News Workers Fighting America’s Overdose Crisis Are ‘Hanging by a Thread’

[thegreenhand]

Workers Fighting America’s Overdose Crisis Are ‘Hanging by a Thread’​

Noah Weiland
New York Times
10 Feb 2023

Excerpts:

OSCEOLA, Iowa — So many of Deborah Krauss’s friends and neighbors have died of drug overdoses during the pandemic that she said she felt as if she had been living inside of a dream. The longest she has gone without someone dying, she noted, is three weeks. Her calendar grew cluttered with funerals.

“I lost count at 40,” she recalled on a recent evening in a Des Moines office as she organized supplies to help people consume drugs more safely. “And it just keeps happening.”

Ms. Krauss works for the Iowa Harm Reduction Coalition, one of the few harm reduction groups in the state. The coalition operates a syringe exchange program, which also routes drug users to medication-assisted treatment, where they receive drugs that can help manage cravings.

Researchers at RTI International, a nonprofit research institute, estimate that there are only around 1,100 full-time workers nationwide like Ms. Krauss, aided by a cast of around 600 part-time staff members and roughly 2,000 volunteers. A national survey conducted by RTI found that the median annual budget of a syringe exchange program was roughly $100,000, far less than what is needed to cover salaries, supplies and travel expenses.

 

[thegreenhand]

it's not terribly surprising, but those numbers are alarmingly low

 

[LucidSDreamr]

That's a low budget not even state funded. Iowas republicans are murdering their states drug addicts just like their base wants.

Even CA where harm reduction is close to getting injection centers open....the whole thing of Still maintaining a fentanyl based drug supply is that tons of ppl will die unless dilauded or heroin is legalized. This would cut overdoses by more than half overnight.

 

[G_Chem]

Unfortunately for now these programs are literally supported by the volunteers who work them. So unless we want to collapse entirely we need to help them. I’ve thought about becoming a volunteer but at the moment don’t have the time, soon I hope to change that.

I agree Iowa seems to be turned into a republican hell hole. I enjoy going to certain spots there for music (believe it or not) but could never live there.

-GC

 

[thegreenhand]

Unfortunately for now these programs are literally supported by the volunteers who work them.

And the saddest part is that there is a plethora of salaried recovery coaches, counselors, etc.

But most of them only help with abstinence based recovery

 

[JustferFun]

Am I losing my mind or are fentanyl test strips banned in like 40 states?

 

[LucidSDreamr]

Am I losing my mind or are fentanyl test strips banned in like 40 states?

Wouldn’t surprise me. Go in any fox comment section of an opioid story and tmeveryone is saying to let them die

Ironically whenever I post a comment in there how doctors don’t prescribe pain pills these brain dead boomer republicans give me hundreds of upvotes….they are so fucking dumb they don’t see the connection between reduced prescriptions and increased fent

 

[Gaz_hmmmm]

Wouldn’t surprise me. Go in any fox comment section of an opioid story and tmeveryone is saying to let them die

Ironically whenever I post a comment in there how doctors don’t prescribe pain pills these brain dead boomer republicans give me hundreds of upvotes….they are so fucking dumb they don’t see the connection between reduced prescriptions and increased fent

Conservatives only care when it effects them, close family and sometimes close friends.

Sadly far more Americans have to die before decriminalisation or relegalisation of opioids happens.

Another reason that people don’t know or forget is that ‘they’ (The US government/intelligence agencies.) don’t want them decriminalised or relegalised because they can use these substances to finance off the books black op’s against governments, regimes and people the US doesn’t like.

