U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams has urged more Americans to carry the opioid overdose reversal treatment naloxone, known under brand names such as Narcan and Evzio. However, the drug and its delivery systems have become more expensive in recent years:
As opioid-related deaths have continued to climb, naloxone, a drug that can reverse overdoses, has become an important part of the public health response. When people overdosing struggle to breathe, naloxone can restore normal breathing and save their lives. But the drug has to be given quickly.
On Thursday, U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams issued an advisory that encouraged more people to routinely carry naloxone. "The call to action is to recognize if you're at risk," he tells Morning Edition's Rachel Martin. "And if you or a loved one are at risk, keep within reach, know how to use naloxone."
[...] The medicine is now available at retail pharmacies in most states without a prescription. Between 2013 and 2015, researchers found a tenfold increase in naloxone sold by retail pharmacies in the U.S. But prices have increased along with demand. Naloxone-filled syringes that used to cost $6 apiece now cost $30 and up. A two-pack of naloxone nasal spray can cost $135 or more. And a two-pack of automatic naloxone injectors runs more than $3,700. And while it's true that naloxone can prevent many opioid-related deaths, it doesn't solve the root cause of the problem.
Related: Kroger Supermarkets to Carry Naloxone Without a Prescription
Chicago Jail Handing Out Naloxone to Inmates Upon Release
Opioid Crisis Official; Insys Therapeutics Billionaire Founder Charged; Walgreens Stocks Narcan
Related Stories
In order to help fight the heroin epidemic in the northeast United States, Kroger supermarkets and CVS pharmacies will carry the anti-overdose (opioid antagonist) drug naloxone (trade name: Narcan) over the counter:
Ohio-based grocery chain Kroger Co. said Friday it will make the overdose-reversal drug naloxone available without a prescription in its pharmacies across Ohio and northern Kentucky, a region hard-hit by deadly heroin. Kroger said more than 200 of its pharmacies will offer naloxone over the counter within days. "We want families dealing with addiction to know that they can count on having the drug available in the event that they need it," Jeff Talbot, Kroger vice president of merchandising, said in a statement.
Ohio fire crews and other first responders use naloxone thousands of times a year to revive opioid overdose victims. Ohio overdose deaths jumped 18 percent in 2014, one of the nation's sharpest increases. Those on the front lines of the battle against heroin's spread have increasingly supported allowing and educating families and friends of addicts to administer naloxone in emergencies.
State regulators in Ohio and Kentucky have allowed the drug to be sold over the counter. Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine and U.S. Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, joined Kroger officials at a Cincinnati grocery store for the retailer's announcement. Portman has been pushing a multi-pronged heroin bill in the Senate that includes expanded availability of naloxone. "This marks an important step in our fight to combat addiction and we all need to continue to work for a bottom-up, comprehensive approach to the heroin epidemic," Portman, from the Cincinnati area, said in a statement.
CVS said recently it will soon offer naloxone without a prescription at its Ohio pharmacies.
Naloxone became available over the counter in Australia on February 1.
In the U.S., there are currently a patchwork of state laws which govern access to Naloxone.
In the U.K. as of 1 October, 2015, "...[A]ny worker in a commissioned drug service can now distribute naloxone without prescription."
Related: Alarming Rise in Death Rates for Middle-Aged White Americans
The Cook County Jail in Chicago, IL has trained hundreds of inmates on how to use the opioid overdose-reversing drug naloxone, and has given doses out to inmates upon release:
Cook County now gives at-risk inmates the overdose-reversing drug naloxone upon their release from jail and Los Angeles is poised to follow suit, putting the antidote in as many hands as possible as part of a multifaceted approach to combatting the nation's opioid epidemic.
Cook County Jail, the largest single-site jail in the country, has trained about 900 inmates how to use naloxone nasal spray devices since last summer and has distributed 400 of them to at-risk men and women as they got out. The devices can undo the effects of an opiate overdose almost immediately and are identical to those used by officers in many of the country's law enforcement agencies.
[...] It is too soon to gauge the effectiveness of Cook County's program, but Dart said anecdotal evidence suggests that the kits have saved lives, including a man who was arrested again, returned to jail, and told of how a friend he had trained to use the kit had done so when he overdosed. In New York City, more than 4,000 kits have been distributed to friends and relatives of inmates at the city's jail at Rikers Island since the program there was launched in 2014.
