Heroin: Making a comeback with avengence

[D-DAY]

I hate to say this....But I'm very inclined to think that heroin can be had by most high school students in the Greater Nola area. Its a very wicked drug but its just everywhere now. And the price has fallen big time. Like JR said...it started showing up in quantity in NOLA back in the late 90's.
But in the last few years it appears to be damned near everywhere. Its not uncommon to see busts where some guy who is just a street level dealer getting popped with ounces of high grade heroin. That was unheard of 20 years ago.
In fact...It was Judge Bagert who pushed for the Life in Prison for heroin distribution back in the 1970's. Because of that....it was a drug which was really in the shadows. It is not in the shadows anymore.
And this is exactly why I am adamant about wanting the FDA to reclassify marijuana to a lower schedule. Right now...Marijuana and Heroin are both schedule 1 drugs. Schedule I means that the drug has no medical use at all.
But many people...Especially teenagers think it means that the DEA Schedules are a classification of the drugs danger.
Cocaine is a Schedule II drug...and Vicodin is a Schedule III drug.
Unfortunately...many teenagers will go online and read these drug classifications....They see that weed is a schedule I....try it....and then are inclined to believe that since weed is in the same classification as heroin....and since they tried weed and it wasn't addictive or that bad....They are led to believe heroin will be the same. Curiosity along with a parasitic dealer makes them easy prey. Furthermore...they will one day ask a dealer...Do you have any weed....The dealer says "I'm out...But have some Heroin..." Thats all it takes.
We would be much better off in this country if we revamped many of our drug laws. Get the weed out of the dealers hands and into the Governments....Under control of the Alcohol Board..
In all honesty...its just scary to realize heroin is probably available to most high school kids today. I'm not saying its being sold on campus. But I bet its available to 16 and 17 y/o's.

Just throw out any concept or ideas you have about the scheduling system, because they are arbitrarily based on the "potential for abuse". Which means, if tomorrow, people realize that you could get high from injecting or smoking liquid Drano, the DEA/FDA could classify Drano as a Schedule I and it would be pulled from the market and banned for use in the US.

Where I find some issue with your reasoning is when people go to their drug dealer for Marajuana, they are not usually going straight for the bait and switch to heroin. Those drugs are on different levels all together, and most recreational users of marajuana are not that stupid (irony I know). Marajuana is just enduring a massive demonization campaign for the last 100 years, but it is less addictive than nicotine. Actually if you were comparing the addictive properties of drugs nicotine would be much more comparable to heroin, but that's a different argument.

 

[Leonidas]

Just throw out any concept or ideas you have about the scheduling system, because they are arbitrarily based on the "potential for abuse". Which means, if tomorrow, people realize that you could get high from injecting or smoking liquid Drano, the DEA/FDA could classify Drano as a Schedule I and it would be pulled from the market and banned for use in the US.

Where I find some issue with your reasoning is when people go to their drug dealer for Marajuana, they are not usually going straight for the bait and switch to heroin. Those drugs are on different levels all together, and most recreational users of marajuana are not that stupid (irony I know). Marajuana is just enduring a massive demonization campaign for the last 100 years, but it is less addictive than nicotine. Actually if you were comparing the addictive properties of drugs nicotine would be much more comparable to heroin, but that's a different argument.

I have no experience with H, but I can attest to the accuracy of of your post regarding the relative addictive nature of nicotine vis a vis THC.

And I am in complete agreement to your earlier post on the stupidity of our society's drug policy.

 

[troy_mclure]

my home town was named "the Oxycontin capital of the usa". afterwords they did a crack down on docs and heroin exploded. a chick i was in hs with has been on methadone for 9 years off and on.

 

[themcfarland]

Methadone is 100x more addictive then Heroine. its really not fair to put folks on it.. Although Pain management it does alright.. if followed closely.. There so much better ways to treat pain..

 

[rtr_rtr]

Methadone is 100x more addictive then Heroine. its really not fair to put folks on it.. Although Pain management it does alright.. if followed closely.. There so much better ways to treat pain..

It isn't really for pain - it's to keep a previous user off heroin and allow them some level of day to day functionality (not that it wouldnt treat pain like any other opioid)

 

[tim9lives]

Sounds wrong in many ways to me.

