Kicking meth out of town.

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Originally Posted By: Mantooth

I work in the public safety field for a large department. When I first started my career (many moons ago), crack cocaine was the big thing on the streets. A few years later, meth moved to town and we started seeing all the stationary and mobile labs pop up. I also witnessed the quick decline of people who became addicted and suffered the health consequences. While meth was in town, we also saw a spike in prescription drug abuse. Then heroin hit! I have never witnessed something put a strain on a system like heroin. Police, EMS and hospital ERs have been over taxed with the additional calls for service in dealing with heroin. Our EMS response times have soared simply because our trucks are constantly tied up with herion ODs. There are officers who have administered multiple narcan doses in a single shift and they have also saved the same person from ODing numerous times. Our crime rate has spike as well. Locally, we are one track for a record number of homicides. The PD has restructured twice in the past few years just to deal with the increase.

By no means I'm I trying to minimize the effects of meth, I've seen it and its bad. With heroin, I have never seen something rock the streets like it has.


Thanks for the perspective. I guess every area is different. I'm coming at it from an area where statistically sewerage monitoring has indicated we have some of the highest Meth use per-capita documented across the globe. We had Heroin back in the 80's, and it is resurging somewhat here particularly with fentanyl (as mentioned by others in the thread). The biggest issue with Meth vs Heroin is the psychosis and resulting violence. Opiate abusers just don't get dragged into the ER and try to beat nurses to death.

We've been dealing with opiates for so long the health system adapted to cope fairly effectively. Things like mine workers spending a couple of weeks in Bali on their swing, being met at the airport by their dealers and ODing in the car park outside. Their dealer just rolls them out of the car and takes off leaving the airport to deal with the issue.

They've recently (like in the last 6 months) leagalized and facilitated the supply of Narcan kits at pharmacies to try and take some of the load off the health system. Time will tell if it makes a measurable difference. Unfortunately no such treatment for a Meth bender.

By no means am I trying to minimise the effects of Heroin, but I've met many recovered addicts who've managed to stay clean and have had no long term health issues caused by years of opiate abuse. I can't say the same for Meth unfortunately. Being in the security game, I get exposed to what is happening in ERs across the state and Meth has the highest impact on health care by diverting resources away from everyone else who needs treatment (which sounds like what Heroin is doing up your way). I'll qualify that by saying my experience is local to my state (which is 8 times the size of Texas) in Australia, so it's always going to be different to what you see.

Either way, without either drug (and any substitutes/replacements) we'd all be better off. Having said that, the overall health implications of both don't add up to the damage (both short and long term) caused by Alcohol abuse, but that's another ball of wax entirely.
 
Thanks for posting that article Silk. I sent it to my daughter who's living and going to school in Auckland (almost finished with her Masters Degree). Such a beautiful country and I'd move there in a heartbeat.
 
BradC,
that's pretty well NSW as well.

There's a large number of high functioning smack addicts, who buy the "clean" stuff...nothing like that on meth.
 
Sounds more effective than what we did locally. We had a very small meth problem, mostly wanderers who would come into town on the Greyhound or GO bus, hang around for a bit and then go away.

The local feel-goods decided that this warranted the creation of a methadone clinic to deal with the problem, so they built one. The influx of these meth-addled addicts increased, so the solution was another methadone clinic. Fast forward a few years and we now have FIVE methadone clinics in a town of 100,000 people and a serious problem with meth-head B&E's, theft and vagrancy. The downtown, particularly around the area of the bus terminals, is seemingly overrun with homeless now to the point that it is uncomfortable to walk there. I heard rumour that once Oshawa heard about the meth clinics we had, they started handing their druggies bus passes and sending them our way.
 
Originally Posted By: OVERKILL

The local feel-goods decided that this warranted the creation of a methadone clinic to deal with the problem, so they built one. The influx of these meth-addled addicts increased, so the solution was another methadone clinic.


methadone is for heroin, not methamphetamine.

Some dude here recently got elephant tranqs in his heroin, took five narcan doses to perk him back up.
 
If anyone does not believe that drugs are a problem in America go to your local emergency room at 1am on a Saturday and check out the waiting room.
 
Originally Posted By: Shannow
Originally Posted By: BobFout
I had no idea meth was a problem outside the US too.


