Druggies are dying

[Jeanette]

if she didn't get her methodone exactly on time she would tear the place apart, throwing things and screaming at the nurses.

A bit like people who can't function in the morning without their cup of coffee?!

Clearly she'd be distressed if she didn't get her meth at the time that she would usually be given it. I'm sure your friend would rather have seen the woman withdrawing rather than 'demanding' her methadone.

[Skubbs]

There is no such thing as free will. Get that out of your head! People's actions are determined by all manner of complex and connected events and scenarios. Maybe you should think about how certain laws and attitudes we hold towards drug-users may perpetuate the problem?

You can keep viewing others as irritants if you want but you will end up miserable, alone and hate-filled.

No such thing as free will??? Have you been watching The Matrix a lot recently?

Yes there is such a thing as free will, life is full of options and the outcome of your life is dependant on your choices. Those who choose to study hard at school and go onto university will have more career options than a junkie who chose to get high at school and leave at 16 to sit about with their mates and shoot up.

Attitudes towards drugs being a problem? Eh, I would think legalising it would make the problem WORSE. They're still going to steal to fund their habit; the buggers are too concerned with where their next hit is coming from to work!

Why on Earth should I work hard and pay my taxes, just so some lazy bastard who decided they wanted to try heroin, got hooked and can't work, can stay at home?

I'm not miserable, I'm not alone (a lot of people share my viewpoint) and I'm only hate-filled for the people who rely on me to make a living, so they can steal it from me.

Granted not all junkies are like that, but there is a large majority.

[Skubbs]

A bit like people who can't function in the morning without their cup of coffee?!

Clearly she'd be distressed if she didn't get her meth at the time that she would usually be given it. I'm sure your friend would rather have seen the woman withdrawing rather than 'demanding' her methadone.

It was more the fact that she was fine, until her boyfriend would come in and ask her "have you had yer meth yet". She would then tear the place apart. It wasn't that she was being left long enough to start having withdrawl symptoms, she only began to scream and rant when she was reminded.

The nurses weren't neglecting her, they weren't late in giving it to her. She just got it into her head that they were withholding it. Obviously, not thinking straight.

[Jeanette]

Hardly the same as caffeine withdrawal.

Though I realise the woman's behaviour would be clearly explained by the affects of the drug and not of her own free will. I doubt she'd choose to behave in such a way voluntarily. Regardless, having someone like that in an open ward isn't fair on other patients as it undoubtedly caused unrest and distress to those around her.

I wasn't speaking about withdrawal from caffine. More the ability to function without something that your body tells you that you need.

[Pierre Von Mondragon]

Anyway, enough about all that, what trampled, put-upon sector of society can we rip into now, hey its funny, thats all that counts. The BNP newspaper is full of similar sneering, nothing that they could be charged for, just the laughs of the callously unsympathetic.

[fatboy]

it's easy to condemn a person for trying it, but peer pressure, the situation and the reason may make them try the drug for the first time.

why did you or what inspired you to start smoking if this applies to you, for me it was going out when young drinking, a few beers and someone offers you a cig, you like aye nae bother. eventually it becomes a habit and your hooked.

i bet there's very few people who sat down a logically decided "i am going to try heroin"'

The children brought up in an environment where drugs is the norm are obviously going to have higher chance of becoming users than say a child brought up in a house where theres no chance of them coming into contact with the drugs, I'm not saying EVERY child is going down the same path depending how they are brought up.

cannabis/alcohol/nicotine is not a gateway drug, it's the person who is the gateway, some people know their own tolerances and limit.

if your going into town, you have a preferred beverage until it goes tits and you get to a point that you'll throw anything alcoholic down your neck. Why do people restrain themselves till they get drunk enough not to care. addicts may be hooked because, they possibly got into a situation which they didn't realize the outcome of their actions at the time being.

i may sound like a hypocrite from my previous posts, but i hate junkies for what they are, not what they were before. Someone said already, why give help to one who don't want help.

[Skubbs]

Hardly the same as caffeine withdrawal.

Though I realise the woman's behaviour would be clearly explained by the affects of the drug and not of her own free will. I doubt she'd choose to behave in such a way voluntarily. Regardless, having someone like that in an open ward isn't fair on other patients as it undoubtedly caused unrest and distress to those around her.

The ward where they usually treated the junkies was full, so they put her in another ward. Her behaviour shows that getting the methodone wasn't something that she could ask for, it was demanded in an extreme manner.

Just asking a nurse for it would be more appropriate than screaming and throwing things. She caused such a commotion she actually burst the growth on her pelvis (the reason she was in hospital, as she kept injecting into the same place).

As for the coffee example, do people actually run into Starbucks, skip the line and scream GIVE ME A LATTE?

[fatboy]

As for the coffee example, do people actually run into Starbucks, skip the line and scream GIVE ME A LATTE?

Some occasions it's been close to describing it like that

[fatboy]

If people started behaving like that with caffeine then offices would soon become scary places. Getting my Chai Tea Latte would become quite the adventure.