Related: Kroger Supermarkets to Carry Naloxone Without a Prescription
Obama Administration Expands Access to Suboxone Treatment
One Upside to Opioid Overdoses: More Organ Donors
Development of a Heroin Vaccine
"The best way to prevent drug addiction and overdose is to prevent people from abusing drugs in the first place. If they don't start, they won't have a problem." – President Donald J. Trump
President Trump has declared the "Opioid Crisis" a nationwide public health emergency. This action will allow for "expanded access to telemedicine services" to remotely prescribe medicines for substance abuse, allow the Department of Health and Human Services to "more quickly make temporary appointments of specialists with the tools and talent needed to respond effectively to our Nation's ongoing public health emergency", allow the Department of Labor to issue dislocated worker grants for those "displaced from the workforce" due to the Opioid Crisis, and will help people with HIV/AIDS to receive substance abuse treatment. The press release lists several actions that the Trump Administration has taken to respond to the Opioid Crisis, including the July 2017 law enforcement action against AlphaBay.
The declaration has been criticized for not requesting any funds to respond to the Crisis. The "nationwide public health emergency" declaration is also distinct from a promised "national emergency declaration", which would have freed up money from the Disaster Relief Fund to be spent on the Crisis. 14 Senate Democrats have introduced a bill that would authorize $45 billion to address the Opioid Crisis. The Obama Administration called on Congress last year to pass just over $1 billion in funding for opioid treatment programs nationwide. This funding was included in the 21st Century Cures Act.
The Department of Justice has arrested and charged the founder and majority owner of Insys Therapeutics Inc., John Kapoor, along with other executives from his company. Kapoor is accused with leading a nationwide conspiracy to bribe doctors and illegally distribute the company's fentanyl spray, intended for cancer patients, so that it could be prescribed for non-cancer patients. Kapoor stepped down as CEO of Insys in January. Acting U.S. Attorney William D. Weinreb said, "Mr. Kapoor and his company stand accused of bribing doctors to overprescribe a potent opioid and committing fraud on insurance companies solely for profit. Today's arrest and charges reflect our ongoing efforts to attack the opioid crisis from all angles. We must hold the industry and its leadership accountable - just as we would the cartels or a street-level drug dealer." Six former Insys executives and managers were charged in December.
[takyon: a262 would like you to know that Insys Therapeutics donated $500,000 to help defeat Arizona's 2016 ballot initiative that would have legalized recreational use of cannabis.]
One Woman Got Facebook to Police Opioid Sales On Instagram (archive)
Eileen Carey says she has regularly reported Instagram accounts selling opioids to the company for three years, with few results. Last week, Carey confronted two executives of Facebook, which owns Instagram, about the issue on Twitter. Since then, Instagram removed some accounts, banned one opioid-related hashtag and restricted the results for others.
Searches for the hashtag #oxycontin on Instagram now show no results. Other opioid-related hashtags, such as #opiates, #fentanyl, and #narcos, surface a limited number of results along with a message stating, "Recent posts from [the hashtag] are currently hidden because the community has reported some content that may not meet Instagram's community guidelines." Some accounts that appeared to be selling opioids on Instagram also were removed.
The moves come amid increased government concern about the role of tech platforms in opioid abuse, and follow years of media reports about the illegal sale of opioids on Instagram and Facebook, from the BBC, Venturebeat, CNBC, Sky News and others. Following the BBC probe in 2013, Instagram blocked searches of terms associated with the sale of illegal drugs.
[...] Carey is now the CEO of Glassbreakers, a startup maker of software to support workforce diversity. But she worked on illegal drug sales in her previous job at MarkMonitor, a company that protects brands like pharmaceutical companies from online counterfeiting, piracy, and fraud. In a Mar. 30 tweet to Rob Leathern, Facebook's director of product management, Carey wrote, "The historical response that users can report abuse and moderators will review hasn't changed in 4 years." She asked him to "Please hold leadership accountable."
#StopSnitching.
Also at CNN.
