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Child Item

Dying from a drug overdose

DEFTLEFTHAND

I was reading an interview with Rain Phoenix recently. She has a new album out the moment featuring Michael Stipe .

She was there along with her brother Joaquin on the night her brother River died outside the Viper Rooms niteclub in LA on Halloween 93.

They knew he was high before they arrived at the club, River was supposed to play guitar up on a stage in a jamming session.

At 1am he bought what he thought was cocaine from a dealer in the jacks, it was in fact a speedball .

Moments after taking he became almost sober like and fearful, shouting 'too much , too much'. She put him sitting back at their booth and he guzzled 3 glasses of water. They then decided to take him outside and he collasped as soon as he hit the air. She said she could see the abject look of fear in his eyes, the drugs were atacking his heart. He began convulsing and turned a deep dark tan colour.

It's just sounds like the most death horrific ever, I thought ODs were peaceful affairs for the victim. She tells the story to kids in High Schools as part of drug awareness campaigns.

River's autopsy foung multiple drugs in his system. Enough to kill a man 3 times over.

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[Deleted User]

Potential-Monke wrote: »

I completely agree.

And I completely agree with your post, especially regarding those who will make absolutely zero effort to improve or help themselves.

dr.fuzzenstein

Ted Johnson wrote: »

You are making scum rich with your addiction though.

On the addiction side. I stopped smoking canabis. One day to the next. No problem, because it's not an addiction.
Quitting smoking was a bit more difficult. I did relapse briefly, but am now smoke free for good.
And regarde s'il vous plait:

Succubus_ wrote: »

Then it should be legalised.

Boom! He sank your battleship. /argument as far as I'm concerned.
Also, as a side note, I had a hippy neighbour who planted that stuff and would generously share for favours and helping himn out.
So there! :P

chicorytip

Tangatagamadda Chaddabinga Bonga Bungo wrote:

The first part of your post is no good though. Cannabis has never caused a drug overdose in someone ever. Hard drugs like heroin and meth are the ones that cause overdoses, that ruin lives, families and drive up criminality.

Cannabis is a so called "gateway" drug. Most Heroin addicts would have been pot smokers before progressing onto harder drugs. Prolonged Cannabis use has been proven to be a contributory factor in the development of serious physical and mental illnesses such as lung and oesaphagal cancer and psychosis.

[Deleted User]

[Deleted User] wrote: »

And I completely agree with your post, especially regarding those who will make absolutely zero effort to improve or help themselves.

No child says they want to become an addict. Nobody wants to end up on the street begging for loose change.

We badly need to stop dehumanising such people as 'junkies', or any other inhuman nouns we can think of.

They're just regular people, with the same human weaknesses as we all have, except they had the misfortune to be born into the wrong circumstances. Anyone who thinks they'd be a better person in the same situation is usually deluding themselves.

speckled_park

Flea from the rchp was playing on stage tht night when river overdosed and ran off stage mid set when he heard the news to find him dead on the street.

dartboardio

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

No child says they want to become an addict. Nobody wants to end up on the street begging for loose change.

We badly need to stop dehumanising such people as 'junkies', or any other inhuman nouns we can think of.

They're just regular people, with the same human weaknesses as we all have, except they had the misfortune to be born into the wrong circumstances. Anyone who thinks they'd be a better person in the same situation is usually deluding themselves.

I doubt you'd be saying that if they turned around and robbed you in the morning.

Anyway i do wonder what makes a young person turn to heroin. Like a poster said above you could be very much involved in the 'drug scene' yet never come across or even see heroin.

A girl i know (an acquaintance /casual friend) would've gone out just as much as we did.. Taken es or coke or whatever on nights out just like we did, but Ive recently heard from her mother that she's injecting and smoking heroin. (all within a 6 month timeframe) normal young beautiful girl from a respected family out on the weekends in the nightclub now injecting heroin and begging on the street

How does someone make that decision or change so fast

Ted Johnson

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

On the addiction side. I stopped smoking canabis. One day to the next. No problem, because it's not an addiction.
Quitting smoking was a bit more difficult. I did relapse briefly, but am now smoke free for good.
And regarde s'il vous plait:

Boom! He sank your battleship. /argument as far as I'm concerned.
Also, as a side note, I had a hippy neighbour who planted that stuff and would generously share for favours and helping himn out.
So there! :P

I'm glad you quit but I know plenty of idiots who are addicted. It's not a harmless drug.

tabby aspreme

From talking to a few drug councillors I know, a lot of people start taking heroin to come down from use of cocaine, and then become addicted to it very quickly

MyStubbleItches

Foweva Awone wrote: »

Two of my friends almost died from heroin overdoses last year.

