My Stepson's Best Friend OD'd Today--Build The Damn Wall NOW!

This is very insightful. Wishing your son the best!
Everything we think we know about Addiction is wrong

90% of the drugs coming into this country come across the US southern border.

I would question those figures - there's Afghanistan - and the ramping up of production since the "war on Terror".



www.theguardian.com...

Despite almost continuous combat since the invasion of October 2001, pacification efforts have failed to curtail the Taliban insurgency, largely because the US simply could not control the swelling surplus from the country’s heroin trade. Its opium production surged from around 180 tonnes in 2001 to more than 3,000 tonnes a year after the invasion, and to more than 8,000 by 2007.

The CIA looked the other way while Afghanistan’s opium production grew from about 100 tonnes annually in the 1970s to 2,000 tonnes by 1991. In 1979 and 1980, just as the CIA effort was beginning to ramp up, a network of heroin laboratories opened along the Afghan-Pakistan frontier. That region soon became the world’s largest heroin producer. By 1984, it supplied a staggering 60% of the US market and 80% of the European.

But for the first few years of the occupation, according to a 2007 New York Times report, defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld reportedly “dismissed growing signs that drug money was being funnelled to the Taliban”, while the CIA and the military “turned a blind eye to drug-related activities by prominent warlords”.

By 2007, the UN’s Afghanistan Opium Survey found that the country’s then-record opium harvest of approxinamtely 8,200 tonnes provided 93% of the world’s illicit heroin supply

Sorry for your loss. A co worker died from an OD after several stints, another friend of mine OD from fentanyl laced coc aine, the dad took the kids on ski vacation and she had a little fun like they always do and she was sold a pure batch of fentanyl because the toxicology came back with no coc aine. Dad would of been dead too if he would of been home. I live in a very affluent area and this # was sold in the area.

This is a bigger crisis, we are losing generations.

a reply to: IAMTAT


I'm sorry to hear about your son and his friend.

I was going to post a link however it was already posted.

originally posted by: olaru12
Don't you think it's time for the junkies to take personal responsibility for their own lives?

Always looking for a scapegoat to place the blame on rather than their own scumbag oh poor me, lifestyle.

olaru...I know you to be an intelligent person...as well as a fairly rational one.
So I'll handle your comment in the following manner:

I used to think exactly that same way too...Really.

Having a heroin addict come into in the family and being present for his struggles has shown me that this type of addiction is different than many (or all) others.
The power heroin has over young minds and wills is damn near irresistible.

He's tried again and again to get clean...and failed. Each time, when he was within days or weeks of literally dying and was miraculously rescued and sought/sent to rehab...I've said to my self..."If this doesn't make him stop...nothing will."

Heroin addiction is [almost] always a death sentence.

a reply to: IAMTAT

Do you have any suspicions if it was laced with fentanyl and that caused the overdose? Or do you think the taking of life was intentional?

Since you have dealt with this maybe you have a suspicion, why? Why do they do it? Is it just a simple escape at the beginning and they have no control over the downward spiral? Do they simply seek death at the end or it is mostly accidental?

a reply to: IAMTAT

I'm very sorry for your loss but I seriously doubt a wall will keep the drugs out.
Way to much demand for the supply to stop.

Still want the wall though.

a reply to: IAMTAT

Damn. I’m sorry to hear this.
As a person who had their own trials and tribulations with addiction when I was younger, I know how horrible the cycle is.
It took seeing my children crying one night for me to wake up and get my life under control.
Now, I couldn’t be happier.
It was like a rebirth.
Now I be the person I can be, everyday, for my family and for my fraternal brothers.

Your step son has the power to change. I know it.
He might not yet. But I do.
All he needs to be shown is the why.
Once he understands why, he will take control.

Here’s hoping to sooner than later.

originally posted by: ClovenSky
a reply to: IAMTAT

Do you have any suspicions if it was laced with fentanyl and that caused the overdose? Or do you think the taking of life was intentional?

Since you have dealt with this maybe you have a suspicion, why? Why do they do it? Is it just a simple escape at the beginning and they have no control over the downward spiral? Do they simply seek death at the end or it is mostly accidental?

So far, we don't have anymore than he was a heroin addict and he overdosed.
Your other questions are good ones. In my stepson's case, he began doing it with the friends he had.
After being addicted for some time, they honestly know the next time they do it could be the time that kills them...but the addiction is so strong...they just can't stop themselves.
It's now so easy to get...t's everywhere...and when it's there before them...they are almost powerless to stop.

a reply to: olaru12

Sorry for your loss TAT, my son in law went through the same stuff with perscription pain killers

Build the wall. MAGA. Shut the drug dealers, killers, rapists, thieves and law breakers out. Let merit determine who we decide to let into this country and who doesn't get in. Let those fleeing legitimate instances of State persecution seek asylum here as well.

Otherwise: build it 50ft. tall.

a reply to: IAMTAT

So what the hell is at the root then? I will have to watch that tedtalks video later (even though I believe the ted forum is simply awful).

I can't lie, I looooovvvveeee substances. But I have never been at the point of being controlled by them, which I am probably lying to myself about. Maybe it is simply the lack of access of where I am.

But how can some people try it once and walk away. Or do it for a while and something causes them to value staying alive and sober more. Is it spiritual? Is it completely chemical psychical desire? Is it pain of living in this reality that drives them?

