Anyone on here tried heroine?

I don’t see how the Government could ever legalise drugs. Alcohol is relatively low risk and has been used widely quite literally since man found out how to make it. Can you seriously imagine a time when there will be a minimum legal age for people to buy drugs like heroine or cannabis? Get real.

Yes I can imagine a time, several govts have and are considering it. Alcohol isn’t low risk as has already been pointed out in this thread.

How long do you think the native Americans having been chewing Coca leaves? Ditto Opium poppies and Ganja plants? Alcohol and the fermentation methods to produce it are probably a much younger invention (amateur historian mode off!). So learning how to make it, and picking it off a plant and chewing it/sticking it on a handy camp fire is likely to be more ingrained in human society than brewing.

Drugs like heroine, cocaine, and arguably cannabis, can induce severe long term physiological problems in a very short space of time and after relatively small quantities have been ingested. No way the powers that be will ever legalise them; they are far too dangerous to justify any revenue raised through the duty that would undoubtedly be levied on them.

The research doesn’t back this up. You’re right about the political element though. Too many of Joe Public believe they are dangerous without understanding why, so it’s political suicide to legalise them… …at the moment anyway. Hoepfully education about this will change the populist viewpoint (hint hint!).

The NHS would probably also go into meltdown if more people started using drugs recreationally.

Hyperbole I’m afraid, no evidence that this would happen from other countries that have experimented. Besides the increased tax take could cover any short term spike.

I’m also quite sure most drug users would resent the government telling them how strong the substances they are allowed to take should be and having to pay duty on them and so the illegal trade would still continue.

You don’t know many drug users then! Think of how many alcohol users resent the govt. imposing limits on how strong their alcohol is. Not many right?

The illegal trade wouldn’t continue on nearly the same scale. It’d just be a matter of making the tax low enough so that it would be economically unviable to produce and import it illegally. Not difficult economics really. If you’re worried about the ethical aspect of it, I’m sure some entrepeneurial soul would sort out some fairtrade opium for you!

Alcohol is relatively low risk

go into any slightly lived-in looking pub in any town or city on a weekday afternoon and tell this to any one of the old boys quietly sitting in the corner nursing their pints..

I’ve known people to give up mainline heroin.. cocaine.. tranquilisers and meth-amphetamine habits in my time.. plus a whole host of other fun things.. no easy task and the mental scars are deep and harrowing.. but the one thing that they will admit to still craving almost constantly.. even years later.. is alcohol..

only once when I wake up and once when I go to bed

go into any slightly lived-in looking pub in any town or city on a weekday afternoon and tell this to any one of the old boys quietly sitting in the corner nursing their pints..

Are those people alcoholics or just people looking for company, wanting to be somewhere to met friends? Serous question – surely most working class alcoholics couldn’t afford to get wasted at the pub every day?

aye you’re maybe right about that in some ways MF… but from my experience.. even your seasoned alkie will want to make it down to the pub for a pint for exactly the reason that you’ve suggested.. misery loves company..

those old boys (and girls) will also tell you there’s nowt wrong with a good drink.. it’s what makes Britain great etc etc.. before they proceed to bore you to death with tales of friends that are dying or dead from drink related illnesses…

I’m pretty sure that one day I’ll be one of those old folks in the corner of the pub.. I’d rather that than be sat at home in a pool of my own effluent in front of Jeremy Kyle.. cold.. alone and confused..

I hope that there’s a British pub left to go to..

Yeah, just asking because I know of one person in my life who killed herself through drink and she didn’t venture out much other than to buy cheap vodka – not often was she in a pub. And if she was at a family gathering she rarely got drunk – even at weddings and the such when there would be free booze on tap. I assume this was because she didn’t want us to see her drunk.

Where do you get your ideas from? Genuine question as you strike me as someone who is either an ex-addict or has had their life blighted by drug addiction

Very strange thing to say but no; I have never had any addiction problems. Life is far too interesting to view through the haze of addiction. I do like the odd pint but I am able to excercise common sense and self control and know when to stop. In my eyes therefore alcohol is low risk. I’m sure there are millions of people in this country who also excercise moderation when drinking and would feel the same way.

