Dealing with heroin addicts

[El Greco]

I know quite a few heroin addicts as a result of running a pharmacy. I have learned their ways so well that I can now tell them from 50 meters away, from the way they walk and their facial expression; I'm very rarely wrong. I have also talked with many of them. And I used to know a few who are dead today.

It's extremely difficult to deal with them. A heroin addict has only one thing in his mind: to find money to get his dose. When he needs his dose he will say almost anything in order to persuade you that he is clean and that he wants the money for something else. I've known addicts who have played many different roles in order to get money. A usual thing is to stop people or cars in the street and ask for money because they've ran out of gas and they don't carry any money with them. Or something similar, like someone has stolen their wallet and they need money to pay the parking. If you happen to offer them your cellphone to call someone, they will find another excuse: They know nobody who is near. Or their mother is sick and cannot come to bring money. Or anything else. Of course, they resort to such tricks only after they've exhausted all possibilities of getting money from their home (including stealing it).

I have observed that spiffy middle-aged women often give in to their pressures. They simply can't stand a dirty addict skirting them. I've seen such women giving 20 euros to them and actually being proud of it. They're idiots.

I recently met a girl who works as a family councilor for drug addicts and their families. She told me that one of the most important things she teaches families is to never give in to the addict's pressures. The addict may give excellent performances in order to persuade his mother that the money are for a date or something else. He may beg for money with tears in his eyes, but family members should never give in. They shouldn't make it easier for him under any circumstances.

Families are alone in this. Police here is a joke. I've talked with fathers who followed their kids and then the smugglers and got all the way to the dealer's doorstep. They reported everything to the police, addresses, telephones, names. Nothing happened. The police is simply non-existent. Or maybe too small to deal with the problem.

It's so difficult to deal with addicts. You have to assume they lie, because believing them means giving them money. Sometimes you even have to tell them they lie, or they will keep pestering you for money (or pills) for ever. Even then, they will probably tell you that you are an inconsiderate bastard, at which point you have to threaten you'll call the police. Some pharmacy owners who have made the mistake to "help" one or two of them, soon found out that a whole army of addicts were lining up in their pharmacy because they heard the rumour that this pharmacist is "soft". Same with doctors who can prescribe sedatives and similar drugs. Of course, addicts often forge their own prescriptions. You can tell them from a mile away.

What can one do, it's one of those cases that you actually have to be an inconsiderate bastard. Trying to help even one of them would take a tremendous amount of time and energy and I wouldn't do it for a stranger. Sometimes their own families quit too.

What's hopeful is that I've seen a few of them quitting and staying clean. They are a small percentage, but they exist.

 

[Charlie Monoxide]

I kinda like the British model (IIRC) where you become a registered addict and get your dope from the govt. On a newscast a few years back (60 Minutes?) they reported that many addicts lead relatively normal lives, not scamming and being gainfully employed. They also found that after 4 or 5 years on this program many found their way to quitting.

It certainly beats the hell out of being mugged, killed, or having your property stolen to feed a sickness.

Charlie (free dope for addicts) Monoxide

 

[materia3]

You simply can't trust anything an addict says. Period.

I know a mother who gives her addict son money for various stated purposes but she knows he will use it to buy drugs. She told me she gives the money because she is afraid if she didn't he would try and steal it and either be killed or kill someone in the process though its not in his nature to kill, he might to get the drug money. She figures giving the money avoids a greater evil. This is the end result of drug addiction just before death or prison.

The British system does not work. The UK is a major "importer" of illicit afghani heroin so either the addicts don't like what they get from the legal route, want more or don't want to register and line up. In the U.S. we dole out methadone to registered heroin addicts but they supplement with heroin anyway.

On the supply side of the heroin trade, you can now lay the responsbility for the supply directly on the White House's doorstep. Thanks to the U.S.'s policies in Afghanistan, the country went from a minor player to the world's number one supplier of heroin and have not done anything about it. Its strictly hands off the poppies by the military and by the DEA. This was in exchange for the cooperation of the tribal warloads, generically equivalent to drug lords. If Bush hadn't done this he would've been bogged down in Afghanistan just as the soviets were. They will die fighting to protect their beloved poppies.

