'The drug became his friend': Pandemic Drives Spike in Opioid Deaths

[JacksinPA]

‘The Drug Became His Friend’: Pandemic Drives Hike in Opioid Deaths (Published 2020)

In the months since the pandemic took hold in the U.S., the opioid epidemic has taken a sharp turn for the worse. More than 40 states have seen evidence of increases in overdoses.

www.nytimes.com

More than 40 states have seen increases in deaths from opioid overdoses

BARRE, Vermont — On the first Friday in June, Jefrey Cameron, 29, left his home around midnight to buy heroin. He had been struggling with addiction for seven years but had seemingly turned a corner, holding down a job that he loved at Basil’s Pizzeria, driving his teenage sister to the mall to go shopping and sharing a home with his grandmother. But then the coronavirus pandemic hit.

When he returned home that night and tried the product, it was so potent that he fell and hit his head in the bathroom. Mr. Cameron texted a friend soon after, saying that he had messed up and would go to a 12-step meeting with a friend that weekend.

“I promise I’m good and I can’t get in any more trouble tonight,” he wrote. “Sweet dreams, if you wake up before you hear from me definitely call me. The sooner I get up and into town the better.” When Mr. Cameron woke up, he used the rest of the powder — largely fentanyl, not heroin, his family would later learn — from a small bag with a bunny stamped on it. Less than five hours after he sent the text, his grandmother found him dead.
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Fallout from the pandemic & Trump's mishandling it from the start.

 

[Bullseye]

‘The Drug Became His Friend’: Pandemic Drives Hike in Opioid Deaths (Published 2020)

In the months since the pandemic took hold in the U.S., the opioid epidemic has taken a sharp turn for the worse. More than 40 states have seen evidence of increases in overdoses.

www.nytimes.com

More than 40 states have seen increases in deaths from opioid overdoses

BARRE, Vermont — On the first Friday in June, Jefrey Cameron, 29, left his home around midnight to buy heroin. He had been struggling with addiction for seven years but had seemingly turned a corner, holding down a job that he loved at Basil’s Pizzeria, driving his teenage sister to the mall to go shopping and sharing a home with his grandmother. But then the coronavirus pandemic hit.

When he returned home that night and tried the product, it was so potent that he fell and hit his head in the bathroom. Mr. Cameron texted a friend soon after, saying that he had messed up and would go to a 12-step meeting with a friend that weekend.

“I promise I’m good and I can’t get in any more trouble tonight,” he wrote. “Sweet dreams, if you wake up before you hear from me definitely call me. The sooner I get up and into town the better.” When Mr. Cameron woke up, he used the rest of the powder — largely fentanyl, not heroin, his family would later learn — from a small bag with a bunny stamped on it. Less than five hours after he sent the text, his grandmother found him dead.
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Fallout from the pandemic & Trump's mishandling it from the start.

A drug user relapses and somehow that's Trump's fault? That is one whacked out bullshit.

 

[trixare4kids]

Truly sick patients who really are in need of a short term course of temporary analgesics/opioids are being denied relief from their medical providers because of the above dilemma.

 

[trixare4kids]

A drug user relapses and somehow that's Trump's fault? That is one whacked out bullshit.

One month to go...EVERYTHING is Trump's fault.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

This is not Trump's fault but this country has avoided every possible solution that helps addiction treatment for well over a century and now, treatment is a profit oriented, insurance backed growth industry that is only available to well off middle class and the wealthy elites, the latter of which often treat it like a revolving door.
There are little to no free community addiction treatment clinics for the average poor working stiff or homeless.

I nearly killed my first wife early on in our shared crack addiction.



She went totally unresponsive after taking a rather large hit one day and I watched in sheer terror as the paramedics revived her. She had NO pulse whatsoever, and it was a miracle that they brought her back.
But it wasn't enough of a miracle to stop either of us until a couple of years later when I almost died of a seizure on a Santa Monica sidewalk in 103 degree heat.
Apparently it was a doozy of a seizure because I had two matching gashes on either side of my forehead near the temples on each side of my head.
I refused further medical treatment from the paramedics and ran the two blocks back to my home and resolved then and there to seek a 12 step program. Wife refused and walked out on me two months later. (1995)
She died four years ago at 69, never having freed herself of her demons.

The 12 step program saved me but I would have benefited from an actual treatment clinic.
I fell off the wagon a few times and eventually managed to save myself.

 

[Chomsky]

This is not Trump's fault but this country has avoided every possible solution that helps addiction treatment for well over a century and now, treatment is a profit oriented, insurance backed growth industry that is only available to well off middle class and the wealthy elites, the latter of which often treat it like a revolving door.
There are little to no free community addiction treatment clinics for the average poor working stiff or homeless.

I nearly killed my first wife early on in our shared crack addiction.

