The responsibility thing..

[Purposefull]

I see the swim thread shut down and that doesn't bother me. None of us are the lone responsible drug user and the implications that someone who isn't me is plain silly.
However there needs to be a line easily understood by anyone who uses or has used where it can be discussed with a degree of tolerance and understanding without the nonsense of pretending that by not talking about it makes everything hunky dorey. It doesn't.
Some of us are indeed more responsible than others and some of us have learned the hard way what works and what doesn't.
I like the idea of harm reduction and with that what should be included are frank and honest discussion about how we got to where we're at and not just focusing on the negative aspects.
For many people opiates allow us to function and to reduce pain levels to go about our daily lives, but some will tell us to talk ONLY to the doctor.
I'm sure I'm not alone in being refused pain medication simply because of things I did many years ago. For many people the alternative choices are getting refused reasonable treatment by a doctor or just living with unreasonable pain and we're told that we can't discuss our choices because it might be a trigger for someone else.
I'm not advocating recreational drug use. It's generally not a good idea, but on the same hand what can constitute reasonable use for dealing with pain is often lumped right in there with criminal behavior. Aside from my needs to deal with untreated pain I'm a perfectly law abiding citizen, but because I have been arrested and locked up in my past any and all drug use by me NOT prescribed by a doctor suddenly turns me into some sort of fiendish criminal?
If it's simply a matter of breaking laws then anyone driving 36 mph in a 35 mph zone should also be a criminal fiend, but life isn't so cut and dry now is it?
I'd love to be able to openly discuss how I manage pain, but I can't in many places
Some might think that I'm advocating for anyone and everyone to have free and easy access to any drug any time which I certainly do not and am not.
What I do advocate is an open discussion without being told that I'm telling others to just go for whatever feels good.
I'm more than aware of the dangers involved in casual drug use and the harm created by a society that slams the door shut on people who are in dire need of clean needles when they have become addicted to drugs that are injected and the lack of education among people who do inject. When I first started injecting I knew little to nothing and it was only pure dumb luck that I didn't die as a result so if there is to be harm reduction it has to include telling people how to safely inject or swallow things or even snort or rub into their belly.
Pretending that the discussion is always off limits is a disservice to anyone who might have learned to do these things, but because the topic is off limits they go about doing them with absolutely no knowledge.
I'm 57 years old and have been doing this for a very long time. I've seen people turn blue and die and have spent countless hours breathing into other people's mouths just to keep them alive for one more minute till they could breath on their own power. I never want to have to do that again, but I know I very likely will.

 

[PotatoMan]

well, we do welcome harm reduction advice for others but in the case of the last closed thread, the OP was not clear and transparent with said harm reduction advice that he claimed to work. instead he insisted on users to PM him for this advice and there's no eye in the PM box. he could have given out dangerous advice and we wouldn't really know.

we encourage users to make threads in the spirit of HR, even if it were guides that have worked for them as it can be openly discussed in the appropriate forum. nobody is saying you can't discuss how you deal with pain. there's actually pain megathreads in Other Drugs.

I encourage you to look around the Other drugs forum and you're likely to find the type of discussion you are seeking.

 

[PriestTheyCalledHim]

There's a pain management thread you will find useful:
http://www.bluelight.org/vb/threads...scussion)-v6/page41?highlight=pain+management

 

[Purposefull]

I have to admit that I get perturbed when I read that things such as fentynol is 1000 times stronger than heroin (just one example). If it were true, which it isn't my own 87 year old father would have ODed day one. They're fictitious blanket statements intended to get a response of backing draconian drug laws and the sad part is not only do people who never use these drugs believe it, but so do people who do use and it becomes dangerous because someone who might shoot heroin may read it and think that the 1000 times stronger stuff is the way to go knowing absolutely nothing about the right way to process it to an injectable form then BAM! They overdose.
In no way am I suggesting anyone try it, but I am suggesting that if they do they read up on the realities of how it works. The problem is that the reality isn't generally made available to read for most people because of the restrictions many sites impose on the basis that it might be contrued as telling people to go ahead and try it.
I don't have the answers to the dilemma, but it would seem to me that harm reduction would include information that makes educating people about it just a bit easier to find.