Small town America is punishing itself with opiates.
- Thread starter demlion
- Start date
You can't tax the shiz out of it.
The price of a legitimate pack of smokes in New York City is about ten bucks. Both the State and the City figured it was easy money, just bang the smokers and watch the cash roll in. Wrong-o.
People aren't stupid. Smokers in NYC order their cigs on line from the Indians. You go to a store on the res and they are tax free. The State is up in arms and crying bloody murder, but so far they've lost every lawsuit they've brought.
The other thing is - bootlegging cigarettes is HUGE business. You rent a U-haul in the City, down and back to Virginia (low-tax haven) and buy wholesale by the case. You're back in Brooklyn in time for dinner and you just made a mint. All the little corner stores/bodegas all over the City are selling bootlegs. If they know you, you're in. If they don't, you can pay ten bucks.
IF (and it's a big IF) governments think they'll get a tax windfall from regulated sales, they're dreaming. They will merely drive sales right back underground.
https://www.villagevoice.com/2015/04/07/smuggled-untaxed-cigarettes-are-everywhere-in-new-york-city/
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Your plan is to attack the middle man. That won't work b/c there will always be more willing bodies to fill that void. The appeal of a quick easy buck coupled with the general ignorance of the target workforce guarantees no drop-off in supply for those middle management positions. The average street dealer isn't traveling to Afghanistan, Myanmar, or Turkey to get product. Yes, Mexico has become a player, but that's just a result of their need to fill a void.
Working pretty well in Colorado and Washington....
The tax revenue is probably 8th on the list of positives anyway.
I'll admit to being one of those people that felt that way but that all changed about a month and a half ago. Ran into an old friend who I hadn't seen in almost 20 years, we talked for a bit and decided to get together the next night and catch up. Her Dad and step mother, who I've known my whole life live across the way from me now so I knew she had been in and out of trouble and was involved with drugs over that time we hadn't seen each other but I had no idea what she had been through. We met up the next night and decided to go for a walk at the local park, we made it half way around the track and she wanted to sit and talk. We wound up sitting there for 3 hours just talking and what she told me broke my heart.
She left home when she was 17, ended up pregnant and lost her first child at birth from a rare birth defect. She turned to drugs to deal with the pain and spiraled even further from there. Heroin was her drug of choice but that led to others. Some of the things she's told me make me want to cry, others make me angry. She has been severely abused by every guy she has ever been with, turns out her dad had been pushing her to spend some time with me. So we go for a walk just about every evening and talk a lot, either in person or on facebook.
She's been clean now for just over 2 years and is trying very hard to get back on her feet. She had another son who is 6 now and he is her motivation and she keeps telling me that I'm not allowed to stop talking to her. Unfortunately the years of abuse, drugs and the physical, have taken a toll on her body. Damaged her heart and her liver and it might be starting to show. I went away over the weekend for the holiday, talked to her Saturday morning before I left and told her I would check in on her over the weekend. Messaged her a few times on fb Sunday and didn't get a response, got home last night and found out that she had collapsed Sunday morning, her heart had stopped and they had to shock it twice to bring her back. We talked for a bit last night and she's been resting.
Sorry for the long post but that lack of concern sounds good until it happens to somebody you know or care about. I know it really changed my perspective, for the most part. I wouldn't be terribly upset if one or two of her ex's OD'd...
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And that gets back to the point about the 15 - 24 cohort overdose rate and assigning all of the blame to Oxycontin. Why is it proportionally higher for " heroin " than other risky drugs if this age group was less exposed to Oxycontin ?
I am not a defender of Oxycontin. It has no legitimate uses in my mind outside of a terminal illness. But I think it is a fantasy narrative to look at what is happening and somehow conclude that Oxycontin is the sole cause.
That's a very sad story. Thanks for sharing and it's wonderful of you to keep in contact with her. Sounds like she needs a friend.
I think you are confused. No one is manufacturing heroin in garages. Meth? yes. Heroin? No Heroin manufacturing happens long before it arrives on our shores.
If it truly intrigues you, start to research child sexual and physical abuse. 70% of addicts have a history of child sexual/physical abuse. This is the smoking gun. We have huge ****ing problem in this country and it isn't drug use. The drug use is a symptom of a much larger and tougher opponent. If you attack this issue, you will have a greater impact on the drug problem than anything done to date.
Thanks. She does, she has cut ties with most of the people from her old life, and her family is pretty hard on her sometimes. Last week her and I sat down and had she deleted more of her former "friends" on facebook that still try to contact her. Most of my family doesn't understand why I would spend my time with someone with a past like that. All I can say to them is I won't turn my back on a friend.
