
60 journalists all spend one week covering Cincinnati's battle with heroin - carlmungz
http://www.cincinnati.com/pages/interactives/seven-days-of-heroin-epidemic-cincinnati/
======
baldfat
Let's not forget who to blame for this. Pharmaceutical companies and Doctors.

West Virgina is the most effected - [http://www.pulitzer.org/winners/eric-
eyre](http://www.pulitzer.org/winners/eric-eyre)

These articles shouldn't make you sad but MAD.

"In six years, drug wholesalers showered the state with 780 million
hydrocodone and oxycodone pills, while 1,728 West Virginians fatally overdosed
on those two painkillers" That's 433 pills for every man, woman and child in
the state.

~~~
blfr
_Let 's not forget who to blame for this. Pharmaceutical companies and
Doctors._

It's almost certainly not true. This massive susceptibility to addiction is a
larger social problem of alienation, lack of community and purpose, not
getting a couple of pills from your doctor.

Prohibition worked to some extent and would work tried again but it does not
address the root problem.

~~~
nxsynonym
>>not getting a couple of pills from your doctor.

You're gonna have to back that claim up. All the evidence points to the claim
that over-prescribing is a real epidemic.

You're not wrong that there are larger social problems, but your argument
essential boils down to "drugs addicts are drug addicts". The root problem is
not being born a heroin addict, or not having a purpose in life, or not having
a strong community. It's over prescribed pain medication pushed onto people
for profits sake.

"Sales of prescription opioids in the U.S. nearly quadrupled from 1999 to
2014,1 but there has not been an overall change in the amount of pain
Americans report.2,3 During this time period, prescription opioid overdose
deaths increased similarly."
[https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/data/prescribing.html](https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/data/prescribing.html)

~~~
blfr
It's a famous story/finding. Vietnam soldiers who were actively addicted to
heroin and came back to the States simply stopped.

[http://jamesclear.com/heroin-habits](http://jamesclear.com/heroin-habits)

Obviously you can only become addicted to what is available and opiates are
being made available through prescription. But the fact that so many people
are susceptible to addiction is a completely different problem.

The huge social changes of 19th century led to the same problem with alcohol.
And well meaning activists did try to solve it by banning alcohol. Prohibition
did work to some extent. But what really made a difference was an improvement
in people's lives, a change in the environment for the better: more rooted,
connected communities, less financial stress, migrant work, etc.

Drug addicts are addicts because of their environment first and drugs second.
(Some genetic disposition exists as well, of course.)

------
CaliforniaKarl
I was born in Cincinnati, and lived there for 18 years until going to Ohio
State. Today I live on the peninsula.

I'm here in Cincinnati now, for family stuff. And I'm concerned. Cincinnati
still has a large industrial component (P&G has their HQ here), but many
factories are gone. A lot of the east side of the city has been converted into
microbreweries, homes, and shopping. My Mom works at a biomedical company
that's growing. Gigabit FTTH for residences is available.

I'm still concerned. Property taxes have grown beyond reasonable limits. There
are so many areas that are not benefiting from the improvements being made.
There is culture being destroyed by rising rents and gentrification. And the
pain killer/opioid epidemic gives a perfect path to "release".

Case in point: Today I met some relatives at a brewery for lunch. But my Aunt
had a problem ordering: They send a text message when your order is ready to
pick up, and she doesn't have a mobile phone. The place was all stools and
tables; if we had invited my grandfather, he wouldn't have had a place to sit.

There are good places and people though. I'm here to attend my grandmothers
funeral. In addition to my boss, two of my relatives also had flowers sent by
their place of work. On the day we were doing planning, my uncle suddenly
shows up: My uncle builds furniture; he was sent by his place of work to pick
up some big sandwich & pasta platters, and drop it off to my grandfather. All
paid for.

I'm rambling. The point is: There is so much good here, and it is so at risk.
And sometimes I think that if I moved back here (either working remotely, or
finding a similar job locally), that I would just exacerbate the problem.

~~~
MarkPNeyer
I Also grew up in cincinnati. You've probably seen signs with my last name
(Neyer) on them, as my family has been there a while. Also live in the bay
area now. Cincinnati really was like a small town; people did seem to look
after each other.

I think if people like us moved back there to work for other tech companies,
we'd exacerbate the problem.

If we moved back and started companies that employed low skilled labor, we'd
make things better. If we could end the pointless war on drugs, and spend that
same money repairing infrastructure, we'd be way better off.