In the 80’s after a long trial (It last until about 1994/95.) in a very rough Liverpool council estate where they gave users prescription Heroin (For injections, snorting and in pharmacy made cigarettes!) morphine, cocaine hydrochloride, cocaine freebase (Also in pharmacy made cigarettes!), amphetamine and benzo’s the street crime (Theft, robbery, burglary, stealing from cars and shop lifting etc.) fell by 90% - 95%!
It was so good Thatcher was going to roll the policy out on the NHS nationally but the fucking US government sent over either a diplomat or a delegation to get her not to, cause if the UK did it, European nations would follow and America would be pressured to do the same.
This couldn’t happen as the CIA in Afghanistan was providing arms that was bought with cash from Heroin sales and in Nicaragua they were also supplying arms that were paid for with cash from cocaine sales.
These black ops and their illegal funding couldn’t come to light or be jeopardised, which Thatcher’s policy would have done.

 

[JustferFun]

Conservatives only care when it effects them, close family and sometimes close friends.

Sadly far more Americans have to die before decriminalisation or relegalisation of opioids happens.

Another reason that people don’t know or forget is that ‘they’ (The US government/intelligence agencies.) don’t want them decriminalised or relegalised because they can use these substances to finance off the books black op’s against governments, regimes and people the US doesn’t like.

In the 80’s after a long trial (It last until about 1994/95.) in a very rough Liverpool council estate where they gave users prescription Heroin (For injections, snorting and in pharmacy made cigarettes!) morphine, cocaine hydrochloride, cocaine freebase (Also in pharmacy made cigarettes!), amphetamine and benzo’s the street crime (Theft, robbery, burglary, stealing from cars and shop lifting etc.) fell by 90% - 95%!
It was so good Thatcher was going to roll the policy out on the NHS nationally but the fucking US government sent over either a diplomat or a delegation to get her not to, cause if the UK did it, European nations would follow and America would be pressured to do the same.
This couldn’t happen as the CIA in Afghanistan was providing arms that was bought with cash from Heroin sales and in Nicaragua they were also supplying arms that were paid for with cash from cocaine sales.
These black ops and their illegal funding couldn’t come to light or be jeopardised, which Thatcher’s policy would have done.

Wait, how did the US government make money from opioids?

 

[SpiralusSancti]

Who makes most money from opiods now?

Chinese, Mexicans? Still USA?

Was Afghan “abandoned” by USA as H source (for both domestic and H from surrounding countries) when “fent route” was 100% established?

Would there be “fent crisis” in UK & EU too if we had same “overpopulation problem”. We don’t have significant homeless population, those who don’t work do so more or less by choice, we don’t need stick & carrot to get people to the army (as we don’t do wars that much), there’s lack of workpower even in banana countries like mine …

 

[ImBettyFucknFord]

I'm new to the blue light community and would like to know some more information on the harm reduction act I live in California and have been a heroin ivy drug user for 25 years. I've done methadone Suboxone but would like to know if some other things out there that I could take to taper me off of the opiates. Like so many people years ago I started with prescription pills I've had my share of overdoses and I don't want to die. Can somebody please refer me to some harm reduction places here in California thank you.

 

[JustferFun]

I'm new to the blue light community and would like to know some more information on the harm reduction act I live in California and have been a heroin ivy drug user for 25 years. I've done methadone Suboxone but would like to know if some other things out there that I could take to taper me off of the opiates. Like so many people years ago I started with prescription pills I've had my share of overdoses and I don't want to die. Can somebody please refer me to some harm reduction places here in California thank you.

You probably already know about this, but the only other thing for tapering that I can think of is kratom, but it's pretty weak - especially if your H has fentanyl in it. But it can be useful later on. That's my experience, but there are people who it works for even in the short term. There are other options that can help with withdrawal like memantine (a dissociative) but I think that works best in combination with Suboxone. Best of luck to you.

 

[Gaz_hmmmm]

Wait, how did the US government make money from opioids?

I’m not saying they were directly making money from opioids, I’m saying that the Mujahideen who were fighting the Soviet’s in Afghanistan grew opium and sold opium/Heroin (Especially to the Pakistani secret service!) with which the profits were used to buy weapons from the US (CIA), UK (MI6), China and Pakistan, probably others too like the Saudi’s.

