Fentanyl & the damage done

I posted about this when the new board software went up and for whatever reason it disappeared.

Fentanyl is here and it's killing people, and in some cases it's killing them the first time they try something.

People of multiple generations have been fed a steady stream of drug nonsense, telling them "the first time you do x drug could be your last." Well, now it's true.

There will be no needles. There will be no track marks. There will be no warning. The fentanyl and carfentanil will be in a pill made in a pill press. It will look like a prescription pain pill. It will even have a brand name and drug number on it.

Some kid in SOMA is going to pop a Vicodin or something someone gives them and it's not going to be a Vicodin and they're going to end up dead. We all remember stupid youthful experimenting, either among our friends or even ourselves. Stupid, lucky, but no harm no foul.

Not this time.

Ugh. Here comes the cliche- "talk to your kids about drugs". Talk to them about this specifically. There's always a danger in claiming "this time is different"- but the body count tells you this time it is.

Again.... THIS IS COMING TO SOMA. In a big way? I doubt it. But the margin of error here is vanishingly small.

And PLEASE- make sure they know that if someone does overdose, they can call an ambulance and they are LEGALLY IMMUNE from prosecution in the state of NJ.

Dead serious, deadly serious.

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2016/08/26/health/prince-minnesota-fentanyl-counterfeit-pills/index.html

http://www.wsj.com/articles/for-small-town-cops-opioid-scourge-hits-close-to-home-1475074699

Thanks for posting this.

I want to emphasize the point about calling 911. Some teenage neighbors were recently goofing around. One of them broke a window and cut himself badly. For whatever reason, they didn't call 911 but instead eventually flagged down a passing police car. If they'd waited much longer or if the cop hadn't been driving by, who knows what could have happened. So make sure your kids know it's always okay to call 911 and they should not hesitate if someone is hurt or sick.

Jackson_Fusion said:

Fentanyl is here and it's killing people, and in some cases it's killing them the first time they try something.

On WNYC yesterday there was a report about one of the unanticipated side effects of the premature deaths of drug users: an uptick, in some regions, of the supply of organ donations. This report made my eyes sting in my car yesterday, listening to parents talking about losing their children to this scourge. "Not in a million years," one mom said as she watched her son's body being rolled away on the hospital gurney for his organs to be harvested.

npr.org: Organ Donations Spike in the Wake of the Opioid Epidemic

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/10/14/497799446/organ-donations-spike-in-the-wake-of-the-opioid-epidemic

I saw a similar story, Dotty. Sad. Young healthy people of course make spectacular organ donors, and they euthanize themselves the way you would if you were executing them for that purpose.

They want to get high so badly they give themselves what amounts to a lethal injection- doing to themselves willingly if accidentally what in most places isn't done to even our most vile murderers.

It's a useful medication if used appropriately: could we perhaps adjust the title to reflect that the thread is about illicit or improper use?

(Sorry: I'm a little raw. If not for proper medically supervised use of fentanyl, my FIL would have been a mess these last few days of his life)

joanne said:

It's a useful medication if used appropriately: could we perhaps adjust the title to reflect that the thread is about illicit or improper use?

(Sorry: I'm a little raw. If not for proper medically supervised use of fentanyl, my FIL would have been a mess these last few days of his life)

This.

I understand that drug addition is a real issue in this country. My husband works professionally in EMS and uses narcan on patients for heroin (or other opioid) overdoses an average of 5-7 times a week. But he also understands that simply using a drug, when appropriate, isn't what causes addiction. Even with what he has seen on an almost daily basis he had no issue with being prescribed morphine pills to take at home to deal with post operative pain after his rotator cuff surgery, and stopped taking it well before the bottle ran out when it was no longer needed for pain. He's seen fentanyl overdoses at work, but the majority are mixed with heroine and taken intravenously, not being taken on its own in a pill. He says that for these patients they often have to double or even triple the dose of narcan, and even then they aren't always successful. But he also administers fentanyl, morphine, or other pain management drugs, to patients when appropriate.