Our old system is breaking down. Unfortunately i think it'll have to get worse
before it gets better.

------
rhcom2
> They’ve tried spraying naloxone into his nostrils, but it’s had no effect.
> He’s not breathing. They’re running out of time.

> One of the medics takes a drill out of his bag and turns it on. It whirs
> like a dental drill as he pushes it into the man’s shin bone, trying to
> create a more direct path for the naloxone to enter the bloodstream.

Wow. Just wow.

edit: more info, I'd never heard of it:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intraosseous_infusion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intraosseous_infusion)

~~~
Balgair
Pretty cool huh?! They used to have to auger the bit right into the bone by
hand. As you can imagine, trying to twist them into the bone while the patient
is alive is not easy. Also, once you punched through, there was usually enough
momentum and force by the MD's hand, that they would then punch on through the
other side of the bone and then right into their other hand that was
stabilizing the procedure. Now you had two patients instead of one. Many MDs
would really hesitate in doing it, as expected. These little sterile and
disposable drill have saved a lot of lives. These are a 'poster boy' of modern
bioengineering in general.

------
leggomylibro
>Heroin is big business, but not for the Mexican immigrant Reagan is tailing
today. He’s just a suspected courier who might make $500 or so. The real money
flows to the gangs that control distribution, and to the drug cartels back in
Mexico.

>When they finally pull him over, police rip up the floor boards and dig
through the driver’s back pack. They check the bumpers and the trunk and look
for secret compartments in the doors.

>Nothing.

>Reagan is frustrated. There have to be drugs in that car, he thinks.

Wait, they pulled someone over and destroyed their car over nothing? I hope
they had some really solid evidence, but the article didn't say.

>The agents don’t have time to dwell on what went wrong. About 7,000 kilograms
of heroin are seized in the United States every year, three times as much as a
decade ago. They will be hunting someone new tomorrow.

Oh, okay then. They don't have time to dwell on what went wrong.

~~~
BoiledCabbage
> They don't have time to dwell on what went wrong.

But damnmit the bigger issue and what I'm really mad at is people protesting
Police abuse! /s

It's absurd how skewed this country has become in the "Police can do no wrong"
mentality.

When spoken in the abstract people are quick to say of course there is
corruption and things can be improved in policing. But when it comes to
specifics or even specific instances popular opinion and the justice system
never fails to side with the police.

And no, it's not just the conflict of interest for prosecutors that's at
issue. We have a serious issue with the role of Police as public servants in
this country.

The (deliberate) pendulum swing to overly idolizing soldiers post-Vietnam, the
declaration that police were now in a war against an inanimate object (drugs)
including equipment and tactics, and the "otherization" / racial aspect have
really made a perfect storm that is has now begun to spread out to society at
large.

~~~
codyb
Hmm, I do agree with you but when I read that I read that as literally meaning
"these police officers have no time to dwell on whats wrong".

With that many deaths and overdoses in just one week a lot of these
departments are pretty taxed. A lot of these guys are doing the best they can
with what little time they have and showing compassion where they can.

Fortunately for those battling these addictions I suspect, this epidemic is
touching people the police know and care about. When it's not quite literally
a black and white issue (or latino and white), and when the victims look like
the officers or their friends or family, I think you see a bit more
compassion.

But boy are a lot of these places just plain overrun with calls these days.

Hopefully one day we'll see more compassion for every citizen and I'm hopeful
we're slowly but surely moving in that direction. I dunno what it is I just
have a decent amount of faith in America's ability to generally move forward
over time.

Man, some of those stories were really heartwrenching.

~~~
BoiledCabbage
> I dunno what it is I just have a decent amount of faith in America's ability
> to generally move forward over time.

So with this, you just happened to touch upon an only tangentially related
strongly held opinion of mine. So I'll rant for a sec: It is my strongly held
belief that society and life does _not_ just get better over time. All of the
improvements we've seen in society have been from people fighting incredibly
hard against entrenched systems in order to improve live for future people.
Rights to vote for women and minorities, child labor laws, ending slavery,
workplace improvements, anit-discrimination laws. Absolutely none of those
improved "with time". All of them involved difficult, confrontational and
frankly uncomfortable fights to improve society for everyone.

I think your view (and i'm not selecting you) is endemic in a lot of people in
this country (particularly younger generations) that think life will improve
if we just sit back and do nothing and give it time. This has never been the
case in American society. People have been pushing hard to improve society and
I really feel like a lot of people now have a view of "just wait and it will
just happen". I personally believe this is an extremely misguided and
hazardous view.