I have known drug addicts and I’ve seen one family who lives close to me being torn apart by addiction. To an outside observer who didn’t know them they would appear to be a fairly affluent middle class family where a couple of members smoked dope occasionally. Unfortunately for them below the surface there were problems with long term heroine addiction and some pretty messy consequences. I like to think it is best to learn from the mistakes of others in some areas of life. I don’t think you need to have been an addict to be able to express views on the nature of, and the damage caused by, addiction.

My heroine of choice

Very strange thing to say

I only asked because your previous comments seemed to stem from a gut reaction rather than a considered, dispassionate viewpoint.

Peyote answers your previous comments very well at the top of the page, guess we’ll have to agree to disagree huh?

don’t see how the Government could ever legalise drugs. Alcohol is relatively low risk and has been used widely quite literally since man found out how to make it. Can you seriously imagine a time when there will be a minimum legal age for people to buy drugs like heroine or cannabis? Get real.

Serious question.
So what happens in Holland, is there a legal age, I’ve never been there, is the streets full of junkies or what?
From what I know the country seems ok.

BTW I’ve never done any drugs.

I mentioned about the demographic of people who I thought tended towards heroin and got,

That really is quite a pompous statement, do you go out of your bubble much? Or are you really that naive?

Now, I’m happy to admit I’m wrong, or naiive (I said as much in the post), but pompous? I think perhaps we’ve a misunderstanding.

That said, am I wrong? I’ve seen plenty of methodone users shuffling around in chemists (my mum worked in a pharmacy before she retired so I’ve spent more time than most in a dispensing chemist), and they mostly have a lot of features in common. White, teens / 20s typically, drawn faces that look like they’ve not slept for a month, sunken features, skin like a dropped pizza. Some stand stock still like they’re away with the fairies, or more usually twitchy and fidgety and can’t stand still. Generally wearing a track suit or other stereotypical ‘chav’ uniform, or pyjamas.

OTOH I’ve yet to see, for instance, the manager of the local branch of HSBC down there to have his needles exchanged.

Like I say, I’ve had little direct experience of heroin and other class A substances. What I have seen around me would lead me to believe that, certainly in my area at least, hard drugs are the plaything of the sort of person you’d find running out of your back yard rather than providing you with financial advice.

..

So what happens in Holland, is there a legal age, I’ve never been there, is the streets full of junkies or what?

You need to be careful about how you view the Netherlands. It is actually a very sober, restrained society. It’s just a part of Amsterdam that’s very different. And yes, there are a lot of hard drugs in that part of the city.

A good friend, whom everyone was certain would become a heavyweight junkie, managed to avoid it at the last minute, and has ended up as a settled family guy.

Of the two people I know who died young, one was 17 and had cancer. The other was 27 (a day shy of his 28th birthday) and drank himself to death in 10 years.

Most of the problems of illegal drugs stem from prohibition rather than from he actual drug itself. A huge proportion of crime is the result of junkies getting money to score. Across the country 50% in some areas 70%.

Legalise heroin and cut crime dramatically. A junkie with plenty of smack bothers no one.

Different drugs require different approaches but there is no doubt that -prohibition has failed and the more pragmatic and relaxed attitudes in other countries gives better outcomes.

The Netherlands is a very similar country in some ways but because of their very different drug policies they have afar less issues with drugs. Junkies are dying out there – there is almost no heroin scene at all – the average age of their junkies is in the 30s and getting older each year and less of them, in the UK they are average late teens / early 20s IIRC and each year the average is lower and there are more of them.

bloody hell, cant believe how many people are saying heroin is fairly harmless

Heroin itself, if used carefully (like alcohol), is fairly harmless. It’s the illegality and subsequent crime and deprivation that comes with it’s use by many addicts, that causes the harm. But we know this already.

been a bobby for 21 years and have seen the misery and torment it causes in literally hundreds of people, never met heroin addict who wants to be on heroin.Ive met plenty cocaine users who like coke, but never a heroin addict

See, if people really din’t want to do it, they’d not do it. Trouble with Heroin, is that addicts really really do want to use it. When they say they don’t want to be addicted, what they mean is they don’t want to be in that desperate state where they’re constantly craving the drug, and their lives are completely ruled by their need to get it. But if they’re being absolutely honest, they really do want to experience that high. My very limited experience of using it taught me that this was something I really wanted (I clamoured for the hospital staff to give me some more, but they refused), and that getting hooked was incredibly dangerous. Fortunately, I possess enough self-control when it comes to such things, to know I can never get involved. Sadly not everyone possesses such control. I know quite a number of people who have got involved, some of them managed to control their habits sufficiently to hold down a reasonably stable life, others went out of control and ended up needing help. One or two are still in trouble.

