#goodreddit#: for reddit when it's not drama-filled terribleness...but still reddit.
Here is a direct link to the movie Black Tar if anyone is interested. Tracey is the woman with the backwards baseball cap on that can be seen dropping her pants in public to try to find a vein on her bruised legs about 3:30 in. I have a good friend that was a secret addict for about 5 years. The only person that knew besides his dealer died of an overdose about a month after he introduced my buddy to the stuff. He spent about $250-300,000 on it in his last year and ended up speed balling. He was a very high functioning person who luckily had a business which allowed him to spend that kind of money without resorting to crime. Some of his stories about it are fairly tragicomic. For example, he had to travel internationally for work so some of the things he did to get high on the road were pretty desperate. Or the time he had a party for about 500 people and I noticed he disappeared for about an hour. It turns out he went out back into a shed to shoot up and some of the caterers went out to have a smoke right after. He couldn't really open up the shed door and walk out without being super sketchy so he stayed in there and one after another caterer came out to smoke for about an hour so he just stayed in there. until the coast was clear. As soon as someone found out (a friend that was living at his house, who told his father) he went into rehab and has now been clean about 5 years.
This is kind of terrible. Providing someone with clean needles is one thing, but giving people a drug that they feel safe oding on heroine, because it's reversible when someone injects you with it after you have... This shouldn't be a positive article. It's about someone who was sent needles and this drug, who felt comfortable enough about his heroin use to tell his brother that if he finds him slumped up and blue, to inject him with this vial he got from this chick in reddit because it will reverse the od... That's more terrible than uplifting...Now she averages 10 packs of clean syringes and two packs of naloxone per week. Though she won’t disclose how she obtains the drug, Tracey says she has sent over 280 vials, 20 of which were multi-use receptacles containing ten doses apiece.
I didn't read the article as one about enabling heroin users but rather about making a risky behavior they're going to do anyway less risky. When the guy in the article overdosed, he didn't know he would, and he didn't know his friends would find him before he died. Having naloxone wasn't why he was using heroin, but it contributed to him surviving the overdose.
The guy gave his brother the drug pre od and told him to use it when he ods because it will reverse the effects... I don't know how you say that he didn't know... He basically planned on it. Drugs like Naloxone make drug addicts feel invincible. This leads to incredibly unsafe dosing. This isn't making a anyone safer. The needles, yes. The Naloxone, not even a little bit. Also the fact that he dosed high enough to need 2 vials of narcan is insane...He kept one vial for himself and gave the other to his brother. “I told him, ‘Hey, if you ever come in and see me blue, use this.’”
He planned for the possibility in the same way I wear a bike helmet. He knew his activity carried a risk and took a step to mitigate some of the risks. Naloxone, like a bike helmet, makes an activity some people are going to do anyway somewhat less likely to be fatal. This article didn't talk about drugs like Naloxone resulting in addicts taking larger doses. I admit I lack the background to discuss whether that occurs or not.
I was thinking of a fire extinguisher analogy while reading the article. No one that owns a fire extinguisher acts in any more of a dangerous manner just because they own an extinguisher.
Heroin addicts are not regular people with a fire extinguisher in the hall.
I disagree. Please see my other long comment, My buddy that was a heroin addict was more regular and more successful than almost anyone I know.
I'm not saying heroin addicts are bad people, just that they don't always weigh their options logically. And having a safety net for overdoing it isn't a bonus.
This is where my experience trumps yours.I admit I lack the background to discuss whether that occurs or not.
Are you or have you ever been an opiate addict? Do you have or have you had any in-depth experience with those situations? Neither do I. I'm with WanderingEng on this one. We don't give football players helmets so they can hurt themselves more; we give them helmets so that when they inevitably decide to play football, they can do so more safely.
This is a gigantic, bad assumption. You should really watch the way you state your opinions/experiences vs. project them as someone else's.Are you or have you ever been an opiate addict? Do you have or have you had any in-depth experience with those situations?
Neither do I.
(Starship Troopers: "Would you like to know more?") http://www.sfaf.org/hiv-info/hot-topics/from-the-experts/what-is-harm-reduction.html