I'm definitely not looking to start an argument about it, but I do ask people
to think of any major social improvements of the last century+ that didn't
involve a large associated active social fight for it. Without people pushing
us forward systems and societies calcify and then begin to rot.

\---

On the topic at hand I absolutely think the majority of police mean well and
are trying to help. However I do think as an broad generalization - as an
organization police departments (and their unions) don't take feedback well,
often work to defend/justify their actions rather than find ways to improve,
and have a view of being above the law or that they should be granted
exceptions because of their circumstances. This makes it difficult to root out
those offices who condone and commit bad behaviors.

There is a reason why teachers choose goodie-two-shoes types to be hall-
monitors. When given power over others, people need to be held to an even
higher standard of behavior, vs be granted exemptions from
rules/laws/accountability because of their job. Everyone should feel 100% at
ease and trusting of their encounters with police. For whatever reason in
today's society a lot of people justifiably don't feel that way. And we as
Americans should make it a priority to fix that. Police and society should be
on the same side - both against criminals.

~~~
codyb
Oh yea. I absolutely agree with you. My faith is in the American people to
continue fighting.

------
mschuster91
Shocking to read. But what really shocks me is the amount of arrests mentioned
for possession of heroin or syringes.

When will the US (and the rest of the world) finally learn that locking users
up just perpetuates the problem - you won't get a job with a criminal record,
same for housing. All this arresting does is fill the coffers of (private)
jails and creates needless suffering.

Also, why do people keep calling the _cops_ on relatives and friends who OD?
That just makes the problem worse. In fact, it should be made _illegal_ to
arrest anyone when emergency services are called to an OD, and this must be
publically announced. People rather let other people die than save their lives
because they're afraid of jail.

> She’s part of a protest against Butler County Sheriff Rick Jones, who won’t
> let his deputies carry Narcan. He's the only sheriff in southwest Ohio whose
> department doesn't use it. Two doses of Narcan cost about $75.

And, what kind of person is this moron? He should be in jail for willfully
preventing deaths!

> “Either she got a new dealer, or her dealer hosed her,” a paramedic says.

Yet another case for why it 'd be really necessary that the _state_ provides
drugs like heroin, with proper quality control. So many deaths and near-deaths
that could be avoided.

~~~
indemnity
I’m surprised that drug use is normalised to the extent that you can say with
a straight face that the state should provide heroin.

I’m not in favour of punitive measures, but the state providing it? Really?
I’d also like to see data on providing a milder form of an opiate working
better to wean people off a dependency.

So far, all I’ve seen is the dependency switching to the replacement.

~~~
mschuster91
> I’m surprised that drug use is normalised to the extent that you can say
> with a straight face that the state should provide heroin.

People won't stop doing drugs, so it is more than justified to try to reduce
the harm done by having people rely on street dealers:

\- wildly fluctuating dosages, leading to ODs

\- "stretching" agents, from harmless herbs in weed over rat dung to fentanyl
in heroin (which doesn't mix evenly so you end up, from the same supply, with
one dose having vastly more of the stuff than the other) and their associated
side effects

\- massive amounts of cash (2010: 109 billion dollars per
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-03-10/more-
pot-...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-03-10/more-pot-less-
cocaine-sizing-up-america-s-illicit-drug-market)) funneled to the black
market. This "competition for cash" creates violence by itself (e.g. gang turf
wars), creates massive incentives for bribery (if I were a customs agent, I
don't know if I'd say no to a million dollars for letting the occasional
shipment through), directly funds wars and destabilizes countries (e.g.
Afghanistan, Mexico) and also increases the amount of crimes the users do in
order to afford a dose (e.g. if a user needs, for the same amount of heroin,
to rack up 10$ vs 1000$, then the amount of crime he has to do in order to get
said money is reduced massively)

> So far, all I’ve seen is the dependency switching to the replacement.

Better have the money flow to the state in form of taxes and (in a fully
state-provided drug regime) revenues, than in the coffers of hardcore
criminals.

------
seldin87
ibogaine. saved my life. it's sad more people don't know about this miracle.
even sadder that government has chosen to outlaw the best available treatment
for addiction that exists.

please, if you or someone in your family suffers from drug addiction,
especially heroin, please investigate ibogaine. seriously, just google it.

