Yep money will get you anything. Money is the only reason I'm not in the same situation myself. I'm only in my 20's, could easily be me hooked on these bars and whatever. In fact if I'd been born a few years earlier so I was a teen when they started getting cool I'd have probably started buying 'em off the DNM and selling the things knowing me.
It's such a crazy transformation of drug culture in such a short period of time it's unreal. When I was at uni I did any RC benzo going. Everyone just thought I was weird because they were into their uppers and empathogens. If I'd gone just a few years later I'd be on bars and suddenly be the coolest kid in town ?
But I was able to get private healthcare, which costs a fortune over here, so I was able to see a psychiatrist within a week, then see a therapist a week later, and continue having CBT for a year while getting my meds adjusted by the psychiatrist. For most people to get even an initial consultation with a psychiatrist it'd take probably 12 months or so and they'd already be shoved on SSRI's by their GP before they'd even got a diagnosis off a mental health professional. Which as you say is downright dangerous, without a diagnosis you could absolutely be giving an SSRI to someone with bipolar who is now having manic episodes. It's fucking insane. It's very lucky my family was able to get me seen privately else I'd have just offed myself while on the waiting list. Even my dad said straight up: if you had to rely on the NHS you'd be dead. I don't doubt it. I was suicidal and an anxious mess before I got the proper help I needed. Now I'm functional and have been in work for years and have a social life and a girlfriend etc... nice success story but no thanks to the NHS's half-arsed mental health care.
That's when I was finally able to get a legit benzo script as well as Vyvanse for previously untreated ADHD, which it turns out helped my depression significantly too. I admit I still get blister packed Valium and other benzos like Xanax and Ativan now and then for a bit of a treat. In fact the Xanax is the least recreational and I use it almost exclusively for bad anxiety and panic attacks. Bromazepam, a rarer benzo only scripted in a few European countries, is one of my favourites. But I only rarely have access to those beautiful light blue 6mg beauties. I also love temazepam but haven't had it for a while.
Imo the only real "recreational" benzos are those hypnotics and muscle relaxants. Not alprazolam, but rather bromazepam, lorazepam, diazepam, temazepam, and nitrazepam. I consider alprazolam to be right at the bottom for recreation but right near the top for anxiety relief.
Oh and as for blister packs they definitely can be faked and there are some fake blisters here too, but it's comparatively rare vs loose pills. You can basically guarantee a loose pill is fake. Most blisters are legit. If it's a brand I don't recognise I just sent a pill to WEDNIOS, the Welsh government's free drug testing service open to all of the UK, within a few days they tell me what's in it.
As for pain management, get this, because NHS pain clinics are just as under-resourced as their mental health services, they just let GP's script opiates to anyone who goes in complaining of chronic pain. My GP put me on DHC Continus for back pain (which is legit I'm not lying for the drugs, chronic pain runs in my family and half my family has chronic pain of some sort so it's hardly surprising I got it too) just recently without any need for a referral to pain specialists. I guess every cloud has a silver lining eh?
I know multiple people who got oxy off their GP's too but that's much more rare. Usually the maximum strength opiate you'll get from a GP is oral morphine unless you're old and they want to keep you comfortable in your final days. But tbh I prefer morphine to oxy anyway and I find DHC and morphine work better as actual painkillers. Frankly if I keep getting the DHC long-term I'm happy already because it works well for me even though the high dose I need for it to be effective (240mg) does cause more side effects than lower doses of a stronger opiate. So either that or a low dose of oral morphine simply because if I had for example 20-40mg oral morphine that lower dose of a stronger opiate should have less side effects. My GP seems fine giving me opiates as long as they're XR formulation and I understand they're addictive and for prn use only not for daily use.
There has never been any "opiate epidemic" in the UK so as a general rule the doctors here are a lot more relaxed about scripting them. As I said main rule is that if it's a long-term script they will be XR. No IR opiates for long-term use because they're considered more addictive and abusable. They also only allow I think it is a maximum of 60mg morphine per day (or equivalent) to be prescribed by a GP. The guidelines say if the patient needs more they should see a specialist. Which is a pretty low bar for chronic pain, but that's still better than nothing which is what everyone would get if they all had to wait for referrals. This also means a max dose of 30mg oxy if they decide to use that.
In reality though CCG's are operated independently, some are more lax than others and some individual doctors are more lax than others too. So it comes down to the postcode lottery and the doctor lottery (okay that last one I just made up) as to what type of care you get.
Those are just caps, the "jellies" people are on about are these:
You can see now why people call them "eggs." A lot of them were green too leading to the name... you guessed it... "green eggs." Only in the UK do we name our drugs after Dr Seuss references... ?
I'm very sceptical that they're any different to any other form of temazepam though, except for the obvious nostalgia which is bound to cause placebo. Temazepam is temazepam, if it's legit then the effects are the same whether it's a pill or tablet or "egg."
The actual drug itself I find enjoyable for the genuine euphoria and muscle relaxation. One of few benzos that actually is euphoric at least to me.
Another benzo popular around the same time (80's-90's) in the UK was "Moggies" short for Mogadon, the trade name for nitrazepam. I've had these a few times, they're very different from temazepam, they knock you sideways rather than having you floating in a cloud, but I can definitely see the appeal.
