Quoted:
Church, many of you need it.

It's all a big Darwin joke until it's your loved one.  

Addicted people only need to survive long enough to get clean.  It's tragic when they don't.

Quoted:
I've lost a couple friends to OD'ing, and another recently who hung himself because of his shame over his addiction. Took dental records to ID him after hunters discovered him

Recently ran into an old friend who was actually boasting that it took 3 narcans to bring him back.

A few weeks ago a couple county sheriff departments were warning of finding fentynal-laced weed.

This shit is killing our people.

Quoted:
If the country was really serious about the war on drugs, we would start executing drug dealers on a massive scale.

Quoted:
I grew up close to there. The thing I don't understand is how people are fucking dumb enough to stick a needle with a mystery concoction in it in their arm and push down the plunger.

Pills, weed, coke, I can understand the desire. But heroin, WTF???

Quoted:
Church, many of you need it.

It's all a big Darwin joke until it's your loved one.  

Addicted people only need to survive long enough to get clean.  It's tragic when they don't.

Quoted:
But, but, but... My looney libertarian friends claim dope is a victimless crime...

Quoted:
guberment planning at its best.

1. allow big pharma to create pills with huge doses of opoid that is time release but when ground up you get it all at once
2. allow and encourage doctors to prescribe these super-opiod pills
3. get everyone addicted
4. enact laws that makes it very difficult to get your super-opoid precription re-filled
5. addicted folks now look for alternatives and the mexican cartels fill the void (and the open borders help this process)
6. let the chinese clandiestine labs do their part with fentanyl and co-fentanyl (and this is what is killing folks).

when i grew up in the 60s/70s heroin was a bridge too far as sticking a needle in your arm was beyond the pale. i knew folks smoked pot, hallucinogens, amphetamines and so forth that would have never stepped up to heroin. when high dosage super-opiod pills were introduced it got a lot of folks addicted at heroin injection levels and once those were no longer available they turned to heroin. also when i was growing up (and i worked in a drugstore for several years as  a stockboy and pharmacy tech), you did not see anything like oxycontin. if we had a terminal caner patient we worked with a doctor and only ordered strong narcotics in those special instances (usually something injectable like morphine). the strongest pills we had were dilaudid 4mg and even those were rarely prescribed. oxycontin and large does opoids didnt exist.

the government and the war on drugs and the governments odd on-and-off drug overwatch are a central component to today's problem. if there had never been oxycontin and similar legal prescription medications, there would not have been the current heroin epidemic we see today.

Quoted:
If Heroin was legal, and that all that you could get was "lab grade" at a drug store, far less people would die from it...

Quoted:
An addict does nothing but drag their whole family into the hole that they're in. If they're stupid enough to OD and die then they're doing their family and society as a whole a favor. All this mess about addiction is a disease is just a way to make an excuse for that person's weakness. Human beings have something called free will and you are free to make any choice that you want to make. Your choices define your life. If you choose to drink alcohol until you're an alcoholic then it's not a 'disease' but your own personal choices that got you to that point. If you take drugs to get high then realize that you're an addict, you cannot blame it on a 'disease' but it's your own choices that got you to that point. I have a son sitting in prison because he CHOSE to steal to support his addiction. I haven't spoken to him or gone to see him in prison because I don't feel sorry for him. I don't feel pity for him. I'm glad he's there and maybe it's what it takes to make him quit using. He chose his life and now he has to pay for that. If he chooses to stay clean when he gets out and build his life then I will be happy to help out but if he chooses to go back down that hole then he will have to deal with the consequences.

There is no cure for addiction because it's not a disease. Calling it a disease takes away the personal blame for the bad choices that you make. It's no longer your fault but can be blamed on a disease. I had an argument with a liberal drug councilor once who tried to say it''s a disease but it really boils down to the personal choices that you make every day. Addiction is a product of ones own actions. You choose to be an addict or not. If you suddenly realize that you're addicted to something and then not get help in the cessation of that addiction, that is your personal choice and you have to live or die with it. I was a nicotine addict for 27 years until I chose to not smoke anymore. Me, I, chose to not smoke anymore. The key word here is choice.