~~~
free_everybody
The fact that ibogaine, a drug with little if any neurotoxicity, is a Schedule
1 drug in the U.S. while millions of opioid pills get handed out every year to
hopelessly addicted poor people makes me very, VERY upset. Does your
government care if you live or die?

~~~
vermontdevil
Only if you are an embryo.

~~~
mynameishere
What country are you in? In most Western countries, embryos are pretty much
fair game.

~~~
burntrelish1273
I think it's a dig at the US Republican Christian Right, whom are "Pro-life"
but anti-"taking care of that, or the mother's, life." Considering Republicans
control the majority of all three branches of government, they have an
opportunity to ram through their unpopular ideological agenda.

Disclaimer: Neither party is currently relevant to the average US citizen.
People ought to seek post-partisanship and post-identity to side-step divide-
and-conquer polarization and unify to attack the corruption.

~~~
bsder
> Disclaimer: Neither party is currently relevant to the average US citizen.
> People ought to seek post-partisanship and post-identity to side-step
> divide-and-conquer polarization and unify to attack the corruption.

Horseshit. Both parties are _NOT_ the same and one is quite relevant to the
common citizen.

For example: One party has been attempting to fix healthcare; one party is
attempting to dismantle it.

That's _REALLY FUCKING RELEVANT_ to the average citizen--especially in red
states--especially in states with an opiate epidemic.

One party is attempting to legalize some drugs; the other continues to want to
throw everybody in jail. I can go on.

There is no such thing as "post-partisanship" until the Republican party
starts operating on truth and fact, again.

Could the Democrats be a lot better? Sure. However, I don't see Democrats
assaulting people and still hanging onto their office. Weiner and Spitzer got
chucked out of office for far less.

Come talk to me about "post-partisanship" when Gianforte isn't in office
anymore. Until then, I am quite free to assume that Republicans actually
_SUPPORT_ the current level of corruption.

------
new_hackers
Wow, just wow. As someone not affected by the heroin epidemic, this was very
hard to read. I was almost brought to tears at how many stories involved
children of heroin users and how their lives are affected.

~~~
prawn
The children celebrating a birthday in a time-limited jail room got me.
They're a similar age to my own children. It's probably far better than a
lifetime of health issues, but it seriously saddened me that those children
didn't get to do that at their pace, in their family home, without third-party
supervision, with friends, etc. Their "normal" gets entirely defined by
mistakes of their parents compounded by their parents' inability to control
that mistake.

------
nnfy
For anyone who may be struggling with chronic pain and/or opioid addiction, I
implore you to research kratom. As far as anyone can tell, it is safe,
minimally addictive, and in my experience it is good for head pain, stomach
pain, anxiety, minor depression, not to mention potentiation of all kinds of
other drugs.

Of course, use at your own risk. It may interact dangerously with many
compounds, because it inhibits the cytochrome p450 enzyme. That said, after a
six month up to three times a day habit, I've quit cold turkey twice without
too much trouble.

I recommend I highly if you're out of other options.

One last warning, do not buy in person, you will be ripped off. You can get
250g for less than $30 online, and a dose for pain is 1-2 grams. Higher doses
are mildly psychoactive, but OD is anecdotally impossible because you quickly
become nauseaus and throw the powder up if you take in excess of 8-10+grams.

~~~
xrd
I'm seeing lots of addicts wandering about Portland, OR. I read your comment
with interest. I wonder if someone distributed this to addicts on the street
if it would make a difference. I feel very helpless in reclaiming our city
from an addiction crisis.

~~~
nnfy
There are numerous anecdotal reports online of heroin users using kratom to
kick the habit. At the very least, one can be functional on kratom, contribute
to society, and withdrawal shouldn't be terrible enough to motivate violent
crime.

------
TaylorGood
Read all the timestamps this morning. It's a sobering view on something we are
already aware of. Not sure how this issue rids itself. Circling back on my
gratitude to be healthy.

------
exikyut
Wonder if anyone will see this, but I have a general question I might as well
ask here.

What if, you put an addicted person in a padded cell, and supply progressively
decreasing doses of the drug(s) the person is addicted to?

The dosage gradient could be mathematically computed to find the lowest
possible harmful withdrawal effects.

The person would stay in the cell environment until completely past the
hardest phases of withdrawal (however long this takes, whether days, weeks,
months(?)), but they would be free to move around (within the secure complex)
as they please, and have limited access to technology (anything enabling
communication would be heavily vetoed, but eg unlimited access to a video
library could work well).

It seems that the current models in use depend entirely on the will of a
person who is heavily compromised. I honestly have to say, that seems
fundamentally and ridiculously broken, and yeah, even suspiciously so: _it 's
so obvious that this approach is not going to work for most, so why does every
"treatment center" continue down this path?_

The only caveat I can think of with the suggestion above is about the violent
phase of withdrawals, and sedating a person enough when in that phase so they
can eat/drink/etc. (I'm not sure how long it is - I vaguely recall it's just a
couple of days right?)

Also, about the padded room - I'm not talking "psychotically mad-proof"
padding, but just enough for this context. Obviously that's going to change
per drug and person, and maybe thick padding _is_ what would be required.

I'm just thinking about cost here (cost of sedation and padding), because I
know that a) everything health-related in the US seems to attract the most
markup and overhead in any field in the world, and b) because (as per my
notation that the current model is _suspiciously_ broken) I wouldn't be
surprised if anyone who tried this would find it mysteriously hard to get
funding.

On the other hand, I must admit that I've never really tried to find out if
this idea has been attempted or not. Would/does it not work?