 

[CBL4]

Heroin is not always as bad as everyone says it is. There are many people who can live productive lives taking heroin everyday.

In 1992 The New York Times carried a front-page story about a successful businessman who happened to be a regular heroin user. It began: "He is an executive in a company in New York, lives in a condo on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, drives an expensive car, plays tennis in the Hamptons and vacations with his wife in Europe and the Caribbean. But unknown to office colleagues, friends, and most of his family, the man is also a longtime heroin user. He says he finds heroin relaxing and pleasurable and has seen no reason to stop using it until the woman he recently married insisted that he do so. ‘The drug is an enhancement of my life,’ he said. ‘I see it as similar to a guy coming home and having a drink of alcohol. Only alcohol has never done it for me.’"

The Times noted that "nearly everything about the 44-year-old executive...seems to fly in the face of widely held perceptions about heroin users." The reporter who wrote the story and his editors seemed uncomfortable with contradicting official anti-drug propaganda, which depicts heroin use as incompatible with a satisfying, productive life. The headline read, "Executive’s Secret Struggle With Heroin’s Powerful Grip," which sounds more like a cautionary tale than a success story. And the Times hastened to add that heroin users "are flirting with disaster." It

conceded that "heroin does not damage the organs as, for instance, heavy alcohol use does." But it cited the risk of arrest, overdose, AIDS, and hepatitis -- without noting that all of these risks are created or exacerbated by prohibition.

http://www.reason.com/0306/fe.js.h.shtml

CBL

 

[a_unique_person]

You simply can't trust anything an addict says. Period.

I know a mother who gives her addict son money for various stated purposes but she knows he will use it to buy drugs. She told me she gives the money because she is afraid if she didn't he would try and steal it and either be killed or kill someone in the process though its not in his nature to kill, he might to get the drug money. She figures giving the money avoids a greater evil. This is the end result of drug addiction just before death or prison.

The British system does not work. The UK is a major "importer" of illicit afghani heroin so either the addicts don't like what they get from the legal route, want more or don't want to register and line up. In the U.S. we dole out methadone to registered heroin addicts but they supplement with heroin anyway.

Tasmania has quite a large number of legal poppy fields, protected only by a rusty wire fence and a 'keep off' sign. The problem is the US doesn't want anyone growing it, because of it's war on drugs, so it is hard to get a license to grow the stuff.

Many addicts do live a normal life, if they can afford it, and hold down a job. Many of the people who become addicts have other, serious mental or other health problems. For them, heroin is just self medication for not knowing how to live in the modern world.

I have met a few addicts in my time. A lot of them are just spoilt brats whose parents didn't know how to say 'no' to their demands. They only live to gain pleasure.

Making heroin illegal doesn't address the former problem, or the latter. Most people will just choose to not take it.

 

[RussDill]

Many addicts do live a normal life, if they can afford it, and hold down a job. Many of the people who become addicts have other, serious mental or other health problems. For them, heroin is just self medication for not knowing how to live in the modern world.

In the US, methadone is usually used to try to slowly bring people out of addiction. It doesn't have the same side effects of herion on the body and mind, but satisfies the cravings. I'm not sure about this normal life stuff with heroin because you need to take it every few hours, and it clouds your mental abilities, so you shouldn't, for instance, drive a car.

 

[CapelDodger]

Never trust a junkie. You can't trust a wino either, but junkies are worse - and higher maintenance. No conscience at all when they're jonesing. Crack's the same from what I've heard. I have seen the pernicious effects and all I can advise is : say your piece, then cut them off.

 

[Luke T.]

My brother was an addict. Heroin, IV cocaine, pills. If it got you high, he was hooked on it. His arms were purplish-black from his wrists to his biceps from needles. He was actually proud of that.

My brother and his best friend committed countless home burglaries in our hometown. They also committed a number of armed robberies with rifles at local 24-hour convenience stores. As far as I know, they were never caught. All I know is that my brother never served any time for these crimes. I learned all this after the fact.

