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‘Full-Blown Heroin Crisis’: Vermont Governor Says Drug Surge Deadlier Than Cars or Guns
Pajamas Media ^ | 01/10/2014 | Bridget Johnson

Posted on 01/10/2014 8:28:53 AM PST by SeekAndFind

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To: detective

“It sounds like another incompetent liberal who along with other liberal failures is incapable of enforcing the law and arresting drug dealers.”

You arrest all the drug dealers, and then what? Tomorrow there is a whole new crop of dealers, because you’ve done nothing to eliminate the profit motive.


21 posted on 01/10/2014 9:24:16 AM PST by Boogieman
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To: Boogieman

No, indeed. Do all prescription pain reducer users become heroin addicts? Not even close. It’s a false premise used to try and make recreational drug use appear to be something that more citizens are involved in, and that’s just not true. We have to start being truthful about recreational drug use. People are medicating themselves. Why? They can’t face their reality. OK. They need to face reality. The thing about reality is that it’s always there. Recreational drug users can escape it for a few minutes, but hitting yourself in the head with a hammer will make you forget about everything else, too. And using recreational drugs hurts the whole country. The OPPORTUNITY COSTS associated with recreational drug use is astounding. Could we reduce welfare with the money spent on recreational drugs? Yes. The biggest cost,though, is to our national character. We sit here at Free Republic and wonder why people vote for Democrats. A big part of that is people who are afraid to face reality. The Democrats don’t really care if recreational drugs are legal or not, just so long as people remain afraid of reality. You want a better America? Have better citizens. You want better citizens? Have strong people who can face reality and who will WORK to change reality instead of using recreational drugs to HIDE from reality.


22 posted on 01/10/2014 9:36:20 AM PST by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer")
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To: blueunicorn6

“Do all prescription pain reducer users become heroin addicts?”

If they get addicted to opiate pain killers, then yes. Even one has never done heroin, if you become addicted to opiates, you are then addicted to any and all opiates you can get your hands on.


23 posted on 01/10/2014 9:39:58 AM PST by Boogieman
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To: All

I don’t pretend to have solutions to these complex problems. But how many of you have tried living in a neighborhood where large numbers of people were on heroin and/or other hard drugs? If not, there are some vacancies in my building you can try. Add to it the fact that Everett evidently hasn’t recovered from the housing bubble crisis and some other social ills. Now we are readying for legal marijuana. Maybe it will solve some of our problems. Maybe it will create others. Maybe it won’t matter. Who knows?

If you think other people’s addictions don’t affect you as long as the people aren’t on welfare, you should rethink that. We are in this together. Even if there is no economic or physical effect on me, I will always care what happens to our culture. Unlike Vito Corleone in the Godfather, I believe the addicts have souls. That’s one of the reasons I’m on this forum. People here seem to share my concerns about the culture.


24 posted on 01/10/2014 9:55:02 AM PST by crazycatlady
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To: crazycatlady

Hear! Hear! Well said.


25 posted on 01/10/2014 9:58:01 AM PST by windsorknot (>>>)
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To: Boogieman

You avoided my question. Why?


26 posted on 01/10/2014 10:00:05 AM PST by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer")
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To: blueunicorn6

Good post. Thank you.


27 posted on 01/10/2014 10:02:37 AM PST by crazycatlady
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To: Boogieman
“You arrest all the drug dealers, and then what? Tomorrow there is a whole new crop of dealers, because you’ve done nothing to eliminate the profit motive.”

If you arrest them you dramatically change the risk reward ratio. The fact is no one can deal drugs profitably unless they have political corruption and people look the other way.

Dealing drugs is very risky. You are not dealing with solid citizens. Many drug dealers end up getting ripped off or worse. Some end up dead. Throw in a high probability of arrest and a long prison sentence and it is not worth the risk.

You should also arrest drug users. They are vulnerable and will identify other dealers and users.

28 posted on 01/10/2014 10:05:51 AM PST by detective
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To: SeekAndFind

Most of America is HIGH on something...
To Wit; the election of Barry Half-White................ TWICE..

The country is pretty much doped up...... dopey... dopestirs... Dopes..
The quality of people in Congress and the White Hut..... PROVE IT..

UNLESS........ massive voter fraud is the source of it..
But .... What IF it’s BOTH?..


