I'm a paramedic in a nice suburban area. I've been doing this a little over a decade now. I managed to make it a good long while without having to deliver life changing news to a parent. In the past two years I've done it way too many times.
I'm so sorry for your loss. I have witnessed your pain in others, and I know that it's beyond my comprehension...
All fentanyl, legal or otherwise, starts out as a powder (generally as the salt, fentanyl citrate, though illicit labs produce a number of variations...). You're right that there is no powdered form sold legally, but most of the illicit sales come from labs in Mexico and China, and is indeed in powdered form.
Far better: "I cannot pretend to understand how you're feeling", "I can't imagine...". Perhaps with "I can only appreciate how difficult it may be", and so on.
One thing remains the same, it's always my least favorite task as a paramedic.
"I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming."
http://www.sirchie.com/nark20033-fentanyl-reagent.html#.V8uE...
The problem is, it's a destructive test, which makes it unattractive to both dealers and users, as it requires wasting at least some of the product.
Seems strange, when tests for other drugs are available.
That will hopefully be changing soon (at least in the US): http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-china-reach-agreement-to-ste...
I'm not sure about testing kits, but there is naloxone, which is becoming part of standard operating procedure in reversing overdoses and is even available OTC in some states. If something is learned from your daughter's death, I hope that the availability of naloxone becomes better known and even more widely adopted.
My parents were devastated when my brother died. Coping with his death very nearly killed my mother, and almost certainly killed my father. As cliché as it sounds, there is life after death, and you have loved ones who will help you through this. Not believing that probably worsened my parents' state of mind. I wish you strength, peace, and light in the coming months.
I know it doesn't count for much right now, but I promise that things do get better in time. If you ever need to chat, feel free to message me anytime.
If heroine were legal 100 deaths would have been avoided that weekend.
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a46918/heroin-mexico-el...
"American drug and law-enforcement officials, concerned about the dramatic surge in overdose deaths from pharmaceutical opioids (165,000 from 1999 to 2014), cracked down on both legal and illegal distribution, opening the door for Mexican heroin, which sold for five to ten bucks a dose"
A trusted source of a heroine-like drug was removed, so the cartels increase production of heroine. But fentanyl is more profitable, and
"The cartels mix fentanyl with heroin because once an addict has shot that mix, they won't go back to "just heroin," since they can't get high on it anymore."
and we end up with a much more dangerous product.
Sorry to nitpick but this is a fairly delicate subject. Does a typical 'bad' person for whom it would be totally ok to overdose exist?
From the point of view of outcomes and efficiency it's better to approach people as individuals and not as statistics, or even worse, statistics with moral binning into good and bad. The logical argument is that humans are complex and it takes a lot of time to gather sufficient data to be correct.
I can dig out references if you like but medical facilities which focus more on individual-to-individal interactions rather than on factory like throughput work better.
experimenting with drugs which, even if they are what you think they are, can be fatal. Especially when mixed (as they often are) with alcohol and other narcotics.
There isn't some special shield around newbie drug users to protect them from consequence. I find the whole concept bizarre, they are well within their rights to experiment but then they own the consequences.
That's exactly how "stereotypical bad" people start out. It's just that fentanyl kills them faster, while other drugs leave them time to self destroy until we no longer have any empathy.
The difference is how long the average person can stay a casual user.
And of course punishments deter crime. Not the crime that happens, obviously, but the crime which is never committed. There would be more rape, theft and murder if there were no consequences at all.
What I want to say is that demonizing marijuana can allow a bad comparison in the form "marijuana did nothing bad to me, all the thing they say about drugs are nonsense, so I can move to other drugs and be ok".
Truth is marijuana is harmless, compared to almost all the other drugs, including alcohol and tobacco.
Yeah, it's bad for business. Good consumers must sink all their money and all money of their relatives to drug dealer, drug clinics, etc.
This is definitively wrong. They do not meet the medical criteria for substance use or substance dependence. Nor is it statistically probable that a person eventually will, given that they have taken the drug at least once.
Please do not spread misinformation.
People will do drugs, I accept that. I just want them to know the actual risks of what they are doing. I can't stop adults choosing to take drugs but maybe I can remind a few people to be a lot more careful and to be less trusting of their suppliers.
Also do you realize what you're saying to the author of the root comment? Shame on you.
Even though I'd also like to see such a link, I'd argue that because you're the one making a rather strong (purportedly factual) statement, it's up to you to provide evidence for it.
Don't get me wrong: I don't have a strong conviction on this matter. I really do want to see some evidence to inform my own point of view.
That said, the vast majority of my friends have used cocaine, as have I. Most of them multiple times. None of them have a problem with cocaine.
I'd never encourage someone to experiment with cocaine or heroin because it can be quite dangerous. But misinformation is potentially even more dangerous.
This is demonstrably false, in most cases.
I admire the self control you had in telling the cop about your gun despite knowing what you wanted to do with it.
If you are married, I have seen a pattern where the loss of a child severely impacts the marriage negatively. Try to resist that if possible.
I'm very sorry for your loss.
I think this may have been written for you. https://soundcloud.com/boudwin/the-wall-2
thank you for sharing your humanity with everyone who reads and spreads this profound insight
in the absence of undoing i only wish i could offer relief by sharing the burden of experience with you
whatever solace there is to find, i want you to know your strength is affecting
This comment severely breaks the above guideline. Please revisit the HN guidelines and do not continue to post like that here.
I have very little memory of those first few hours. I now know what it is to be insane. I was so disconnected from reality that people have told me that I had long conversations with them that I have zero recollection of. The only thing I clearly remember was telling the officer that I had a gun upstairs and that if he didn't take it, I was going to murder the man responsible for her death within the hour. It was the most matter of fact confession of planning a murder imaginable.
After a couple of hours, I saw a Facebook post of hers and lost it, the insane calm left me and I bawled my eyes out.
It's her birthday tomorrow. I miss her so, so much.
Anyway, the point of this post: my daughter died of an overdose. She was at a party, a man gave her powdered pure fentanyl claiming it was cocaine. I have no idea why. She snorted some and overdosed soon after.
All I want to happen is that someone somewhere reads about what happened to my daughter and reminds their kids that without proper testing kits, they have no idea what the fuck they are taking. Drugs may not be bad, but some people certainly are.