~~~
girvo
I am doing a version of this myself (minus the padded room), using
buprenorphine under the supervision of an excellent case worker and doctor.
It's taken 5 years, but I'm down to 1.6mg from 32mg at the start, and 24 works
in the future I'll be off it entirely (and taking a month off to go down to my
family's holiday home on the beach here in Australia, for the final withdrawal
symptoms).

One weird thing: even with my much lower dose, the acute withdrawals every
morning are mostly the same. A little less bad, sure, but still rather
terrible. I just put up with it, because it's better to be productive and able
to move forward with my life after 6 years of heroin addiction than go back to
where I was.

Interestingly, opiate replacement therapy done with heroin itself has had
quite good results. The downsides to buprenorphine and methadone is that the
withdrawals are rather "drawn out" compared to heroin and morphine. The upside
is that the fact they last so long in terms of binding is what makes them
excellent at stopping a user from bouncing back and forward between the two
(in theory anyway; a given users metabolism means this isn't always true. I
could've easily used heroin any time during my treatment as I metabolise bupe
and methadone extremely rapidly -- I just chose not to. It wasn't worth it.)

~~~
exikyut
> _I am doing a version of this myself (minus the padded room), using
> buprenorphine under the supervision of an excellent case worker and doctor._

Wow, that's absolutely awesome.

> _It 's taken 5 years, but I'm down to 1.6mg from 32mg at the start, and 24
> works in the future I'll be off it entirely (and taking a month off to go
> down to my family's holiday home on the beach here in Australia, for the
> final withdrawal symptoms)._

 _Niiice_. (I'm actually in .au too (Sydney area), I agree that some of the
beach environments are really nice. Cool.)

> _One weird thing: even with my much lower dose, the acute withdrawals every
> morning are mostly the same._

Hah. I figured it might be like that! (Unfortunately!)

> _A little less bad, sure, but still rather terrible._

Mmm.

> _I just put up with it, because it 's better to be productive and able to
> move forward with my life after 6 years of heroin addiction than go back to
> where I was._

Indeed. And kudos for having the strength - as I said in my previous comment,
not everyone has the willpower to strong-arm a rewired reward center into
doing things _completely differently_.

Survival of the fittest :D

> _Interestingly, opiate replacement therapy done with heroin itself has had
> quite good results. The downsides to buprenorphine and methadone is that the
> withdrawals are rather "drawn out" compared to heroin and morphine. The
> upside is that the fact they last so long in terms of binding is what makes
> them excellent at stopping a user from bouncing back and forward between the
> two (in theory anyway; a given users metabolism means this isn't always
> true. I could've easily used heroin any time during my treatment as I
> metabolise bupe and methadone extremely rapidly -- I just chose not to. It
> wasn't worth it.)_

I see. Yeah, buprenorphine _isn 't heroin_. It's very good to distance
oneself.

So... when you say buprenorphine works great in terms of binding, I get the
impression that you mean that the effect lasts longer, and that it is needed
less frequently? That would have helpful practical ramifications, yeah.

~~~
girvo
> So... when you say buprenorphine works great in terms of binding, I get the
> impression that you mean that the effect lasts longer, and that it is needed
> less frequently? That would have helpful practical ramifications, yeah.

Exactly, yeah. For most people it will "hold" them for 24-48 hours.
Unfortunately for me, it only holds me for about 12, but that should hopefully
mean that my final withdrawal symptoms are more acute and less drawn out.

