Small town America is punishing itself with opiates.
- Thread starter demlion
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This is a long, tear jerking article. Since it appeared in the New Yorker it didn't surprise me that it painted addiction as something that just happens to people, like pancreatic cancer or a brain tumor. Not one sentence in the article mentioned the scum bag heroin dealers who provide the drugs to the addicts. Not one sentence. Besides helping addicts get treatment, eradicating the a$$hole drug dealers is also part of the solution.
Heroin is a major problem in Western Pa where I live. Everyone knows who the drug dealers are. There is no doubt. For some reason the police view them as untouchable. There are very few arrests and little harassment of the dealers. It really surprises me that when a high school kid dies of an overdoes that the parents or grandparents don't go after the dealer and blow his head off. I'm just surprised by the acceptance of the dealers in the community with little pushback. It makes no sense to me at all.
Heroin is a major problem in Western Pa where I live. Everyone knows who the drug dealers are. There is no doubt. For some reason the police view them as untouchable. There are very few arrests and little harassment of the dealers. It really surprises me that when a high school kid dies of an overdoes that the parents or grandparents don't go after the dealer and blow his head off. I'm just surprised by the acceptance of the dealers in the community with little pushback. It makes no sense to me at all.
There has always been a heroin market. It did not become a really big deal until 3 things happened: 1) the rise of OxyContin, and 2) the notion on the part of the Doctors that they could treat chronic pain with something really no different than Morphine; and 3) when the feds arrested the Dr. Feelgoods and restricted the supply of Oxy because people were becoming addicted, the addiction did not go away just because the scrips did. Enter the illegal heroin dealers, who are only distinct from Purdue Pharma and the docs because Purdue and the docs could claim what they did was legal.
You can go on and say this is a character issue if you want, but that approach is exactly what brought us to this place. Here is another clue: jail does not work, either.
Addictions don't require scumbag heroine dealers.....
Addiction is a real disease. Addiction to sex....to scripts....addiction to whatever.
We have spent billions every year since I was in my teens trying to eradicate those providing the shit.... (see DEA budget). It's a huge burgeoning waste of money and time.
Also, the legalization of marijuana decreased income for the Mexican cartels. Just like any other business, when one avenue dries up, you exploit a different resource (heroin).
Agree but I wouldn't call it a disease. Its a weakness. Some people are more prone to those weaknesses than others. No good answers and that is why it is such a mess. Fact is, if someone wants to commit slow suicide, not a lot can be done. Why are people still smoking? Its nuts.
Why would the New Yorker focus on the dealers? They wrote a people piece focusing on the affects directly to the people and to those who are part of their family.
If everyone in Western Pa knows who the drug dealers are - why is not everyone in Western Pa doing something about it to eradicate it? Why wait for the police?
Why would you want parents and grandparents to blow the head off a dealer? So, committing capital murder solves the problem?
So you're saying we just have to live with it. There is no solution. Every year more and more young people will drop dead and that is just the way it is.
In my neighborhood the problem is heroin, not prescription drugs. If the dealers weren't there the heroin wouldn't be there. It is a heinous problem that isn't being addressed by the government at all. My point was that I'm surprised that the ordinary citizen is so passive about this. Years ago if this scourge was present in a neighborhood the citizens would be so pissed that they wouldn't put up with it. The drug dealers would be rooted out and wouldn't last long.
Well, I think I just explained how it came to be heroin. The surge started with pills, mostly Oxy, but Vicodin and others played a part. Then they cut the pills off and put some docs in jail, and scared off the rest, but people were already addicted.
The ONLY solution is rehab, and some reason for the addict to believe that there is a better life waiting when he gets out
Isn't your post contradictory, psuro? You say, "why is not everyone in Western Pa doing something about it to eradicate it? Why wait for the police" Then you say, "Why would you want parents and grandparents to blow the head off a dealer? So, committing capital murder solves the problem?" Why do you suggest the citizens do? Coax the dealers not to sell the stuff? I don't have any other solution than dead drug dealers. Do you?
Pills are still out there and available. Not that cheap if you don't have an RX. I think $10 a piece is a target price range for a Vicodin ES or a 7.5 mg Percocet. Heroin provides a cheaper high. You need a few pills to get a high.
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Yea my home town of Somerset, PA is right up there. The Turkey Hill off the Turnpike exchange and the Walmart parking lot are prime dealer/dealing spots.
I agree that rehab is a key part of the solution. It is just hard for me to believe that suppressing the flow of heroin to the addicts isn't part of the solution too. If there were no dealers there would be no heroin and no heroin addicts. We ought to help people with rehab and we also ought to come down on dealers like a ton of bricks. It is absolutely no mystery who the drug dealers are. I'm for apprehension, jail without bail, a quick trial, a max of one appeal, and then a quick public execution.
Well there are plenty of big busts here, and every year there are more ODs. People here buy it in Baltimore, which is a different state. Makes for some difficult cooperation.
Really tough to get to zero dealers. Always someone seeing as a profitable alternative to a "regular job." If more drugs get lost to the police, the price just goes higher, and the economy picks a "new drug", with my apologies to Huey Lewis.
