How does the World view America these days?

c.s's, controlled substances, are on a major lockdown here

try getting anything stronger than codeine for anything major & you'll be looked @ like a junky, same with benzos

in the US summat went drastically wrong, its not just legal oxy & illicit smack, its xanax & *insert prescriptions here* that seems to have escalated beyond anything you might expect from such a nation

oxy is quite nice though, but a bit more-ish, 10 days a year annual average leave you could almost be forgiven for reaching toward the warped logic of a sedated chill on a national holiday weekend

  On 10/23/2017 at 10:57 PM, cwmbrancity said:

in the US summat went drastically wrong, its not just legal oxy & illicit smack, its xanax & *insert prescriptions here* that seems to have escalated beyond anything you might expect from such a nation

Well for starters, in an early slippery (slippy) step into the capitalist shitopia we inhabit in today (don't remember exactly but presume Reagan-era), our lawmakers and courts decided it was a-o-kay for pharma to directly advertise prescription drugs to the public, tv, newspapers, magazines, everywhere; thence bringing us such hits as "Ask your doctor if <drug> is right for you,"  "Side effects may include... <effect>, <effect>, and diarrhea," boner pills, and the latest hit single, opioid epidemics.  And the best part is all the cunts are making mad bank off it too!

Genuinely curious, do other countries / cultures tolerate this shit?

yea and Trump wanted a drug industry goon to head up the drug tsar position

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-tom-marino-drug-czar-withdraw-opioid-epidemic-twitter-prescription-painkiller-worse-a8004961.html 

  On 10/24/2017 at 2:27 AM, bendish said:

yea and Trump wanted a drug industry goon to head up the drug tsar position

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-tom-marino-drug-czar-withdraw-opioid-epidemic-twitter-prescription-painkiller-worse-a8004961.html 

this is what he knows. 

he thinks all the people in business are the 'best people' and all the people in public service are losers. so why would be pick a 'loser' for the big job? he thinks business knows best. why would someone work in public service if they could work in business and make more money because money is the measurement of success. 

  On 10/23/2017 at 10:57 PM, cwmbrancity said:

c.s's, controlled substances, are on a major lockdown here

 

try getting anything stronger than codeine for anything major & you'll be looked @ like a junky, same with benzos

 

in the US summat went drastically wrong, its not just legal oxy & illicit smack, its xanax & *insert prescriptions here* that seems to have escalated beyond anything you might expect from such a nation

 

oxy is quite nice though, but a bit more-ish, 10 days a year annual average leave you could almost be forgiven for reaching toward the warped logic of a sedated chill on a national holiday weekend

During the late 90s / early 00s, a surge of barely licensed "pain clinics" opened in the US, especially across the South, and more specifically Broward County, Florida. Oxy, Xanax, Valium, Methadone, etc. became a commercial industry for profit, and the pharma giants just turned a blind eye as they printed money off other people's addictions. A crackdown on clinics eventually came, but it was so bad, people were just selling their scripts in the parking lots of the clinics after walking out. Now, the VA has basically taken the position of medicating the military vets into vegetables, God forbid they might legalize pot for PTSD.  But yeah, the US consumes the majority of the World's opioids, sadly.

  On 10/23/2017 at 6:32 PM, bendish said:

 

  On 10/23/2017 at 5:41 PM, cwmbrancity said:

 

  On 10/23/2017 at 8:57 AM, beerwolf said:

Wathced the great Louis Theroux and his new documentry on Milwaukee Gun crime last night. Absolute bonkers.

 

i tried to watch the tri-state one on opiates in West Virginia, Ohio et al, but it was relentlessly grim & had to bail after 25mins-ish, summat about needles/sharps and puncture marks down arms reminds me too much of olde school friends who descended into that pit of heroin addiction

 

wish he would do summat on UK issues instead of the proverbial "check out how fkd up things are across the pond", because it abstracts the issues by framing them as US-centric problems

Good point.totally agree. It's U.S voyeurism when we have similar terrible shit right here.

 

Actually I agree with this. Miss the eccentric stuff he used to do, would be great if he did another batch of Weird Weekends where he's not taking himself so seriously. He does have a perfect skill with people which I admire, serious or not serious. 

I watched all three in a row last night. Excellent docs.. The heroin one, jesus, with those guys in the tents, it's like a movie

I remember an American lecturer bringing an advert for some sort of drug, possibly an antidepressant, pulled out of a US magazine, into a class once, think it was a lecture on something drug-related. One side of the page showed your standard family-on-a-beach-having-fun picture and on the other side was a full A4 page of life-ruining side effects in tiny, tiny print. Hadn't really seen anything like it before and haven't seen anything similar from the UK or Europe since.