One of them, his brain was deprived of oxygen for far too long and he wasn't expected to make it, he survived with serious brain damage and is still in hospital. He's making some sort of a recovery but he's absolutely not the same person, too

His girlfriend OD'd a couple of weeks later and did serious damage to her internal organs, was on dialysis for a long time.

It's not a nice way to die but it's not a pleasant thing to survive either.

Fùcking brilliant. So it’s not just travellers we have to support, it’s this crap as well.

gctest50

MyStubbleItches wrote: »

Fùcking brilliant. So it’s not just travellers we have to support, it’s this crap as well.

You must have absolutely loved this post then :

Potential-Monke wrote: »

In my time as a Garda, I got to witness 2 people being brought back from heroin overdoses. .....................................................

I believe it costs about €1000 to bring someone back from an OD, including the cost of the drug and the ambulance crews time. Crazy thing is, one of the 2 that OD'd done it again the following day and didn't make it that time.

Potential-Monke wrote: »

But at what point do we say 'enough is enough' when you could be spending that €1k on the same junkie every week? That same junkie who has no intentions of changing, even though all the help is out there?

As for the drug, it's called Naloxone and it has only gone up in price. From this article in America in December 2016 (where it's inevitably cheaper than here):

'Naloxone is most commonly administered by injection or spray. Kaléo, a Virginia company, has increased the price of its naloxone auto-injectors, sold as Evzio, from $690 for a kit of two to $4,500 in less than two years. Amphastar of California nearly tripled the price of syringes pre-filled with naloxone.'

Ted Johnson

dartboardio wrote: »

I doubt you'd be saying that if they turned around and robbed you in the morning.

Anyway i do wonder what makes a young person turn to heroin. Like a poster said above you could be very much involved in the 'drug scene' yet never come across or even see heroin.

A girl i know (an acquaintance /casual friend) would've gone out just as much as we did.. Taken es or coke or whatever on nights out just like we did, but Ive recently heard from her mother that she's injecting and smoking heroin. (all within a 6 month timeframe) normal young beautiful girl from a respected family out on the weekends in the nightclub now injecting heroin and begging on the street

How does someone make that decision or change so fast

Your friend is a ****ing idiot. She's going to end up sucking dick to pay for her habit.

MyStubbleItches

gctest50 wrote: »

You must have absolutely loved this post then :

No, that’s acceptable. I loved that that posters friend is still in hospital following their overdose.

Stacksofwacks

I had a bad experience with coke one time, was scary, could feel my heart beating out of my chest and was getting panic attacks, luckily I had a guy nearby to talk me through it, I actually blacked out at one stage. Wouldnt put anything up my nose or into my body like that again

Hoboo

chicorytip wrote: »

Cannabis is a so called "gateway" drug. Most Heroin addicts would have been pot smokers before progressing onto harder drugs. Prolonged Cannabis use has been proven to be a contributory factor in the development of serious physical and mental illnesses such as lung and oesaphagal cancer and psychosis.

Now that's psychotic. Where in the hell did you pull that nonsense from, it's like a US war on drugs pamphlet from the 80's.

Stovepipe

Potential-Monke wrote: »

In my time as a Garda, I got to witness 2 people being brought back from heroin overdoses. Scary time. Ambulance crew come in all calm, knowing exactly what to do and what happens. The person is basically dead on the ground, everyone is cleared back from them and 1 paramedic injects the magic juice into them. They wake up like Chev Chelios in Crank after getting a dose of adrenaline. They don't know where they are or what's going on, and usually become quite violent for about 10 minutes. It's surreal to see someone basically dead wake up with vigour in their eyes.

I believe it costs about €1000 to bring someone back from an OD, including the cost of the drug and the ambulance crews time. Crazy thing is, one of the 2 that OD'd done it again the following day and didn't make it that time.

A good friend is a fireman/paramedic and has administered the Narkan and had junkies sit back up from the blue lips stage. In both cases, they went straight back on the gear and were dead within two weeks.

McCrack

Stovepipe wrote: »

A good friend is a fireman/paramedic and has administered the Narkan and had junkies sit back up from the blue lips stage. In both cases, they went straight back on the gear and were dead within two weeks.

Not surprising

[Deleted User]

dartboardio wrote: »

I doubt you'd be saying that if they turned around and robbed you in the morning.

do you think I live in some kind of bubble? Of course I've had things stolen from me, I've even been (randomly) punched by a seemingly-homeless person who was off their head on something (probably not heroin, mind you).

It doesn't change my opinion of the situation. Addiction seems to be a mixture of a genetic lottery and/or circumstances of childhood.