29 posted on 01/10/2014 10:06:59 AM PST by hosepipe (This propaganda has been edited to include some fully orbed hyperbole..)
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To: SeekAndFind

I guess he didn’t want to talk about ObamaCare and a bunch of other things. Spending a whole state of the state address on one topic sounds like he is avoiding stuff


30 posted on 01/10/2014 10:10:13 AM PST by GeronL (Extra Large Cheesy Over-Stuffed Hobbit)
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To: SeekAndFind

An ex girlfriend’s brother became addicted to Oxycontin after a doc prescribed it to him for a while then cut him off.

His life went into the toilet after he started smoking crack when he could no longer get Heroin.

One night he smoked up at the crack house and didn’t have the cash to pay up; the dealer and his enforcers broke both his legs.


31 posted on 01/10/2014 10:15:08 AM PST by Rebelbase (Tagline: optional, printed after your name on post)
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To: Boogieman
If they get addicted to opiate pain killers, then yes. Even one has never done heroin, if you become addicted to opiates, you are then addicted to any and all opiates you can get your hands on.

I was prescribed painkillers for a back injury many years ago, and before it healed I experienced all the signs of physical addiction - increasing tolerance and withdrawl symptoms when I stopped taking it. I currently have a presciption for generic Vicodin for occasional flare-ups of IBS. I keep a couple in my desk drawer at work, and the rest are in the medicine cabinet at home. There's maybe 10 gone from a refill of 60 I got around the first of November.

32 posted on 01/10/2014 10:17:43 AM PST by tacticalogic
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To: Boogieman

Opiate abuse is opiate abuse. It is wrong to say that if one is addicted to Percocet then that makes them a heroin addict.

I have a heroin addict(20 years) in the family. He told me Heroin is the end of the line. Once you do it NOTHING else really matters. It is all they seek. Give a Heroin addict 50 Percocets and he will sell them for Heroin every single time. Opiate EFFECTS(Euphoria etc.)are similar. That is true. That doesn’t mean that they are the same and will be used interchangebly.


33 posted on 01/10/2014 10:25:12 AM PST by LeonardFMason (LanceyHoward would AGREE)
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To: SeekAndFind

And what before all this was the gateway drug for many?

Great idea to legalize that as well.


34 posted on 01/10/2014 10:26:14 AM PST by A CA Guy ( God Bless America, God Bless and keep safe our fighting men and women.)
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To: tacticalogic
There is a difference between being addicted, and being chemically dependent. I've been chemically dependent on pain killers a number of times over the last five years. However, when they ran out, I just sucked it up and suffered for a few days with what seems like a very bad flu. It's no picnic. But I never went crazy trying to acquire them, because I'm not addicted to them.

One of them is a physical manifestation, the other is psychological.
35 posted on 01/10/2014 10:26:36 AM PST by ZX12R (Never forget the heroes of Benghazi, who were abandoned to their deaths by Obama)
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To: tacticalogic

You must work with trustworthy people. I wouldn’t keep anything like that at work, unless its locked. But congratulations on using the painkillers responsibly. I’m the same way. When I get them for a tooth extraction or something, I tell them to give me just a few. If they want to give me a dozen, I tell them just 6 or 8.
Somebody earlier mentioned Rush Limbaugh. His story is pretty typical—it starts out with something like a back injury or surgery. For me it was a wake up call—if it can happen to him it can happen to anybody. It made me more vigilant.


36 posted on 01/10/2014 10:32:05 AM PST by crazycatlady
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To: ZX12R
One of them is a physical manifestation, the other is psychological.

Sounds like we're using the wrong one.

37 posted on 01/10/2014 10:33:00 AM PST by tacticalogic
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To: crazycatlady

I work for a financial institution. Everyone is required to lock their desk every night before they go home.


38 posted on 01/10/2014 10:34:54 AM PST by tacticalogic
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To: crazycatlady

I’m getting more inclined to what to keep a supply on hand. Pretty soon it may get to be a 3 week wait to see a dentist. You just have to understand that when it starts taking more get the same relief, you’re building up a tolerance and it’s time to do something else.


39 posted on 01/10/2014 10:39:12 AM PST by tacticalogic
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To: LeonardFMason

“It is wrong to say that if one is addicted to Percocet then that makes them a heroin addict.”

If one is addicted to opiates, you’re addicted to opiates. They all trigger the same receptors in the brain. This idea that you can be only addicted to some lesser kind of opiate is like saying an alcoholic can only be addicted to beer.


40 posted on 01/10/2014 10:43:38 AM PST by Boogieman
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