Also the same thing in Nicaragua in the 1980’s with the Contras but they were using money from cocaine sales to buy arms from the CIA/US,

I know in Vietnam the CIA was directly involved in the opium/Heroin trade with Operation Air America.

 

[SpiralusSancti]

It was/ like this. You come as average G.I.Joe to Afghan (especially if you are non-USA solider), you exit blue zone and sniper blows off your head. Guess what was often in the red zone? Guarded fields.

 

[Gaz_hmmmm]

It was/ like this. You come as average G.I.Joe to Afghan (especially if you are non-USA solider), you exit blue zone and sniper blows off your head. Guess what was often in the red zone? Guarded fields.

This is true but I was referring Afghanistan in the 1980’s when the Mujahideen were fighting the Soviet’s, not Afghanistan 2001 onwards, where no information about secret services using drugs/drug money to fund black op’s has came out.
Yes, CIA assets who were anti-Taliban were opium growers/Heroin sellers but that doesn’t mean the CIA was involved with that side of things.

 

[JustferFun]

I’m not saying they were directly making money from opioids, I’m saying that the Mujahideen who were fighting the Soviet’s in Afghanistan grew opium and sold opium/Heroin (Especially to the Pakistani secret service!) with which the profits were used to buy weapons from the US (CIA), UK (MI6), China and Pakistan, probably others too like the Saudi’s.

Also the same thing in Nicaragua in the 1980’s with the Contras but they were using money from cocaine sales to buy arms from the CIA/US,

I know in Vietnam the CIA was directly involved in the opium/Heroin trade with Operation Air America.

Ok, that makes sense.

 

[TheUltimateFixx]

unless dilauded or heroin is legalized. This would cut overdoses by more than half overnight.

Would cut those down to next to nothing I reckon. It's not just what's in it, it's that you also can't know the purity and therefore the potency. When you have a consistent uncontaminated product that allows for accurate dosing there's no reason people should be overdosing left right and centre.

If I have a bottle of absinthe that says 90% I'm not gonna neck the lot and give myself alcohol poisoning unless I'm a reckless idiot. Sure there'll always be the drug hazardeurs who push the limit intentionally, but you can't save those types from themselves whether the product is legal or illegal. The majority of consumers however don't wanna risk dying.

 

[LeoRising11]

I'm new to the blue light community and would like to know some more information on the harm reduction act I live in California and have been a heroin ivy drug user for 25 years. I've done methadone Suboxone but would like to know if some other things out there that I could take to taper me off of the opiates. Like so many people years ago I started with prescription pills I've had my share of overdoses and I don't want to die. Can somebody please refer me to some harm reduction places here in California thank you.

Hi there I am also in Cali. I currently take 8mgs subs daily. I’ve been H free for 3 years

a lot of friends in recovery here in CA praise & suggest a great option after suboxone; Sublocade

I am not sure if you’re interested in a long haul, one and done type treatment option? this is pretty legit according to my peers.
p.s. Sublocade is a Rx injection

 

[LeoRising11]

That's a low budget not even state funded. Iowas republicans are murdering their states drug addicts just like their base wants.

Even CA where harm reduction is close to getting injection centers open....the whole thing of Still maintaining a fentanyl based drug supply is that tons of ppl will die unless dilauded or heroin is legalized. This would cut overdoses by more than half overnight.

CA is definitely the capital of harm reduction and recovery. We are blessed

“injection centers?” do u mean like places in the UK where you can fix in safety, or do you mean injection as in Sublocade? truly curious

 

[LucidSDreamr]

CA is definitely the capital of harm reduction and recovery. We are blessed

“injection centers?” do u mean like places in the UK where you can fix in safety, or do you mean injection as in Sublocade? truly curious

safe injection sites. Basically they give you clean rigs…get passed out bodies off public sidewalks and save you from OD all while pushing the user to get into treatment.

Ppl complain a lot in big cities about all the passed out fent addicts in the side walk but these same people opposes containing them inside a building