Even strictly controlled, Alcohol is still the most destructive drug in our society, by a long, long way. If Heroin were controlled to the degree alcohol is, then we’d see a tiny fraction of the problems we see now.

I was trerrified from Grange Hill days with Zammo – and that just say no message stuck with me.

Reading through all the first page or so of this does raise some interesting points. Like, there’s a fair amount of ‘the best drug ever, so I can’t let myself take it’ (or similar) – which is completely understandable.

But it kinda makes you wonder IF it were legal, what the effects might be. Might we just wander around completely zonked but happy? Or have a ‘happy hour’ every day for everyone?

When I was in Peshawar I stopped in at some opium dens on the border with the tribal regions. It’s funny – you can buy warm beer and opium on the same street, but the guys in the opium shops weren’t a very good advert for it…

See, if people really didn’t want to do it, they’d not do it. Trouble with Heroin all drugs is that addicts really really do want to use them.

Absolutely nail-on-head.

I used to smoke. I really enjoyed it, but after a while I realised it was doing me no good – I mean, I knew already, we all do – and decided that I really didn’t want to smoke, so I stopped. ‘d tried to stop before, but I really hadn’t wanted to, just thought that I should. Once I actually wanted to quit, it was a simple matter of stopping.

Same with alcohol. I had a long, hard look at my alcohol consumption at the start of the year and realised that for whatever reason I simply couldn’t carry on doing what I had been for so many years. I was no longer sleeping well, getting up was difficult, and I was a stone heavier than I wanted to be. This isn’t mad drinking, but certainly I’d share a bottle of wine with my wife most nights, at weekends I might add a beer or two as well (not in the same glass).

So now I don’t drink during the week. Fridays and Saturdays I can, but I’m not so bothered about that either – I might have a beer, but then again, I might not. Alcohol’s gradually disappearing from my life, and I have no problem with that, though I’m not dogmatic about it.

Wanting to stop is what stops you. Nothing else.

Heroin itself, if used carefully (like alcohol), is fairly harmless

Surely the addiction is harm? And the fact you tend to stop caring about other things?

See, this is the sort of headline that heroin leads to.

http://tinyurl.com/6ldeysy

I don’t see how the Government could ever legalise drugs. Alcohol is relatively low risk and has been used widely quite literally since man found out how to make it. Can you seriously imagine a time when there will be a minimum legal age for people to buy drugs like heroine or cannabis? Get real.

Alcohol is low risk of what? The current massive health, social, and public order problems currently caused by alcohol don’t really fit with that do they?

BTW Portugal has adopted a liberalised drugs policy which has apparently been very successful.

The question is, does the new policy work? At the time, critics in the poor, socially conservative and largely Catholic nation said decriminalizing drug possession would open the country to “drug tourists” and exacerbate Portugal’s drug problem; the country had some of the highest levels of hard-drug use in Europe. But the recently released results of a report commissioned by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, suggest otherwise.

The paper, published by Cato in April, found that in the five years after personal possession was decriminalized, illegal drug use among teens in Portugal declined and rates of new HIV infections caused by sharing of dirty needles dropped, while the number of people seeking treatment for drug addiction more than doubled.

“Judging by every metric, decriminalization in Portugal has been a resounding success,” says Glenn Greenwald, an attorney, author and fluent Portuguese speaker, who conducted the research. “It has enabled the Portuguese government to manage and control the drug problem far better than virtually every other Western country does.”

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1893946,00.html

But let’s just stick with the current policy which is working so well because……….. well……………. drugs are bad, mmmmkay?

Alcohol is relatively low risk and has been used widely quite literally since man found out how to make it.

You are just ignoring the statsitics now.

I do like the odd pint spliff but I am able to excercise common sense and self control and know when to stop. In my eyes therefore alcohol cannabis is low risk. I’m sure there are millions of people in this country who also excercise moderation when drinkingsmoking spliffs and would feel the same way.