Yeah, Ive been buying meds from germany and I noticed how plain the packaging is. It's a business here, and that is the heart of the problem. 

good map comparing opiate overdose deaths in 1999 & 2014 (plus however many have check out in the 3&half years since)

https://www.theguardian.com/society/ng-interactive/2016/may/25/opioid-epidemic-overdose-deaths-map

My close friend's brother just died of a fentanyl OD last weekend, so you can add 1 to Rhode Island.  Kid had bigger/more foundational issues (most do), but big thanks to the rx industry for abetting and accelerating his demise.

personal stories like that arent really taken into account by maps, condolences

heroin used to rule the roost here, ironically quite a few folks i knew used it for comedowns after marathon weekenders via other substances & then went on to develop 20+year habits as a consequence

the same could be said for alcohol, although its still not really seen as a societal problem the way it should be, most British town & city centers are war-zones at weekends from the sheer volume of alcohol consumed which then spills into side streets & worst of all in A&E depts

its strange because NW Europeans seem to take pride in the amount of booze consumed that got them slaughtered on *insert boozy occasion here, to the extent a lot of office small talk would dry up completely if you took alcohol related subjects out the mix

There's a guy called Michael stone...a yoga teacher and mindfulness dude just died

https://tricycle.org/trikedaily/buddhist-teacher-michael-stones-family-says-likely-died-opioid-overdose/

I've had a couple friends die from heroin use, and know a few recovering heroin addicts, but never anyone addicted to pills fortunately.
 

  On 10/24/2017 at 9:05 PM, Leon Sumbitches said:

I remember an American lecturer bringing an advert for some sort of drug, possibly an antidepressant, pulled out of a US magazine, into a class once, think it was a lecture on something drug-related. One side of the page showed your standard family-on-a-beach-having-fun picture and on the other side was a full A4 page of life-ruining side effects in tiny, tiny print. Hadn't really seen anything like it before and haven't seen anything similar from the UK or Europe since.

Fine print is a modern American tradition.

full story here

p.s. also: hone depot :D

All those needles from a single camp? Damn, and I thought we had it bad up here...

  On 10/25/2017 at 4:22 PM, marf said:

Yeah, Ive been buying meds from germany and I noticed how plain the packaging is. It's a business here, and that is the heart of the problem. 

it's a business anywhere, the difference is that the unthinking collective psychopathy of corporations is allowed to run free in the US because of its relatively unique cultural and sociopolitical problems (not covered simply by "capitalism") which leads to loose oversight/governance.

portland is same in regard to needles. many camps and many people just shooting up in different places randomly. have seen people shooting up on sidewalks. needles are all over. 

heroin epidemic is for real. 

yeah. I was just too lazy to get into it.

I see Opiates as a true gift to humans. Now we will have speed bumps in the parking lot cause of couple assholes who want to drag race.  Now, a lot of people who really need them won't get them, sadly. I knew the cold turkey crack down would just bring in heroin and worse stuff. We approach the problem in the wrong way. White people from good families are dying so now it's a sickness and not a crime. etc etc.. It is a sickness, it all is, humans are humans. Opiates make you feel like you are in heaven and it made people who otherwise wouldn't try Heroin get addicted, but hard and fast cut off is not the way to go. Like 7 day limits on opiate scripts. Good people are hurting. Blaming drug companies and docs I'm not sure is the way to go either. They aren't fortune tellers. Like the CIA invented Al Qaeda.. Well yeah, I guess, but by accident not design. 

surely there were projected annual business plans, returns/profit & losses from manufacturers?

there has to be some responsibility on the part of the patient?

i went from 20mg x 4 of morphine daily after getting legs n pelvis obliterated, but after a full discharge the GP would only prescribe codeine, a horrendous substance @ 240mg a day because it didnt touch the pain but maaaaan did i itch, night sweat & clog up yer guts

ended up having to see said Dr with an independent advocate to get dihydrocodeine @ approx 240mg a month, and even then i shaved it down to about a third of that cos of the yucky feeling

opiates can be lush, but "Letter From a Master Addict to Dangerous Drugs" was written in 1956, so theres surely been a lot of time for folks to fully absorb the perils of the poppy

i empathize with you if yer trying to negotiate use, but wedge withdrawal shouldnt be too severe, if i could do it any1 can

My so-called brother in law is a heroin addict, but he went to jail for a while and is on a restraining order. He stole tons of things from my mom and sister and pawned off my sister's wedding ring a week before my nephew was born. He is currently bouncing child support checks. 

White people from good families

Ain't that the truth

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/26/las-vegas-shooting-conspiracy-theories-social-media

Oh for fuck's sake.  Comet plz.

  On 10/27/2017 at 1:19 AM, hello spiral said:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/26/las-vegas-shooting-conspiracy-theories-social-media

I'm actually surprised that the article assumes these 'conspiracy theorists' are just that, instead of trolls who might even be paid to troll. As I'm sure that bullshit didn't stop with the elections. It's still ongoing (similar to the 33% of nonsense trump twitter followers). Seems willfully ignorant, imo.

And the other lesson should be to avoid being in the news/media at all costs. Just say no if you've been a witness of some newsworthy incident, when asked to be interviewed. Choose your 15mins of fame carefully.