See also: Facebook Needs to Do More to Stop the Online Opioid Market, Says FDA Chief
Related: Senate Investigators Google Their Way to $766 Million of Fentanyl
U.S. Surgeon General Urges More Americans to Carry Naloxone
U.S. Life Expectancy Continues to Decline Due to Opioid Crisis
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 07 2018, @02:09AM
No. I'll just not take opioids.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Booga1 on Saturday April 07 2018, @02:16AM (28 children)
Just who do they expect to buy it?
Random people(why would they need it)? Family members of drug addicts(the same ones in denial about the whole mess)? The addicts themselves(who'd buy another hit first)?
Then there's the aspect of needing to use it. I've heard some cops/medics get assaulted when the person comes down from the OD. They're pissed you took their high away from them!
Though, I guess the "two pack" thing is probably good. After all, either you encounter two people OD'ing together like boyfriend and girlfriend, or you need to save someone a second time later because of a relapse.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by milsorgen on Saturday April 07 2018, @02:19AM (11 children)
I'd prefer carrying rattlesnake antivenom and an EpiPen for my bee allergy. But the prices on those are insane.
That said if things are really that bad that Americans need to carry this around then I'll carry some in the cars first aid kit if the prices were low enough.
Fun reading: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/09/09/the-crazy-reason-it-costs-14000-to-treat-a-snakebite-with-14-medicine/?utm_term=.240393c64f1c [washingtonpost.com]
On the Oregon Coast, born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days...
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday April 07 2018, @02:26AM
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602422/it-costs-30-to-make-a-diy-epipen-and-heres-the-proof/ [technologyreview.com]
https://fourthievesvinegar.org [fourthievesvinegar.org]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 07 2018, @02:30AM (1 child)
Things aren't as bad as you think. They're worse. You wouldn't notice because you're a car owner. Try riding the bus sometime and see some real Americans who live real shitty lives.
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 07 2018, @06:19AM
Hey! I Ride the Bus! And I don't have a shitty life! Does take me twice as long as driving to my destination, sometimes. And there is always the risk of sitting in the recently abandoned bum-shit seat. Pays to look, and smell. But point taken, these poop-stained crazy people have the right to keep and bear arms, just like Cat-scratched Fever Pedofile Ted Nugent!!! Who crapped and pissed his own pants for a week (Guiness book? Records?) to get out of being drafted to go to Vietnam. Frenking Coward! And really, really bad guitar player. And even worse hunter, from an ethical point of view.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 07 2018, @03:18AM (2 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 07 2018, @06:14AM (1 child)
One of these things is not like the others! One of these things doesn't belong! One of these things is not like the others, can you tell before I finish this song?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 07 2018, @07:26AM
Legal environment.... its what happens when the Government is given authority to meddle in the market with crony capitalism.
Its how the one percenters make money. The rest of us have other names for doing the same thing.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 07 2018, @03:25AM (3 children)
A contradiction is an unemployment rate of 4.1% combined with opioid epidemic. Employment stats are crap, and the opioid epidemic is basically the 80's inner city crack epidemic metastasized to rural America.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 07 2018, @03:54AM
What do you mean the employment stats are crap? Michael David Crawford is employed in software development, and he's a mentally ill old bald white man. If a mentally ill old bald white man can find a tech job, we must be at full employment!
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 07 2018, @03:56AM (1 child)
Normally, that would be a contradiction, but a huge number of the people abusing opiods are people that got hooked following medical treatment. They were given painkillers that they may not have needed and were not given an adequate treatment plan to get them off the junk when they were no longer in need. To make matters worse, in much of the US doctors can't prescribe medical marijuana that doesn't carry the same risks that opiods do.
The result is that you've got this unusual group of addicts that didn't start due to having issues, they started because their doctors got them hooked.
And as long as we treat this like it's a personal failing and not a societal health crisis, we're going to see the bodies continue to pile up as people judge the addicts and treat them as pariahs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 08 2018, @05:31PM
And some of it is because of stuff like this:
http://www.latimes.com/projects/oxycontin-part1/ [latimes.com]
Your country is rather fucked up if you really need so many people carrying naloxone around. And if it is that fucked up one of your priorities should be jailing those responsible so stuff like this is less likely to happen.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday April 07 2018, @07:02AM
Want to meet up sometime?