I have known drug addicts drinkers and I’ve seen one family who lives close to me being torn apart by addiction. To an outside observer who didn’t know them they would appear to be a fairly affluent middle class family where a couple of members smoked dope drank occasionally. Unfortunately for them below the surface there were problems with long term heroine addictionalcoholism and gambling and some pretty messy consequences. I like to think it is best to learn from the mistakes of others in some areas of life. I don’t think you need to have been an addict to be able to express views on the nature of, and the damage caused by, addiction.

This stuff does not only happen with drugs that is true I know and the above is actually real. mate of mine from school became an alcoholic and is now a dead sloicitor leaving two kids and a young wife after drinking himself to death at 39. he did manage to kick the crap out of her three times before she kicked him out and he lost his job before continuing to drink himself to death with no friends.

The moral is ALL drugs are dangerous to some degree[ some peole die mtb you know almost everything is dangerous to some degree- E’s for example are very safe 13 deaths to million of pills taken]. Some people are more susceptible to some drugs than others .. I am sure you do drink occasionally but that does not mean it is not a very real problem for others does it? Some drugs are worse than others and more addcitive and dangerous say glue/solvents or alcohol and cocaine in middle aged men [heart attack]. Prohibition is ineffective in reducing harm or use.
You do need to be swayed by facts a bit more. Yes drugs have messed up people lives legal ones and illegal ones so has gambling, smoking, sex food, etc.

Junkyard, I’ve had an aunt drink herself to death (a truly sad and pointless end to a life) and two other relatives die from smoking and drinking related diseases so I know full well that the stuff some people consider harmless can do truly awful things to others. I’ve also seen the violence and abuse that can surround the use of alcohol. I’m well aware of the facts and the impact.

Maybe thats what has made me so measured in my approach to booze and so cautious on the subject of drugs. It is also probably behind my fairly intolerant views on drugs and addicts; I guess I’m not someone who is prone to loosing control to the point of addiction and I have no time for those who are. That ain’t going to change anytime soon.

Surely the addiction is harm? And the fact you tend to stop caring about other things?

That’s a good point Molgrips. I think there has to be a distinction made between physiological damage; i.e whether a certain substance is poisonous, what quantiites it can be considered poisonous and what damage can be caused, and psychological damage; i.e the ease at which addiction can be created and the effect of the substance on the users mental well being.

The problem in my mind is, the former is relatively easy to quantify, the latter is far more dependant on the individual user. For example, I suspect in some people addiction to alcohol or gambling causes the addict to disregard all else to get there next drink/fix. I’m not sure if heroin is particularly more addictive than anything else. Indeed one of the regular lines trotted out in smoking cessation literature is that nicotine is more addictive than heroin. I’m suspicious about the accuracy of this though.

hard drugs are the plaything of the sort of person you’d find running out of your back yard rather than providing you with financial advice.

How do you know? Well your hardly likely to as they can afford to get private professional help and large company’s do not want images and public trust damaged so they keep it quiet. Why do you think doctors are not allowed to keep controlled drug keys in hospitals? Even the best educated individuals succumb to drugs for all different reasons.

To suggest someone with a good education/higher class status is less likely use class A drug is just plain silly.

You have seen one section of society and assume that its exclusively associated to them. If I don’t see it then it doesn’t happen unfortunately does not apply.

I have known of plenty of “professionals” with serious drug habits.

I was under the impression that it was fairly uncommon outside of society’s underclasses and rockstar circles (which aren’t always separate things)

Smoking was the habit of the remedial classes (at my school at any rate)

Are IMHO quite pompous statements.

I guess I’m not someone who is prone to loosing control to the point of addiction and I have no time for those who are. That ain’t going to change anytime soon.

what as shame more peole are not controlled like you eh?
i dont overeat or drink nor am i addictted to gambling or prostitution or sex – though I have tried all but one of them. I am still however able to be empathetic towards people who are not as mentally tough [genetic predisposition to addiction is clearly weakness ???] and strong as me and display compassion to their plight whilst attempting to understand it and the complex causes of it.
Not everyone who drinks ends up an alcohlic I dont think mental toughness is the main reason for this difference as perhaps there is something in addictive stuff that makes them addictive rather than lack of control on the users part?
Addiction is classed as an illness FWIW.
Not changing your view is not neccessarily a sign of strength it may just be stubborness.

