muie
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Dec 18, 2008
- Messages
- 849
On Tuesday there was a hearing on heroin abuse, forget the exact title of this hearing but I watched it from the beginning for 1hr on C-SPAN. Many topics were brought up which have been previously covered to exhaustion, including mandatory minimums, low level traffickers, association with organized crime, accessibility to naloxone, etc. As I said, most if not all issues have already been covered before to ad nauseam.
One aspect I found of interest, actually the only aspect that I found to be of any importance and worthy of mention was towards the end. I forget who brought up the topic but the man that did described the progression one makes from prescription opioids to heroin doesn’t necessarily mean it will always progress to intravenous heroin use.
Just how many people that use opioids have made the progression from oral, snorted or smoked to intravenous use?
I wish I could make a chart or create a poll because this is of great significant importance in understanding heroin abuse. There is a direct correlation between the severity of addiction and the route of administration, with snorted heroin on the lower end of the addiction spectrum while smoking is considered as addictive as injecting since the lungs allow for the drug to enter not only the bloodstream but also the fat tissues.
Amongst the needle using population there is a minority or majority of users, I say this b/c this issue has never been investigated, who have a needle fixation and become addicted to the needle itself as well as the very act of injecting. Not uncommon amongst this group is the tendency to inject water or saved up cottons, up to 10-12 at a time. Although there may be a miniscule amount, that is less than 1mg of heroin in the cottons. Despite the 95% if not 100% of the sensations are placebo and this doesn’t come as a surprise to the user even one bit.
An acquaintance of mine on MMT had a fear of needles that bordered on phobia and vouched he would never use a syringe. When he acquired some Dilaudid 8mg he wanted to experience what an actual full on opioid experience is like. He struggled hard to find a vein and to do it right, he would simply pray for the best and inject, without drawing blood in the syringe to see if you’ve hit the vein. After what looked like some ugly disgusting scarring on the injection sites accumulated after only 3 days. He told me that within the first two days he got over his fear of needles. He said that by the 3rd day not only had his phobia of needles disappeared but before falling asleep when closing his eyes all he could see was the tip of the syringe. By his own admission he said the scariest part of the entire ordeal is precisely that in The 3 consecutive days of IV Dilaudid use, not only did his fear or rather phobia of needles become a thing of the past, but it happened literally overnight. This is what he said scared him the most!
There are much less effective treatment options due to the addictive nature of this ROA. Intravenous users are a breed apart from addicts who abuse opioids orally or snorted. I used prescription opioids orally and rarely snorted on and off about 3-4 days of the week for a good period of time of about 3-4 years. I also smoked east coast heroin for about 1 year give or take a few weeks. An acquaintance crashed his car into a tree while nodding out and driving on the outskirts of town, luckily however due to the adrenaline and paranoia he called in the car stolen and forgot he had left behind 1g of heroin in the car which the local police sent out for test and it turned out that the heroin I was putting in my body, mostly smoking and occasionally snorting showed to be 48%. At that level, one point (100mg) would have me high from morning to night, smoking 2-3 hits every 3-4hrs. When I started I had a tolerance to poppy heads (upwards to 10 a day without making tea so 100% without nothing being lost) and even then 1 point of the same quality heroin would have me high for up to 2-3 days, from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to sleep. When I decided to quit I was using 10 points a day; that is 1g/day, rarely did I smoke any less than 1/2g a day. With $25-$30 a point my addiction to heroin cost me an average of $200 a day I would buy from what started 1 point a day to half gram a day and eventually to 1g a day which honestly is all I could do before falling asleep with the tin foil in my hands. Money wasn’t an object and so I went all out and 1g a day smoked/chased was the most I could take.
Anyways I was told by several acquaintances who started out snorting or smoking but ended up injecting heroin that the difference between snorting or smoking and injecting is that when you smoke or snort most people if they think of a heavy dose of Oxycodone or Hydrocodone could imagine what snorting heroin is like. Injecting heroin I was told creates a completely different set of effects from those of snorting or smoking, so much so that when injecting heroin it shouldn’t even be called heroin since the effects from injecting are *nothing* like what one experiences from snorting. It is only proper to call heroin via this ROA (IV) a different name since it has nothing in common with the classical effect of having popped say 2 Pecocets.
So again I will ask:
Just how many people that use opioids have made the progression from oral, snorted or smoked to intravenous use?
Personally I don't know anyone who uses heroin and hasn't either progressed and completely switched to I.V. use after years of snorting and/or smoking or hasn't at least tried it a couple times via that ROA. People that did this ranged from the poor that wanted to get the most bang for their buck to people that had no problem throwing 1/2g out the window of a car into the air (with hopeless junkies in the backseat jaws dropping) because of crack paranoia making them thinking the police is following them and so money isn't an object.
