Free Heroin!

Eman Resu

Who says the dealers in question (if this is true) are from Galway, two pronged approach to invading another market in that business, violence and the honey trap. Give out 10 free samples how many of those people come back for more at full price and a (albeit shortened) lifetime of custom. It does make sense with a highly addictive substance as Heroin is supposed to be. Legit companies do this as well, Marlboro gave free fags to the troops in Iraq etc. you can be sure that Marines who didn't smoke probably started and are now paying full price. Both business's have the same problem they have to acquire new customers due to the detrimental effects of the product.

CiaranC

Drugs are a high value item. They sell themselves. There is no reason to give them away free. This is like saying apple give away free iPads to get people to use iPads, its ridiculous, and it does not happen.

Eman Resu

K I stand corrected especially in the face of such comprehensive, overwhelming and irrefutable evidence.

Robbo

nicechick! wrote: »

What has being ''white and middle class'' have anything to do with the fact?

It's what my people do; we convene with the internets when there is wrong in the world or knowledge to be ascertained. If we play our cards right here, we could organised a grassroots twitter campaign, maybe an online petition or a Facebook group. I'm raising awareness, having a White Whine, doncha know.

But to break out of my Sneering and Superior™ idiom for a second. I get the impression that this may be a genuine problem, which I'd hate to see in Galway. I got the impression from talking to a couple of people involved in methadone schemes that people often came to Galway for the very reason of getting away from heroin

Iwannahurl

The Scientician wrote: »

Perhaps Irish dealers are a vastly different kettle of fish to UK dealers but I suspect they're not.

From: http://www.drugscope.org.uk/resources/mediaguide/dealers

Here's an excerpt from a 1998 report examining the nature and extent of opiate misuse in parts of Dublin in the previous decade or so. For certain information the researchers relied on regular focus groups with drug users in areas such as Cherry Orchard and Ballyfermot. From the outset the authors caution that "any information about illegal activities is necessarily difficult to come by, and subject to a variety of distortions, conscious or otherwise, [and therefore] conclusions must be hedged about with qualifiers."

That said, the authors point to dealers' provision of free heroin as a "marketing ploy", the concern being not instant addiction but simple availability and feasibility of heroin as a drug of choice, especially among younger age groups. Referring to a surge in the smoking of heroin, they state the following:

At about the same time as this transformation was taking place, people recall a difference in how the drug was peddled on the street. To put it simply, heroin became increasingly associated with locally novel settings and people. From its historical position as something of a specialty drug, generally at the end of a chain of other substances, it became much more socially visible and physically available. At the same time, the age at which heroin could potentially be used plummeted. An early change, for example, was the marketing of heroin with Ecstasy, ostensibly as a means of “coming down” from a weekend of raves. This change in the way that the drug was supplied might have been as much an indication of just how much heroin was available at this time than any coordinated plan on the part of various dealers.

In the last couple of years, however, this “mainstreaming” process has become much more direct and strategic. All of our younger sample report that free bags of heroin are available to any new and, or young faces at “the flats” (St. Michael’s Estate in Inchicore), purely as a loss leader marketing ploy. In this way, heroin use has become much more visible to, conceivable for, and useable by, young people in the late 1990s than it was in the late 1980s.

I think I have a UK reference to this topic somewhere also. The issue as I see it is not instant addiction but availability. Current and potential users are perhaps even more likely to get freebies from their peers than from dealers.

Additionally, it is also well known that dealers will, up to a point, supply on credit. If and when addiction sets in, a heroin user may well find it difficult to afford a regular supply. As we also know, drug debt at various levels in the supply chain is a common reason for violence and intimidation. In a sense, users are as dependent on the suppliers as they are on the drug.

Iwannahurl

Robbo wrote: »

But to break out of my Sneering and Superior™ idiom for a second. I get the impression that this may be a genuine problem, which I'd hate to see in Galway. I got the impression from talking to a couple of people involved in methadone schemes that people often came to Galway for the very reason of getting away from heroin

There is something in what you say. Drug dependence can become strongly associated with certain people and settings, and users trying to become, and to stay, clean will often try to move somewhere else. Once clean, they may feel compelled to avoid their old haunts in order to avoid any potential triggers that might reawaken the addiction.

I'd be prepared to wager that a significant number of people on Methadone in Galway have not lived in the city all their lives.





