I'm noticing Colombian marching powder making a visible comeback on the nightlife scene here. Not as ubiquitous as it became a decade ago just yet, but definitely trending.
"Both the image and reality is that this is a white and often middle-class problem," said Mr. Mauer of the Sentencing Project. "And appropriately so, we're having a much broader conversation about prevention and treatment, and trying to be constructive in responding to this problem. This is good. I don't think we should lock up white kids to show we're being equal."
Amazing, aren't people? A neighbor posted the article on FB and is (rightfully) spluttering with rage.
I had thought that whites had always made up the majority of druggies in the US. So what really changed?
My guess is that the way people got hooked on heroin changed a bit, and in a way that made it deadlier, or deadlier more quickly. So you see a bunch of people end up hooked on Oxycontin (prescription), and then transitioning at some point to heroin and ODing, but because they're switching from something different enough and started in a different enough context a bunch of them are ODing when they still live upper middle class lifestyles in the suburbs rather than what people think of when they think of junkies.
So "white people (not black people) are dying a bunch now" is a big part of it, but also "white people like us are dying a bunch now, not just, you know, the homeless ones we look down on" is a part of it.
White people like us dying is tragedy. White people like you dying is comedy.
When you get to be Mel Brooks's age stubbing your toe could be fatal.
I recently looked at a case in involving (name only slightly changed) some guy's music publishing company "Heroin Iz Cool Take Heroin Publishing." OK then!
White people dying from heroin - 7 comments.
Some guys grabs a hockey puck - 142 comments.
Our society in 2 posts...
To be fair, the puck post started derailing in under an hour.
I finally relent on timestamps, but does it do any good?
Unfogged: insufficiently concerned for the plight of white people.
I guess it's heroin in cities, meth in the sheets sticks these days, more or less? Not sure about oxycodone, and of course this is just anecdotal stuff from my job. I did hear way more about heroin addiction in Oakland and almost exclusively meth in Hayward. Meth seemed so much more like "welp, your life is basically over now." I had clients who were just like "I don't really want to stop using."
I have a guess about the meaning of the post title, but I have no certainty.
. (Also thank you to the solicitous lurker who wanted to know if I've been bouldering again -- alas no, and might have to save my hands/wrists for guitars, but still tempted.)
Unfogged: insufficiently concerned for the plight of white people
Smearcase, any thoughts on how that urban/"sticks" pattern has varied over time? Have you seen a change? Or has anyone else? It is close to my unexamined stereotype for heroin at least
15.1: It means ogged is a asshole still.
Hashtag going with this on Twitter is #WatchWhitenessWork.
I used to live in a rural county that was known for its heroin problem. And the bum-fuckiest, right-wingiest town in that county was the place with that had the worst of it.
any thoughts on how that urban/"sticks" pattern has varied over time? Have you seen a change? Or has anyone else?
Not really. I am really just blowing hot air as I am in the last 33 minutes of doing aforementioned work and am fidgety jittery.
Ah yes, the article points out this central part of the multidecade narrative of heroin abuse spreading into small towns etc, so let me retract the comment. And my response to the article was probably akin to LB's neighbor's, so I guess I hate America, bloggers, or both.
In any case, holy shit, everyone is doing heroin these days? That's a bad idea!
All due respect to our Narnia correspondent, I've never understood why anyone would do heroin. I mean, it's basically famous for killing young, beautiful, talented people; there's no illusion that it's only sad old drunks or trailer trash who die from it.
Or Ecstasy.
I realize they are safer than my personal favorite drug, but I just don't understand the upside. See things that aren't there and love everybody? Why would you want that?
I live in the super sticks and we have totally seen a switch from meth to heroin. Heroin is everywhere and it's killing lots of people.
Where does East Coast heroin come from? I read that the vast majority of heroin comes from Afghanistan now, and I know Thailand/Laos aren't producing on any kind of scale anymore. I was under the impression that the cartels only had tar. But how do they get heroin from Afghanistan to the East Coast? Through NWFP and Karachi? Tajikistan and Russia?
You can go from the West Coast to the East Coast. I've never done it myself, but I've gone from the middle to both coasts.
The technology is almost here to make it locally, which strikes me as problematic.
Don't you worry about the trade deficit?