Drug abuse has many complex causes, untreated depression or other untreated mental health conditions being the leading cause. But because so many, including doctors, believe the stories of normal people getting a simple script for percocet and then becoming addicted, many doctors under treat legitimate pain, which is inhumane. I remember one family friend who was prescribed 800mg of ibuprofen to cope with the pain of his cancer as he lay dying. When my mother questioned why he wasn't given something stronger the doctor replied they were worried that "long term use" could result in addiction. Mind you, we were literally on a death watch with this guy.

More startling NJ fentanyl stories today

Big body count in Ocean County

http://www.nj.com/ocean/index.ssf/2016/10/heroin-related_overdoses_in_ocean_county.html#incart_2box_nj-homepage-featured

NARCAN used 18,000 times in NJ.

http://www.nj.com/healthfit/index.ssf/2016/10/18k_overdose_victims_treated_with_life-saving_drug_in_nj.html#incart_m-rpt-2

Remember, fentanyl and other synthetics just showed up in the last year or so in big numbers. Bad bad bad, going to get a lot worse.

Nothing you can really do except warn your young people that this is no joke- really can be one time last time.

actually, 'appropriate' use of narcotics can lead to addiction...the body becomes dependent on it/craves it.. a lot of addicts started out 'appropriately' using prescription narcotics

ONE simple script for percocet won't cause addiction...it is long term regular use of prescribed narcotics that can cause addiction.

jmitw said:


ONE simple script for percocet won't cause addiction...it is long term regular use of prescribed narcotics that can cause addiction.

Many people claim otherwise. I worked with a guy who claimed he got addicted because he was given morphine for 12 hours in a hospital. Many people have claimed to become addicted after a single script given after dental work. I don't buy it, but many people (and some doctors) claim it is true.

you can say the same about sugar.....

I really find this thread title needlessly alarmist, and I sit on various community health panels where we're dealing the fallout and complications of over-use, mis-use, illegal use of alcohol and other substances (we're currently discussing kratom as well as legally prescribed and OTC medicines) and untreated/neglected conditions.

joanne said:

you can say the same about sugar.....

I really find this thread title needlessly alarmist, and I sit on various community health panels where we're dealing the fallout and complications of over-use, mis-use, illegal use of alcohol and other substances (we're currently discussing kratom as well as legally prescribed and OTC medicines) and untreated/neglected conditions.

Respectfully, I disagree. Opiate addiction is a separate but related issue. Many who try opiated will NOT become addicted- even those trying them illicitly. In fact, probably most won't.

The issue here is the kid experimenting for the first time with what they think is OxyContin could very well end up with something much stronger and end up dead. One time, one youthful experimentation, no second chances.

The body count a mere 50 miles away suggests it's a pretty big deal. 18000 Narcan doses does as well. At least it seems people are calling cops when people they are with get more than they bargained for.

Jackson_Fusion said:



The issue here is the kid experimenting for the first time with what they think is OxyContin could very well end up with something much stronger and end up dead. One time, one youthful experimentation, no second chances.

The body count a mere 50 miles away suggests it's a pretty big deal. 18000 Narcan doses does as well. At least it seems people are calling cops when people they are with get more than they bargained for.

While your point of a one time experiment ending up deadly is real, it is also not common. The the majority of the body count and the high number of narcan doses you mention above is due to fentanyl being mixed with heroin, not pill form. Yes, there are pills containing fentanyl that are made to look like other drugs, but that isn't what is driving the overdose rate.

