Tempted by Mike_C, I offer this edifying infovid. BTW, have you ever known Junkies? I know some of you have, and what wretched people they are. Never tempted me, you'll be glad to know. Speaking of which, there was a time when I lived in South London.
Huh, far out, it seems like a dream.
Your Pal,
LSP
19 comments:
Yes, known junkies and alcoholics. Our society lets them get away with way too much because they're 'sick' with the 'disease' of drugs and booze.
I am a bit of a hardarse. I see things done under the influence as done with full conciousness of what one has done. They elected to take the drugs or the booze knowing full well what the side effects are. So crimes done are done with the intent. There is no 'vehicular homicide' due to being drunk. It's first degree murder as the driver chose to 'pull the trigger' of the booze or the needle or whatever. And it really peeves me when someone driving while texting gets a harsher sentence than the known drunk with a long list of DUIs for the same offense.
Hate junkies. Hate alcoholics. Hate them with a passion.
You don't know how many times working in ER that accident victims and the junkie or alcoholic brought in where I wanted to increase his/her pain meds or introduce enough of an air bolus in their IV lines to produce an infarct or pulmonary embolism. The accident victim's injuries were generally horrific and the junkie/ alki were much milder. I too, come to loath and hate them. you are right, they have enough consciences to know they are going to be impaired, that the rush for them.
Being a shitbag junkie is retail, or possibly even hand-crafted, artisanal shitbaggery. Weaponizing narcotics for profit (and probably for the sheer malicious joy of wrecking civil society) is not just wholesale, but literally industrial evil.
In totally separate news having absolutely nothing to do with junkies, did you know the Sackler Family fought for racially integrated blood banks? And they gave money for multiple museums, donated to many universities, and even have the School of Medicine in Tel Aviv named for them. Such good and generous people.
Agree with Beans, also, saw Haight Ashbury in 1973... Ugly was NOT the word for it.
Decades retailing vehicles exposed me to many alcoholics and drug users. Somehow they managed to function. As a manager I didn't hire them. Never met one who wasn't a thief. Being a thief isn't just taking cash from the till. If they were sincerely trying to recover I gave them a chance with the certain knowledge one strike and you are out. Surprisingly, several were successful.
Funny thing about all those hippies and other weirdos. They brought back diseases not seen in 60-70 years. Diseases that were named in the old text books by their description, like 'bloody orangeish armpit discharge.'
Soap. Water. Together they have made the place much better.
Once I knew a guy who had to shoot up to summon the courage to pee in the cup for a pre-employment drug test. Asked why, he basically said "there ain't no hope without that dope." That's the mentality.
I once had to go to a seminar about drug/alcohol testing and counseling in the workplace. The basics of how to establish programs, policies and procedures, etc., including how to handle the situation when an employee came in voluntarily, admitted they had a problem and asked for help. The presenter more or less said that morally and sometimes legally, you gotta try to assist those folks, but don't expect much, because the person who gets off substances without hitting absolute rock bottom without doing the equivalent of a dead cat bounce was nearly as rare as unicorns. The presenter said that what absolute rock bottom looked like was, the junkie had to have lost everything and everyone they held dear and to have nearly died before making a change. She also said the cold hard facts were that sometimes even that wasn't enough. Some people had to do it more than once, and quite often they didn't survive the process. Generally, there ain't no coming back from that.
And after a life-time of exposure to these types, I've found nothing to lead me to any other conclusion. Deal dope to one of these wretches, it ought to be up against the wall with your Satanic azz. No appeal, no delay, bang you're dead, ticket cancelled, preferably in public, volunteers for the squad solicited. Door prizes, perhaps. Too harsh? I think not. There shouldn't be any coming back from that, either.
I've hunted them successfully and caged them.
There was a show called "Nightwatch" that took place in New Orleans and followed paramedics, cops and firefighters during... the night shift. Way too often the call for an OD was to a known ODer. One guy they treated had ODed 4 times previous in the last week, and then the graphic after they got him to the hospital was that he was released and, yep, ODed for the final time the next day. THE NEXT DAY. How many times does God need to flick someone in the forehead before they get the clue?
And, in my dealings with the drug world, drugs that have bodies on them are more valuable because the junkies chase that very fine line between life and death and push the edge. It's why so many do their drugs on train tracks or bridges or other places that aren't normal and where they aren't easily found.
Then there are the zombies that are in the streets of our cities. You've see the videos, literally zombies shuffling and leaning over and are basically dead on their feet.
Yeah. Tell me that we can treat these people with compassion and kid gloves and expect them to be better. Like that loser Carrie Fisher, who supposedly recovered from major drug issues only to OD in the bathroom of a plane. And her death killed her mother, Debbie Reynolds. Or that swinette named Amie Winehouse, who was barely an okay singer but a first-class drug user who, yep, slabbed herself.
Why should I feel pity for these people who commit suicide slowly. Because that's what a really good high is, skating the edges of suicide. Often pushed past that only for the wonderful powers of modern medicine to yank them back so they can do it all over again.
Now, just like some democrats, some druggies learn and recover. But those are, sadly, few and far between, because society treats them with kindness and forgiveness. Just like other criminals. The system supports them and not the real victims.
Just look at all the celebrity junkies, in and out and in and out and in and out...
Don't get me started on the homeless...
Beans, it's a scourge. How did China remove it? To your point, by executing users. Demand went right down.
Cederq -- respect.
I didn't know that, Mike, and now I do.
Whoa, NFO, Haight Ashbury '73. Obviously as a spectator but still, you survived.
Exactly, Beans. Soap + Water.
Good call, WSF. Thievery is a thing with them. I applaud your second cance thing.
Mr. Wild, I 100% agree.
Beans, see the Chinese solution.
I know that, LL. Good man.
“The Chinese solution”
Gordon Chang notwithstanding, the Chinese (in general, not just the govt of the PRC) still hold a grudge against the British for the Opium Wars. (Fentanyl isn’t JUST a good tool for weakening the US, it’s also poetic “justice” so far as Chinese are concerned. But I digress.)
The Opium Wars came about in large part because of a totally British family called the Sassoons. As British as King Arthur and as Earl Grey, just so you know. Some hate thinkers have tried to find parallels between the Sacklers and the Sassoons but for the life of me I can’t figure out what that lesson might be. “Be wary of people whose surname begins with S?” I dunno. It’s a real head scratcher. A puzzlement. A mystery wrapped in an enigma shoved up the butt (butts?) of a turducken.
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