The thing that's bugging me is people are comparing heroin to alcohol and cigarettes. For a start, both are legal and neither are so addictive that they cause almost every user to loose all sense of being able to gauge what is right and wrong on a daily basis (becoming so desperate for money that you're willing to break into someone's house or physically threaten them). Being so out your face that you cant hold a job down is another thing. Yes, alcoholl has ugly concequences when taken in extreme excess and I also think people who do that are idiots too.

Granted, alcohol addiction is something I could talk about until the cows come home but it's simply not the same sort of thing at all.

i was stating how under certain influences your inhibitions may be lowered in the respect of trying other drugs, I wouldn't probably started smoking if i wasn't out drinking.

[fatboy]

Yeah, but even pissed up would you be happy to stick a needle in yourself? I doubt it.

maybe not you

but people who maybe are in the environment where the way to try is easily accessable

probably maybe having a smoke of it, you don't always have inject

[Jeanette]

First time heroin users don't inject. It usually starts with smoking the drug and once you can't get the desired effect from smoking people move onto injecting.

I think alcohol can be just as addictive as any illegal drug. Alcoholics will drink and drink until they don't know what they are doing. They need a drink in the morning to function, the same as a drug user needs their hit.

The number of kids accommodated at my work based on parental alcohol or drug use are probably similar numbers. Alcohol can have the same effect on a family functioning the same as drugs.

[Guest Tam o' Shantie]

The ward where they usually treated the junkies was full, so they put her in another ward. Her behaviour shows that getting the methodone wasn't something that she could ask for, it was demanded in an extreme manner.

Just asking a nurse for it would be more appropriate than screaming and throwing things. She caused such a commotion she actually burst the growth on her pelvis (the reason she was in hospital, as she kept injecting into the same place).

As for the coffee example, do people actually run into Starbucks, skip the line and scream GIVE ME A LATTE?

It's bad enough that she was a dirty, theiving junkie - but that kind of behaviour is downright rude!

Please shut up now. You are a clueless, middle class self-proclaimed 'teuchter' and you're just embarassing yourself.

To all of those who are bringing taxes into the equation, what is your opinion of people who are addicted to heroin and gasp...also work full time jobs? This argument to me really comes across as a masked disgust of poor people.

[Skubbs]

maybe not you

but people who maybe are in the environment where the way to try is easily accessable

probably maybe having a smoke of it, you don't always have inject

It usually progresses though, once addicted some people will do anything to get it into their system faster.

I think we all agree that it's a horrible situation to be in. I just have little pity for them, the same with alcoholics and smokers - if they end up in hospital because of it then it's their own fault. Just as it would be my own for forgetting my epilepsy medication and having a seizure, if a diabetic chose not to take their insulin because it would help them lose weight, or a person who is obese not from a medical problem but because they comfort eat. There may be reasons as to why they are the way they are, but there is always another option.

You have to start taking responsibility for yourself at some point, and admitting that you could do things differently. Addicts who seek help I sympathise with, because they at least have the courage to get off of heroin or whatever drug it is.

The flesh eating virus is a chance that the addicts who inject will take.

[Skubbs]

It's bad enough that she was a dirty, theiving junkie - but that kind of behaviour is downright rude!

Please shut up now. You are a clueless, middle class self-proclaimed 'teuchter' and you're just embarassing yourself.

To all of those who are bringing taxes into the equation, what is your opinion of people who are addicted to heroin and gasp...also work full time jobs? This argument to me really comes across as a masked disgust of poor people.

I am not a fucking self-proclaimed teuchter you twat, you know nothing about me. I stay in Aberdeenshire but I was not brought up here, henc me knowing exactly what I am talking about. I know people who are heroin addicts, know past-addicts and have seen exactly what happens to them and their familes.

So having experience with addicts makes me clueless? And living in the countryside makes me middle-class? What the hell has class got to do with my opinions?

If they work, then I doubt they are able to function properly. For those weaning themselves off of it and working then hands up to them, well done for sorting their lives out. And I have nothing against poor people. Are you implying that all poor people are addicts?

[Pierre Von Mondragon]

Alcohol is not nutrition therefore it is a drug, and is thus totally comparable. The fact that it is a socially sanctioned one matters not one jot to its pharmacological toxicity.

The heroin problem in the UK is a totally manufactured event, fallout of the 60s culture wars. Prior to 1971 there were fewer than a thousand addicts in the whole country, all getting a legal supply from there doctors, with little to no collateral damage to society. However the government of the day decided it could not be seen to be tolerating drug use of any kind and banned this enlightened policy, creating for the first time in Britain, an economic incentive for criminals to sell heroin. As pharmaceutical heroin is non-harmful to human tissue, this was when much of the physical damage of heroin was introduced, in the cutting agents. And so the roots of our problem are created by politicians for propaganda and posturing, not by treating it as a public health risk, the approach that was superseded in 1971.

Not a great soundbite though, eh.

[Guest Jake Wifebeater]

I just have little pity for them, the same with alcoholics and smokers - if they end up in hospital because of it then it's their own fault. Just as it would be my own for forgetting my epilepsy medication and having a seizure, if a diabetic chose not to take their insulin because it would help them lose weight, or a person who is obese not from a medical problem but because they comfort eat. There may be reasons as to why they are the way they are, but there is always another option.