That's why it really riles me when people act as though we're all upstanding members of the community by dint of pure choice and hard work. No, we won the birth lottery. We should be grateful for our situations, and not using that to belittle and duhamnise others who were less fortunate.

dartboardio

Ted Johnson wrote: »

Your friend is a ****ing idiot. She's going to end up sucking dick to pay for her habit.

Probably!

topper75

Giveaway wrote: »

Bodycount in 10s of thousands in the Phillippinnes amd guess what, its still a hole

Zombie dealers?

corner of hells

Stovepipe wrote: »

A good friend is a fireman/paramedic and has administered the Narkan and had junkies sit back up from the blue lips stage. In both cases, they went straight back on the gear and were dead within two weeks.

It's naloxone in Ireland , the bluish tinge is cyanosis.
Your friend is right , they go from respiratory overdose , extremities blue etc right back to being responsive in minutes.

Amirani

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

A "junkie" aka a human being.

At what point after some middle-class alcoholic presents at ED with seizures, or acute liver failure, should doctors just say 'Nah, leave him be Rashid, let him die in the carpark'?

It's not often that paramedics and medics get to save a person's life so dramatically... Despite the inevitable aggro they get, I'm sure they'd rather do that, than drive à corpse to the morgue on their watch. They're professional people and I doubt any of them would countenance letting an addicted person die on the side of the road. Most people are decent, like that.

Agreed. I'm quite close to a number of medical professionals, and all of them would think the same way as you. They'd not countenance not providing treatment to people who need it, regardless of their backstory; it's sort of just how they're wired.

That said, they have expressed their frustration to me many times at the impact of drug and alcohol misuse on our health service. It frustrates them how needing to prioritise ODs and similar for the same recurring patients demonstrably has a negative affect on other patients that need treatment. Unfortunate people are having their health outcomes worsened because of the strain that alcohol and drugs put on A&E. It's a tragedy.

ohnonotgmail

corner of hells wrote: »

It's naloxone in Ireland , the bluish tinge is cyanosis.
Your friend is right , they go from respiratory overdose , extremities blue etc right back to being responsive in minutes.

naxolone and narcan are the same thing. Narcan is a brand name for naxolone.

Pauliedragon

chicorytip wrote: »

Cannabis is a so called "gateway" drug. Most Heroin addicts would have been pot smokers before progressing onto harder drugs. Prolonged Cannabis use has been proven to be a contributory factor in the development of serious physical and mental illnesses such as lung and oesaphagal cancer and psychosis.

That logic is flawed. Most herion addicts ate apples as a child so people who eat apples are on the way to being junkies are they? I smoked weed, took pills and coke in my 20s and I'm alive and functioning normally. As pointed out before countries that legalised it actually saw a reduction in use. As someone who spent a large chunk of my life working in pubs booze is far worse in terms of behaviour compared to most drugs. Legalise it tax it and half the criminal gangs would be out out of business overnight which would free up the cops who are apparently so underresourced they can't control the drunk teenagers in my town breaking windows, fighting each other and being a general nuisance at 3 or 4 in the morning.

seamus

Pauliedragon wrote: »

That logic is flawed.

It's been well trodden as correlation rather than causation anyway.

It turns out that some people are just more likely to take intoxicants than others.

The gateway drug myth came about from the false idea that drug users were always chasing a "bigger" high, were always searching for the pinnacle of fncked up. Thus it sounded logical that someone who started on "small" highs like alcohol and cannabis was likely to seek out bigger highs in coke and heroin.

Not only was the gateway theory statistically debunked, but so too the "bigger high" idea. When I get drunk this weekend, I don't go out next weekend looking to get even drunker.

sbsquarepants

chicorytip wrote: »

Cannabis is a so called "gateway" drug. Most Heroin addicts would have been pot smokers before progressing onto harder drugs. Prolonged Cannabis use has been proven to be a contributory factor in the development of serious physical and mental illnesses such as lung and oesaphagal cancer and psychosis.

There's no such thing as a gateway drug FFS!

It's a safe bet that 99.99999% of peoples first recreational drug to try is caffeine. If there is a gateway, there it is!

Some people are just more experimental than others - I was always one of them. I've taken practically everything, (oddly enough cannabis never appealed to me, I tried it a few times just for shíts and giggles, but I wouldn't be tempted to spend money on it - and it was far from the first one I tried too)

Now I'm in my 40's - I'm perfectly healthy, I never OD'd, never went to jail, lost a job, or sold my ass for the next hit, none of that hysterical shíte you read!

I partied away my youth and had an absolute blast in doing so, then I got a mortgage, kids all that carry on and now the only lasting effect of my drug fuelled years is a load of whacky stories to tell!

