Good Lord, it would appear I started an international incident.
My Fellow American's, fellow seppos- it would that our brothers and sisters in the UK and The Republic speak the truth. Either that or they are agents of the British Propaganda Ministry trying (colaborating with their counterparts in the Republic of Ireland), to disuade transatlantic drug tourism.8) No this drought is quite real.
Annywhere you go in this country there is a different scene for stuff. Correct me if I'm worng in general east of the Mississippi is #4 colombian, west of the Mississippi is Tar country (the exception being Ohio that gets fire Tar). The SE, Floridia, ect... is lacking quality (Davis K correct me if I'm wrong) but that is partly explained by the pain clinics that advertise in local papers with the liberal Rx policies Florida is known for, analogous to our Canabis Dispensaries that advertise in free papers here in California. So you can already see that their are diffrerent scenes in different regions, but regional generalities do exist. Now this is discounting Canada which has a whole different scene. When you cross the border and go from Seattle to Vancouver, BC you go from Tar country to #4 SE Asian and I believe #3 SW Asian to a lesser extent- the whole eastside scene. The USA is a market with a population of roughly 350,000, I believe. Compared to Europe our demand is less (even though it has exploded). In econ, for an inelastic good price= supply/demand. The demand is the same or maybe increasing as they lower methadone doses and deprive people of opioid replacement scripts. Its easier to get docs here to write for dilaudid, opana, oxy, thanks to our privatized medical system. The blessings of free market capatalism which means illict suppliers have to turn out a cheaper, more potent product to stay competative. Thats why you have the Chi town pass outs and Ohio quality control supervisors among certain sets giving you free bags if the runner is late (or wherever they started doing this- i forget).
In the same way like Brimz or CC pointed out, the British Isles are a regional section of the EU. The EU has, I think, 400,000 million people, and that doesn't count the markets of Switzerland, Norway, the non EU Baltic countreies (serbia, serbia, ect..), and Russia and its former Republics- the latter which has become major consumers of Afghan Dope. To the extent that the Ruskies have posted Elite Border Guards on the Tajick border with Afganistan. This would be analogous to us posting posting US Border Patrol on the Panama/Colombia border to impede a major transhipment point for Colombian #4 (just using this as a hypothetical example.) Incidentally according to Nat Geo, they pay these crack Russian border troops a UNODCP subsidized wage of 10 times the average Russian border guard to dissuade corruption. There is a list of reason gone into by some earlier on this thread and way more in debt on the European thread. If you read the link i posted, originally by Pink Papaver, I think- they go into factors in detail. Interestingly, they don't seem complete sure what caused this draught and they site "user forums" as intelligence- so careful were being watched.
But Chalie Clean makes a good point. I tried Heroin in 90' first and got my first habit in San Diego in 93'. Back then the scene was mostly tweak (methamphetamine) and the tar sucked, was like hard rock candy and had this taste that made you nauseated- had to slam it it tasted so bad and sucked so bad. There was alot of variability and the scene was strictly inner city- eastside (city height, Logan, and SE SD, with a few dope houses dowtown that mostly sold crack. Interesting there was a small La Jolla (a Beverlly Hills by the Beach affluent part of town) that had a small dope scene. When he mentions NYC in the Rockefeler years- actually the scene from the 50s- 90s or so when high quality Colombian started taking over and Baltimore, newark, and other cities superseded Manahattan as the Heroin Capital of the US. Actually AtltkNJ knows alot about that because he's from there and intimately knows the scene. In the 50s heroin was 3-10%, a purity that lasted for decades. In fact people were ODing in the 70s, but it was concluded that based on the symptoms (frothing at the mouth instead of apnea), it was as a result of the cut that was causing all these ODs. American dopefiends had it shitty for decades. Thanks to Purdue Pharmaceuticals, the Demise of the PRI in mexico and Calderones selective war on drugs (which seems to favor the Sinaloa Cartel and a few others), Bushes taking down of the Arellano-Felix Cartel which allowed others to fill the vacuum (and they didn't have A-F to feed the feds small fish), Colombians getting into the H business, dopefiends never had it better here. If you want info on the heroin scene and how shitty it had become after the Italians took over, post Harrison Narcotics Act, ect...I suggest reading
addicts who survived.
As for Europe, they were getting most of their dope from one source country. Dope is like petroleum, anybody old enough to remember the Gas Crisis of the late 70s when you had to wait in Gas lines because of OPEC manipulation of the market and strong dependence on OPEC member states can make the intellectual jump of what happens when you rely on one major country or region wholy or mostly for supply. Enterprising individuals found new supplies for petroleum, but it took years to establish new supply lines.
Chinky, the heroin Renaissance in Chi-town is a relatively new thing. It seems to have emerged as a market for all the 4 major types of heroin- again Chinky you would be the expert there.
In the 90s, outside of NYC, which had 1/2 the nations heroin addicts and an open scene in Alphabet City in the East Village, dope fiends in the big cities tended to be a small tight knit group. Harm reduction has inproved in the last decade with the intro of sub and lower threshold MMT, plus eliminating or raising the cielings in some states (In CA there are people on 250-300 mg). My peak was 135 mg. Some clinics offer waffers or other formulations. When I first got strung out to qualify for MMT you had to have 2 years of documented use, 2 failed 21 day detox attempts and the dose ceiling was 80 mg unless you were on Dilantin.
So anyway, I have met are some of the coolest and most ritcheous that I've met on Bluelight and deserve much respect including CC, Brimz, Pink, Louie, and a shitload of other people in that community that have been helping themselves through this crisis- for some reason their government has made it a priority to disrupt heroin supplies and take the draconian, absinence only appraoch that we were known for.
The average poster on the EADD heroin threads has been in the scene a while, so its not a question of them lacking game or being squares, chippers, or whatever the prefered terminology wherever your from is for novice users, these are veterans that have been around a while.
I'd like to think were all on the same team- supporting harm reduction and ending the sensless world-wide War on Drugs. To do this we need to present a United Front, internationally, not have our efforts derailed by petty squables. So I urge us all to show some solidarity and mass respect for our comrades across the pond.
ps on the topic of Ulster, I Pm'd a BLer from Belfast. According to him he said that protestants and catholics were partying together among his friends, a hopeful sign. He couldn't tell me how the drought effected N. Ireland b/c he wasn't into that scene. Did say some of his friends were into OCs.