EDIT: Now that I think of it, I have heard stories from current and former users about their attempts to get clean, whether cold turkey on their own or as part of a programme. One story that I heard more than once was that dealers would come round to their house or flat and push bags of heroin through the letterbox.

ScumLord

Iwannahurl wrote: »

EDIT: Now that I think of it, I have heard stories from current and former users about their attempts to get clean, whether cold turkey on their own or as part of a programme. One story that I heard more than once was that dealers would come round to their house or flat and push bags of heroin through the letterbox.

All the more reason to legalize these drugs and have them supplied from reputable sources.

snubbleste

Is there a methadone clinic in town?

CiaranC

snubbleste wrote: »

Is there a methadone clinic in town?

Sure why would you need one when Heroin is free?

lookinbusy

snubbleste wrote: »

Is there a methadone clinic in town?

used to be one in shantalla

AoifeCork

Hmmm, tis like The Wire is it?

Iwannahurl

CiaranC wrote: »

Sure why would you need one when Heroin is free?

There is no such thing as a free (naked) lunch.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methadone

clived2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4tred9_qJI

Iwannahurl

I've been in withdrawal since finishing the last series of The Wire.

"Testers" -- another reason for distributing free samples is to make users aware of the current quality, as well as to keep current and potential customers interested, and grateful.

In Baltimore, home of The Wire, the distribution of free samples by dealers is evidently not an urban myth (unless of course the US Federal Government is part of some conspiracy to pretend otherwise):

Retail drug distribution in the W/B HIDTA [Washington/Baltimore High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area] region often takes place in open-air drug markets situated along commuting corridors and within public housing projects in Baltimore and Washington, D.C. These markets provide abusers within and outside the region with ready access to crack cocaine, heroin, and other illicit drugs. Most open-air drug markets are located in inner-city areas and are operated by neighborhood-based African American and Hispanic gangs or crews that periodically provide customers with free samples, or "testers," of heroin and cocaine to encourage future sales.

Source: US National Drug Intelligence Center, Washington/Baltimore High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Drug Market Analysis 2009.

Eman Resu

Don't bother Iwannahurl, facts aren't applicable in a who's the coolest, and has the best comeback forum competition after all it's the internet! (but glad to see someone uses facts and logic in a discusssion, there may be hope for the species, nevermind the country yet.)

P.S. Bubbles made it, he survived, best character in that excellent show!

Iwannahurl

And here's a Wire/Galway connection, just for the crack...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7-PM_4aeE4

EI111

CiaranC wrote: »

Drugs are a high value item. They sell themselves. There is no reason to give them away free. This is like saying apple give away free iPads to get people to use iPads, its ridiculous, and it does not happen.

No it's not.

It is more like saying Coke give out free samples of Coke Zero in order to get people to buy more Coke Zero.

You see people would buy or upgrade an ipad maybe once every 3 years so giving one away hoping to get repeat business of that same customer would not make sense as the seller would not break even for a long time if ever.
Coke Zero on the other hand, could be purchased multiple times per day by the same customer so the free sample could be repaid within days.

Heroin is more like Coke Zero than iPads, so really your analogy is ridiculous, not the claim that heroin may be given out for free. I'd be fairly positive that it does happen. A very plausible example might be a small time dealer giving a friend/associate a sampler in order to break the taboo and maybe lead to more sales to support their own habit rather than selling the odd painkiller or bag of weed or whatever else a small time dealer might get their hands on every now and then.

Cill Dara Abu

Misleading thread title

Iwannahurl

Cill Dara Abu wrote: »

Misleading thread title

Lots of them are!

Eman Resu

EI111 wrote: »

No it's not.

It is more like saying Coke give out free samples of Coke Zero in order to get people to buy more Coke Zero.

You see people would buy or upgrade an ipad maybe once every 3 years so giving one away hoping to get repeat business of that same customer would not make sense as the seller would not break even for a long time if ever.
Coke Zero on the other hand, could be purchased multiple times per day by the same customer so the free sample could be repaid within days.

Heroin is more like Coke Zero than iPads, so really your analogy is ridiculous, not the claim that heroin may be given out for free. I'd be fairly positive that it does happen. A very plausible example might be a small time dealer giving a friend/associate a sampler in order to break the taboo and maybe lead to more sales to support their own habit rather than selling the odd painkiller or bag of weed or whatever else a small time dealer might get their hands on every now and then.

