The opioid epidemic - hoppers/thieves

[PimTac]

Car theft and break in is rampant in my area as well. Cars are raced or demolished somewhere. They get set on fire after the varmints have their fun.

A year ago I was driving the wife to work just past 0200 every night. I was amazed at how many people were up and about mostly doing no good

 

[Chris142]

Break into a house and pose a threat in parts of the county I live and the intruder will simply disappear.

Scott

Last time we called 911 it took 12 hrs for the cops to arrive. Since then we have decided to handle any problems our selves. No need to call the cops and do all that paperwork.

 

[tcp71]

We have had an influx of homeless panhandlers at intersections over the last couple of years. There are the usual addicts around the river and downtown area. A couple of weeks at -30C or colder seems to keep the homeless population from growing too large. They generally leave during the winter months for warmer climates.

 

[Flashlightboy]

I thought your post is dead on except for the "blame China" part. Yeah, they had the Fentanyl but we laid the groundwork ourselves. There many articles on how the collective American pharmaceutical industry are by far the worlds' most effective and insidious drug cartels, and the lawsuits are beginning much the same way as it did in the early days with the tobacco industry.

The Chinese didn't invent painkiller candy suckers, we did!

Yes and no.

The US is a nation of pill users and everyone in the prescribing chain was and is making money. When a patient has fibromyalgia, for instance, it's easier for the doctor to write an Rx for Celebrex and a nice pain killer and then see the patient again in 6 weeks to repeat the cycle. Only recently has law enforcement started to crack down on dirty doctors or those who over-prescribe.

Enter China.

As there was encreased enforcement against doctors, pain management doctors started to come into more main stream and a large part of their efforts are weaning and alternate coping techniques. They also switch patients around from 3 primary types of drugs to wean however unless the person wants off drugs, they will find illegal meds.

It was well-known in enforcement circles that China was supplying directly into the US via smuggling or sending over the precursors to make Fentanyl. It wasn't a hard trace to make.

The US asked China to stop and China agreed by promising to crack down on shipments to the US. They did - and increased their shipments to cartels in Mexico to make up for it. China is the big partner in the Fentanyl game.

 

[Flashlightboy]

I thought a heroin addiction was a lot more expensive. Wow. No wonder there are so many addicts.

This was not the case until relatively recently. It wasn't until the middle of the last century that the standard for requiring people to get treatment was changed from the basis of "medical need" to "a danger to self and the community". The number of treatment beds in the US has tragically plummeted over the past 60 years to almost nothing as a result. Now we house the severely mentally ill in county jails, for the most part. Sad. The psychiatric community thought in the 1950's that the emerging classes of anti-psychotic drugs was going to more or less solve mental illness in the general population, but boy were they wrong about that.

I totally agree that you can't separate homelessness, drugs, and mental health as they all drive each other. Drug use causes mental illness, many mentally ill self medicate with recreational drugs, etc.

Yep. For lots of street people, life's too short to spend sober following rules. Take the consequences away, and there is no incentive for them to change. Maybe a third of street people fall into this category.

Bikes are a perfect for crimes of opportunity. The cops here busted a bike chop shop operating out of a motor home a while back. Catalytic converters are a similar situation.

Aren't they effectively the same for the user? Fentanyl is just 100's of times more concentrated.

Every user that I've ever known who got clean for any length of time has told me that the only way they were able to break free was hitting bottom. Whatever that meant for them. "I'm going to die", "I'm losing my family", "I'm losing my career", "I'm going to jail", etc.

The one comment I would add is that you are correct about the use of drugs to treat mental health as outpatient. We used to compassionately keep patients in-house however the medical community convinced lawmakers and others that new types and classes of treatments and drugs were just as effective as expensive in-patient care. The assumption was that the ill would want to get better and outpatient would be more than satisfactory.

That turned out to be very untrue and that contributes to our current problems. Those with mental illness make poor choices and that just goes along with homelessness and drug use.

Vicious cycle.

 

[Flashlightboy]

I thought a heroin addiction was a lot more expensive. Wow. No wonder there are so many addicts.

This was not the case until relatively recently. It wasn't until the middle of the last century that the standard for requiring people to get treatment was changed from the basis of "medical need" to "a danger to self and the community". The number of treatment beds in the US has tragically plummeted over the past 60 years to almost nothing as a result. Now we house the severely mentally ill in county jails, for the most part. Sad. The psychiatric community thought in the 1950's that the emerging classes of anti-psychotic drugs was going to more or less solve mental illness in the general population, but boy were they wrong about that.

I totally agree that you can't separate homelessness, drugs, and mental health as they all drive each other. Drug use causes mental illness, many mentally ill self medicate with recreational drugs, etc.

