So, that's how it happens. Now, there's a lot of places this can go off the rails. If you don't have a good job, and the ability to keep working at it, then you're going to have problems. And if you don't keep up appearances, people will start to wonder what's up, so you have to work pretty hard at hiding the drugs and the habit - if your boss or colleagues find out, no more job, money and there goes the funding for your habit.
Not sure what my point is, except that a heroin habit can get hold of someone quite easily, even people you probably wouldn't expect.
It doesn't have to be pills. Snorting and smoking opioids is another way to start as well.
The rest of your comment checks out though. I can't even stand getting a flu shot so the thought of shooting up heroin gives me chills.
Why didn't he move to OxyContin, morphine, methadone, oxymorphone, etc.?
"Krokodil" is also an alright medication on its own. Just another morphine-related molecule. The big complaint with it is, once again, unregulated producers making incredibly unsanity products. Which, if you shove it into your arm, will cause all sorts of infections.
If we had to buy vaccines from some guy making them in a barn, we'd probably see a huge incidence in infections from vaccinations.
I'd also disagree that no one wants to inject heroin. I've been on IV morphine once, due to an injury, and it was _fantastic_. Unbelievably great. I fail to see why someone wouldn't want that, if they could afford it, have proper healthcare and equipment, etc. It's just a weak form of wireheading.
Doctors aren't the problem. The legal penalties for seeking medication are. The social views that addicts are inherently a problem -- that's a problem. The high cost of medications due to gatekeeping is a problem.
Allow people to buy the medications they want (if only on personal liberty grounds!). Then engage in adverts, education, sell help, etc. if it's really a problem. Opiates are so cheap that even a part time job can easily afford to be high all the time -- if they were in a proper competitive market.
don't expect much beyond +-weed legalization anytime soon, and even that might be rolled back at one point.
Did you know when he made the transition to heroin? Did he ever try to stop at any point? Did you even know that he was on it before it was too late? Were his doctors aware that the Xanax that was being prescribed was being abused? Did they cut that off at any point, potentially leading him to fill the gap with other substances? Did this guy have a good support system in general?
One day about each 30 minutes, the pain was awful. Eventually the explanation was that the bacteria generated CO2; that built up pressure inside the tooth and pressed on the nerve; at the peak of the pressure and pain, finally the CO2 escaped out the crack and the pain went away for another 30 minutes or so.
I tried this and that. It was a weekend, and I had a dental appointment on Monday, but for the weekend the pain was beyond belief. I called around, and eventually a sympathetic person in a hospital emergency room explained that people commonly rushed in for opioid prescriptions. No such thing occurred to me at all.
But eventually I just drove to an emergency room and said "I'm fine now, but in about 30 minutes I will be climbing the walls in pain."
They let me stay and wait. When the pain started, right away the attending physician dipped a Q-tip or some such and painted my tooth. Pain gone.
He explained that he just used benzocaine which is the same as dentists use just before giving an injection of a stronger local anesthetic and is over the counter and not very expensive. GOOD!
The dentists had told me to take one of the standard aspirin alternatives -- I did; took enough to threaten damage to my kidneys; and it was useless. Not good dentists.
So, I left the emergency room with a bottle of benzocaine and a prescription. I looked at the prescription -- it had lots of super serious markings about a controlled substance, special numbers, etc. Okay, maybe it was an opioid. No thanks.
I rushed to a pharmacy and stocked up on little bottles of benzocaine and Q-tips and didn't suffer again. At the dentists on Monday, I still didn't like their work and walked out.
In a few days, the pain quit. A week or so after that, the tooth was loose. A few days after that, an oral surgeon extracted the tooth. No problem.
So, sometimes, really, whenever possible, to heck with opioids. Instead, just get some benzocaine for the night or the weekend and then go for some good medical care. As far as I know, I never took an opioid. Dangerous stuff.
Is Benzocaine usually available (in the USA) without a prescription?
One of my friends in university got hooked on pills his doctor prescribed for his back pain. The guy was 300+lbs, maybe that had something to do with the pain? Who cares, pump him full of pills! A year later he was on heroin. Three years later he was dead.
Nobody but a complete degenerate wakes up one day and says "You know what, I think I'm going to mainline some heroin." Opioid addiction starts with pills. If you take heroin out of the equation, they're going to start making krokodil or some other shit. You can't solve the drug problem until you solve the doctor problem.