I live in Vancouver, work in Beaverton. I don't have wheels but greyhound goes to the coast.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 07 2018, @02:40AM (1 child)
Question: Can police looking to gain information use naloxone to torture people, by using it to counteract opiate painkillers given to a patient by medical staff.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 07 2018, @02:47AM
Yes, and the best part is police can order medical staff to administer naloxone for them. It doesn't violate the Hippocratic Oath since causing pain isn't strictly the same as causing harm. Any doctor who refuses can be arrested and have their medical license revoked.
(Score: 5, Informative) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Saturday April 07 2018, @03:04AM (1 child)
On using it and possibly encountering violence: True. The addict doesn't recognize that they were in a condition where brain damage or death is possible. They don't always come to lucidly (a function of how much opioid to how much naloxone you've pushed) and may strike out at anyone. Projectile vomit is also a possibility and one should be prepared to clear choke - aspirating on vomit can make the situation worse. But ahead of emesis is Rule #1: Always protect yourself first.
However, yes. Family members and/or significant others are one target for this. Or a Good Samaritan, but it isn't the same as pushing aspirin for a possible heart attack.
As to the "two pack thing," that is because the counteraction doesn't necessarily last long and one should be prepared with a second dose if necessary. In a worst-of-the-worst it can last only 5 minutes before another dose is necessary to keep someone breathing. (Well, worst-of-worst is no response...)
The really ironic part.... in my jurisdiction cops can carry and use it as first responders (EMR). Paramedics can. Now family members will be able to. But EMT-Basics? Nope.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday April 07 2018, @03:13AM
SNAFU.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Saturday April 07 2018, @03:05AM (11 children)
Yes, because this PSA is brought to you by the Naloxone lobbyists.
Especially them, not every family or close friend is in Red-state denial. I know a recovered addict and during his recovery process he couldn't get enough of the synthetic wean-down drug. His father flew out to Seattle to help him: a) taper off as quickly as possible and b) score some H on the street for when the pharmacy wasn't supplying enough. With his dad's support he sort-of kicked it within 6 months, moved away from Seattle, and about 5 years later he got clean for good - and not dead, bonus.
Again, with the right kind of support the addicts would carry Naloxone, though you're right about what they'd choose for themselves.
And this is an even bigger problem for the addicts, because it's getting expensive enough that they can trade theirs for a score...
But, in our great Capitalist state, demand is up - why would the manufacturer do anything to bring the price down? Keep it high for a good long time, then ramp up supply to grab as much money from the market as they can, it's a well studied science of monopoly controlled supply/demand/price relationships.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday April 07 2018, @03:09AM (7 children)
The patent on naloxone is expired. But that doesn't help Americans.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday April 07 2018, @03:15AM (5 children)
That will only matter when a non-carpetbagger manufacturer enters the picture and starts to bring the prices down.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by black6host on Saturday April 07 2018, @04:06AM (4 children)
If only Martin weren't in jail...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 07 2018, @06:43AM (3 children)
Martin? Martin Luther King, Jr., arrested for parading without a permit,
Or,
Martin Shkreli, asshole extortionist extra-ordinaire? I think you are referring to the latter, but there are so many right-wing racist nut-jobs on SoylentNews, that seriously, I cannot tell.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Saturday April 07 2018, @07:19AM
A case has been made that Shkreli's motives are misunderstood:
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/everyone-hates-martin-shkreli-everyone-is-missing-the-point [newyorker.com]
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/12/martin-shkreli-pharmaceuticals-ceo-interview [vanityfair.com]
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/06/business/martin-shkreli-the-bad-boy-of-pharmaceuticals-hits-back.html [nytimes.com]
http://fortune.com/2017/01/24/martin-shkreli-drug-price-war/ [fortune.com]
black6host can give their own explanation unless it was just sarcasm.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by black6host on Saturday April 07 2018, @07:28AM (1 child)
Nope, not a "right-wing racist nut-jobs" type of person. In response to takyon's comment below: I'm aware that some feel his greed took him down and that others don't. However, his hubris most definitely did.
(Score: 2) by black6host on Saturday April 07 2018, @07:33AM
"Takyon's comment below." Heh. This one will probably be the first post!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Hyperturtle on Saturday April 07 2018, @04:15PM
It's too late for me to go back and reply to comments about the FDA's concern about bacteria and a marketing campaign shortly afterwards, but how many days was it this time between that announcement and this next one? On March 22nd 1990 tryptophan was banned; on March 26th Prozac was promimently announced in Newsweek (it had been available since 1987 or so, but it wasn't "popular" yet, and had been struggling). I'd summarized that in my post and suggested the first shot had been fired.