My brother never held an above-board job after being kicked out of the Navy after being busted five times for drug abuse. He went into the construction industry, which is where a lot of addicts go to work. Chances are that at least one stoned out zombie was involved in the building of your current residence.

My brother was paid under the table, and was actually a very good carpenter. I once watched him shoot his entire week's paycheck into his arm in the course of a few hours. The next morning, he was crawling around on the carpet in front of me, looking for any particles he may have dropped the night before. I watched as he crushed an aspirin and snorted it. I watched as he picked up a white carpet fiber, and his addled mind mistaking it for a drug remnant, snort it up his nose before I could stop him.

My brother's best friend eventually committed suicide after several attempts and hospitalizations. For his final attempt, he shaved the power cord from one of his mother's lamps, drank it down with a glass of water, and plugged it in. His mother found him.

My brother gave up IV drugs shortly after that. He switched to drinking a case of beer a day. Oddly enough, the beer caused him to come to the attention of the police more than the drugs had. My brother was a mean drunk.

I was home on a short leave from the Navy when my brother needed a ride to a free clinic for a follow-up doctor's appointment. So I was with him when he received the news he had full-blown AIDS and that was why he had those spots inside his throat. My brother was married with a baby. He had had another baby by another woman. By some miracle, no woman or child related to my brother in any way tested positive. It was the only good news for the next three years as we watched my brother suffer from just about every disease a man can suffer from.

The average person has a T-cell count of about 1000. When my brother was informed he had AIDS for the first time, his T-cell count was 35. He lived for three more years on sheer willpower. He died 12 years and six days ago.

 

[materia3]

Tasmania has quite a large number of legal poppy fields, protected only by a rusty wire fence and a 'keep off' sign. The problem is the US doesn't want anyone growing it, because of it's war on drugs, so it is hard to get a license to grow the stuff.

Many addicts do live a normal life, if they can afford it, and hold down a job. Many of the people who become addicts have other, serious mental or other health problems. For them, heroin is just self medication for not knowing how to live in the modern world.

I have met a few addicts in my time. A lot of them are just spoilt brats whose parents didn't know how to say 'no' to their demands. They only live to gain pleasure.

Making heroin illegal doesn't address the former problem, or the latter. Most people will just choose to not take it.

I fear the U.S. is against Tasmanian heroin because it competes with Afghani heroin.

America's "war on drugs" excludes Afghan heroin. It is a protected crop in Afghanistan, almost the country's sole source of foreign exchange other than the money the US pumps into its non-economy. If you visit the website of the DEA you will see nothing about Afghanistan and everything about other narco-states. It's absolutely hands off. Bush's policy of protecting Afghan heroin production has embarassed Tony Blair and made this country into a symbol for hypocrisy as if its other
actions haven't already done that. Bush has silenced Blair on the subject and he has even silenced his own DEA and its former
Director who has now been kicked over to Homeland Security
and given the job of guarding borders. This man was outspoken on Afghan heroin. He was replaced by a more compliant puppet.

People may choose to take it or not but making it cheaply available as the U.S. has done with the Afghan heroin doesn't help.The cheaper and more widey available something like this, the more recruits it will have. This is just common sense.

The heroin addicts who live normal lives are a myth. Mainlining heroin addicts share needles, contracting AIDS or Hep-B and spend what little waking hours they have finding or yes earning money and scoring. The rest of the time they are nodding off. I see these people every day.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

People may choose to take it or not but making it cheaply available as the U.S. has done with the Afghan heroin doesn't help.The cheaper and more widey available something like this, the more recruits it will have. This is just common sense.

This is absolutely true, but it's equally common sense that the cheaper and more widely available a drug is the less chance there is that you will have to turn to crime to support your habit.

If heroin was legal, you could support yourself and a habit with a part-time job.

The heroin addicts who live normal lives are a myth. Mainlining heroin addicts share needles, contracting AIDS or Hep-B and spend what little waking hours they have finding or yes earning money and scoring. The rest of the time they are nodding off. I see these people every day.

The people you are seeing are a subset of heroin addicts. (Typically they actually use a lot of other drugs as well as heroin, to be picky). Some of them are just idiots as far as anyone can tell, but as AUP said a lot of them are people who are self-medicating in a highly self-destructive way for serious and genuine problems.

