@FunctionalJnkieGrl how are you doing? I don't want to get in your business, though I would love to hear. Your experience could be important to someone else! We'll help you out regardless of what you're doing. Don't feel bad coming through with the truth. We're all friends here. I like to believe we're family. That's just me
We don't have the Fentanyl pills up here. I've heard of them and know people who have seen/used them. They are not common though. The market is dominated by stamp bags, "tickets" in colloquial speech. I'm in Burlington, VT currently. It's a town of ~50,000 though the financial crisis has brought many out of the suburbs (lost car, lost house etc.) who previously were in our ~200,000 metro area up here. Downtown stores are closing left and right due to rampant theft. Those who can, stay out of the city. Those who can't are there due to the economic services office, homeless shelter (where I work) and drug dealers.
Open drug use is essentially tolerated now. It wouldn't have been 5 years ago. People can be seen in front of our city hall, where there is a nice park, fixing up shots, scraping crack pipes or doing the "meth dance". I see plenty of people all over downtown with foil in their hands, a straw in their mouth and the lighter in the other hand. They take a hit, fall unconscious for ~10-15 minutes, wake up as soon as they are conscious enough to, they take another pull and fall back unconscious, though the items never leave their hands. They'll either be on a bench, cross-legged or whatever. A guy will start nodding out too much and his girl or buddy will make sure he doesn't drop his shit, then that guy does for them. When they run out... hustle.
With Heroin/Morphine, which I'm familiar with, there was always this idea that 3 times a day was a standard, twice a day was during hard times and doing a 4th shot in a single day was always the knowledge that I'm being a glutton and fucking up the delicate equilibrium of my dependency. We used to do Heroin thinking we'd go out and experience the world. Sometimes we did. A lot of the times we just napped like these guys. However, while I worked as a teacher for years using Heroin with some close calls, there is no chance at an addict in this state to do anything normal at all.
It is very much like Crack. Heroin users always knew to save a little for the morning. Crack smokers are incapable of saving Crack for any occasion.
The medical services here are hamstrung by stuff like DEA regulations regarding treating the larger dependencies. For several years, we had great success with initiating maintenance treatment in the ER followed by showing up to the clinic. Now, these Fentanyl users can't hope for any relief from anyone other than their dealer. Their dealer is the only one in the world who can stop the pain. How fucked up is that situation?
This is why you can't get wrapped up in the Fentanyl guys. We have no judgement for users. The services available are shrinking due to the financial crisis at the same time the Opioid problem is ballooning out of control. The only way these guys get better is if they decide to...being homeless...living on the street...alienated from society. Are you gonna decide to get clean when you're apartment is a park bench and a blanket?