There's always a choice but believe me, when something gets you in the grip of addiction then reason goes out the window. If I have to go 2 hours without a smoke I start going berserk inside, I need it and to fuck with everything else until I get my fix. I take responsibility for it, it was my choice to start smoking and it's my choice to keep doing so. It's cool though, I'm lucky enough to be in a job where I can smoke whenever I need to.

Fat people comfort eating is a repulsive sight, no getting away from it...

[Skubbs]

There's always a choice but believe me, when something gets you in the grip of addiction then reason goes out the window. If I have to go 2 hours without a smoke I start going berserk inside, I need it and to fuck with everything else until I get my fix. I take responsibility for it, it was my choice to start smoking and it's my choice to keep doing so. It's cool though, I'm lucky enough to be in a job where I can smoke whenever I need to.

Fat people comfort eating is a repulsive sight, no getting away from it...

Exactly, take responsibility for it! Blaming your upbringing etc... is just an easy way of saying "don't punish me, it's not my fault sir, they made me do it"

Be an adult, and face up to the choices you've made.

[Guest Tam o' Shantie]

I am not a fucking self-proclaimed teuchter you twat, you know nothing about me. I stay in Aberdeenshire but I was not brought up here, henc me knowing exactly what I am talking about. I know people who are heroin addicts, know past-addicts and have seen exactly what happens to them and their familes.

So having experience with addicts makes me clueless? And living in the countryside makes me middle-class? What the hell has class got to do with my opinions?

If they work, then I doubt they are able to function properly. For those weaning themselves off of it and working then hands up to them, well done for sorting their lives out. And I have nothing against poor people. Are you implying that all poor people are addicts?

I have to assume you're lying just because you've spoken so much pish in this thread. And I know people who have worked full time jobs whilst 'functioning' properly and have eventually come off heroin, and have read several written articles about similar people who are not posessed demons, they are just people with problems who most likely were influenced into getting involved in the first place by factors outwith of their control. Your earlier posts depict every person addicted to Heroin as some well mannered teenager who one day gets thinking about injecting Heroin, then curiosity gets the better of them and they slide down the slippery slope of theft, ill mannered behaviour and worst of all, unemployment. It just reeks of middle class snobbery and I am perfectly entitled to my opinion on that. You have to realise that not everyone has a perfectly normal pleasant life and then just out of the blue decides to become a fillthy, rude, theiving, unemployed beggar addicted to a socially unacceptable drug, which is how most people on this thread seem to view any person addicted to heroin.

[Skubbs]

There are also plenty of articles about children from poverty-stricken homes who have seen what drugs have done to their friends and family and have decided to not follow that path.

There are heroin users from every walk of life, yes a lot do come from poorer homes but that does not mean they are idiots who have no idea what they are getting themselves into. They know what kind of life it leads to and by injecting or smoking heroin, they put themselves at risk of becoming addicted.

Granted, the schools didn't educate well on the topic of drugs years ago, but they are improving.

[Pierre Von Mondragon]

As for the old booze, its putting approx 400 people a day in mental hospitals. Now given in mind that the govt justification for reclassifying cannabis as Class B is that stronger weed is causing mental health problems, despite proven figures showing that only 400 people a year are sectioned due to cannabis use. Well nothing proves better that govt attitude to substance abuse is based on ignorance, propaganda and outright lies, and has no connection to the public good at any level.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/4030594/Hospitals-treat-400-people-a-day-for-mental-problems-linked-to-drinking.html

Ben Goldacre: Bad science | Science | The Guardian

Bad science: Cherry picking data to prove a point about cannabis | Comment is free | The Guardian

Cannabis chemical curbs psychotic symptoms, study finds | Science | The Guardian

[KimyReizeger]

Yes there is such a thing as free will, life is full of options and the outcome of your life is dependant on your choices. Those who choose to study hard at school and go onto university will have more career options than a junkie who chose to get high at school and leave at 16 to sit about with their mates and shoot up.

Taking the choice to attend university is hardly a testament to the power of individual liberty. Much the opposite, many factors influence people's decision to attend, as with most other conceivable concepts. If that's your definition of freedom you clearly have a very restrained mind and poor imagination.

Attitudes towards drugs being a problem? Eh, I would think legalising it would make the problem WORSE.

I never said 'Attitudes Are The Problem'. I didn't suggest at any point that any single factor constitutes the problem. Nor did I even hint that legalising the drug would improve things. Far from it, my whole point, was that there are many, many, many factors that influence things. Cut out the black-and-white, cowboys-and-indians shit.

Why on Earth should I work hard and pay my taxes, just so some lazy bastard who decided they wanted to try heroin, got hooked and can't work, can stay at home?

Again, putting absolute emphasis on individual will, as though anyone 'decides' to get hooked so they can stay at home and not work 'because they want to'.

I'm not miserable, I'm not alone (a lot of people share my viewpoint) and I'm only hate-filled for the people who rely on me to make a living, so they can steal it from me.

It's an embittered viewpoint. It fosters resentment and bad feeling within you. Try and take a reasoned look on the world without resorting to 'what about my taxes' arguments.