would be less harmful drug addicts in your community. Things like daycare (build them) and mandatory reporting (yes) are obvious and easy solutions. Danknificent posted:And just because the heroin was pure and legally obtained doesn't make the baby any less dead in its crib when mom's tapped out in the other room It's the exact opposite in reality. With pure and legal heroin, the mother doesn't overdose and the baby doesn't die in his crib. As someone in the field surely you must know OD is rare with pure drugs - it's opiates being cut with fentanyl that are overwhelmingly causing the fatal overdoses. the black husserl fucked around with this message at 02:46 on Feb 10, 2018 |
# ? Feb 10, 2018 02:42 |
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It's almost as if... Now this might sound crazy but hear me out... That addiction is a complicated thing that isn't easy to solve by just throwing more police at it.
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# ? Feb 10, 2018 02:45 |
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the black husserl posted:This is just wrong though, and you can't gesture at "it's complicated to implement!" as a reason why its not worth pursuing. Supervised injection sites are proven to reduce harm from drug addiction, full stop. That harm includes child neglect. There is no downside to this strategy and we have mountains of evidence to prove it. I'm a little drunk on a friday night for reasons not unrelated to the work I do, so pardon the not very elegant way of organizing replies: 1) Nobody's saying it's not worth pursuing. By nobody I mean me. By all means, pursue it. I can't envision how it would work, but I would never get in anyone's way. 2) This thing with the LET and ENCOURAGE is all assumption on your part, amigo. I don't know about all that, but daycare and mandatory reporting are kind of mutually exclusive. Nobody is going to bring their kid to a daycare where they will by default of having shown up there get hotlined. 3) Indeed, cutting drugs with stuff isn't doing anyone any favors, and yet... the problem with pure drugs is this ADMITTEDLY JUDGMENTAL/BAD/EVIL mindset that's come over me for being in this line of work, but I would venture to put forth the I'm sure very controversial opinion that people addicted to drugs have been known - from time to time - to make questionable decisions - and I don't see pure drugs solving that. But I'm not at my best. On monday I'll try to do better. I'm not trying to be that guy in here, I just wanted to be a voice other than "Pharma Bad"* for the sake of diversity *which i agree with
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# ? Feb 10, 2018 03:39 |
fishmech posted:You're not giving reasons though. If you believe people want kratom leaves, then the companies will be able to sell kratom leaves just like companies sell tobacco leaves or tea leaves or any other kind. Even though you can and sometimes fdo also sell specifically refined products of them for particular purposes. right, that's why Solvay markets white widow instead of dronabinol capsules, my bad and again, instead of filling up the thread with dumb bullshit like this we could instead discuss things like scott gottlieb's efforts to secure more fentanyl for Cephalon in 2006, or the hundreds of thousands of dollars he's made from "consulting fees" for various pharmaceutical companies? things that may draw his condemnation of kratom into question and merit review? https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...m=.a468207b1d5e https://www.wired.com/2017/03/trumps-fda-pick-friends-big-pharma-doesnt/ sea of losers fucked around with this message at 04:22 on Feb 10, 2018 |
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# ? Feb 10, 2018 04:00 |
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sea of losers posted:right, that's why Solvay markets white widow instead of dronabinol capsules, my bad That's because weed is nationally illegal still. No poo poo you're going to stick to easier-to-defend isolates and compounds when you know that'll make it easier to make money.
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# ? Feb 10, 2018 04:30 |
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Danknificent posted:1) Nobody's saying it's not worth pursuing. By nobody I mean me. By all means, pursue it. I can't envision how it would work, but I would never get in anyone's way. The good thing is that we don't need to ask this question, since we already know the answer. These programs have been implemented before, and have positive results. And the issue of "street drugs" being cut with things is a very big issue. People with active addictions virtually never overdose from just using the opiate. They only overdose if either 1. they mix the opiate with something else, like alcohol or benzos, 2. they use their "old dose" after being sober for a while, or 3. their drug is cut with something far more powerful. Legal injection sites completely eliminate the third problem, greatly help to prevent the first, and will likely at least prevent death from the second (since people would be around to administer naloxone). edit: I think the third issue - opiates being cut with stronger opiates - is also the leading cause (or one of the leading causes) of opiate-related deaths in recent times.