Yep, it's a problem for sure.


The shake and bake method was easier than traditional cooking, although the quality of the finished product left a lot ( understatement ) to be desired, and there was still a volatility problem for the criminal. I don't think you can get red phosporus matches amynore and some of the "precursor" stuff has also been cracked down on, so this method may no longer be viable.
 
Originally Posted By: ls1mike
Heroin and Meth are the biggest problems here in Western Washington especially Kitsap and Mason counties. It really sucks. I feel like nothing is done to try and stop it. Local police don't have a handle on it and are more worried about speeders and parking infractions.



It's all about REVENUES (more taxes)....'speeders and parking infractions' raise revenue while druggies do not....
 
Originally Posted By: Silk
Meth (called P here) is a big problem in NZ - violence and burglary are the result. The gangs don't want their guys using it, they don't want the attention, because they are cooking and distributing it. But the older members are against it, they can see the damage it does. Two dealers left in Ngaruawahia, 10 are gone.

http://www.newshub.co.nz/tvshows/story/i...owns-2016101819

Is it common in NZ for gangs of any sort to be so public? In Ontario we never hear anything directly from any criminal element that I can recall.
Not sure if that's a good or bad thing?
 
Unfortunately, the drug problem as a whole is just one giant game of whack-a-mole.

10 years ago, meth and prescription drugs were a big problem. Meth has all but disappeared here due to a number of factors but a lot I think has to do with strict control over precursors. Here in Kentucky, pseudoephedrine and products containing it are kept behind the pharmacy counter and any purchases of them are recorded. Prescription drug abuse is very low also because the state has clamped down VERY hard on regulating controlled substances. I have a prescription for a schedule IV drug. About twice a year, the doctor drug tests me(as per the law) both to see that I'm not taking any "street drugs" or non-prescribed prescription drugs, and also to see that I'm actually taking what they've prescribed to me. There are very strict reporting requirements both for doctors reporting a prescription being written and pharmacies reporting a prescription being filled-it all goes into a centralized database and both the doctor and pharmacy can pull it at any time. This is to prevent "doctor shopping."

Heroin has become a huge scourge on us here locally. I lost a cousin to it about two months back. Aside from the fact that he'd been in rehab probably a half dozen times, he seemed to always relapse within a week or two of being out. He overdosed once and was able to be brought back with Narcan, but then overdosed about 4 days after getting out of the hospital and didn't make it.

Although he may not have been violent, he did steal...and a lot. My uncle would only ever bring him to the house when he was clean(and in that state, a very enjoyable and intelligent individual) but we none the less took a lot of care in keeping valuables locked up. You hate to feel that way about your own family. His girlfriend for a while was also using, and she had a baby who was born addicted-there are not any more sad sights than that. The state took the baby, and we don't know where he is-I hate to be cold, but it's probably all for the better.
 
I used to go to Baja California near some remote fishing villages. Just some hard working honest loyal people who had little and smiled a lot, then the meth found its way in, and I watched good people turn into scum of the earth. Scary stuff. I left and never returned after watching the transformation.

They appeared to view the drug as just something to help them work harder, then as something they needed to work at all, and then as important as food itself, then more important than food. Their downfall was so rapid, the personality change was night and day.

On this side of the border I watched an Addict lose everything and be escorted from his property after trying to sell every possession, coming to me trying to sell me a used circular saw blade, and when that failed, a warm beer. I cooked him a meal and sent him away, but he was back the next day even more desperate.

I lost a friend to prescription pain pills. I guess he moved onto the cheaper street opiates. 32 years old and the drugs ravaged his body to where Pneumonia took him in a hospital bed. RIP BKR.

Somehow these addictive behaviors need to be stopped before they can begin. The druggie crowd in schools needs not to be viewed as the cool kids. Seems that in the quest to be viewed as cool, adolescents will do and try anything, and forever develop addictive personalities and then develop ways to justify anything and any action, until rock bottom punches them and society in the face.
 
Originally Posted By: IndyIan
In Ontario we never hear anything directly from any criminal element that I can recall.


I am not going to make a joke about the Liberal Party. I am not going to make a joke about the Liberal Party. I am not going to make a joke about the Liberal Party.
 
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