Yep...its hard to escape the reality of the huge resurgence of heroin in America and the "coincidental" timeline of America's war in Afghanistan.
But then again....check out Gary Stephen Webb. He pretty much connected the dots of the CIA's drug smuggling into the USA back in the late 1990's . His alegations of this were confirmed by DEA and LAPD investigations.
Webb's reporting generated fierce controversy, and the San Jose Mercury News backed away from the story, effectively ending Webb's career as a mainstream media journalist. In 2004, Webb was found dead from two gunshot wounds to the head, which the coroner's office judged a suicide.

Though he was criticized and outcast from the mainstream journalism community, his reportage was eventually vindicated as many of his findings have since been validated: since Webb's death, both the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune have defended his "Dark Alliance" series. Journalist George Sanchez states that "the CIA's internal investigation by Inspector General Frederick Hitz vindicated much of Gary's reporting and observes that despite the campaign against Webb, "the government eventually admitted to more than Gary had initially reported" over the years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Webb

In all honesty...I am at a loss as to WTFs going on with drugs and our drug war in this country. It could be government sanctioned....or it could be that theres so much fricking money involved...that it just will always corrupt some in government.

 

[themcfarland]

It isn't really for pain - it's to keep a previous user off heroin and allow them some level of day to day functionality (not that it wouldnt treat pain like any other opioid)

I know someone who is/ was on it for pain management..

 

[Pas Tout La]

I just took a class on meth and meth labs with my VFD. I can't see how anybody would want to put crap like that in their bodies. Just trying to make it can kill you. The fact that you can walk outside, throw a rock, and have a good chance of hitting a tweaker makes me wonder about the future of our society.

 

[JR1572]

Yep...its hard to escape the reality of the huge resurgence of heroin in America and the "coincidental" timeline of America's war in Afghanistan.
But then again....check out Gary Stephen Webb. He pretty much connected the dots of the CIA's drug smuggling into the USA back in the late 1990's . His alegations of this were confirmed by DEA and LAPD investigations.
Webb's reporting generated fierce controversy, and the San Jose Mercury News backed away from the story, effectively ending Webb's career as a mainstream media journalist. In 2004, Webb was found dead from two gunshot wounds to the head, which the coroner's office judged a suicide.

Though he was criticized and outcast from the mainstream journalism community, his reportage was eventually vindicated as many of his findings have since been validated: since Webb's death, both the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune have defended his "Dark Alliance" series. Journalist George Sanchez states that "the CIA's internal investigation by Inspector General Frederick Hitz vindicated much of Gary's reporting and observes that despite the campaign against Webb, "the government eventually admitted to more than Gary had initially reported" over the years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Webb

In all honesty...I am at a loss as to WTFs going on with drugs and our drug war in this country. It could be government sanctioned....or it could be that theres so much fricking money involved...that it just will always corrupt some in government.

I'm sorry, but heroin was big way before 9/11 and the war in Afghanistan.

It's not a conspiracy.

Also, the US government buys and burns lots of poppy in Afghanistan.

JR1572

 

[Vanilla Gorilla]

Yep...its hard to escape the reality of the huge resurgence of heroin in America and the "coincidental" timeline of America's war in Afghanistan.
But then again....check out Gary Stephen Webb. He pretty much connected the dots of the CIA's drug smuggling into the USA back in the late 1990's . His alegations of this were confirmed by DEA and LAPD investigations.
Webb's reporting generated fierce controversy, and the San Jose Mercury News backed away from the story, effectively ending Webb's career as a mainstream media journalist. In 2004, Webb was found dead from two gunshot wounds to the head, which the coroner's office judged a suicide.

Though he was criticized and outcast from the mainstream journalism community, his reportage was eventually vindicated as many of his findings have since been validated: since Webb's death, both the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune have defended his "Dark Alliance" series. Journalist George Sanchez states that "the CIA's internal investigation by Inspector General Frederick Hitz vindicated much of Gary's reporting and observes that despite the campaign against Webb, "the government eventually admitted to more than Gary had initially reported" over the years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Webb

In all honesty...I am at a loss as to WTFs going on with drugs and our drug war in this country. It could be government sanctioned....or it could be that theres so much fricking money involved...that it just will always corrupt some in government.

Get your conspiracy theories straight.

 

[tim9lives]

I'm sorry, but heroin was big way before 9/11 and the war in Afghanistan.

It's not a conspiracy.

Also, the US government buys and burns lots of poppy in Afghanistan.

