Man dies from injecting Ritalin

[spacejunk]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-07/death-after-injecting-ritalin-prompts-renewed-w


Dont shoot ritalin, kids.

Man's death after injecting Ritalin prompts fresh call for education campaign
Posted about 5 hours ago

A Tasmanian coroner has repeated calls for authorities to consider a public education campaign about the illicit use of psychostimulants, after ruling a man died from injecting crushed up Ritalin tablets.

Coroner Simon Cooper found the man, referred to as Mr A, died of acute heart failure caused by lung failure which was in turn caused by intravenous drug use.

Ritalin is a central nervous system stimulant and is used to treat attention deficit disorder.

Drugs such as Ritalin include binders that do not dissolve and can block blood flow when injected.

Mr Cooper found 43-year-old Mr A did not have a prescription for the drug.

He said ambulance officers were called to the man's house by his wife but were unable to resuscitate him.

Police were told Mr A had injected 18 tablets of the drug.

Mr Cooper said the practice of crushing Ritalin, dissolving it in water and injecting it intravenously was inherently dangerous.

A 2014 inquest into a similar death led coroner Olivia McTaggart to recommend agencies consider a public education campaign highlighting the danger of injecting psychostimulants.

She said evidence suggested a lack of awareness about the dangers of injecting drugs such as Methylphenidate (Ritalin), Xanax and Oxycodone.

Mr Cooper reiterated that recommendation and expressed his sympathy to Mr A's family.

 

[mostly-human]

Is shooting Ritalin inherently more dangerous than shooting other pharms? I mean, I know you aren't supposed to shoot codeine, due to the hystamine reaction, and posters in the waiting room have always suggested injecting temazapan is a bad idea..So is shooting ritalin known to be super dangerous? or is it just a bad idea like crushing up and injecting any tablet is a bad idea?

 

[spacejunk]

The last point you made and inadequate filtering would be my bet....plus he had 18 of the fucken things. Thats a lot of chalk/ binder for the internal organs to cope with.
My condolensces to his family and friends.

 

[Crankinit]

I'd imagine it's the binders which caused the problem, if lung failure is what took him out. I remember reading a similar case of a man in NSW who died after (iirc) 2 years of daily injection of morphine, and he had the same problem - buildup of pill particles in the lungs.

But jesus, 18 pills? How do you fit that many into a shot?

Morale of the story: use a fucking micron filter when shooting pills. Or always, if possible, but especially if shooting pills. And HR organizations really need to push the distribution of micron filters, put them in pharmacy fit packs and needle vending machines, etc. This is such a stupid thing for someone to die from.

 

[SixBuckets]

Binders, vasoconstriction, the combination of binders and vasoconstriction. Plus it's just not particularly water soluble.

 

[smokedup]

its the talc in the rits, causes a phenomenon coined talc lung.

 

[mostly-human]

its the talc in the rits, causes a phenomenon coined talc lung.

Yeah - I actually Googled it right after I posted. This is spot on, Ritalin IS particularly bad - due to the binders used in these tablets.. Apparently even with a good home-extraction method, it's pretty dangerous, shooting pharm pills is always dicey, but some tablets are better suited than others.

 

[the_ketaman]

Wow omg, he's using the EXACT combination of drugs that kept me high for 3-4 years at the very beginning of my IV drug use. I began using Oxycontin IV at 17, swallowing tons of Xanax daily and after awhile I figured out that injecting Ritalin gets you very wasted and is more similar to injecting coke than IV meth. Soon I was swallowing 4mg of Xanax, then 30 mins later mixing up 40mg methylphenidate in the form of crushed 10mg Ritalin tabs and up to 240mg of Oxy to create my own little pseudo-speedball(my own extremely dangerous, unhealthy, incredibly risky & unpredictable concoction that in no way had harm reduction in mind when it was thought up by an inexperienced, young, hurt and vacant minded me that didn't really care too much if something bad did happen...... I began using micron filters eventually and now the only opiate I really use is heroin.)


It didn't take too long for me to cut out the Ritalin and just used Oxy and Xanax because the anxiety it caused was significant, I wasn't micron filtering my shots(Id imagine my body is full of leftovers from injecting pills and im sure the vaso-constriction I constantly suffer from is a direct result of this) and instead used meth if I wanted a stim but never in combo with oxy.

Hearing that this guy died from it only makes me even more glad that I cut the shit out! Im guessing this guy was using it IV regularly if not daily, but its a lot of shit for your body to handle. Id usually buy a sheet of 10 pills and id get 3 shots out of that, thinking about it now its incredibly concerning how it is going to effect the rest of my life.

I do feel sorry for this poor guy because it is very habit forming and he probably had no clue what he was actually doing to his body because injecting pills is pretty common in TAS and just like a lot of beginner ice users think that its ok coz everyone else is doing it and theyre still alive and sane but in reality "sane" and "alive" are subjective, you have to live to be alive and most ice addicts done live, they survive, just. And the sanity thing is laughable, but back to this...... Its really sad to hear :-(