Yep. For lots of street people, life's too short to spend sober following rules. Take the consequences away, and there is no incentive for them to change. Maybe a third of street people fall into this category.

Bikes are a perfect for crimes of opportunity. The cops here busted a bike chop shop operating out of a motor home a while back. Catalytic converters are a similar situation.

Aren't they effectively the same for the user? Fentanyl is just 100's of times more concentrated.

Every user that I've ever known who got clean for any length of time has told me that the only way they were able to break free was hitting bottom. Whatever that meant for them. "I'm going to die", "I'm losing my family", "I'm losing my career", "I'm going to jail", etc.

In theory you would think that 1/100 of Fentanyl would be what dealers are doing but that is incorrect. The people making the Fentanyl are traffickers and not alturustic businessmen. They add the Fentanyl to boost their drug mix over the competition for a greater high but they aren't measuring it out with any kind of precision and they know that it's bad if someone dies from pills they sold. It's essentially a cost of doing business although the local dealer often has no say in the mix and only sells what he's given to sell.

The mix is not 1/100 but could 5/100 or some other number. This is what kills kids who buy a pill from various sources and the dealer who sold it to them may not know the traffickers loaded it with Fentanyl at a deadly amount, if the traffickers even know. Parents find dead kid in their room. Happens all time that way all over the country.

 

[slo town]

If you shoot an intruder around here, it's more likely you will go to jail. Unless they are about to cause you physical harm, you can't use deadly force.

That’s why I said “pose a threat”. If someone breaks into to your house and poses a threat it is game one. But I’m not saying you shoot and kill someone. You can disable them using other methods. An intensely bright hand held strobe light is at my bedside. I’d confuse with that then use pepper spray and a sawed off aluminum baseball bat to disable the intruder.

God forbid the intruder has a gun and points it at me or shoots at me! If I am somehow able to gain an advantage my sawed off aluminum baseball bat could be every bit as deadly as their gun.

Scott

 

[ripcord]

In theory you would think that 1/100 of Fentanyl would be what dealers are doing but that is incorrect. The people making the Fentanyl are traffickers and not alturustic businessmen. They add the Fentanyl to boost their drug mix over the competition for a greater high but they aren't measuring it out with any kind of precision and they know that it's bad if someone dies from pills they sold. It's essentially a cost of doing business although the local dealer often has no say in the mix and only sells what he's given to sell.

The mix is not 1/100 but could 5/100 or some other number. This is what kills kids who buy a pill from various sources and the dealer who sold it to them may not know the traffickers loaded it was Fentanyl at a deadly amount. Parents find dead kid in their room. Happens all time that way all over the country.

We had a relative of my wife die from an overdose of Fentanyl laced heroin back when it was relatively new on the street. He had been clean for a few years but moved back into the city and apparently fell off the wagon. The cops said there were several deaths that weekend, probably from the same batch of poorly cut stuff, like you mentioned. It's a scourge for sure.

In our relative's case, he had gotten hooked on snorting crushed Oxy pills until the feds made the manufacturers buffer them so snorting didn't work any more. At that point he switched to shooting up heroin.

 

[Flashlightboy]

Sorry to hear that. Crushed, liquified and injected Oxy was certainly the popular way years ago.

Since users injected often, track marks on the arms or thigh are too obvious to spouses, employers and the cops. They hid the injection sites by shooting it between their toes. Those were the ones that tried to cover it up to maintain a sense of normalcy but most users didn't really try to hide it beyond wearing long sleeves.

 

[02SE]

Sorry to hear that. Crushed, liquified and injected Oxy was certainly the popular way years ago.

Since users injected often, track marks on the arms or thigh are too obvious to spouses, employers and the cops. They hid the injection sites by shooting it between their toes. Those were the ones that tried to cover it up to maintain a sense of normalcy but most users didn't really try to hide it beyond wearing long sleeves.

I'm assuming you're in the medical field. Have there been many cases of Desomorphine (Krokodil) use in the USA? Having seen pictures of some users, I just can't wrap my head around what some people do to themselves.

 

[Flashlightboy]

No, I'm not a doctor but do have experiences with analysis and observations of the illegal drug trade that a doctor and others in non-medical fields would also have.

Krok is nasty stuff and a few years ago it was starting to be seen in the US, mostly on the E. Coast since Krok had roots in Eastern Europe and a presence in Russia.

It never really caught on in the US. When an injection goes wrong the results are horrific and gruesome and you never recover, as your review of pics confirms.

 

[M56959]

Folks I appreciate that this discussion has largely stayed on topic and political commentary free as requested by OP
Please don't bypass or invoke the profanity filter. At times we may edit profanity out however we may not have time so the post will be deleted.