Trade deficit is overrated, as problems go. We send them pieces of paper with pictures of old Presidents on them, they send us substances to make our brains feel warm and fuzzy.
Heroin, LSD, monasticism, self-mummification...the quest for ecstatic experience is anti-social and incommunicable because language is social. God knows the poets and mystics and van morrison try.
Not sure there is a social ecstasy, as in Hitler rallies, Mets games, and Wayne Newton concerts. Maybe.
My only regret is not making "The Triumph of the Wayne."
Wait, are 24/25 sarcastic or not? Because I have tried enough things to be pretty confidant in stating that those are two of the best drugs out there.
Have fun with your sense of peace and connectedness, but I just don't get it.
It's a transformative experience. You really can't get it fully without giving it a try.
I wouldn't describe either has having that effect, though, and while I've definitely seen things on LSD that really isn't it's biggest effect. It's just kind of a neat bonus.
36.1: That's also true of castration.
Not if I figure out where you live.
Yes. I guess that Freud guy was on to something.
34: If it didn't do massively fucked-up things to one's neurochemistry, I'd still be doing Ecstasy today. It's amazing. But the turning-one's-brain-to-Swiss-Cheese thing is a turnoff.
Our Republican governor Charlie Baker is really big on treating it as an addiction problem rather than a tough-on-crime thing. Partly, it's because he used to be a heath insurance executive and before that he ran an "HMO"/Integrated risk-bearing healthcare delivery system (Harvard Vanguard - like Kaiser) and saw how much addiction increases total health costs.
But I swear, there must be someone in his family who had a problem with prescription pain meds.
Where does East Coast heroin come from?
Baltimore. Or so we're told.
It's LSD I don't get.
Probably not. I understand most of the stuff that gets sold as acid these days is god knows what.
Heroin is a massively effective painkiller for some people, for some kinds of pain. I guess if you fit the profile it would be easy to get addicted.
It's LSD I don't get.
Have you tried the Deep Web? I hear you can get anything there.
ogged has made known his incomprehension of acid before
There are two kinds of people
1) High-Risk-taking transcendence seekers, who don't necessarily understand others' high-risk-taking means of seeking transcendence. Free Mountain-climbing, whitewater rafting, and BDSM too scarey for me, says the guy with the needle in his arm.
2) Squares.
50: Real transcendence seekers are into BDSM, whitewater rafting, and shooting heroin all at the same time. While on a mountain.
Everyone else is just a poser.
Best thing about combining BDSM and mountain climbing is that you can repurpose the rope skills.
Living life without really living it is the highest risk activity of them all. Every day I'm tempting fate that I'll be hit by a bus without ever having dropped mountaintop acid.
My rural relatives in the midwest, teachers and coaches, have been engaged with meth issues until now. I think of heroin spreading from east to west, and will get to small towns here soon.
I have to go follow Harry Potter around for an hour. Can I have some drugs please.
At least we get to walk by a graveyard.
I hypothesize that heroin's new prominence is among people who have (or had pre-ACA) health insurance and therefore better access to prescription painkillers.
If we see shifts in Arkansas and Kentucky over the next few years, more than in the rest of the South, that might validate.
The ACA is all part of Obama's secret plan to eliminate white people forever!! I knew it!
58--? because those are gateway drugs for heroin?
60: There are stories to that effect, yes. I've learned my lesson from speaking here earlier and I don't want to suggest that the rise in prescription opioid use is generally illegitimate, pain is poorly addressed by the medical system in general, but this does come on the heels of a couple decades of aggressive pharma marketing of such drugs, followed more recently by government crackdowns on overprescription. If someone's grown dependent on a prescription opioid which they then lose access to for whatever reason, heroin can be the next logical step. And I believe there's at least a lot of anecdotal evidence to this effect.
TWYRCL says that sugar is as addictive as cocaine or heroin. I say I'LL TELL YOU WHEN I'VE HAD ENOUGH!
58.2: Which way? Heroin is ubiquitous here, particularly but not exclusively among white people. Most cases I know of are people who started put on prescription opioids, turned to buying pills, eventually couldn't afford the $50/pill and went with $5/bag of heroin. (This isn't universal and I wouldn't expect it to have been Rowan's trajectory, for instance, but it's been common for years.)
To more heroin as more people go down that path.
