I had a friend die this year from heroin (probably from fentanyl, but his family doesn't talk about what happened, so hard to know for sure).
His friend group were always pill poppers, and a number of them started popping oxy. In two years, three of them have died. They all moved from oxy to heroin. All of them were snorting it, rather than shooting up. My friend told me they got heroin with fentanyl without knowing. He told me this when he came to visit from my old hometown, while he proceeded to crush up and snort an oxy in front of me. He told me he'd been buying heroin recently as well.
I knew at that moment he'd be dead soon too, so when his family gave the news, it didn't come as a shock.
The Sacklers are pure evil. Heroin is a serious problem, but there's a major hurdle that it faces: people know that heroin destroys your life. People trust their doctors, and they don't associate oxy with heroin, but it's a life destroyer just as much as heroin.
Most of the discussion here seems to be about hardcore addicts, and the issues that come from them, but they're just the face of the problem.
> My friend told me they got heroin with fentanyl without knowing.
This is an all too common trend. Most people aren't dying from an accidental overdose, they are being poisoned with fentanyl.
You get addicted to pain killers. Then go to heroin because it's cheaper and more effective. Then you get it laced with fentanyl because dealers are cutting it. Then you die.
To slow it you have to pressure China to stop the labs and you have to crack down on border smugglers, neither will happen anytime soon.
> Most people aren't dying from an accidental overdose
Yes they are. Before fentanyl contaminated heroin came around most heroin overdoses were because of massive differences in product purity. You know the dosage for your usual 10-20% heroin and when you get a batch of 60%+ you are doing over 3 times your usual dose without having a clue and because heroin has a low delta of LD50 to active dose, your usual dose is now letal.
If medical grade heroin was available, with known purity and no contaminants, heroin deaths would drop to almost 0. The drug itself isn't even that distructive in normal dosage, apart from the crippling withdrawl that btw is not letal and dosen't even require hospitalization, unlike benzodiazepine and alcohol withdrawals which can be fatal.
His friend group were always pill poppers, and a number of them started popping oxy. In two years, three of them have died. They all moved from oxy to heroin. All of them were snorting it, rather than shooting up. My friend told me they got heroin with fentanyl without knowing. He told me this when he came to visit from my old hometown, while he proceeded to crush up and snort an oxy in front of me. He told me he'd been buying heroin recently as well.
I knew at that moment he'd be dead soon too, so when his family gave the news, it didn't come as a shock.
The Sacklers are pure evil. Heroin is a serious problem, but there's a major hurdle that it faces: people know that heroin destroys your life. People trust their doctors, and they don't associate oxy with heroin, but it's a life destroyer just as much as heroin.
Most of the discussion here seems to be about hardcore addicts, and the issues that come from them, but they're just the face of the problem.