Harm reduction recommendation.

[TheUltimateFixx]

No idea where to post this so I'm sticking this on here.

As it's overdose awareness day I'd like to recommend an instructional dvd called 'Going over and Naloxone', which is available for £3.30 from a place called Exchange Supplies.
There's also an online 'Certificate in Opioid Overdose Recognition and Naloxone Administration' on their site which gives you all the basics for a first aid situation of that nature.

Another thing not directly related to overdoses but for the promotion of greater safety is 'Keep Walking : A magazine for people who inject in the groin'. You can buy a printed and a dvd version ; the printed magazine is also available to read for free on the site.
Plus they have other harm reduction publications. For frequent injectors the 'What Works' booklet is useful ; it lists all the needle types by gauge and length and advises on what safer, less damaging needle you might alternatively use compared to xyz.

Stay safe everyone!

 

[DesertFox991]

Thanks for this! I'm clean now (knock on wood) but I always preach harm reduction. Needle exchanges saved my life and free naloxone quite literally saved my friend's life!

 

[TheUltimateFixx]

free naloxone quite literally saved my friend's life!

Naloxone saved mine AND my friend's life a fair number of times.

... The thing of course is that it shouldn't even be NEEDED. If we could have access to a pharmaceutical-grade, clean and safe product which you could be certain was free of contaminants , and where the potency was consistent so you could dose yourself with reliable accuracy, there wouldn't be all this constant overdose shit going on.

 

[deficiT]

Naloxone saved mine AND my friend's life a fair number of times.

... The thing of course is that it shouldn't even be NEEDED. If we could have access to a pharmaceutical-grade, clean and safe product which you could be certain was free of contaminants , and where the potency was consistent so you could dose yourself with reliable accuracy, there wouldn't be all this constant overdose shit going on.

Very true. Overdoses have eclipsed all manner of forms of death for young people, we can't keep going on like everything's ok. Things need to change.

But as long as our government is in the hands of advisory agencies and pharmaceutical companies, nothing will.

 

[TheUltimateFixx]

Very true. Overdoses have eclipsed all manner of forms of death for young people, we can't keep going on like everything's ok. Things need to change.

But as long as our government is in the hands of advisory agencies and pharmaceutical companies, nothing will.

I always liken it to the consequences of alcohol prohibition in the US.
It's a pretty good parallel.

Alcohol became illegal so there no longer was a safe legal source from regulated suppliers. Illegal producers sought to up the potency of their product to make it more lucrative by adding industrial alcohol. (Better known as methylated spirits.) This was basically the equivalent of fentanyl in heroin today.

On one infamous occasion over 270 people either died or became permanently paralyzed and / or blinded by unwittingly consuming industrial alcohol in their bootleg rum on one SINGLE day in New York.

More recently, 3 teenagers died in my native country of Germany from consuming bootleg alcohol containing methanol that they had bought on the black market during a school trip.
They just wanted to get drunk. They didn't want to DIE.

The ruthless policy which was publicly defended back then pretty much stated that this was a GOOD thing, because it would teach those sinful drinkers some VIRTUE, and anyone who insisted on continuing to consume alcohol basically deserved all they got, and if they died or were horribly disabled this was in the public interest.
... Still sound unfortunately familiar -?