Interesting reading.

I never really comment on threads like this. I don’t feel the Internet is private enough a place to discuss my past.

H, Crack and Meth – the try oncers. Met people in life who were like a government warning, tried it once and couldn’t get enough.
Met others who can take it or leave it.
All depends on the person and their circumstances.

A previous life and previous associates, one was highish in protective services in the NE and his addictions were managed and he held down an influential job.

and yet, others from poorer walks of life have dabbled in the brown and their life hasn’t been so propserous.

each to their own, but I made sure never to try it, just to be sure that it wasn’t a vice that I couldn’t walk away from like the others.

A large proportion of this thread is concerned with well balanced, well educated and above all,fortunate peoples experiences with drugs.

The real story lies in those less fortunate, and the way that drugs become less of a recreational activity and more of a way of coping with lives that start out bad and just get worse.

Sad…

As far as I can see legalising Heroin has too many pros for it to be considered sensible

Safer, cheaper, better quality gear for smackheads
Less burglarys for the general public.
Reduced costs in policing, the courts and customs.
Jobs for Afgahistan and the pharmaceuticl sector.
Tax revenue for our Government.

How do you know?

Sorry, it might not have been too clear, but I was meaning “in my experience.” I don’t know.

To suggest someone with a good education/higher class status is less likely use class A drug is just plain silly.

Is it? You might be right, but without any stats to back that up, what you’ve got there is opinion. Anyway, that’s not what I said; I was suggesting that drug use might be akin to an inverse bell curve, where usage increases as you tend towards either extreme. Again though, this is pure speculation.

You have seen one section of society and assume that its exclusively associated to them. If I don’t see it then it doesn’t happen unfortunately does not apply.

Well, that’s not quite what I’m saying. I’m saying that the drug users I’ve seen tend to be of a particular demographic (generally, there are exceptions of course); I’m not saying that this demographic tend to be drug users, and at no point have I claimed that my experience can be extrapolated out to apply to the whole country. The area I live in is more deprived than some, and in all likelyhood this probably skews my experiences. Perhaps I see more druggies that are of lower social standing simply because statistically I see more scrotes per capita than I would if I lived in Hampshire.

I don’t know if it’s accidental or intentional, but you seem to be reading meaning into what I’m saying and then arguing against it.

“I was under the impression that it was fairly uncommon outside of society’s underclasses and rockstar circles (which aren’t always separate things)”

“Smoking was the habit of the remedial classes (at my school at any rate)”

Are IMHO quite pompous statements.

The first, perhaps. My point was really that heroin didn’t seem to me to be the middle-class drug of choice. I’m not wholly unconvinced that this isn’t true, but I’ll happily admit that I made it up.

The second, sorry, it’s simply a fact. The ‘smokers corner’ denizens were exclusively B-band pupils, I’m strugging to think of any A-band kids who smoked.

a lot seem to assume that heroin users are addicts.

some are, not all though – you have no more idea about a casual user on the street than you do if they are a drinker or teetotaller.

drugs do not ruin lives – addiction does.

This thread has completely changed my perspective on the members of this board.

I had you all down as a bunch of Daily Mail readers who tucked their copy of the Daily Mail inside the Times so that people wouldn’t know that you were reading it.

However, with very few exceptions, I’m impressed by how open minded most of the posters in this thread are.

My best friend and I are often referred to as the basis for Fear and Loathing since he’s a Dr in Psychopharmacology and I’m a lawyer, and we head out to Vegas a couple of times a year.

With few execeptions, all drugs are pretty safe in MODERATION.

You have to make the distinction between use and abuse. I’d rather be an occasional heroin user than an alcoholic. And I’d rather being an occasional drinker than a junkie.

That said, I’m most happy being an occasional user of pretty much every drug.

The ones to avoid, in my (farily extensive experience) are PCP and Meth. PCP is just nuts, and the word “moderation” can’t be used in the same sentence as meth!

I also avoid most pyschoactive drugs such as LSD, simply because i’m getting too old to enjoy them comfortably. To many hang ups from an increasingly stressful life.

MODERATION.

(incidentally, for those who commented otherwise, clean heroin is not toxic to humans).

