Totally off topic but my brother had viral meningitis last year. It was pretty scary for our family and really fucked him up for about a month if not more before he fully recovered.
Bacterial Meningitis is essentially a death sentence. Scary shit man. I’ll have to talk to him about the drug experience he had.
Had 2 morphine pushes when I got in my bad wreck many years back. Craved that shit pretty badly afterwards. I still remember how good it made me feel.
The pills I got once I was out, hydros if memory serves me, really f’d my stomach up badly. I could never end up down a path like that. Plus I hate needles. Ha.
I’ll stick with the dispensaries here in CA to get my ‘drug’ fix. Geeze.
As someone who has transported dozens, if not hundreds, of overdose victims-- I’m pretty torn. On one hand, I’m 100% sure that the “give narcan to everybody” mentality is making the issue worse. Narcan isn’t a new drug-- it’s been around for a LONG time. Now it’s becoming an easy safety net for the 10-20% of overdoses I’ve seen who simply don’t care and plan to overdose again tomorrow. I’ve probably taken more overdoses in the past 2 months than I did from 2008 when i became a paramedic to 2014. The overdoses I am taking now are requiring significantly more narcan to reverse the opiates than they did a couple years ago which is indicative of the fentanyl problem.
On the other hand, a lot of people WANT to stop. The programs for addiction are severely underfunded for the huge number of people who require help. Many people start with prescription opiates and have to resort to heroin when they can’t afford the pills anymore. At the end of the day, it’s difficult for me to feel that bad because in most cases these people made a conscious decision to start using these drugs.
I think dispensaries are another layer to the “give everyone narcan” policies that will just make things worse. Give the people who WANT help the help. If you don’t want it, you die. We need to stop putting the burden of “saving everyone from themselves” on society. When you publicly fund ways to safely use opiates, you remove the perception of risk.
Also, I don’t know who said it before. The average overdose is a 20-30yo, white, suburban person. I have never once transported a black or Hispanic opiate overdose. #whitepeopleproblems
A nursing home narcaned a resident a month ago after administering the wrong meds. Probably one of the better uses of narcan I’ve heard of.
So the stuff that kills a person slowly is OK, because knocking ~20 years off a life is acceptable, but that stuff that kills instantly and knocks ~40 years off of a life is unacceptable?
Cigarette smoking is responsible for more than 480,000 deaths per year in the United States, including nearly 42,000 deaths resulting from secondhand smoke exposure.
No, I personally don’t think heroin should be legal, but I personally don’t make up laws:
People are self accountable:
Some people think fast cars are scary, yet responsible adults should be able to own cars that go 3x the speed limit.
Some people think guns are scary, yet responsible adults should be able own guns with 100 round clips and all the features they want.
Some people think fatty foods, sweets, red meats are scary, yet responsible adults should be able to eat whatever they want.
Some people think alcohol is scary, yet responsible adults should be able to consume under their terms.
Some people think smoking is scary, yet responsible adults should be able to smoke.
Some people think hard drugs are scary, yet responsible adults should be able to put what ever chemicals they want into their own bodies.
People are idiots:
All new cars should be equipped GPS and speed governors for local speed limits, no governor over 80 mph. Inclement weather, well knock off at least 10 mph.
Guns, well we can’t have those.
Foods that cause diabetes, heart disease, morbid obesity, well we can’t have those either. OK, you can have a little, let me scan your ID and you can have a regulated amount, but no more king cuts of prime rib.
Alcohol, we won’t go back to prohibition, so give me your ID, I’ll scan it and “the system” will make sure you don’t have more than 3 drinks a day. No, you can’t buy by the case or by the handle anymore.
Smoking, erhmegahd! “Hello, My name is Terry” ban all smoking.
Hard drugs, super scary, nope none.
My personal fantasy laws:
Cars, you have a new one under 50K miles, it’s probably in good repair, add 20+ mph in sunny conditions, has auto anti collision & self braking stuffs, add 30 + mph (highway, light traffic area).
Guns, clips, features, whatever, you can have 'em be responsible and be safe. You illegally posses a firearm, get charged with attempted murder.
