It Was Just Pot, They Said

[JohnnyDrama]

I was thinking about this thread yesterday as I walked the dog. There are two houses in the neighborhood where I used to live who's previous occupants did a lot of drugs, sold them, and possibly manufactured them. Heard gunshots one day... The occupant/owner of one house had his mother intervene. She sent him off to rehab and sold his house to pay for it. The place is now owned by an older couple who have really fixed the place up. The other was a rental. We used to refer to it as "Angry House". There was frequently a lot of yelling heard from there. It is now and has been boarded up for the last five-six years since the occupants were evicted. The owner says the place is a total loss.


I don't see how de-felonizing drug possession will fix anything. I'm pretty sure the good representative from Denver who proposed that as a solution has not seen what drug use does to people and communities.

[vossman]

I'd say there isn't much deterrence now. If you're a youth, you don't really have anything to think about losing, like OxArt was saying earlier in the thread.

If you're at a party or something, you're thinking you'll just get high and continue to chill. People who consider the worry possible outcome aren't going to try in the first place. The sizeable population of hard drug users we have today and become so under the threat of the law already.

I can see your point. I always knew I had something to lose though, I think most of us on the board are the same. Why are we different?

[Irving]

I think that you thought you had something to lose because you had parents, teachers, law enforcement, tv commercials, etc telling you that drugs were bad and you believed them. Social influence and pressure is often more significant than statutes. If you grow up in a bad situation and can't really imagine your life being worse, then doing drugs probably doesn't sound so scary.

On the flip side, seeing people use drugs like coke or pot and not have their life fall apart can reduce your fear as well. I think it's important that parents do a good job teaching kids about drugs and that they aren't for them.

I'm a bit unique in that I never had alcohol until I was about 19 years old. My dad would always make a big deal about it (almost to the point that I wanted to drink to spite him) and I paid attention. I don't really regret not having a story about the time I got drunk at 14 or something either. I guess I'm saying that as drug laws loosen, as they are tending to do at this time, it's doubly important to raise kids that it's still not for them. Basically treating it like alcohol.

[vossman]

You’re correct Irving, I had those things. I remember having a plan for the future too. Maybe that was a part of it. Maybe I got lucky.
Looking back I just never really wanted to drink, smoke or do drugs. I went to parties and had friends that did it but I just didn’t. I did try the mint tobacco for a bit but stopped, that was in HS. That was as close as I got to smoking.

I know you’re all thinking “This guys a complete square.”

[FoxtArt]

You?re correct Irving, I had those things. I remember having a plan for the future too. Maybe that was a part of it. Maybe I got lucky.
Looking back I just never really wanted to drink, smoke or do drugs. I went to parties and had friends that did it but I just didn?t. I did try the mint tobacco for a bit but stopped, that was in HS. That was as close as I got to smoking.

I know you?re all thinking ?This guys a complete square.?

*folds arms* I snorted a line from a pixie stick once. It burned like hell....

Definitely three factors come into play strongly, and the failure of any of the three can cause a drug addict.
1) Genetics and personality; 80% of personality has been proven to be genetic, if you end up with a child with a need for constant stimulation, you're chances are not good. This one is mostly luck.
2) Parental upbringing. If a kid doesn't have the right kind of positive influence, their chances are not good. This is the most controllable.
3) Not being closely associated with very bad friends. This one is mostly luck as well, with some aspects of it that are controllable if you develop awareness (and have some balls as a parent, early on).

You've all seen kids with great parents that did their best, and they still wound up on meth or otherwise became a lowlife. I really tend to think it's this simple in 99% of cases... is just a failure of one of these three things, and bewm, probably going to try that shit. On the other hand, succeed with all three, and you're guaranteed they won't.

[Irving]

*folds arms* I snorted a line from a pixie stick once. It burned like hell....

Definitely three factors come into play strongly, and the failure of any of the three can cause a drug addict.
1) Genetics and personality; 80% of personality has been proven to be genetic, if you end up with a child with a need for constant stimulation, you're chances are not good. This one is mostly luck.
2) Parental upbringing. If a kid doesn't have the right kind of positive influence, their chances are not good. This is the most controllable.
3) Not being closely associated with very bad friends. This one is mostly luck as well, with some aspects of it that are controllable if you develop awareness (and have some balls as a parent, early on).

You've all seen kids with great parents that did their best, and they still wound up on meth or otherwise became a lowlife. I really tend to think it's this simple in 99% of cases... is just a failure of one of these three things, and bewm, probably going to try that shit. On the other hand, succeed with all three, and you're guaranteed they won't.

Pretty sure life is a little more nuanced than that. Not terrible advice overall though.

[Gman]

Saw this article this morning...

Pharma CEO: 'This opioid crisis has become a fentanyl crisis'

The opioid crisis has become increasingly worse over the last decade and is estimated to cost the U.S. government nearly $38 billion in lost tax revenue due to employment loss.

Opiant Pharmaceuticals (OPNT), the company behind the overdose reversal drug Narcan, is in the process of developing nasal nalmefene, a drug aimed at treating opioid overdose — particularly synthetic opioids like fentanyl — in a more effective way.

“It really reflects the fact that this opioid crisis has become a fentanyl crisis,” Opiant Pharma CEO Roger Crystal told Yahoo Finance’s First Trade. “The majority of opioid overdose deaths in 2017 contained fentanyl. And fentanyl, while still an opioid, is a different beast.”

There were 70,237 drug overdose deaths in the U.S. in 2017. During that time, nearly 30,000 deaths were attributed to synthetic opioids — including fentanyl — which is an increase of more than 9,000 over the prior year, according to CDC data.

If Opiant Pharma is successful with nasal nalmefene, it could drastically decrease the number of overdose deaths from fentanyl. Crystal described nalmefene as “a similar type of molecule to Naloxone,” the drug that makes up Narcan. However, he pointed out, “it’s more potent, so it binds tighter, and it also lasts longer.”

Fentanyl has the ability to stop a user from breathing in less than a minute. CDC statistician Merianne Rose Spencer told NPR that since 2013, “fatal overdoses involving fentanyl doubled, ‘rising at an exponential rate.’”

Although Crystal believes that Narcan is effective, “what we are learning is that more and more naloxone is required to initially revive someone for an opioid overdose, and naloxone only lasts an hour to two in terms of its half-life.”

He added: “[Fentanyl] is 50 times stronger than heroin. It lasts longer than heroin. And, in fact, you need to intervene even quicker than you would with a heroin overdose.”

This is because “fentanyl is more likely to cause an overdose than heroin because it’s so potent and because the high fades more quickly than with heroin,” NPR reported. And often, fentanyl is mixed into heroin without the drug user even being aware.

“The concern is: Can someone, even if they’re initially revived, potentially fall back into an opioid overdose state?” Crystal said. “We think [nasal nalmefene] could be quite promising to address that.”

It's nice that the government wants to do something about this because they're losing tax revenue.