Similarly, naxlone has been available for a while, but the prices have gone up and it's somewhat morbid to have such a specific antidote for what used to be a fringe problem not caused by the actual industry selling the problem itself. It 's also expensive to just stock up in case someone, anyone, should need it.
So, how long did it take for a promiment person, place or thing to make the announcement to buy something else?
It took them 2 Days. April 3rd was the announcement they were going after Triangle Pharmanaturals due to the bacteria and banning their product and seeking to shut the place down, and then on April 5th the surgeon general of the USA announced that everyone should "routinely carry naloxone." People would likely not need that, nor the present targeted uses for kratom, if perhaps they were not exploited by the drug industry to begin with.
My post about the kratom and the predictable course of action is here.
https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=18/04/04/1142227 [soylentnews.org]
I haven't come up with a good reply for my detractor, other than that I have a vested interest in the health of myself and others, and pay attention to health laws. I do not have to have been around the block in order to read the signs and know where the road is going to lead. We've seen these signs before.
Being persuaded (instructed) to take an expensive product while not offering a suitable alternative is not in most people's interests, and I imagine it is only in the interests of those that profit from the expensive product.
The entire problem would have been completely preventable if opiates were not handed out so readily to people that could have had their needs handled differently.
Also, I am not only referring to drugs with what we can call multiple uses. I am referring to actual utilitarian stuff; I had in mind the red rice yeast powder debacle; I'm irritated I didn't mention it, so here's a wikipedia article that describes what the problem was and what the FDA did. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_yeast_rice)
The Red yeast rice powders in question have a naturally occuring substance, that much to the chagrin of others, turned out to be identical to what the drug lovastin has (and lovastin cost so much to create and test as a synthetic; they were very upset to find it already existed in nature *and* was already used for the same purpose). In what may sound familiar, the FDA did the most reasonable thing we might guess they could do-- they chose to ban products containing red rice yeast, because to them it was now a drug to be controlled, despite previously it not even being on their radar.
In that case, it affected things at first, but over time, the red rice yeast powder kept popping up and the FDA now have difficulty suppressing it. This is largely because instead of being marketed for something specific, it's another case of "don't ingest these products made specifically for ingestion" on the product packaging. They now suggest that because it's just as powerful as a drug, you really should go see a doctor and get the genuine thing because we said so." At least they couldn't get people addicted to cholestorl drugs so they could try to peddle a "cure". However, you do not sell nearly as many cholesterol lowering products at the same places one might buy other "for external use only" products, and thus it escapes the wrath of some of righteous -- it can't be associated with something that is already known to be bad.
Certainly you have all read articles that 'supplements are a waste, don't take them, they don't do anything'. That conflicts with everything we're talking about. It can be said many are of questionable value, many are indeed worthless, and many have a specific use that unfortunately can't be legally stated and either never get the recognition they deserve, or get branded as bad.
Would we have people bleeding out of their eyes from buying adultered synthetic marijuana? That would not be an issue if they could get the real thing legally. No one would be adding the rat poison to their rolling papers because of a profit motive. The people that adulterated the synthetic marijuana batch did it to use less of the actual drug since the blood thinner involved helps increase the potency of the synthetic thc. I won't even get started on how there is research that shows marjiuana helps wean people off various addictions. We have naloxone and continued long-term treatment programs for that, I guess.
The four things I mentioned are in the same "supplements" category, yet the FDA has gone out of their way to eliminate or prevent due to clear competition with a more expensive "proper" product. I expect the "don't take supplements" is just propganda based on some truths, but more based on profits. Don't take red yeast rice powder because it actually works and there is this licensed other product that needs your money, etc...
(And despite what I am saying, I am not saying everything should be packaged neatly and sold to anyone that wants it. I can't quite support anyone taking too much jimson weed laced with hemlock--so yeah, not all natural products are good when taken inappropriately.)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Saturday April 07 2018, @03:22AM (2 children)
They don't want your damn support. When will you get this through your head!!?