Exactly "Economy of scale" not sure if that's the correct term but what the above poster said is appropriate in this situation. Comparing an IT product versus an addictive drug makes no sense, Ipads can last for ages no "consumable" product can.

Euskadi1888

I know people who can get hold of almost anything, and I've only really heard of H on the go once.

It's the sort of drug everyone apart from the most desperate avoid, and the rest will manage to get hold of regardless.

At least it's good to see one business cutting prices in the recession. There are bigger criminals out there in suits and ties.

inisboffin

Euskadi1888 wrote: »

It's the sort of drug everyone apart from the most desperate avoid, and the rest will manage to get hold of regardless.

Unfortunately that isn't true. Addicts become desperate, some weren't always that way.

Euskadi1888 wrote: »

At least it's good to see one business cutting prices in the recession. There are bigger criminals out there in suits and ties.

Yeah, supplying the smaller criminals.

Iwannahurl

There are lots of gangsters in suits and ties for sure. Some of them were repeatedly voted into high office.

Some people in suits are holding down ordinary jobs while maintaining a heroin habit.

Our jails are mainly filled with members of this country's underclass. Problems with basic literacy, low educational attainment, lack of jobs training, chronic unemployment, mental health issues, childhood abuse and neglect, and alcohol dependence are rife. Since the rate of reoffending is very high (half of all prisoners will be back in jail within four years) our prisons are clearly not effective in terms of reforming criminals, and therefore their institutional function is effectively warehousing this underclass as a punishment for their crimes.

Add heroin to the mix and you have a recipe for disaster. It offers only short-term relief from such misery, and once serious addiction and IV use begins the slope is very slippery indeed.

Euskadi1888

inisboffin wrote: »

Unfortunately that isn't true. Addicts become desperate, some weren't always that way.

Well it is true. The only people I know who have used heroin are total down and outs. They weren't happy go lucky types who were coerced into railing lines of smack by their mates.

FWIW, heroin has no long term bad effects on the body. Sharing needles and jacking up with cut product is what gubs people, both results of the drug being illegal but hey ho, that's the way the government win the War On Drugs right

Iwannahurl wrote: »

Some people in suits are holding down ordinary jobs while maintaining a heroin habit.

More power to them. So long as they don't harm anyone else in society they are free to do what they want in their spare time.

aquaman

1. Heroin is a cheap drug

2. The main barrier to heroin use is not cost it's reputation (one of the few illegal drugs that prevention education actually works well for, due to itsdevistating effects)

3. Drug users generally experience drugs free but provided by friends not shady pushers outside school gates.

4. These type of myths about drugs do nothing to counter drug use. In fact when young people experiment with mild drugs and find out that most of what parents/ authority figures have told them about drugs is patently untrue, they are more likely to try harder drugs to see for themselves.

5. There is very little point trying to prove an arguement about drugs on here using links to newspaper articles/ ploice reports as most of it is war on drugs bunk.

6. Articles such as this if anything ENCOURAGE drug use as they further ailenate young people who are in an experimental phase of life from the older generations. Confirming to the youngsters that the people lecturing them don't have a clue about real life.

inisboffin

Euskadi1888 wrote: »

The only people I know who have used heroin are total down and outs. They weren't happy go lucky types who were coerced into railing lines of smack by their mates.

That's rubbish! While it may be true that *you* only know those people, it most certainly isn't the case for a lot of people, myself included.

Euskadi1888 wrote: »

FWIW, heroin has no long term bad effects on the body. Sharing needles and jacking up with cut product is what gubs people.

First off, I would consider physical addiction itself a 'long term bad effect'.

Re withdrawal (from drugfree.org):

"Withdrawal, which in regular abusers may occur as early as a few hours after the last administration, produces drug craving, restlessness, muscle and bone pain, insomnia, diarrhea and vomiting, cold flashes with goose bumps (“cold turkey”), kicking movements (“kicking the habit”), and other symptoms. Major withdrawal symptoms peak between 48 and 72 hours after the last does and subside after about a week. Sudden withdrawal by heavily dependent users who are in poor health can be fatal.

Now, heroin use itself, and we are talking street heroin, as that's what is being discussed here:

Depressed respiratory system - junkies frequently die in their 'sleep' as their bodies 'forget' to breath. Death is a pretty long term bad effect!

Possible liver failure from toxicity.