Maybe there are 2 distinct types of people. Those that are happy and seek the challenge of 'new'. Those that are very unhappy and are seeking an escape.

originally posted by: ClovenSky
a reply to: IAMTAT

So what the hell is at the root then? I will have to watch that tedtalks video later (even though I believe the ted forum is simply awful).

I can't lie, I looooovvvveeee substances. But I have never been at the point of being controlled by them, which I am probably lying to myself about. Maybe it is simply the lack of access of where I am.

But how can some people try it once and walk away. Or do it for a while and something causes them to value staying alive and sober more. Is it spiritual? Is it completely chemical psychical desire? Is it pain of living in this reality that drives them?

Maybe there are 2 distinct types of people. Those that are happy and seek the challenge of 'new'. Those that are very unhappy and are seeking an escape.

I'm sorry...I don't have any answers for you.
If you can regularly shoot heroin (hopefully you don't) and not feel it's hold over you...I guess you're one of the lucky ones.

I don't do drugs...beyond occasional alcohol...but I've seen enough (up close) to know I don't ever want to go there.

a reply to: IAMTAT

OK, maybe not all substances as needles scare me more than curiosity compels.

I haven't been exposed to the groups that partake in this area. Does it seem like it is something that is always there, just waiting for exposure? Why do some people like yourself have no desire what so ever to corrupt normal reality? It can't be religious or ethical teachings as it appears those don't determine usage at all. Could it be happiness? Could it be simply misunderstanding reality which creates confusion and pain? If these addicts were properly introduced to how this world works, would they have a greater chance to kick the addiction? Sometimes I think addicts see the world more clearly than the sober do.

As someone else pointed out, this issue isn't a supply issue, it is a demand issue.

I feel you OP. I've lost family members and friends over drugs and I have one cousin right now where everyone is just waiting on that phone call. The drugs are way too f**king potent, too laced, and too addictive.

Here is a hard truth. The wall is not going to stop drugs coming in. It won't even put a dent in the quantities getting through because the most lucrative and cost effective way of transporting drugs is through official border crossings. They bring in hundreds of pounds through something called cover loads where they hide the drugs among a legitimate shipment like fruit. Here is an example of a man trying to smuggle 20.7 lb of heroin through the Del Rio border crossing. The drugs were hidden in a fire extinguisher and hollowed out planks of wood. The risk is higher but so is the reward.

The cartels also have the money to invest in high tech methods of deception. They figured out how to liquefy coc aine when the DEA was concerned with finding powder. There was a group in Europe that had a method of hiding coc aine in clear plastic products.

In my opinion, I think the money people want to use for the wall would be better spent in keeping up with the cartels methods of smuggling. Updating technology and finding new detection methods. I think a wall would only prevent pounds of drugs coming in, not the tonnes hidden in semitrailers.

I honestly hope your stepson can see his way out of his addiction, that he'll find the strength needed to escape the grips of heroin.

I hope you never have to get that phone call.

a reply to: IAMTAT

Tat, my heart breaks for you and your son. I pray the creator and spirit will embrace you and your son through this time. Remember you and your family are not alone. You also have an ATS family who cares and supports you.

a reply to: olaru12

Suppose your right in YOUR reality. Funny though because my REALITY disagrees. Preying on weakness, maybe we all need to look at the Root of the problem, instead of the casualties. This world is not what it was . WATCH. We will see exactly who's reality rules the day. I pray for you.

OP
You are not alone

there is hope. my significant other was addicted to heroin for 10+ years.

She kicked and has been clean going on 20 years now.

There is hope!

My heart is breaking for you and your family, IAMTAT. This kind of needless loss just makes one feel helpless. These kinds of drugs should be damn near impossible to get instead of so readily available. Addiction is devastating all the way around.

To the poster that said most drugs come through ports of entry, I disagree. There are massive tunnels and caves underground from Mexico into the US. Just enough drugs go through the P.O.E.s to keep border patrol agents and other law enforcement busy, while massive amounts actually come in elsewhere. It needs to stop now.

The right kind of Wall along with more technology to detect underground excavations of this magnitude and extremely harsh punishments will stop a lot of it. If it saves lives, and solves at least a portion of the drug trafficking, it's worth the money.

You don't need a wall to stop OD's.
We need all drugs to be legalised. The only reason people OD is because there is no standard.
One week it's cut with brick dust the next it's cut with Fentynl.

Legalisation is the answer. Class A's at a pharmacy. Class B + C at coffee shops like Amsterdam.

originally posted by: liveandlearn
a reply to: IAMTAT

Tat, my heart breaks for you and your son. I pray the creator and spirit will embrace you and your son through this time. Remember you and your family are not alone. You also have an ATS family who cares and supports you.

TY for that. I love my ATS friends and family.
This has become a part of our lives...and it is getting so much worse. Unchecked.
We're prepared for the worse if our phone call ever comes...but it's a struggle everyday.

Our children and young people are dying at an insane rate from drug addiction.

Will building a wall put an end to this ocean of drugs killing our youth?....Of course not.
But it will help to dramatically reduce it.
That translates into saved lives...our children's lives...enhanced chances for futures...for those responsible for the future of our country, our society and our planet.

Building the wall will also make a monumental statement that the trafficking of drugs and crime into our country is something we take deadly seriously, because, frankly, I am not seeing Pelosi, Schumer...and the democrats in congress taking ANYTHING seriously these days...other than their own egos and their personal quests to amass power.