 

[ctechbob]

With many of life's problems, it the solution was easy, we would have found it by now. Ignoring or being compassionate doesn't seem to work. Making it illegal and locking people up doesn't seem to work, either. It's very difficult to turn your life around once you're part of the criminal justice system.

I'm not sure what the answer is either, but from the LE side of it, what we (society in general) are doing, isn't working for sure. Our county is deferring sentences for people that will enroll in 'drug court', which means you come to court once a week for a checkup that you're in the rehab program you are supposed to be in and doing everything you're supposed to be doing to stay clean. We have people that drop out of it left and right, or show up to their mandated drug tests and test hot for one substance or another.

It is super frustrating to see kids come in the back door knowing they just screwed their life up, and many times that more frustrating when you see them come back downstairs fresh out of flunking drug court.

The 'War on Drugs' isn't working and hasn't worked in a long time, but I don't think giving them free drugs or legalizing a bunch of serious hard drugs is the way to go either.

 

[ekrampitzjr]

People who have experience with the stuff say that addicts prefer heroin to synthetic fentanyl. Fentanyl gives users a "dirty" feeling that heroin doesn't. Several people who used it have said this. It is also much more potent, which causes the overdose problem.

The problem is all the drugs are being spiked with fentanyl. Even illicit cannabis is being laced with it. You have to wonder why. The guy smoking weed isn't looking for that kind of "bonus".

One thing about this opioid crisis you need to know if you're thinking of leaving a city to move to the sticks: if anything, it's worse in rural areas. The oxycodone problem began in Appalachia, not in New York City. When I lived in rural Southside Virginia and worked in state corrections, several coworkers were fired for failing random drug tests—and not for weed.

 

[dlundblad]

Move to the country or the US to an area that doesn’t allow this enabling.

 

[CharlesInCharge]

It's a tragic situation all around. I don't know how one would begin to address and discuss it without discussing politics so I cannot really offer much but "man that sucks."

If we cannot discuss the cause, we will never find the cure. So then we're just left with apathetic sympathy and we've seen where that gets us.

 

[aquariuscsm]

I'm guessing OVERKILL there's no castle doctrine there where you live. Those guys better count their lucky stars they don't live in Texas

 

[64bawagon]

I remember when Fentanyl was new on the scene and all the Docs said it was the greatest thing since sliced bread, go figure, the medical community on the wrong side of an issue.

 

[Snagglefoot]

That's a little nuts. That's what insurance is for. I always automatically lock my doors. You can't leave your car unlocked in the city.

A friend tried leaving his vehicle unlocked. A rubbie hopped into the back seal and peed his pants.

 

[OVERKILL]

I think this thread will eventually turn political, I'll try my best to look at this as an economical instead of political as possible (criminals are there to make money, obviously).

SF Bay Area is about 30 years ahead of you guys, so we have seen it first hand how things and policies turn out. In general some policies cannot be carried out by one city or one state or else people will relocate, or given a one way bus ticket to go there. It also happens over time as housing becomes polarized instead of relatively affordable, combine with the lost of former manufacturing based jobs, that many blue collar workers end up in subsidized / rent control housing and then a minority of new economy and expensive housing, with few in between.

In the US at least, it seems like we go through new development, decline, slum, redevelopment cycle over time, so when your once good area lost the charm of good jobs and families move to better area, then it will becomes lower and lower income and eventually a druggie area, then when it is very cheap, some politically influential people would buy it up and redevelop it into some trendy SoHo area and it gets cleaned up again.

You've mentioned some good points, which I'll expand on:
- Ontario suffered an industrial exodus after the 2008 financial collapse and the provincial government of the day decided it would be wise to heavily subsidize wind and solar, which drove up energy costs considerably.
- Local housing prices have been on a steady up-tick. I paid $190,000 for the house I'm in, which is worth ~$550,000 now. This has made the cost of entry prohibitive for most young people.
- Average local family income is $58,000. While the cost of living and in particular, the cost of housing, has increased dramatically, the average pay in the Kawarthas has not increased.
- Most new home buyers in the area are from out of the city. Coming from the GTA, where pay is significantly higher. These people are selling their homes there for huge sums and buying here, this is one of the drivers of the high prices. Most of the local people that have chosen to sell are moving outside of town, for most of the same reasons I'm considering it.
- While the industrial exodus was province-wide, it definitely had some local impact. We had General Electric here, which was a huge employer, that's now gone (not that I think these people worked at GE) and GM Oshawa also closed, which was a large employer that people commuted to.
- Many of these people being caught are not local, Oshawa and other GTA cities were shipping their folks here by bus, just as you noted.