View attachment 67297752

She went totally unresponsive after taking a rather large hit one day and I watched in sheer terror as the paramedics revived her. She had NO pulse whatsoever, and it was a miracle that they brought her back.
But it wasn't enough of a miracle to stop either of us until a couple of years later when I almost died of a seizure on a Santa Monica sidewalk in 103 degree heat.
Apparently it was a doozy of a seizure because I had two matching gashes on either side of my forehead near the temples on each side of my head.
I refused further medical treatment from the paramedics and ran the two blocks back to my home and resolved then and there to seek a 12 step program. Wife refused and walked out on me two months later. (1995)
She died four years ago at 69, never having freed herself of her demons.

The 12 step program saved me but I would have benefited from an actual treatment clinic.
I fell off the wagon a few times and eventually managed to save myself.

Man, I'm sorry to hear of the bolded & her passing. But you know the score with addiction - a user and a person in recovery just ain't gonna' make it together. It don't work that way.

Even stranger are the stories where a non-addict lives with an active addict for many years, the addict gets sober, and the relationship quickly falls apart.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

Man, I'm sorry to hear of the bolded & her passing. But you know the score with addiction - a user and a person in recovery just ain't gonna' make it together. It don't work that way.

Even stranger are the stories where a non-addict lives with an active addict for many years, the addict gets sober, and the relationship quickly falls apart.

That's pretty much how it went down. She was already a coke user when I met her.
I barely did any drugs back then, but we were both really just dabbling, and I do not blame her for my becoming an addict, it was my decision and her addiction was her decision and besides, at the time, I was just thinking with the little head instead of the big head anyway.
She was quite brilliant when we first got together, a brilliant screenwriter and a very talented business manager who worked for several well known screenwriters, and her former husband had produced the 1894 Milius movie Red Dawn.
It went downhill after about five or six years together and by the seventh and eighth year, we were fully damaged and fully into our drug fueled trip over the cliff together.

The 1994 Northridge Quake sealed our fate.
With my business completely destroyed, our path went to full blown crack-town.
And that is how it somewhat relates to the pandemic because the quake was a disaster of epic proportions, and it exacerbated problems and made everything worse. I don't blame the quake either but it sure didn't help things.

 

[Chomsky]

That's pretty much how it went down. She was already a coke user when I met her.
I barely did any drugs back then, but we were both really just dabbling, and I do not blame her for my becoming an addict, it was my decision and her addiction was her decision and besides, at the time, I was just thinking with the little head instead of the big head anyway.
She was quite brilliant when we first got together, a brilliant screenwriter and a very talented business manager who worked for several well known screenwriters, and her former husband had produced the 1894 Milius movie Red Dawn.
It went downhill after about five or six years together and by the seventh and eighth year, we were fully damaged and fully into our drug fueled trip over the cliff together.

The 1994 Northridge Quake sealed our fate.
With my business completely destroyed, our path went to full blown crack-town.
And that is how it somewhat relates to the pandemic because the quake was a disaster of epic proportions, and it exacerbated problems and made everything worse. I don't blame the quake either but it sure didn't help things.

Interesting that you guys followed the White Lady for that many years, before imploding. In the coke epidemic of the late 80's, I was amazed at how many dopers/partyers I knew who partied for decades on a myriad of substances, only to crash their lives after just a year or two of being a 'rock star'. And some of these guys did some pretty heavy stuff, previously. But those little rocks did them in ... pronto!

 

[JacksinPA]

Interesting that you guys followed the White Lady for that many years, before imploding. In the coke epidemic of the late 80's, I was amazed at how many dopers/partyers I knew who partied for decades on a myriad of substances, only to crash their lives after just a year or two of being a 'rock star'. And some of these guys did some pretty heavy stuff, previously. But those little rocks did them in ... pronto!

You can kill yourself just inhaling fentanyl dust.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

Interesting that you guys followed the White Lady for that many years, before imploding. In the coke epidemic of the late 80's, I was amazed at how many dopers/partyers I knew who partied for decades on a myriad of substances, only to crash their lives after just a year or two of being a 'rock star'. And some of these guys did some pretty heavy stuff, previously. But those little rocks did them in ... pronto!

There's always one of those "helpful" people around, you know?
When our noses became so inflamed by habitual use that the powder was literally falling back out after snorting, wouldn't you know it, one of her "girlfriends" showed us that "alternate" method, putting a hunk of powder into a few CC of water, adding a generous dash of baking soda, stirring and heating to a boil and then cooling it until a sheen of amber "oil" appeared on the surface, then waiting till it solidified into a hard chunk...of CRACK.
So who cares if your nose sounds like a party favor when you inhale, now you can smoke your coke. (sarcasm)

Yeah, very "helpful".

 

[Roadvirus]

A drug user relapses and somehow that's Trump's fault? That is one whacked out bullshit.

I stubbed my toe. That damn Trump!!!