They routinely and repeatedly refuse treatment, they know they are heading toward the grave, and all they want is to make sure they have enough drugs for the final journey.
Only 20% of heroin addicts seek treatment, (usually at the insistence of others or the legal system) and of those the relapse rate is usually over 91 percent.
https://drugabuse.com/library/heroin-relapse/ [drugabuse.com]
You are delusional if you believe they want your "support".
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Saturday April 07 2018, @03:34AM (1 child)
I know that most of them die, and most of them are not well integrated with society while they are on their way out.
In the circles I travel, I don't interact with the ones on their way down - I do know several who have made it back from the pit and 10+ years later are still clean.
For the ones who want to check out, I actually support that - give them the option for help, and the help to not conflict with the rest of the world on their way out if they choose to keep using. I was just passing through, but in the 1990s the Zurich train station park [swissinfo.ch] seemed like a place where that was happening, and I think there are many similar things that still go on in Europe. It seems like a much better approach than Miami where you have transvestite prostitutes with an average life expectancy of less than a year working Biscayne Boulevard in the evenings, and breaking into whatever they can during the day for money to score with.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 07 2018, @07:48PM
I want to know who pays for the treatment of people that couldn't afford treatment? Do we need another tax cut to get that funded?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 07 2018, @02:27AM (18 children)
After they lose their high and survive, they will seek another high. That requires more money, which requires more crime.
If you save such a person, you are partly responsible for that crime.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 07 2018, @02:39AM (2 children)
Thank you, Father Jesus, for your truly inspiring sermon about the futility of rehab and how addicts should just die.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 07 2018, @06:50AM
I was just thinking, in a totally off topic sort of way, that, you know, if you could "pray the gay away", could you not equally "pray the gay to come"? "Come" in the normal sense of manifest here and now, not necessarily a climax, although if you could get that by a pure act of volition, well, I want to join your church! Yeeeehaaa!
(The analogy here, not involving cars, is that if addicts are sinners and evil, and suffer the just punishments for their sins, and all we have to do is pray the dope away, those sick bastards might just pray to be addicts, and all our efforts would be for naught. Or at least, for Nougat. I am losing my train of thought. Must be the painkillers. Kill my pain! Kill it!!!! Now!!!! I do not care if it kills me!!!!! *silence*)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 07 2018, @02:59PM
Kill all junkies. They are making life here unbearable. Needles in the playground, shit all over, crime out of control. Fuck 'em.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 07 2018, @02:57AM (6 children)
I was going to say something smart, but since you know what others do and think, you're clearly more smarter. You're lucky your teachers still taught you how to read and write, because if they had looked at you and said "without help, this idiot will always be illiterate", you'd still be illiterate.
(Score: 1, Troll) by frojack on Saturday April 07 2018, @03:09AM (5 children)
Not at all the same thing. You seriously believe drug users don't know exactly what they are doing?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 07 2018, @03:34AM (3 children)
As a recovered alcoholic, I have to say this is complete bullshit.
This is a medical problem and a social problem. Without a real treatment program and help with the issues that caused the addict to turn to drugs in the first place, recovery is unlikely. They also have to have some viable way forward to a life without drugs.
Quitting drugs often means losing everything. Your job, your friends and possibly even your relatives. The cost of quitting is so much higher than people realize.
POS like you are a part of the problem. These aren't bad people and with heroine, it's increasingly people that were fucked over by incompetent doctors with insufficient pain killer management strategies.
Even for those of us who manage to kick the habit for years there can be unexpected days where we would do almost anything for a hit and where it takes unimaginable restraint not to climb back in the bottle.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 07 2018, @09:01AM (1 child)
I had 3-4 relatives who are recovering alcoholics, and my dad has lost at least 2-4 friends to alcoholism, some directly, some as a consequence of drinking and driving.
The same applies with every other drug, and based on discussions with people who are functioning (insert drug of choice)'s most are using due to social anxiety, keeping the demons at bay, or keeping the voices in their heads at bay. Almost no one is doing it for genuinely recreational purposes, and even among the recreation drinking crowd it is usually as an anti-anxiety/excuse thing so they can claim that whatever they said while loosened up was the fault of the booze/drugs rather than what they'd truly say without propriety holding them back.