Long term use can permanently effect dopamine levels, causing *permanent* mental dysfunction (even if the user gets clean)

Chronic constipation and malnutrition due to appetite suppression.

Collapsed veins leading to clotting, infection and sometimes localised cell death in skin and organs (sometimes vital organs)

Chronic erectile dysfunction.

Now you seem to be inferring that if heroin were legalised there would not be as much danger. There is a certain amount of truth in this with regard to clean needles, death from gang related activity etc. BUT in terms of the drug not being cut with harmful substances if legal? Well tobacco is legal, but it doesn't stop companies boosting sales by pumping cigarettes full of 'legal' lethal chemicals and additives.

Street heroin related diseases *include*; Necrotizing fasciitis (flesh eating bacteria) leading to amputation and death, TB, tetanus, hepatitis etc.

Iwannahurl

aquaman wrote: »

1. Heroin is a cheap drug

2. The main barrier to heroin use is not cost it's reputation (one of the few illegal drugs that prevention education actually works well for, due to itsdevistating effects)

3. Drug users generally experience drugs free but provided by friends not shady pushers outside school gates.

4. These type of myths about drugs do nothing to counter drug use. In fact when young people experiment with mild drugs and find out that most of what parents/ authority figures have told them about drugs is patently untrue, they are more likely to try harder drugs to see for themselves.

5. There is very little point trying to prove an arguement about drugs on here using links to newspaper articles/ ploice reports as most of it is war on drugs bunk.

6. Articles such as this if anything ENCOURAGE drug use as they further ailenate young people who are in an experimental phase of life from the older generations. Confirming to the youngsters that the people lecturing them don't have a clue about real life.

1. According to the World Drug Report 2011, Ireland has the highest mortality rate from drug misuse, the sixth highest level of heroin consumption and one of the highest street prices for heroin in Europe (€145 per gramme in 2009 compared to the average of €50).

2. Heroin's devastating effects don't stop some users switching to the needle. I know one former addict who talked about a friend of his with severe abscesses and other horrific damage from heroin begging him not to end up the same way, even showing him the lesions to try to scare him off. He went ahead and started injecting anyway.

3. IIRC nobody in this thread claimed that there were drug pushers at the school gates.

4. What myths? The free samples phenomenon is not a myth. Hysterical claims about the nature, extent and implications of free samples in any given location might be a different story.

5. There is very little point in relying on pure opinion when discussing complex issues like drug use and dependence.

6. What is the evidence that drug use is encouraged in the manner you describe?

ScumLord

Iwannahurl wrote: »

6. What is the evidence that drug use is encouraged in the manner you describe?

Because evidently that's the effect of prohibition. Prohibition has increased drug use among the general population and that's a recorded fact. Drug use has nearly always increased under prohibition, before the governments started telling everybody how awesome using drugs for fun is very few people used drugs recreationally, most got their addictions by their doctors recommendation.

Iwannahurl

I was referring to your specific claim that "articles such as this if anything ENCOURAGE drug use" rather than to prohibition.

The prohibition question is hugely complex and ramified, and I very much doubt that the prohibition-prevalence link is as you suggest. There are some very good arguments against current prohibition policies though.

It's a subject for an entire thread (or forum?!) of its own. FWIW, my own view is that we should learn how to handle legal drugs like alcohol and tobacco first before we overly liberalise the regime for other substances. That said, human beings have probably been getting high whatever way they can since the dawn of time, and will continue to do so until the end of time. If God didn't want us to get well spannered from time to time she wouldn't have invented chemistry...

ScumLord

Iwannahurl wrote: »

I was referring to your specific claim that "articles such as this if anything ENCOURAGE drug use" rather than to prohibition.

But it's true, these kind of articles are the part of prohibition that promote drug use. Most people aren't going to be even thinking about heroin until Frank Fahy comes screaming "free heroin" at them. The anti drugs side do more to promote drugs than any drug dealer.


That said, human beings have probably been getting high whatever way they can since the dawn of time, and will continue to do so until the end of time. [/QUOTE] Drugs have always been a huge part of human culture and more than likely lead to human spirituality. Drugs where always how humans spoke to and came to understand god and the universe, they opened our minds.

The Greeks used to get high on psychedelics before political debate, their entire government was run and developed by people under the influence of drugs. Drugs use and benefits has been high jacked by the Christian faith who saw it as a challenge to their control of gods power.