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# ? Feb 11, 2018 01:15 |
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Ytlaya posted:The good thing is that we don't need to ask this question, since we already know the answer. These programs have been implemented before, and have positive results. Warning, still drunk: I think one of the first times I posted in this thread it was from back when I was still doing investigations, when I had a situation where mom and boyfriend had OD'd, boyfriend was legit dead and mom was in a coma (having actually very heroically been saved by her 15 year old son who put her in an ice bath or something if I remember and got EMS and so on) and anyway because mom (still alive) had been the one to get the drugs, it later turned out that because she survived she was actually going to be charged with murder because she'd given them to the guy that was dead. But it's not the murder charge that I remember from that case. It was me, in my office when the hotline came in. I got the hotline "Oh, another dead addict, child without care custody and control, etc," --- and in the hotline, mom was at the hospital expected to be dead real soon/already considered dead/I don't remember exactly ---- anyway, so I start putting together a folder, call my JO to get authorization for protective custody, etc. It's all normal; I put on my jacket, make sure my tie is straight, step out into the hallway and stop. I look down at the folder in my hand and I'm just like "Wait a minute," and my secretary gives me this look, "What am I doing with these papers? Everybody I was I going to give them to is already dead," Don't ask me why; it's not as though I hadn't already waded through a pile of bodies by that point in my career. But there was just something weird about it. An investigation began with bodies. I wasn't a loving homicide detective. I was a social worker. I moved from a real city with actual culture to the middle of loving Trump opiodburg to help people out. Living people. What was I going to do? Conduct a seance? So yeah, man. I'm onboard with whatever keeps people alive. On the other hand it's not like I don't have job security.
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# ? Feb 11, 2018 02:48 |
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Danknificent posted:3) Indeed, cutting drugs with stuff isn't doing anyone any favors, and yet... the problem with pure drugs is this ADMITTEDLY JUDGMENTAL/BAD/EVIL mindset that's come over me for being in this line of work, but I would venture to put forth the I'm sure very controversial opinion that people addicted to drugs have been known - from time to time - to make questionable decisions - and I don't see pure drugs solving that. Yeah... Legal pure drugs is a nice idea but it won't be a panacea. Addicts seek out higher highs and when their prescription heroin doesn't do it for them - or their doctor, who likes their license, tells them a higher dose wouldn't be safe - fentanyl from their buddy on the street will always be more easily available than a prescription, and a corner dealer won't say no.
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# ? Feb 11, 2018 05:17 |
Lol @ the drunk guy whining about people doing reasonable amounts of uncut dope (getting well instead of wrecked) because 'they might make poor decisions.' SPAY OR NEUTER THIS POSTER! E: in response to the idea that persons on opioid substitution drugs should get off them... In some cases, people may be able to succeed with said strategy. However, the relapse rate of people discontinuing maintenance drugs is incredibly high. In short, if what keeps people off street drugs is working, and they aren't interested in quitting, leave them alone. Personally, I was able to reach sobriety on methadone. And then I tapered-off, thinking I was ready. Within a month, I was a full-blown junky again. I went from 190lb to 155 in a couple months. My job disappeared, my vehicle was impounded, and I'm facing multiple felony charges. Since returning to medication-assisted treatment, I no longer look like a skeleton. I work. I haven't been arrested again. My personal relationships are flourishing. Please, please don't advocate that addicts discontinue the most effective treatment available. The_Book_Of_Harry fucked around with this message at 07:48 on Feb 11, 2018 |
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# ? Feb 11, 2018 07:34 |
case study of maintence in Russiahttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/20/ukrainian-drug-addicts-dying-due-to-treatment-ban-says-un posted:Around 800 former heroin addicts there were cut off from replacement therapy, roughly 100 of whom have died, according to advocacy groups and the UN’s special envoy Michel Kazatchkine.
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# ? Feb 11, 2018 08:09 |
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https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/02/11/oxycontin-maker-cuts-sales-staff-wont-hawk-drug-docs/327251002/quote:The pharmaceutical company that produces the painkiller OxyContin is slashing its sales staff and says it will halt, effective Monday, promotion of opioids to physicians and other health care professionals. A good sign, or just them admitting they can't compete with Chinese Fentanyl?
