Epidemiology of drug use

[SpiralusSancti]

What are your thoughts about parameters that influence how strongly and for how long addict remains infective, in lack of the better word.

I first encountered this idea in some book by Italian author from 70s. Don’t have it by myself right now so don’t know author but it’s title is “Drugs”. Taken in consideration when the book was written it makes for “drug encyclopaedia” that has a thing or two to offer.

In the same book it’s said how heroin addicts are infective for relatively short amount of time, a year or two iirc. That’s explained with notion that after about that time passes person ends up being mostly circled by people who already are addicts or in other cases contracts from all social life beside what’s absolutely necessary while hiding drug use from people at work or elsewhere. That doesn’t really sound far fetched but rather pretty common.

Reason why I’m writing this is cuz I have feeling that fentadope and other “heroin alternatives” that are huge thing in USA atm are far more infective than heroin. And I believe it’s so cuz of two main factors and that’s shorter duration of high and a lot stronger WDs, both leading addicts to bring more people, and do it faster (partly cuz of lethality too) to continue feeding of their habit. Kind of like crack is compared to cocaine but with additional twist that people turn around and bam, most of their drug buddies are dead yet need to prevent horrible WDs. And being addicted to mix of drugs that according to users leads to WDs incomparably worse than heroin while at the same time needing to spend more time using it, can only cause person to turn toward crime. And while some will go stealing or commit violent crimes those are less desired ways of acquiring drugs or money for drugs than pushing dope. As pushing dope doesn’t result in seeing immediate damage to someone like stabbing someone and taking their cash/dope, unless someone ODs in front of them and as important for addicts, has a lot less chance of putting them in jail/away from their drug. According to what some write, it appears that in some places addicts essentially don’t risk at all by indulge into street level drug pushing, making it perfect way to acquire dope/cash without getting into problems or doing something that would immediately make them feeling they are doing something evil. Given how streets are flooded with fentadope I can only imagine that competition is high and therefore searching for new users, be it among family, be it among old friends or among users of other drugs must be lucrative option for many of them. Just when lethality of this disease is considered, it’s hard to not think of this opiod epidemic being much more infective than what would be if heroin remained a thing. If heroin used to kill 100 000 people per year over timespan fentadope is a thing I’m pretty sure number of opiod addicts in USA would be lowering every year and not going strong and steady.

Nuf said for now..

 

[TheUltimateFixx]

'infective' wtf? Addiction is a compulsive behaviour, it's not a contagious disease. You don't catch junkiedom off people like it's the flu.

 

[SpiralusSancti]

'infective' wtf? Addiction is a compulsive behaviour, it's not a contagious disease. You don't catch junkiedom off people like it's the flu.

Yes, in the lack of better word. Addiction is considered diseases by many and without exposure (what exactly this means can be debated) to other addicts, many would not get addicted. It’s well known that children of addicts have a lot bigger chance to get addicted than children of people who are not addicts. That goes further as people who grow up in communities with a lot of addicts again naturally have a lot more chance to get addicted. It’s same for numerous factors and while you can argue it has only to do with addiction, with socio-economic status and what not, 100% ignoring influence of getting to contact with addicts is just, just ignoring reality. Sure many people like myself too have shown interest in psychoactive substances, but I’m not talking about drug use, I’m talking about self-destructive and behavior destructive for society. I don’t know is that some kind of thing unique for my part of the world, but addicts outright getting young people hooked on drugs IS A THING WHERE I AM!!! Experienced it as a teen irl, experienced it as a teen online, saw friends lives destroyed this way. For a a reason, at least where I am, minimal penalty for selling to minors is almost double than for selling to adults. Now you can again argue how those are not addicts but “evil pushers”, where truth is that every person willing to fall so low to sell to children/minors is almost always addict.

Addiction is a type of disease that’s a lot like drowning, when addicts starts to drown he/she will clench to those around him and pull them down with them. Been and done that on both ends, both pulling someone down and being pulled down. But had enough decency to never pull in new people into pull of drowning ones. And at points where I saw my friends and my families heads under the water, I fucking let go. But I too did some damage anyway and I’m the one people consider good, helpful and self-sacrificing most of the time but at depths of my addiction I was far from such a person.

Drug epidemics can start and be governed by many things but addicts, SOME ADDICTS, well those that deserve to be called junkies are doing there part. Ffs how many people I have met who tried hard drugs at age of 12 – 13 years, every fucking each of them was introduced to it by fucked up junkies. Sure, say all of them would be doing drugs anyway, and yes they would, but would never fall to depths of addiction they did by being introduced to drugs at a such young age.

 

[SpiralusSancti]

You could argue that children of smokers and alcoholics have significantly bigger chances to become smokers and alcoholics cuz of ingestion of smoke and booze earlier than other but that’s simply not all to it. Children copy their parents and they copy very bad behaviors too.

Then what about fact that people working in mental institutions are more likely to develop mental problems? Is it simply cuz of stressful work or people with previous mental problems or with tendency to develop them chose such work? Or could it be, maybe, just maybe that spending good part of life around crazy people might contribute to chance of becoming crazy?

How about overeating? Is it simply a thing of communities with a lot of food, lot of unhealthy food and lack of physical activity cuz of modern lifestyle? Or maybe, just maybe it has to do with something that being surrounded with more, ever increasingly more fat people contributes in shifting of image of healthy person? Could it be that lack of competition/need to be fit and rather have more $, being crucial for success in finding a good partner and for living a good life, also has to do with it?

Are stupid and damaging trends spread trough society just cuz they cause people to feel good or can it be that most people continue to copy other into their adulthood?

Have you ever jumped to water from some high place? Did it with other people? Have you noticed that with this and with just about any risky behavior that when first person(s) does something, more often than not, other follow?

Have you ever informed yourself about how riots are created and can be ignited with just ‰ of people in the crowd?

Human is a social animal. There are some lone wolfs too but even those are almost always part of some lone wolfs coalitions and governed by more than just individuality.

I could write a book about how trends, ideas, ideology and what not spreads, but there’s plenty of those already. What I’m interested in, is an epidemiology of drug use, more specific, drug use that’s damaging for individuals and society. Spread of psychedelics or any drug use in context that leads to people improving their lives or at least not fucking them up profoundly should be dealt with after that. Or maybe not? Maybe boosting spread of psychedelic use would lessen damaging drug use, that’s what I used to believe but didn’t really witness.