Society and modern culture are the real poisons, the other stuff is just short term medication being used as a long term solution until something breaks.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Entropy on Saturday April 07 2018, @02:30PM
I know tons of people who use drugs for recreational purposes, and use them responsibly. I'm not saying you're completely off base thinking it's partially therapy: The drugs they do use have quite useful therapeutic benefits as well but the large purpose behind their usage is entertainment, and the other benefits are just a nice lasting bonus.
For the record, they are not using heroin. And none have ever overdosed.
(Score: 2, Troll) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday April 07 2018, @01:11PM
Frojack is a piece of shit and so is everyone else who "thinks" like him. We have at least half a dozen on this site. Just ignore him, and hope that for extra poetic justice he ends up getting screwed over by his doctor someday and becomes one of the people he keeps shitting on.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday April 07 2018, @06:33PM
There are probably some that do. I say that mostly because "never" is an awfully strong statement that corner cases love to disprove.
But there are many other cases. They may not want help at the time, but that's mostly because they aren't seeing things clearly. For example, they started taking opoids because they were in actual physical pain (often with a prescription and a doctor's recommendation). They continue to take them because when they stop, they feel pain. In some cases that pain is still actual physical pain, in others it's the withdrawal itself. In the former case, the doctor either failed to recognize the ongoing problem, or let the DEA bully him into abandoning the patient. In the latter, the problem is a doctor who thought the solution to addiction was just stop prescribing.
Others get started due to various forms of psychological pain. They don't want to stop because the conditions that got them started still exist or are perhaps now even worse. They just don't see a lot of sunshine ahead. Others are like the first group who are now avoiding the pain of withdrawal.
It is interesting that there have been actual studies that showed (in rats) that given an interesting environment where physical needs are easily met, opiates lhave little addictive effect and the rats show little interest in them.
Given a society that gives everyone things to strive for and the resources needed to actually do the striving, science suggests that opiate addiction wouldn't be much of an issue.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by frojack on Saturday April 07 2018, @03:07AM (7 children)
You have no idea how true this is.
Seattle TV stations featured an interview with a heroin user encouraging people to carry naxolone pens because he overdosed 6 times in in one year and his girl friend (also a drug user) saved him 4 of those times. They will go right back to it.
Seattle is turning into the heroine capital of the west coast.
Another fine example of the Its your body, and you should be allowed to put anything into it mentality.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday April 07 2018, @03:27AM
I was under the impression that it was already there 15 years ago.
While many addicts are indeed lost causes, there are also many who recover - I don't personally know any who died, but I do know at least 5 who were in deep and got out, including a former NFL player who washes/details cars for a living now, he used to wash my wife's car every so often for 3 years until we moved, including the back seat where our 3 and 5 year olds sat and snacked during 8+ hour road trips, cheerful guy with a real positive attitude.
I take that back about the dead addict thing, I didn't know him personally, but this one guy drifted back to his girlfriend in my neighborhood and started breaking into cars on the street - stole my self-recorded cassette collection. After about 2 weeks in town, he broke into a cop's car in his driveway and got himself gunned down, 6 rounds in the back, dropped on another cop's front lawn 2 doors down. That went down in the city of Miami, with a North Miami cop shooter, and landed in the lawn of a Metro Dade SWAT officer, so we literally had 30 cars, 10 from each agency investigating from 3:30am until after 9am. The story goes that the addict threw a brick through the shooter's window, thereby threatening his safety, so he had to shoot him down as he ran away 100'+ from the point the brick would have been thrown. He got 30 days off with pay for that story.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 07 2018, @03:47AM (2 children)
You can pretty much burn in hell.
The reason why you find that there are people who keep doing it over and over again is a lack of proper medical care. Nothing is being done to give these people a reason to kick the habit and very little is provided in terms of help with quitting.
Shockingly, after probably having lost just about everything, these people struggle to quit the only thing that's keeping them going. Drugs are addictive and without real treatment programs and support, it's unrealistic to expect people to quit. Being almost killed is a motivator, but if there isn't something to live for, it's not a very long term strategy and if you're entire life has gone to shit, it can be exceedingly difficult to maintain the strength and determination necessary to clean up.
Especially, if you've lost all your friends and the things that people generally agree make life living.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 07 2018, @05:19AM (1 child)
It's also unrealistic to expect society to be supportive when people get in trouble out of selfishness. Everyone knows that taking hard drugs is like selling your soul to the devil.