Typical complex solution- 1. people need to feel they are valued and have a future , 2. jobs, 3. some activity or recreation not drug related. 4. appropriate police and judicial enforcement. ( I have no idea what that should truly be). 5. Better medical insurance for psychiatric services. Many hospitals have minimized their psych services as a loss leader. Need to reverse that trend.
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I'm sure that may play a part in it but the Heroin epidemic in Somerset, PA and where I live now (Balto/Edgewood) was already a full blown epidemic before the legalization of weed.
Like I said above this is not new. Baltimore has been dealing with a Heroin epidemic since I moved here in the late 80's.
Cartels began shifting to heroin as a primary source of income a few years ago. Bastards are cruel, but not stupid at the top level.
The newer strains of heroin allows kids to get a "taste" by smoking or snorting the drug. Not the needle to start with. That comes a little later once they need a bigger high. Makes it easier to get people into the "lifestyle".
Baltimore and all governments "have been dealing" unsuccessfully with the problem for a long time. The government in my area basically has no balls and is afraid of any threat of lawsuit. We need more Clint Eastwoods and fewer Jerry Browns.
Somerset, just a tunnel away from New Baltimore. I have many fond childhood memories of New Baltimore. My grandparents and one brother are buried in St. John's cemetery there.
Why is it that meth, heroin and pills have become so prevalent with youth in rural, small town areas? In my day heroin seemed to be an urban problem, though there were a some kids in my hometown that got caught up in it and a couple who died. Somehow the dealers' marketing plan extended to the hinterlands. Does anyone know the history of this?
A liter of vodka is 7 bucks. That's a cheap high and a huge hangover.
Philly's failed war on drugs..
http://6abc.com/health/action-news-investigates-open-air-drug-dens-in-philadelphia/1931533/
The city estimates it will cost $5 million just to clean it up.
I'm replying to verify your comments. What the police won't touch them is a mystery in my eyes. My son was told by police that they won't travel down one street as it is where all the drugs are sold?
AND, no one is forcing anyone else to take these drugs. They are bought illegally to be used for self pleasure, its certainly not a disease. It is a bad habit that is difficult to break due to the unpleasant reactions to withdrawal. I know because I require legal use of similar products, opiates due to chronic intractable pain from traumatic spinal injuries during my college years. I've had to withdraw to change to other chemistries/products three times and know anyone can stop if they are motivated. This is why I don't buy most of the tear jerker information published.
Our legislators have taken opiate misuse as their latest crusade and now it is much more difficult for legal use patients to obtain their scripts and fill them. Meanwhile the illegal users continue unabated to buy from the pushers while the police ignore them but for once in the spring and fall as they splash the front page with the news of a drug raid. This is to display a little compliance to obtain their drug campaign monies in the budget. Watching the display for many years makes one cynical to their honest efforts at curbing the illegal drug trade vs making a show twice a year to spur funding. Stop the pushers and solve the issue. I'll believe it when I see it, the rest is hype.
Eh, who needs science anyway
$10 per hit, $30 per bag. Interesting how the web has street drug prices by city listed. Cheaper in the hub cities like NYC, as low as $4-6 dollars for a hit.
Yes. katchthis is getting ripped off.
Co-worker's son is the all too typical story. D2 college athlete, gets hurt, gets prescribed and hooked on opiates, then can't get scrips anymore and became a heroin addict until he overdosed. Awful. At least the boys at Purdue Pharma got rich.
Just saw a graph over time, price keeps falling sharply on Heroin.
http://o.canada.com/business/interactive-what-illegal-drugs-cost-on-the-street-around-the-world
Popeyes is a killer too, but you live to like 50 or 60'sMan, I can get a Popeye's 2 Piece Special for $4.65. $10-20 for one pill is insane.
I understand your POV but I disagree. The focus on dealers is and will always be futile because the laws of supply and demand rule here. As long as there are addicts there will be demand, and as long as there is demand, someone will fill (and profit from) it.
We have to eliminate the demand. How draconian we are willing to be will determine what actions we are willing to take. BTW, even Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont have major drug problems. I think that this is truly a National Security issue.
Are we willing to become Singapore? I don't know the answer to that, but that may be what it would take.
Heroin was always run through Somerset in the 70's & 80's I think just because of where it fell between Pittsburgh and Philly and then proximity to 70 and rt 30.
One of the issues, that if you talk to most people from Somerset and Berlin, is that the prison they built outside of Berlin is a HUGE problem. The families of the prisoners are moving into the area to be closer. Then they took what was supposed to be lower end security prison for older and dying inmates and turned it into a Med. Security prison. If what I heard is true its where Sandusky was moved too.
Lot of Meth heads in Somerset and Myersdale too.
I get that argument, but to me it feels like throwing away a whole lot of people. Easy answers are certainly in short supply
Maybe a conversation for a different time/thread, but how is that "throwing away a lot of people"? I'd counter by saying, if coke or heroin etc were legal I still wouldn't touch it; and the money made from taxing the s**t out of the stuff could pay to help curb the demand you rightly alluded to, among many other things.