I'd rather a week or two of agony than months of less-intense but still
terrible shit!

------
mbgaxyz
Moderators:

This is a duplicate of an earlier post:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15224794](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15224794)

Which has the exact same URL:

[http://www.cincinnati.com/pages/interactives/seven-days-
of-h...](http://www.cincinnati.com/pages/interactives/seven-days-of-heroin-
epidemic-cincinnati/)

Is there a bug in the submission system?

~~~
chipperyman573
If a page was recently submitted and didn't get many comments people can
repost it.

------
rocketperson7
as a Lyft driver in Cincinnati, this is really making me rethink my main
source of income

most of my passengers during the day are lower income, and while I personally
haven't had any major issues there are definitely times when I'm glad certain
passengers are out of my car. I feel like if the drug problem is really this
bad, it's only a matter of time until one of these stories is in the back of
my car

------
xrd
Does anyone know of anyone using the drugs listed here (ibogaine was one) to
help addicts? Because of the FDA, is this something illegal? It would be
fascinating if cryptocurrencies permitted a black market for drug trade that
allowed concerned citizens to buy these drugs and distribute them to addicts
without fear of interference by the federal government. A silk road that we
could all stand behind.

~~~
girvo
Anecdotally, the three people I know/knew who used ibogaine to get "clean"
failed to various degrees. It truly seemed to help each of them to begin with,
but after about 6 months each one of them relapsed -- probably due to the lack
of counselling and dealing with the original reasons they started using to
begin with, I'd wager. Two of them are dead from overdoses, the other I'm
unsure, I haven't seen or heard from him in years now.

------
spraak
I always wonder what would happen if caffeine/caffeine containing products
(coffee, tea etc.) were illegal. Would people go to the same extremes for a
caffeine fix?

~~~
spraak
I'm curious why this would be down voted.

~~~
SyneRyder
I gave you an upvote, as the question seems fair. But if you're a
coffee/caffeine drinker, you can answer this for yourself by going without
coffee for a couple of weeks. You'll miss it for a few days, but it's
ultimately not something worth going to jail or having a hole drilled into
your leg for.

------
eighthnate
Is this journalism or just a publicity stunt for journalists? And why is
everything a "battle", "war", etc. War against drugs. War against terror.
Battle against heroin.

And must everything be a "crisis". Maybe just knowing how the news industry
works has me a bit cynical.

Anyways there is always a "crisis". A few years ago, there was the meth
crisis. A few years before that, the ecstasy crisis. Before that there was the
crack crisis. Before that the marijuana crisis. All the way to opium.

I guess as more things change, the more they stay the same.

------
MaysonL
And not one mention of doctors over-prescribing opioids!

------
julianz
One thing not mentioned in the article is the size of the area and the
population. I have no idea how big Cincinatti is or how many people live in
those counties. So I don't know if those are big numbers or not.

~~~
prawn
It's probably an oversight given they're writing first for a local audience?

------
csense
When I went to school they made sure that Drugs Are Bad, Just Say No was a
message that was hammered into every single child. Think about how our culture
views drug addicts -- if you hear an acquaintance or a friend of a friend is
doing drugs, especially heroin, do you think "Man, that person's got it
together! I really want to be like them!" No, you think about how they're a
shitty person living a shitty life and you want to stay far, far away from
them, because you know they'll lie and steal from you to get their fix.

So I don't really have sympathy for addicts. It's not like drug addiction is a
thing that happens to you, unlike losing your home to a hurricane, or getting
cancer. If you choose to shove a needle of heroin in your arm of your own free
will, that's a choice you've made -- and the consequences of that choice are
also things that you've chosen for yourself.

It's not like that people don't know that drugs ruin lives. It's not like it's
a _secret_ that drugs are illegal and you'll get sent to jail.

The area I grew up in is a Rust Belt town in similar circumstances -- maybe
with even more drugs and less hope than Cincinnati. So I share my
understanding and dismay of the economic situation that community's in. But
drugs aren't the answer, and anyone who turns to them is clearly lacking in
moral character and common sense.

~~~
ZenoArrow
> "It's not like drug addiction is a thing that happens to you"

A common route that leads people to taking heroin is...

1\. Go to the doctor, get prescribed pain medication.

2\. Become addicted to pain medication during treatment.

3\. After supply of pain medication dries up, turn to illegal alternatives
(which includes heroin).

So it really could happen to anyone, as it's possible to become an addict
without any prior intention to take illegal substances.