JR1572

Yep, it was big before Afghanistan. But most of the USA supply at that time was coming out of Mexico and Columbia. Thats where the Black Tar Heroin was originating. The Taliban actually banned heroin production in Afghanistan.
"In July 2000, Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, collaborating with the United Nations to eradicate heroin production in Afghanistan, declared that growing poppies was un-Islamic, resulting in one of the world's most successful anti-drug campaigns. The Taliban enforced a ban on poppy farming via threats, forced eradication, and public punishment of transgressors. The result was a 99% reduction in the area of opium poppy farming in Taliban-controlled areas, roughly three quarters of the world's supply of heroin at the time.[14] The ban was effective only briefly due to the deposition of the Taliban in 2002."

Since the US invasion....Afghanistan now accounts for over 85% of world wide production.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_production_in_Afghanistan

 

[D-DAY]

Methadone is 100x more addictive then Heroine. its really not fair to put folks on it.. Although Pain management it does alright.. if followed closely.. There so much better ways to treat pain..

I wouldn't say it's that much more addictive than heroin, but there is a massive difference in their half lives. Heroin addicts have to shoot up multiple times a day due to the short half life of the drug. Methadone, on the other hand, can be dosed daily or even every few days depending on the person. It lasts much longer in the body, and it truly is a beast itself to kick. There is a decent documentary called "Methadonia" if you want to see the day-in-the-life of heroin addicts trying to get clean via methadone and the lengthy process they must go through.

 

[JR1572]

I wouldn't say it's that much more addictive than heroin, but there is a massive difference in their half lives. Heroin addicts have to shoot up multiple times a day due to the short half life of the drug. Methadone, on the other hand, can be dosed daily or even every few days depending on the person. It lasts much longer in the body, and it truly is a beast itself to kick. There is a decent documentary called "Methadonia" if you want to see the day-in-the-life of heroin addicts trying to get clean via methadone and the lengthy process they must go through.

And then there's suboxone...

JR1572

 

[D-DAY]

I know someone who is/ was on it for pain management..

Yes, they still use the 10mg tablets for pain management, but the higher dose/concentrated formulations are delegated to rehab centers and methadone clinics.

 

[D-DAY]

And then there's suboxone...

JR1572

Suboxone is one of the only drugs allowed on the pharmacy level to be dispensed to people who are under a doctors care for the treatment of opioid dependence. Suboxone is unique due to the Naloxone in it, so off the bat its a better option for the "pill popper" addict. But this drug is being abused too. I'm sure you guys see those damn strips all the time.

 

[BlueLineIPSC]

I was told by a high ranking DEA agent that the vast majority of the Heroin in the southern United States is coming from the fields of South America. The problem we are having here with heroin has absolutely nothing to do with Afghanistan.

 

[D-DAY]

I just took a class on meth and meth labs with my VFD. I can't see how anybody would want to put crap like that in their bodies. Just trying to make it can kill you. The fact that you can walk outside, throw a rock, and have a good chance of hitting a tweaker makes me wonder about the future of our society.

This is why we need to spend money on understanding "demand" more than enforcement of "supply".

 

[Vanilla Gorilla]

Yep, it was big before Afghanistan. But most of the USA supply at that time was coming out of Mexico and Columbia. Thats where the Black Tar Heroin was originating. The Taliban actually banned heroin production in Afghanistan.
"In July 2000, Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, collaborating with the United Nations to eradicate heroin production in Afghanistan, declared that growing poppies was un-Islamic, resulting in one of the world's most successful anti-drug campaigns. The Taliban enforced a ban on poppy farming via threats, forced eradication, and public punishment of transgressors. The result was a 99% reduction in the area of opium poppy farming in Taliban-controlled areas, roughly three quarters of the world's supply of heroin at the time.[14] The ban was effective only briefly due to the deposition of the Taliban in 2002."

Since the US invasion....Afghanistan now accounts for over 85% of world wide production.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_production_in_Afghanistan

When you were arrested by dirty cops after shooting up your closet and having dope and a hype kit in your pants where did that originate?

 

[Pas Tout La]

This is why we need to spend money on understanding "demand" more than enforcement of "supply".

Exactly....... After seeing how easy it is to make it, it's no wonder it's so prevalent in the streets. If I wasn't such an upstanding citizen (chicken-****) that would be a quick way to make some serious cash. It's not the manufacturer/dealer's fault these people are junkies........... That's like me blaming the dairy farmer that my son drinks milk!! There is a demand and somebody fills it.

 

[tim9lives]

When you were arrested by dirty cops after shooting up your closet and having dope and a hype kit in your pants where did that originate?

Probably a dirty cop.