"One time youthful experimentation, no second chances." Um, one time youthful experiment is way more likely to be from mom and dad's medicine cabinet, if you're buying pills from a third party I feel pretty confident that it is not a "one time" experiment. Not that it would make an overdose any less tragic for the family, but the scare tactics being used here only lead to distrust of education efforts, kind of like the after school specials from the early 80's that warned us about drug pushers trying to trick us into becoming users, and how one hit of crack would make us addicts for life. Once kids figure out they're being lied to they disregard everything from the source, even the stuff that is true. Please don't make the same mistake.

spontaneous said:

Jackson_Fusion said:



The issue here is the kid experimenting for the first time with what they think is OxyContin could very well end up with something much stronger and end up dead. One time, one youthful experimentation, no second chances.

The body count a mere 50 miles away suggests it's a pretty big deal. 18000 Narcan doses does as well. At least it seems people are calling cops when people they are with get more than they bargained for.

While your point of a one time experiment ending up deadly is real, it is also not common. The the majority of the body count and the high number of narcan doses you mention above is due to fentanyl being mixed with heroin, not pill form. Yes, there are pills containing fentanyl that are made to look like other drugs, but that isn't what is driving the overdose rate.

"One time youthful experimentation, no second chances." Um, one time youthful experiment is way more likely to be from mom and dad's medicine cabinet, if you're buying pills from a third party I feel pretty confident that it is not a "one time" experiment. Not that it would make an overdose any less tragic for the family, but the scare tactics being used here only lead to distrust of education efforts, kind of like the after school specials from the early 80's that warned us about drug pushers trying to trick us into becoming users, and how one hit of crack would make us addicts for life. Once kids figure out they're being lied to they disregard everything from the source, even the stuff that is true. Please don't make the same mistake.

Respectfully again, according to the DEA and CDC a lot of that isn't true- lots of it is pills, and lots of it is people taking things that they thought was something else. Some of it is counterfeit Xanax for example.

https://emergency.cdc.gov/han/han00395.asp

Anecdotes are anecdotes, but each of these has a body attached

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2016/05/10/health/fentanyl-new-heroin-deadlier/index.html?client=safari

I acknowledged earlier in the thread the danger of telling kids ridiculous stories about what will happen if they use drugs. That doesn't mean that this drug truly doesn't kill. It does! All those stories about how pot would do whatever to you had no evidence, just assertions. The evidence here is clear.

From one of the articles you yourself posted:

"Coronato points to fentanyl, a synthetic prescription opioid up to 50 times more powerful than heroin, as a contributing factor to the increase in overdose deaths. Fentanyl, cut with or substituted for heroin, is hard to identify and packs a powerful punch to unsuspecting users.

It's become such a prevalent issue in Ocean County, and in the state, that Coronato dubs it the "synthetic storm." Overdose deaths related to the synthetic opioid in New Jersey tripled from 2013 to 2014.
In Ocean County, Coronato and his team of investigators found that 17 of the 20 people who died of a drug overdose in March had a mix of fentanyl and heroin in his or her system."

17 out of 20 overdose deaths was a mix of fentanyl and heroin. In other words, not pill form. And again, the kid trying something for the first time isn't going to find a dealer, it is going to be your medicine cabinet with what you already have on hand, which most parents are in denial about.

Nevertheless, it does seem to be the case now, more than before, that your first adventure with drugs could be your last. How you present this to young people in a way that they will take you seriously remains a challenge.

I suppose we can argue about anything on MOL. I'll let the CDC link speak for itself. "Hundreds of thousands of pills" and all that jazz- and that was 2 years ago.

People will use their judgement. I don't have painkillers floating around my house, so not super worried about that. More worried about kids sharing stuff. If I recall high school accurately (and I may not!) I didn't spend a lot of time establishing the provenance of whatever was around.

In any case- if the fentanyl lobby wants to sue me I'm easy to find.

Jackson_Fusion said:

More worried about kids sharing stuff. If I recall high school accurately (and I may not!) I didn't spend a lot of time establishing the provenance of whatever was around.