(Score: 5, Touché) by TheRaven on Saturday April 07 2018, @03:16PM
And for a lot of drug addicts, even knowing that it didn't seem like a worse option than experiencing their lives without chemical assistance. Society might consider how they got into this situation in the first place before branding them selfish.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Whoever on Saturday April 07 2018, @05:43AM
So you don't count yourself amongst the Libertarians on SoylentNews then?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 07 2018, @07:06AM (1 child)
So, you have some sort of "inadequacy" issue with heroines? WonderWoman is coming to lasso you with her lasso of truth, and spank you with the lies of your mother, and order you to inject the antidote to the killer placebo of the evil alt-right SPECTRE organization. And, you will like it. If not, more bondage and spankings. Beatings will continue until moral improves, it's a Royal Navy thing.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday April 07 2018, @01:13PM
Personally, I wouldn't mind a little attention from Wonder Woman of that sort...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2, Troll) by looorg on Saturday April 07 2018, @03:25AM (7 children)
Is he some chill for the medical-industrial-complex? Yes please buy more of our products, that you might not need but someone else could possibly use it .. please spend $$$ on it.
Unless they are handing it out for free I don't really see why I would buy and carry an anti-opioid drug around. If I had to carry some general drug around I think I would be far more likely to carry Epinephrine.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday April 07 2018, @03:37AM
I'd call him a shill with no chill; if he were really cool he'd be putting out a plan to bring the price down and the availability up, as well as plans to help addicts either recover, or die without violent conflicts with the rest of society.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday April 07 2018, @03:38AM
Not only he's chill, but he's so cool he's damned cold sale already
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 07 2018, @03:39AM (2 children)
TBH, I think it depends a great deal on where you are, what you do for a living and how much money you have.
If you're living in a part of the country which is particularly hard hit, or you work someplace where you encounter heroine users it may be worth doing. But, I rarely encounter anybody that is on anything noticeable, so me buying the kit would likely just be a waste of money. But, if I worked somewhere that was near drug users, I would probably consider getting them. I've had chemical dependency issues and society views addicts as being subhumans that aren't deserving of proper care and treatment.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 07 2018, @03:49AM
Frojack is not society, you are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 08 2018, @02:47AM
Society doesn't see them as subhuman. People just want to cut their losses.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 07 2018, @03:46AM
I don't even carry water around, despite how often folks beg me for random things.
Do I have any food? Nope.
Got a light? Sorry no.
Spare change? Hell no, man, but I could sure use some spare change.
The way I figure, water fountains are free, and water is essential for life, so if naloxone is so important then it should be included in first aid kits, and whoever stocks the first aid should pay for it.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by stretch611 on Saturday April 07 2018, @06:08AM
Exactly. When the drug companies that are profiting off of opioids start paying for every single does of this... only then will I consider it. In fact our firemen/paramedics/hospitals/policemen that are using this stuff should be sending those opiod companies the bill.
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday April 07 2018, @07:00AM
Next time I pick up my Happy Pills.
I once had a good friend who abruptly disappeared one night. Not long after that I learned that he was a heroin user. I was quite surprised by that as he looked and acted like a perfectly normal guy.
I later found his mugshot; he was arrested for heroin possession.
I've searched all the jail and prison rosters. He's not in the slammer.
I can't bring Anthony back but perhaps I can save someone else. Some addicts hang out in downtown Portland. There are vast quantities of addicts in Oldtown Portland; I still hang out in Oldtown sometimes.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 5, Funny) by aristarchus on Saturday April 07 2018, @07:15AM (2 children)
White! Horse! Smack. Junk. Ferry Dust. Does everyone not understand that this is not the poison in question? Not all opiods are heroin, and heroines are certainly not heroin, but morphine comes close, as does Oxycontin, and some others. Heros, on the other hand, are dudes with testosterone issues, and 'roid rage, and I am not referring to "hemorrhoid rage", which is an entirely different condition.
(Score: 3, Touché) by frojack on Saturday April 07 2018, @08:24AM (1 child)
Way to turn a simple spelling error into a cause. Have you designed your flag and coat of arms yet?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday April 07 2018, @10:38AM
Already been done, my frothy frojack!
Ouch.