Food, eat what you want, but your insurance premiums go up if you’re a fatty.
Alcohol drink up, you know the rules and risks.
Smoking, you know the risks, but I enjoy being able to go to bars without smelling like an ashtray.
Hard Drugs, legal only in Nevada, because Nevada. Extremely tight control in a gated resort, you can only visit one weekend per year, regulated by “the system”, not readily available on the outside. Quick physical, administered by doctor or in presence of, clean drugs, sane dosage, full EMT staff, you’re locked in for the weekend until your sober. Heck it could be a package thing, fly into Las Vegas, pick up your C4 or 280zx rental, gold chain in glovebox, drive to resort and do lines in a safe environment, have a suite with mirrors and faux gold trim for walls, go to a Miami Vice themed party… They could have a Trainspotting package…
Hard Drugs outside of control conditions?, that shit can kill, get charged with attempted murder (either as a dealer or personal use).
Comparing alcohol and marijuana’s addictive properties to opioids was the EXACT POINT of my post. Comparing fatality totals to a substance that is 100% legal to purchase to those of a substance that’s a felony just to posses is quite a stretch.
My point was if you ever made it where you could walk into a store and buy something like Dilaudid the way you can buy booze the resulting addiction and deaths would almost certainly make the deaths from alcohol seem like a drop in the bucket. It was downright scary how much I craved another dose even a week later when the pain from the viral meningitis was completely gone. As I’m typing this I can clearly remember the warming rush sensation as that drug hit my veins and that was about 8 years ago. The whole experience changed my opinion about how most of these drug addicts were just weak people who made a stupid choice to do something they knew would probably fuck their life up completely. After one blast from an IV I can now see how someone who might walk out of a hospital after being on pain drugs like this for any period of time could easily fall into heroine abuse. Making that class of drug legal would CERTAINLY make the situation worse. Am I saying if it was as easy as running to Walgreens to pick up some Dilaudid I would have ruined my life? No, but I can say looking back I’m honestly glad the temptation wasn’t there.
What I won’t do is turn my new found compassion to think that providing addicts with a safer way to stay addicted is a good idea, nor is it a good idea to make a drug that almost guarantees addiction with just a couple uses readily available to the public on the fallacy of, “well, we let people smoke and drink and those kill people so why not?”.
It’s all about the probability that you can enjoy something in moderation. McDonalds will kill you pretty quickly if you eat it 3 meals a day every day of the week but if you exercise a little self control you can have it as a treat now and then and be fine. Or better yet, Five Guys and eat something as a treat you won’t blast out your poop shoot 30 minutes later. Same with alcohol. Cigarettes not so much and to be honest I think their days are numbered as we move toward more government sponsored health programs but that’s another conversation for another thread.
There will always be idiots who can’t handle moderation but it in and of itself doesn’t mean make it illegal. Where you need to make something outright illegal is a case like opioids. The probability that a person can use them occasionally and be fine is extremely slim because of the addictive properties. There’s mountains of data to prove it and I had that mountain proven to me by my one time experience with a legally prescribed strong schedule II opioid.
I’m saying I had my first real drinks around 16 (lived on the Quebec border where the legal drinking age is just 18) and may or may not have tried a recreational drug a few times in college that’s seeing a big legalization push right now. While there have been plenty of long days at the office or skiing where I get home and say, “man I’d like a drink right now” my desire for booze has ever come close to how much I would have loved another IV shot of Dilaudid. To put it another way, I really like bourbon but I’m trying to lose weight right now so empty booze calories are one of the things I’m really cutting back on. I can sit and watch a movie with my bar stocked with 3 or 4 different brands of single barrel bourbons in my peripheral vision and while I want one I can easily resist. A week after getting out of the ER I don’t know if my will would have been as strong in the other case. I like to think it would but what I do know is the desire for it was much stronger.
Is this scientific? Probably not, but there’s already a mountain of science to say the addictiveness of alcohol and schedule II narcotics is vastly different.
I’ve also watched someone in my family go from being a great kid to stealing electronics from his parents to support a heroine addiction. That story is hardly unique either when it comes to opiate addictions.