Thing is, my memory of high school was that drugs weren't cheap or easy to find (easy meaning kids not being worried about being robbed or arrested while buying). Therefore, while there were offers, I don't recall even once being pressured into partaking of anything after a simple "no thank you" with anything even remotely resembling pressure. In fact, the only time in my life that I was ever pressured to take drugs was actually as an adult, and the pressure came from other adults.

Most addiction isn't addiction to drugs, but rather addiction to escaping reality. Rather than trying to keep drugs out of your kid's hands, instead focus on keeping them from needing them in the first place. And being "a good home" isn't a guarantee if there are undue pressures on the kids to perform perfectly in school or other unrealistic achievements are expected from them.

My point is that while I'm browsing MOL for threads to read, every time I see this title, all I see is that fentanyl is dangerous and harmful. So if I'm in a position where I or a relative is given it, I'm going to panic, and start consulting Dr Google for harmful effects, and then sue. Because I'm already distressed and not thinking clearly, and I haven't been interested enough to read that you're talking about non-prescribed use.

For all I know you could be talking about thalidomide type effects.

Well, I'd hope most people would see what the thread is about before finding a lawyer. But if they don't the lawyer would probably get them straightened out.

Hopefully they'd have a more measured reaction. I guess there are no guarantees.

The title of the thread is based off Neil Young's song for those that aren't fans (of Neil or the thread title).

Yes, but you have to read the thread to know.

Front page WSJ- a new synthetic opioid that doesn't even have a name, just a number, and has only just been banned.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/this-is-u-47700-once-a-lab-experiment-now-a-killer-opioid-1478269461

From a few weeks ago- "The Pill Makers Next Door"

https://www.google.com/amp/www.wsj.com/amp/articles/the-pill-makers-next-door-how-americas-opioid-crisis-is-spreading-1475693346

From nj.com on 10/21: http://www.nj.com/passaic-county/index.ssf/2016/10/7_drug_overdoses_reported_over_1-day_period_in_pat.html

And this. Carfentanil is regulated in the US but not in China and Chinese exporters are willing to ship it here. People are dying, not to mention the potential for use as a WMD.

http://globalnews.ca/news/3043678/chinese-trade-of-deadly-opioid-carfentanil-thrives-at-the-cost-of-north-american-lives/

My sister is a 911 operator in Cincinnati. Carfentanil laced heroin showed up there over the summer. Narcan is not effective against it.

marylago said:

And this. Carfentanil is regulated in the US but not in China and Chinese exporters are willing to ship it here. People are dying, not to mention the potential for use as a WMD.

http://globalnews.ca/news/3043678/chinese-trade-of-deadly-opioid-carfentanil-thrives-at-the-cost-of-north-american-lives/

As an addict in active recovery, the pharmaceutical industry and the naivety of people terrifies me. I was a functioning person and parent before a surgery introduced me to Percocet. When that stopped working I "graduated" to OxyContin. The jump to heroin was a business decision - it was simply more economical. That prescription changed my life in the worst possible way. Opiates have a place in medical care but they also are killing our neighbors at frightening rates. I have been sober for eight months and when I mention my addiction the universal response is, you don't look like a junkie. But I am. And there are millions of us out there. Without a tremendous amount of education and compassion, people will keep dying while pharma companies show massive profits. It's a happy accident I lived to tell my story. Many people aren't so lucky. This is an epidemic and I fear it will get much worse before it gets any better.

Maggiesma84, Thanks for sharing. My late husband was addicted to prescription opiates following back surgery.

I knew he was addicted. I accepted it. I did not hate him for it (we did have arguments) although I did hope he'd see his way through.

His doctor kept prescribing them to him, until one day the doctor said no more. IMO the doctor had been warned not to prescribe any more opiates.

Fortunately, I had been prescribed some drug (and I'll be damned if I can remember what it was or why I was prescribed it), which was also prescribed to help the symptoms of opiate withdrawal. He told me without it, he would not have been able to get through it.

It's been 4+ years since he passed of lung cancer. We had some difficult times--many times about the drugs, I wish he was still here.