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# ? Feb 11, 2018 21:34 |
neither, it's just a tad gauche to try to be enthusiastic about selling new oxycodone reformulations these days, unless maybe if it were oxytrex, which they aren't selling.
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# ? Feb 11, 2018 21:43 |
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FizFashizzle posted:https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/02/11/oxycontin-maker-cuts-sales-staff-wont-hawk-drug-docs/327251002/
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# ? Feb 12, 2018 02:43 |
San Francisco takes steps toward opening the nation's first legal heroin injection sitequote:SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – The San Francisco Department of Public Health has unanimously endorsed a task force’s recommendation to open what could become the nation’s first legal safe injection sites aimed at curbing the opioid epidemic.
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# ? Feb 12, 2018 05:07 |
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Way back at the beginning of this thread, somebody asked what had changed that caused the middle class to start taking more opioids. I agree that the problem is mostly caused by naked profit seeking by the drug companies, but I wanted to throw in my two cents about how corporations have been squeezing the middle class. My father and I both have solid middle class jobs. Dad is 60 years old, has had a heart bypass as well as a hip and knee replacement from years of hard work. He still puts in 10 to 12 hour days at a stressfull job, often having to work double shifts because they don't have enough managers to cover. He's trying to ride it out till he is old enough for medicare since he needs the company provided insurance to survive. I won't go too much into my situation, but my department had 5 people when I started. After a buyout by another company we are down to just two people. It's not just coal miners and such. People everywhere are being worn down by companies squeezing out every bit of effciency. Even managers in white collar jobs are being killed by putting in too many hours with not enough sleep. I would absolutly love to go to the doctor and get a few pills for pain and for energy, and while I probably could, I know its a bad idea. Ideally work would not be something that beat me down in the first place.
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# ? Feb 12, 2018 07:03 |
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I made this post about kratom in the kratom thread.Cranappleberry posted:Its a public policy winner in their minds. They are characterizing it as combating the opioid menace. It looks like a victory while they spend all the money in the world not solving the real problem. This is while, despite a national emergency being declared, gently caress all is actually being done right now. The executive branch is looking to cut funding for combating opioid addiction and going with a nice, cheap "just say no" campaign. Like, that is the entire plan. "If people don't start they don't get addicted." They use it as an excuse to funnel more money into law enforcement. Local, state and federal. The president wants enforcement to thump some dealer skulls. Really get into them. Its part of the reason for more border security. The supply problem is taken care of, people. No money for rehab. No money for counseling. No money for healthcare the people on the margins desperately need. No money for a robust mental healthcare system. No money for early intervention. Nothing about combating the demand for drugs. Nothing about combating the reasons for that demand. Like, poverty, mental illness, overprescription*, social environment, or just needing a easy escape because their lives suck. None of that matters. We're not going to address any of it. Just say no. If Trump's government does end up spending money on that stuff it will be to funnel to money to political religious organizations or some private prison cronies. Rehab will consist of prayer with a side of cold turkey. Why no, you can't leave. Its for your own good. *Oh wait, I'm mistaken, Purdue will stop pimping their wares to doctors finally. There might, maybe, possibly, potentially be new regulations about that and there were new CDC prescribing guidelines in 2016. Of course, there will be even more hoops for you and your doctor to jump through if you have a legitimate need for painkillers. But the overprescribing will finally be at an end. Surely. This time. So where will addicts turn then? To heroin, to the darkweb if they can afford it. Life is good.