It's sort of hard to imagine MORE heroin and my sense is that prescription opioids have been hard to get for the last few years for related reasons, but I'm being anecdotal rather than following the stats. Meth and cocaine still have roles to play too.
My suspicion is the same. I'm not saying the process in 58 didn't happen. I just think the ship has sailed.
Heroin's a big problem here too, which I guess has been the case in the Northwest for a long time, and it's increasingly moving out into the rural areas as well.
Has cheap heroin cut down on huffing paint thinner? Because that might be something to put on the plus side of the ledger.
Anyway, I'm assuming that at a low enough price, heroin becomes competitive with cutting off oxygen to your brain.
62 is right. People get hooked on oxy or Vicodin and then have to switch to heroin because it's actually cheaper and easier to get illegally than prescription painkillers. And here in stick central it's been oxy then meth then heroin in terms of drug epidemics. Because of the sudafed crackdown, meth is harder to get then heroin in the past year or so.
The data (huge PDF) does suggest this direction too. Those who used heroin in the past month went from 166,000 in 2002 to 435,000 in 2014, while those who used pain relievers nonmedically started the period at 4.4 million, peaked in 2009 at 5.3m, and are now back down to 4.3m. The rise in heroin comes after that peak.
At the same time the numbers make it clear that heroin is not exactly the huge new thing. Still more use of cocaine, hallucinogens, meth, or even inhalants.
Because of the sudafed crackdown, meth is harder to get then heroin in the past year or so.
You guys are way behind. Local meth labs have been just about non existent here for years. It's all been coming up from Mexico for quite some time.
Seconding Thorn: from what I hear, 58.2 already happened a few years ago.
Speaking of which, in my efforts to try to learn Spanish I've been watching the Spanish remake of Breaking Bad, the main character is Walter Blanco.
It's all been coming up from Mexico for quite some time.
Meanwhile, the stuff they've been pushing on us as a Sudafed replacement doesn't even work.
What's the story with Sudafed, ffs? I can buy it over the counter.
Yeah I don't get the issue. You have to show ID but it's totally available in amounts used by most people. I guess if you use it to treat chronic allergies the legal allocation might not be enough, I don't know the numbers.
Its been moved behind the counter and you have to provide a copy of your drivers license to get some. Which is annoying, but wouldn't be that bad if it didn't also mean that, in an effort to not get stuck behind the counter, medicines that used to include it have now replaced it with that other stuff, which doesn't work.
A few comments:
1) the 44 deaths per day number is just prescription opioids--it does NOT include heroin. There is a correction at the bottom of the NYT article on this point. The death toll including heroin is higher than that.
2) not nearly enough comments have been made on how vile the racial dynamics are. The article does point out the issue a few times (which may be all you can expect from the NYT), but is still way too understated. I mean, just listen to this self-righteous fuck:
"The way I look at addiction now is completely different," Mr. Adams said. "I can't tell you what changed inside of me, but these are people and they have a purpose in life and we can't as law enforcement look at them any other way. They are committing crimes to feed their addiction, plain and simple. They need help."
But they sell both versions, I don't think the stopped producing the stuff that works.
I've seen several places highlight the quote about if only those people knew how to advocate for themselves, like the proper upstanding addicts of today, we could have addressed this properly long ago.
79 is true--you can still get the good stuff in suitable quantities with an ID--but the point is the stuff they now sell in the aisles as "sudafed" is utter garbage. They should have just taken it off the shelves and made it available only behind the counter. But the company was worried about what that would do to their sales numbers, so instead they started seeking snake oil.
Mostly I'm just disillusioned that pharmaceutical companies would act so unethically.
||
Banana, banana
Shipped in from Havana
Long yellow tropical fruit
I seen no reason
Why fruit out of season
Is held in ill-repute
||>
(I realize this is a few days early)
By "shift" in 58.2 I meant further shift, not to say a shift hasn't already happened there to some extent, but given heroin use has risen most acutely in the Northeast and the potential insurance dynamic, there could be more of a shift in the future.
(Not enough data for NSDUH to break out heroin by region, but nonmedical use of pain relievers past month is: Northeast 1.6%; Midwest 1.6%; South 1.5%; West 1.8%.)
"Nonmedical" is a bit broad. That would count me when I use my Percocet door stop.