Just like most people who use alcohol recreationally don't die of cirrhosis penniless in the gutter, most people who use recreational drugs just have a laugh then get on with their damn lives.

These days the only drugs I touch are the occasional pint, and the daily grind that is my caffeine addiction! (I'm not really addicted to that either - I just like the taste!)

[Deleted User]

chicorytip wrote: »

Cannabis is a so called "gateway" drug. Most Heroin addicts would have been pot smokers before progressing onto harder drugs.

Not really. That tends to be an arbitrary line people draw in the sand. They could easily have replaced alcohol in the same sentence for example. Most Heroin addicts would have been alcohol drinkers before progressing too.

It is a correlation-causation error and a backwards way of looking at statistics. If someone is going to take drugs like Heroin they are likely to have a history with other drugs. Rather than saying "Most users of X have a history of using Y" the more honest way of evaluating the statistics is to ask "How many people using Y actually progress to X?".

chicorytip wrote: »

Prolonged Cannabis use has been proven to be a contributory factor in the development of serious physical and mental illnesses such as lung and oesaphagal cancer and psychosis.

Well I will not speak too much to cancer because one of the primary ways of engaging with drugs like this is to mix it into cigarette products. So any statistics on cancers using the drug in that way are going to have the statistics on normal Cigarette use coming along for the ride too. There are many products of this kind and many ways to smoke it or use it however. You can eat it. You can smoke it in other ways. There are even some types - one of which I was told a band from Galway named themselves after - where you burn it in the middle of the room in a kinda of "lamp" and sit around it. Many of those ways have no cancer statistics at all. So unless you can separate out the tobacco statistics - discussion of cancer here is clouded. So to speak.

As for the other illnesses you list - I am not sure the link is as strong as you and Peter Hitchens like to pretend. Rather the citations he uses - which I refer to only because you cited none at all - are to specifically "skunk" products which are far from pure. Certainly one of the primary arguments for legalization is to remove such products and have an industry standard and regulated product that is not cut with profitable crap that harms the user! So when you talk of people developing mental illness you should be sure what drug - and how - they were actually taking!

There is also a correlation-causation risk with these illnesses too however. Quite simply people with already existing mental illnesses may be prone to seeking out such drugs. So which statistics are you using? Are they statistics or studies that merely show the correlation between the two? Or have you any studies that show that the drug _actually caused_ them? Somehow I doubt you have the latter. Mainly because I have looked for such studies extensively myself and have not found them.

Amirani

sbsquarepants wrote: »

There's no such thing as a gateway drug FFS!

It's a safe bet that 99.99999% of peoples first recreational drug to try is caffeine. If there is a gateway, there it is!

This is it. There's a flawed logic whereby people will look at Heroin users, see that they used cannabis when younger, and try to put 2 and 2 together. They won't then extend that logic and realise that same heroin user also used alcohol when younger, and caffeine too. If they took this extra step, they'd (hopefully!) realise the ridiculousness of their "gateway" logic.

jopax

I have a question if anyone can answer. I have watched a lot on the heroin epidemic in the States.

All of the stories seem to stem from the use of pain killer opiates which the doctors prescribed.
When the doctors stopped prescribing the people were basically addicts at that stage so they turned to heroin as it was a similar feeling.

We've never had that issue with opiates from doctors so how do people go to picking up a heroin habit.
I know people use other drugs first but does the idea of using heroin not scare the crap out of them.

sbsquarepants

Amirani wrote: »

This is it. There's a flawed logic whereby people will look at Heroin users, see that they used cannabis when younger, and try to put 2 and 2 together. They won't then extend that logic and realise that same heroin user also used alcohol when younger, and caffeine too. If they took this extra step, they'd (hopefully!) realise the ridiculousness of their "gateway" logic.

Most people just won't allow themselves to see their own hypocrisy - how many countless tables full of old lads sat around swamping pints and smoking their brains out (back in the days they were let!) and bemoaning the fact that "de aul drugs have de country ruined":D

sbsquarepants

jopax wrote: »

We've never had that issue with opiates from doctors so how do people go to picking up a heroin habit..

Stating the obvious - but they most likely picked it up from using heroin.

jopax wrote: »

I know people use other drugs first but does the idea of using heroin not scare the crap out of them.

Apparently not.

Different things appeal to different people, heroin never appealed to me, but other "scary" drugs did.

Just like some people like spicy food and others stick to coddle and bacon and cabbage. Just horses for courses!

I think in large part, the big bad "drug pusher" is a mythical beast. Any drugs I ever used, I went looking for, maybe after trying them first at a party or something like that. I don't think a stranger ever asked me would I like to buy drugs in Ireland, in fact I don't even remember anyone ever telling me it had happened to them.