Being a self-destuctive idiot, however, is not a side-effect of heroin use. It's more that heroin use has a deadly appeal to self-destructive idiots. The majority of heroin users are occasional recreational users - it takes a year or so of steady use to develop a physiological dependency, although that's not a fact that's widely advertised.

 

[Camillus]

The British system does not work. The UK is a major "importer" of illicit afghani heroin so either the addicts don't like what they get from the legal route, want more or don't want to register and line up. In the U.S. we dole out methadone to registered heroin addicts but they supplement with heroin anyway.

The British have an ambivalent approach to the treatment of heroin addiction. For many years addicts were provided with pure drug that allowed them to control the symptoms of their addiction without the need for them to buy supplies from the street. However, under pressure from certain powerful allies, this rather benevolent approach was dropped in favour of treating addicts as criminals rather than as people with an illness and the US approach of weaning off on methadone was adopted, with the same success that is seen in the States.

There have been attempts to return to the 'old ways'. There was an experiment in Liverpool about five years ago (IIRC) where heroin addicts were provided with a cigarette laced with heroin when they visited a clinic. They smoked the cigarette in the clinic and then left, returning later for another. Gradually the amount of heroin in the cigarettes was reduced and the time between smokes lengthened unti lthe user was effectively weaned off. By all accounts this was a much more successful approach than traditional methadone weaning programmes. Unfortunately the programme was stopped when its funding came up for review - apparently its success was irrelevant; what mattered was that it sent the wrong message. Drug addiction, most of our politicians and press would have us believe, is a crime not an illness and we can't be seen to reward criminals by giving them what they want.

I meet a lot of drug addicts in my job; I've pulled living ones and dead ones out of many a toilet stall and I've treated more than a few for the consequences of their addiction. All I can say is that all the badness I've seen have been a consequence of the of the drug coming from street suppliers. Make of that what you will.

 

[Bruce]

You bet. Female heros can be a very hard thing to overcome. I remember when I used to watch Wonder Woman and.....oh.... heroin addicts. Bye.

 

[jay gw]

Police here is a joke.

Sorry to be rude, but so is Greek medicine. Do you have socialized medicine?

 

[El Greco]

Sorry to be rude, but so is Greek medicine. Do you have socialized medicine?

Yes we do.

You can always count on jay gw to say something completely nonsensical midway down the thread.

 

[Unalienable]

I kicked the habit, the hardest damn thing I've ever done.

Let me tell you, I've met a quite a few junkies, and anybody who says "Never trust a junky" is absolutely right.

A good litmus test of a person's personal character is whether junk makes them steal. Some junkies turn into scam artists, thieves, hustlers, and worse. They don't think twice about ripping somebody off to supply their fix.

But not all junkies are thieves. Some will not stoop to that level--they'll go through the hell of withdrawal before they do some fool thing like trying to rob a liquor store.

And yet I've never met a junky who wasn't a liar. The very best junky will lie through their teeth all day long if it means they can get a fix. Hell yes I was a liar. They all are liars. In a nutshell, you can never trust a junky.

 

[Gurdur]

Heroin is not always as bad as everyone says it is. There are many people who can live productive lives taking heroin everyday.

But funnily enough there are many people who don't. And that is the problem.

In the US, methadone is usually used to try to slowly bring people out of addiction.

Methadone is a very useful therapy. However, giving it out needs to be extremely closely monitored. Druggies will quite often take the methadone and sell it if they can, and use the money to get the hard stuff. Odd but true.

Never trust a junkie. You can't trust a wino either, but junkies are worse ....

Very true often. Druggies are often extremely snobbish in regards to alkies, let alone to the rest of the world. That adds to the rest of the problems.

I kicked the habit, the hardest damn thing I've ever done. Let me tell you, I've met a quite a few junkies, and anybody who says "Never trust a junky" is absolutely right.

This is absolutey true. But to add to that, I personally know or have known several recovered alkies and druggies, and I have a huge respect for those people. They have taken themselves and remade themselves, against all the odds; their life stories of recovery can be very inspiring for simple courage etc.