I've a similar situation(albeit probably easier bc my old friend isn't of the opposite sex). I can see more eyebrows being raised were that the case. I have a childhood friend that has been battling addiction and isn't that far removed from his deepest rock bottom. I've been trying to carve out time to meet up regularly so I know that he feels he has someone to talk to. I'm sure to be honest with him and not enable by telling him what he wants to hear, which isn't always easy. I just lost one of my core crew from HS about 2 months ago due to addiction. Unfortunately, he has been one of many. For a 40 something, I've lost a inordinate amount of friends due to drugs and violence, and quite honestly, I'm sick of it. It may not have been a conscious decision at first, but want to try and do what I can.
I don't know what the answer is. My only reason for posting is to try to bring awareness of what an epidemic heroin and opiate addiction is. This wasn't on my radar screen until the last year when I became involved with something giving me access to information the general public does not have. This is a serious problem, it's blowing up big time and your average person doesn't know much about it...but they will.
Having people who you know care about you is KEY to recovery. Thete has to be something to recover FOR.
I never called it the sole cause. But to run a cartel to deliver H to the US and sell it retail implies huge fixed costs. Much easier to sink those costs if you know there's a HUGE population of people already addicted. The Mexicans who retail here in smaller cities like Columbus, from Xalisco, intro a new area by selling or giving some away at methadone clinics.
I just have no answer to this problem. I know its supposed to be a problem that affects people from all walks of life, but my experience has still shown the problem to impact economically disadvantage folks in 97% of instances. It's easy to say "well give them better options," but the lifestyles leading to their situations are generations in the making. They are born and raised in a very different culture than most of us here.
I watched many friends give in to heroin in the last 90s/early 00s in Mifflin County, PA. We were one of the first places heroin became a huge issue (I had multiple friends in high school who were users appear in a national news story on the . topic). Fortunately heroin wasn't as bad as what it is now or I might be without my brother. He snorted heroin for years (didnt like needles). If it was laced with fentanyl like it is now, no way he makes it. I saw a girl once snort half the pile instead of her own line...it made for an awful and frightening night, but with heroin being what it is now, she would've been dead for sure.
I later prosecuted heroin users in southwestern Ohio, and I can say some of them who I got to know personally I believe wanted to quit with all their heart, but couldn't do it. Guys I knew who would bawl their eyes out talking about how they wanted to be their for their newborn child, but would go back to it anyway.
It's an extremely cheap escape from all your problems...for folks with countless problems and an upbringing that provides them no hope nor the desire to even look for hope, I don't want know we do...
I watched many friends give in to heroin in the last 90s/early 00s in Mifflin County, PA. We were one of the first places heroin became a huge issue (I had multiple friends in high school who were users appear in a national news story on the . topic). Fortunately heroin wasn't as bad as what it is now or I might be without my brother. He snorted heroin for years (didnt like needles). If it was laced with fentanyl like it is now, no way he makes it. I saw a girl once snort half the pile instead of her own line...it made for an awful and frightening night, but with heroin being what it is now, she would've been dead for sure.
I later prosecuted heroin users in southwestern Ohio, and I can say some of them who I got to know personally I believe wanted to quit with all their heart, but couldn't do it. Guys I knew who would bawl their eyes out talking about how they wanted to be their for their newborn child, but would go back to it anyway.
It's an extremely cheap escape from all your problems...for folks with countless problems and an upbringing that provides them no hope nor the desire to even look for hope, I don't want know we do...
Agree and disagree. It isn't a disease; that portends that you catch something and it can be treated with some kind of medicine. I do agree that there is a genetic component. But drugs aren't the only addiction. Food, gambling, cigarettes, even tattoos. Depression and mood disorders are also part of the problem.
My personal opinion is that we treat disorders in teen agers with a lifelong prescription to anti-depression meds and other chemical imbalance drugs. Kids get out of whack during their formative years. We then give them drugs, to treat a temporary disorder, for the rest of their lives; creating a permanent disorder. We make a bad problem worse. Moreover, as parents, we take medicines for everything. Kids see that and think things are fixed with a pill.
Cutting off supply does nothing to demand. Supply and demand are two separate variables. If you restrict supply (there is no stopping supply) a few things happen. Another dealer takes the place of the arrested dealer. The price goes up since you moved the supply line and did nothing for demand. Crime goes up, as you now have desperate junkies that still need the product that now costs them more money. The only solution is to stop demand. Try treatment, education, job training, family support, spiritual support.... things that will restrict demand. Any attack on supply is just pissing in the wind.
Actually the terms "disease" is not so restrictive as you say. Heart disease or coronary artery disease is not something you "catch."
Most heroin overdoses are caused by the mix with fentanyl. Fentanyl is a synthetic heroin that is easier to make than meth. You can google the recipe and pretty much any chemist can whip up a batch.
There is a lot of heroin use at all walks of life. However, generally speaking, those at the 'lower' walks of life are more abusive of heroin for exactly the reason you mention, and hence they're more likely to OD.