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# ? Feb 12, 2018 21:46 |
I, for one, would have killed for cold turkey in jail. Seriously, though, top-teir analysis. E: i forgot about that one time I did ~35 days on a clerical error before being released. It was Thanksgiving. We got a thin slice of turkey with both a salt and pepper packet. I cried from joy. E2: I've never been accused of (or committed) a violent or property crime. The_Book_Of_Harry fucked around with this message at 22:18 on Feb 12, 2018 |
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# ? Feb 12, 2018 22:13 |
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:“Well poo poo, I might get locked up. I’ve seen the error of my ways and won’t use.”*- every addict The way I see it, it's like asking a regular human being, "hey, you don't need food! Just choose not to be hungry!" It's like: no, you imbecile! Your brain recognizes the need to survive on a primal level! Heroin addiction is on an even deeper level than that! You can't just tell a heroin addict to not choose heroin anymore than they can refuse water or food or oxygen. It becomes part of the instinctual and chemical drive to survive. People just don't get that. E: Lote posted:Work requirements are going to kill people. Medicaid is how you pay for medications. Yeah, when I tried to apply for Medicaid - between inavailability, long queues, extensive paperwork, drug tests, etc the whole system is designed to wear you down to quit before you even apply, let alone the actual evaluation process. It's by design to give the state plausible deniability that they're providing services while also doing all it can to make the applicant give up. Trust me, I've tried. America is very clearly not stacked in the common citizen's interest. Teriyaki Koinku fucked around with this message at 19:06 on Feb 13, 2018 |
# ? Feb 13, 2018 18:52 |
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Teriyaki Koinku posted:The way I see it, it's like asking a regular human being, "hey, you don't need food! Just choose not to be hungry!" Yeah; I would argue it's even worse, because you don't undergo hellish suffering if you forget to eat a meal. There's also a misconception that relapses are always due to the person wanting to use again for recreational reasons, and while that's certainly often the case, for longer-term addicts I would argue that PAWS symptoms are a much bigger factor. Most people (honestly pretty much everyone who isn't either a psychiatrist/doctor specializing in addiction or an addict) aren't even aware of PAWS, and many non-addicts who are aware of it don't really understand it (since all they see is the list of symptoms that kinda resemble those are clinical depression or something). Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 21:23 on Feb 14, 2018 |
# ? Feb 13, 2018 20:15 |
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"How would you spend $ to solve it". I had a little trouble distinguishing the different categories but, still, interesting to see how various kinds of experts would approach it. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/02/14/upshot/opioid-crisis-solutions.html
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# ? Feb 14, 2018 17:56 |
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The news keeps being full of stories about fake pills being pressed which have insanely lethal doses of Fentanyl in them, and what I can't figure out, and nobody seems to be asking, is "Why in the world would dealers be trying to kill off their customers?" If they have access to a pill press, why not just cut the pills with neutral agents like chalk (doubling or tripling profit)? If you weren't super greedy, you could even cut the pills to ~75% of their original strength and your customers wouldn't even notice. I've been taking opiates on and off for years for legit reasons (scoleosis-induced back pain, lots of tooth surgery) and even when I didn't have a tolerance I highly doubt I could tell the difference between taking 30mg and 25mg of Oxycodone, and I know for a fact I can't really tell the difference between 10mg and 7.5mg of Hydrocodone (and what difference I do feel could very well be placebo effect). Are we possibly looking at a "CIA selling crack" style issue here? Nothing would surprise me anymore.
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# ? Feb 21, 2018 14:40 |
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The most likely scenario is that someone got hold of one of those imported reciprocating single punch pill presses that charge from a metal horn and didn't do their powder premix properly, leading to a bunch of pills that are mostly filler and a bunch that are unfortunately mostly not.
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# ? Feb 21, 2018 14:43 |
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If people are overdosing, it must be the good stuff. Just gotta be more careful than the people that OD
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# ? Feb 21, 2018 14:46 |
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Guavanaut posted:The most likely scenario is that someone got hold of one of those imported reciprocating single punch pill presses that charge from a metal horn and didn't do their powder premix properly, leading to a bunch of pills that are mostly filler and a bunch that are unfortunately mostly not. Yeah but why use Fentanyl at all? If your sole motivation is greed, you should be selling blanks or weak pills, or selling Actual Heroin, etc. Paying for Fentanyl and using that to make fake oxy/hydro pills seems like such an oddly, specifically bad idea that wouldn't occur to most dealers when just straight-up cutting the pills with chalk would be cheaper/easier.
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# ? Feb 21, 2018 14:52 |
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I think the idea is that Fetanyl is cheaper than heroin, but so strong that it’s hard to measure out correctly, due to the tiny quantities involved. Drug mills aren’t exactly full of trained pharmacists. So sometimes they screw up and make something stronger than they intended. Drug dealers may be financially motivated to sell placebo pills, but they wouldn’t get much repeat business.