You can feel quite nauseous at first, but that soon passes.

I was offered it in hospital when I had a broken wrist and it was utterly vile 🙁

E’s for example are very safe 13 deaths to million of pills taken

The figure i seem to recall is less than 10 per million users

and the deaths are generally related to overheating/over hydration and (very few) contaminates, the first two generally preventable by ‘responsible’ consumption.

I know people who are casual users of Heroine and Crack Cocaine, they seem to be perfectly able to hold down a job (although in an industry where drug use is generally endemic)

I also know people who followed the typical ‘gateway’ drug path from clubbing back in the day and are now complete wasters or dead.

I’d love to trust myself enough to try some of these stronger drugs but I consider myself to have a very weak tolerance to addiction.

Peyote – Member

I’m not sure if heroin is particularly more addictive than anything else. Indeed one of the regular lines trotted out in smoking cessation literature is that nicotine is more addictive than heroin. I’m suspicious about the accuracy of this though.

Quitting smoking / drinking could be said to be harder due partly to the socially acceptable nature of the drugs. That is, you can’t walk into a newsagent and buy smack, crack or crystal-meth. Well, not round these parts anyway…. The new legislation to hide cigarettes in shops will almost certainly help would-be non-smokers.

Also, regarding addicts “…not caring about anything else”; I’m sure that’s true of some addicts, but I refer you to my earlier post about my very caring family-man mate, running a succesful business.

And tomthumb – I personally have never met any casual smack/crack/meth users. They’ve all fallen for it eventually, or given it up just in time.

This is a really interesting thread for me, especially as I am about to launch my book on natural plant hallucinogens.

All through the writing of it I have felt a great responsibility not to glamourize them, nor encourage people to experiment with them. I do though feel that responsible experimentation and exploration with them can really evolve our scientific thinking on cognition and psychology, and that if used responsibly then they can be of great benefit to mankind.

However, especially in the West, unlike indigenous cultures who have worked with these plants for many thousands of years, we are like teenagers who mostly wish to abuse them, or use them for all the wrong reasons, and of course many drugs cause terrible problems both in our society, and those countries where they are grown and exported from.

I have no desire to try heroin at all, or anything like it.

Another “shocked at the number of experimenters” here.

I work in the music/ents industry, and even that, these days seems to be relatively clean (although I mostly do corporate work). Coke and weed seem to be the drugs of choice, but in moderation – the guys who start caning it get unreliable, so just aren’t booked anymore. High percentage of smokers though and a fair amount of alchohol outside of work.

Me? I’m one of those who had a fairly uptight upbringing. I’ve never smoked anything in my life and never had the desire to. Just seems alien to deliberately inhale smoke! I drank heavilyish for about 6 months in my first year at uni, then decided that actually I didn’t like being drunk. I like the taste of beer and whisky, but in moderation – maybe 5 units a month. Coffee could be a habit too (caffeine is a drug after all) but more than 3 or 4 in a day and I start feeling pretty rough, so that’s self limiting. Again that’s a taste/smell thing.

Anything else? Well I remember seeing some mates snorting coke backstage at a gig – the only smooth shiny surface was the glass lens of one of those rectangular garden floodlights, and they had that on the floor and were crawling around to snort off the top of it. I just couldn’t believe that other wise rational, intelligent, human beings would be that beholden to some white powder to scrub about on the floor after it. Really shocked me how sordid it all was. Injecting? Just no way.

About the only high I understand is endorphins. One of the reasons I ride bikes lots. That and feeling “The Flow”(tm) on a great bit of singletrack in a stunning location.

About the only high I understand is endorphins.

You know, given the nature of the forum I’m amazed it’s taken this long for someone to say that.

I watched some documentary or other a while back (of the Horizons / QED ilk) which reckoned they’d found the gene which caused people to be thrill seekers; if you had the ‘short’ version of the gene then you actively avoided peril, people with the ‘long’ version were lovers of rollercoasters, skydiving etc. Not just that, but they needed the thrill and were unhappy if they couldn’t get their fix. Interesting stuff. I definitely fall into the latter category.

I wonder perhaps if there’s something similar relating to drugs / addiction? Hm.

Are there any countries in the world where UK “A” classified drugs are legal ?

endorphine = endogenous morphine or heroin basically but natures own.
HTH