There aren't many things that correlate with drug use these days, but there are a lot of things that correlate with drug abuse - probably the strongest being the user's interest level in seeing what tomorrow may bring.
So you're saying that a predominance of the heroine users out there are just feeding their addiction that started from pain killers?
Being honest is important. She's been very open and honest with me about everything she has been through. It's hard to hear some of the stuff when it comes from somebody you care about, and I don't know how to answer her sometimes so I answer her as best and honestly as I can. I know what I want to say in my head but I have a hard time getting it to come out the way I intend once in while. My original post is only a fraction of what she's gone through, so much more that I can't share here. She doesn't always like what I have to say but she understands and appreciates the honesty.
It's good that you take the time for your friend. I'm 40 myself and heroin, like everywhere else is a huge problem here. This is the first time I've had a friend affected by it though, there have been other kids I went to school with that have been caught up in it but nobody I was really friends or ran around with back in the day.
I'm not speaking for dem, but my hypothesis is that while I'm not sure if the "predominance of the heroine users out there" today started with pain killers, BUT, a very very large number of them started with pain killers -- And those people fueled the market and epidemic.
Heroin use/abuse was like a little grease fire in the home of America. The introduction and easy access to opiates was like sitting an open gallon of gasoline next to the stove top. As soon as a little spark of grease popped and flew over to the gasoline, BOOM!
It is, and like I mentioned earlier her family is hard on her and not in a good way and she struggles with that. Her family environment growing up played a role in the path she wound up on but that's a whole other can of worms. Her dad and her brothers and sisters all have addiction problems to varying degrees.
You might as well have been speaking for me. When they started prescribing a month of opiates for chronic back pain, they started a fire that has not been put out yet. There are people on disability who supplement their income by taking the Percs or Lortabs they are prescribed and selling them for profit. Still going on today.
These folks seem like they would be okay with it if they could prove that it was only 49% or 40% who started because of painkillers. And yes, those addicts built the market with their demand.
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One of my kids is a State parole agent- the number of prisoners and parolees who are in the system because of drugs is staggering- and rising. I'd be ok with that if it were helping, but as far as I can see it isn't
We have to end the demand and that won't come from saying "just say no" Rehab is expensive and results are mixed at best. Prison is really expensive, and the results are probably worse. Like I said earlier, Singapore has no drug problem- but they aren't exactly humane about how they deal with it. Our own society has no answers, but we better start finding some.
Agree 100%. In the article I posted, it is way more stark than that. THERE IS NO REHAB HERE IN EASTERN WV! None, zip, nada. If you have private insurance you can get into rehab elsewhere, sometime, but if not, you are on your own.
Jail will NEVER solve addiction...never. If it would we would not be talking about it. Mack Daddy's post of the recovery doc talking about addiction is excellent.
https://bwi.forums.rivals.com/threa...ellent-video-on-heroin-addiction-link.174960/
What will be your plan for people that ignore the rules on prescriptions?
Do you want to legalize heroin?
The Singapore comparison is laughable. They are a country that is half the size of LA with the 5th highest per capita GDP in the world. Hard drug use is tied to despair. For many in this country, the American dream is dead. They thought graduating High School and working hard in a manufacturing job would be enough to live the dream. They were wrong. That's why the death rate for middle age white males is increasing. They are the age group that saw what their parents had and what they thought they would have.
One would hope it is also laughable because we have constitutional rights. Singapore does not.
Singapore has no drug problem because there are no repeat offenders in Singapore, their GDP has nothing to do with it. Obviously I'm not advocating their methods.
Malaysia executes more people for drugs than Singapore yet, they are becoming a major trafficking hub. Singapore is a rich tiny city-island-country. Your understanding of their drug policies and low drug use seem puddle deep at best.
That is surprising. I'd think Radiator Springs or Martinsburg would have sufficient demand. Now Winchester or Hagerstown or Cumberland is not that far away, but this is a population that by definition is noncompliant and nonfunctional, so it's a big ask. You gotta bring it to the clients.
I'm no softie. I am a big law and order guy and I'm 'tough on criminals'. I also like strategies that work. It should be obvious to a turtle that it is not possible to enforce our way out of the problem. Enforcement has a place, absolutely. At the same time the only way to slow down this train is by cutting off the demand side. That requires education and treatment.
It also requires significant changes to medical practice. @demlion mentioned somebody with back pain getting a months worth of narcotics. That patient DOES NOT NEED narcotics. They need to lose weight, stop smoking, get physical rehabilitation/work hardening, get off their ass and exercise, get surgery, or explore treatments like relaxation and biofeedback. All of those things are hard and the patient doesn't want to hear it. The doctor has fifteen minutes with the patient - so everybody does the EASY thing and here comes the Rx. And we're off.