I did dope 1 year give or take, exclusively smoking (only snorting several times) and every time the thought of injecting occurred to me, as it often did since everybody I knew injected it, I realized it was time to take it easy. What that meant most of the time was benzo use, weed smoking and drinking copious amounts of alcohol, since pure abstinence wasn't really possible.
Thanks in advance!
One aspect I found of interest, actually the only aspect that I found to be of any importance and worthy of mention was towards the end. I forget who brought up the topic but the man that did described the progression one makes from prescription opioids to heroin doesn’t necessarily mean it will always progress to intravenous heroin use.
Just how many people that use opioids have made the progression from oral, snorted or smoked to intravenous use?
I wish I could make a chart or create a poll because this is of great significant importance in understanding heroin abuse. There is a direct correlation between the severity of addiction and the route of administration, with snorted heroin on the lower end of the addiction spectrum while smoking is considered as addictive as injecting since the lungs allow for the drug to enter not only the bloodstream but also the fat tissues.
Amongst the needle using population there is a minority or majority of users, I say this b/c this issue has never been investigated, who have a needle fixation and become addicted to the needle itself as well as the very act of injecting. Not uncommon amongst this group is the tendency to inject water or saved up cottons, up to 10-12 at a time. Although there may be a miniscule amount, that is less than 1mg of heroin in the cottons. Despite the 95% if not 100% of the sensations are placebo and this doesn’t come as a surprise to the user even one bit.
An acquaintance of mine on MMT had a fear of needles that bordered on phobia and vouched he would never use a syringe. When he acquired some Dilaudid 8mg he wanted to experience what an actual full on opioid experience is like. He struggled hard to find a vein and to do it right, he would simply pray for the best and inject, without drawing blood in the syringe to see if you’ve hit the vein. After what looked like some ugly disgusting scarring on the injection sites accumulated after only 3 days. He told me that within the first two days he got over his fear of needles. He said that by the 3rd day not only had his phobia of needles disappeared but before falling asleep when closing his eyes all he could see was the tip of the syringe. By his own admission he said the scariest part of the entire ordeal is precisely that in The 3 consecutive days of IV Dilaudid use, not only did his fear or rather phobia of needles become a thing of the past, but it happened literally overnight. This is what he said scared him the most!
There are much less effective treatment options due to the addictive nature of this ROA. Intravenous users are a breed apart from addicts who abuse opioids orally or snorted. I used prescription opioids orally and rarely snorted on and off about 3-4 days of the week for a good period of time of about 3-4 years. I also smoked east coast heroin for about 1 year give or take a few weeks. An acquaintance crashed his car into a tree while nodding out and driving on the outskirts of town, luckily however due to the adrenaline and paranoia he called in the car stolen and forgot he had left behind 1g of heroin in the car which the local police sent out for test and it turned out that the heroin I was putting in my body, mostly smoking and occasionally snorting showed to be 48%. At that level, one point (100mg) would have me high from morning to night, smoking 2-3 hits every 3-4hrs. When I started I had a tolerance to poppy heads (upwards to 10 a day without making tea so 100% without nothing being lost) and even then 1 point of the same quality heroin would have me high for up to 2-3 days, from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to sleep. When I decided to quit I was using 10 points a day; that is 1g/day, rarely did I smoke any less than 1/2g a day. With $25-$30 a point my addiction to heroin cost me an average of $200 a day I would buy from what started 1 point a day to half gram a day and eventually to 1g a day which honestly is all I could do before falling asleep with the tin foil in my hands. Money wasn’t an object and so I went all out and 1g a day smoked/chased was the most I could take.
Anyways I was told by several acquaintances who started out snorting or smoking but ended up injecting heroin that the difference between snorting or smoking and injecting is that when you smoke or snort most people if they think of a heavy dose of Oxycodone or Hydrocodone could imagine what snorting heroin is like. Injecting heroin I was told creates a completely different set of effects from those of snorting or smoking, so much so that when injecting heroin it shouldn’t even be called heroin since the effects from injecting are *nothing* like what one experiences from snorting. It is only proper to call heroin via this ROA (IV) a different name since it has nothing in common with the classical effect of having popped say 2 Pecocets.
So again I will ask:
Just how many people that use opioids have made the progression from oral, snorted or smoked to intravenous use?
Personally I don't know anyone who uses heroin and hasn't either progressed and completely switched to I.V. use after years of snorting and/or smoking or hasn't at least tried it a couple times via that ROA. People that did this ranged from the poor that wanted to get the most bang for their buck to people that had no problem throwing 1/2g out the window of a car into the air (with hopeless junkies in the backseat jaws dropping) because of crack paranoia making them thinking the police is following them and so money isn't an object.
I did dope 1 year give or take, exclusively smoking (only snorting several times) and every time the thought of injecting occurred to me, as it often did since everybody I knew injected it, I realized it was time to take it easy. What that meant most of the time was benzo use, weed smoking and drinking copious amounts of alcohol, since pure abstinence wasn't really possible.
Thanks in advance!