81.2 is correct for sure. It's hard to believe someone could actually say that without immediately, I don't know, collapsing into a dot after realizing what it was he'd just said.
Urple, consider the possibility that you are the self righteous fuck in this matter. A former narc officer decides they're going about the problem wrong is now working full time doing outreach to OD victims and getting them help. But the important thing here is that you get a moment of outrage on the internet by deciding he's a racist prick based off of a couple sentences in a NYT article.
Yeah urple, I mean, have you even heard of the phrase "total coincidence because racism is absolutely not a thing ever"? Why even implying that the drug war and the people involved in it might be racist as all hell is completely out of bounds in civil discourse. Just because like all the people interviewed and all the different policies they talk about just happened to start showing up when addiction started to look really white to the people responsible for them, and the person you're talking about couldn't figure out why he had possibly changed his mind doesn't mean there's any pattern to be considered there, or at least not in America where racism was fixed back in the sixties.
Knowing how to advocate - knowing who to call, maybe because you know them personally, how to approach them, how to make your case - is a subset of social capital so it's hardly surprising that poor black drug addicts have less of it than middle class white ones.
MHPH is funny when he's in his little yappy dog mode. He never jumps in first in an argument, he kind of hovers around for a bit until it kicks off between the adult dogs and then leaps in and starts running round the edge of the fight nipping at ankles.
The beauty of 96 is that it's doing exactly what it accuses me of doing. But I suppose I can't dispute the claim that I never said anything acknowledging how racist this phenomenon was within like the first five comments or anything prior to this, so I'll have to grant that ajay is being as reasonable as always and give his claim the same respect I give all his other ones.
94: It's Sunday, I doubt any of you are at work so treat yourselves to some googling and see that the guy worked areas like Tilton and now Laconia, NH, which respectively are .4 and .5 percent black. And one of his biggest projects on the state drug task force was the dismantling of a meth lab operation. But maybe you think New Hamphire meth labs are catering to black people. So yeah, I'm skeptical that arresting white people is some new thing for him that spurred a transformation.
now Laconia, NH
That's interesting: I'm somewhat familiar with Laconia. It's in a heavy tourism area in the lakes region in southern NH, next to Lake Winnipesaukee, which itself is home to numerous second homes / vacation homes owned by the better-off. (Mitt Romney's NH home is on the other side of Winnipesaukee.)
As a result, there's a significant divide between year-round residents and second home (summer) residents. The former are generally lower middle class. My guess would be that law enforcement in that area have indeed been used to viewing heroin addiction as a mostly inner city (black) phenomenon. The owners of second/vacation homes in the lakes region on occasion decide to relocate there entirely, year-round, changing the socioeconomic and cultural make-up of the place.
Wolfeboro NH, where Romney's house is, was in the news not long ago for racist remarks from its police commissioner overheard by one of the newcomers to town, let's see, story here. The woman who outed the the police commissioner was a transplant, a liberal! who was shocked to find that the local population was, yes, racist.
I admit that I found something sickening about the tone of the NYT article that I wouldn't presume to pin down to anything objective (i.e. might entirely be in my head): like it was written entirely to play on the presumptively biased sympathies of its readers. I'm less irritated at anyone quoted in the article per se than at the narrative arc of the article itself, although that narrative arc made me unnecessarily unsympathetic to the subjects. Sounds like some people here/elsewhere read it that way and others did not.
100: I suspect it might be that arresting upper middle class white people is the newer wrinkle; not that UMC people haven't done drugs, but their families are often able (as the article mentions in the first case) to keep them out of trouble with the law until they can't.
103: I was gesturing toward something like that in 101. I can't glean from the NYT article whether the newish heroin addicts in NH are entirely upper middle class* - no mention is made of the makeup of the new population. Obviously the guy whose daughter is initially profiled was one such: he used to have an office in NYC!
* I doubt it.
While there's been a lot of well-founded discussion about the shift by users of prescription pain killers to heroin as a cheaper alternative, lower income people may well not have started with the prescription to begin with. That is: lower income people are looking for an escape, period. This is an economic and class issue. It's just turning out now that white people are just as susceptible to it.
My hometown newspaper just reported on how one of Bradford's problems is the "ageing population of heroin and crack addicts."
It's not so much the drugs - it's that they get too creaky to knifecrime properly...