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# ? Feb 21, 2018 15:04 |
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Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. Fentanyl was what they had, along with a press that's more suited to dosing something like MDMA or amphetamine. So they has x grams of fentanyl, wanted to make y pills of z mg each, threw in about the right amount of filler to make a bunch of reasonably strong pills, and ran a bad press so most of the fent ended up in a handful of ridiculously dosed pills instead of throughout the batch. It's happened before with some of the high potency RCs.
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# ? Feb 21, 2018 15:08 |
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BarbarianElephant posted:I think the idea is that Fetanyl is cheaper than heroin, but so strong that it’s hard to measure out correctly, due to the tiny quantities involved. Drug mills aren’t exactly full of trained pharmacists. So sometimes they screw up and make something stronger than they intended. The other thing is that Fentanyl is easier to smuggle because it's so strong. This isn't like "the police just seized a van literally full of bricks of cocaine." This is more "we caught a guy with a few pounds in the bottom of a backpack." Or...well... https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/29/health/nj-largest-fentanyl-seizure-trnd/index.html 100 pounds of it could kill every single person in New York and New Jersey. That's kill. This poo poo is that strong. It takes very little of it to have a steady supply of opiates for your customers and smaller things by virtue of being smaller are just plain easier to hide. So you get a few grams, maybe a pound, and you're good for a while. Just cut it with some other poo poo. Problem is that it's so strong it's very difficult to dose right. The drug trade is also not exactly known for its consistency or purity so it's hard to tell if it's actually pure or not in the first place. ToxicSlurpee fucked around with this message at 15:20 on Feb 21, 2018 |
# ? Feb 21, 2018 15:17 |
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precision posted:If they have access to a pill press, why not just cut the pills with neutral agents like chalk (doubling or tripling profit)? If you weren't super greedy, you could even cut the pills to ~75% of their original strength and your customers wouldn't even notice. It's this except nobody doing it accounts for the fact that mixing powders consistently and homogenously is loving HARD.
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# ? Feb 21, 2018 15:26 |
it would be easier for them to dissolve it in a solvent then dose measured amounts of the solution onto inert matter and let it dry and sell that as heroin, in the same way that potpourri synth weed is done, but i guess that's just too much work for them
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# ? Feb 21, 2018 15:37 |
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shame on an IGA posted:It's this except nobody doing it accounts for the fact that mixing powders consistently and homogenously is loving HARD. Another thing to remember is that fentanyl's oral bioavailability is way lower than other routes. If you snort a fentanyl pill, it's almost three times as stronger than if you swallowed it. There's no way to dose a fentanyl pill to be strong if swallowed and safe if snorted.
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# ? Feb 21, 2018 15:42 |
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It's the same problem that the people taking phenazepam had. Have? You have a drug that has to be dosed an extremely tiny amounts that requires specialized equipment to even measure, being taken by people that think that you can dose micrograms with an eyeball and a toothpick. You might get lucky, or you might lose a week of your life and wake up with a new piano. Or you might end up dead.
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# ? Feb 21, 2018 18:42 |
this can easily be solved by volumetric dosing (dissolving in a solvent then taking an amount of that solvent), but apparently lots of drug users dont believe the drugs are real if you present them with a vial of clear liquid instead of sketchy powder. people suck.
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# ? Feb 21, 2018 19:45 |
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I mean I get why, given that clear liquid is all around us whereas suspicious powder is less so, but clear liquid or white powder are basically the two most common chemical compositions in existence.
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# ? Feb 21, 2018 20:07 |
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Some drug enthusiasts are stupid that way. I've had to back out of so many conversations with idiots who still believe that it's even possible to put strychnine on a blotter and have it be chemically active, and when I talk about how basically nobody ever has found strychnine in blotter, and even if a piece of blotter were literally made out of strychnine it wouldn't be enough to do anything at all to a human being.
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# ? Feb 21, 2018 20:40 |
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# ? May 15, 2024 03:09 |
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Lote posted:If people are overdosing, it must be the good stuff. Just gotta be more careful than the people that OD I think you're joking, but I watched an episode of Drugs, Inc. where a heroin dealer basically said that. He mixed a drop or whatever of fentanyl into his whole batch of heroin, so that people would hear about one bag or something that was crazy and want to buy more of the same "brand."
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# ? Feb 22, 2018 18:34 |