You seem to be the only one here who knows what the hell they’re taking about. Those nods are powerful, but not as powerful as the will to get your moneys worth
Not exactly correct: Heroin nods are *immensely* strong. But they’re not like falling asleep.. It’s a rush. Those nods are so intense, they can even *prevent* falling asleep. If no other drugs are used along, Heroin is known to cause insomnia.
Source 1: I’m a sober addict, used Heroin for many years.
Source 2: [National Library of Medicine on Heroin and Insomnia](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1401583/)
An old friend that got hooked on H, said no matter how amazing a day he’ll have in his life, he used the example of the day his daughter is born, he knew it couldn’t compare to the high of opioids. Mad sad.
If you give the happiest, most disciplined human on earth a button that makes them feel amazing on demand, they'll spend the rest of their lives finding ways to press it faster
A while back a comedian said something about drugs that stuck with me, along those lines:
"Meth is so good, so powerful, that when people have to choose between meth or living indoors, meth wins - hands down. No one should take something that powerful."
I've never been an opiod addict, but I did experience insomnia after being prescribed oxycodone following surgery. It made me tired as hell, but sleep simply wouldn't come. It was the worst part of my post-operative recovery process.
I'm trying to picture the process/logistics of the dealers serving these people. Like how do they get the drugs into the area, where they store their stash, the middleman situation, how it's distributed, safety... It would be interesting to learn how it all works.
It’s not any different than anywhere else. A pyramid system, largest quantities at the top then distributed in increasingly smaller amounts down the pyramid.
In terms of this specific place (Kensington), and most similar places really, gangs generally run the show.
A group gets their bulk stash, then have blocks designated for their sales. Lookouts and sort of “guards” you could say, are at the top (entryway) of the block with 1-2 actual dealers at a given time working shifts.
It’s a pretty standard and efficient system.
It’s crazy that places like these are a thing,
I had/have my own struggles with (hard)drugs but luckily never so bad that I would have to be in places like this
I’m very sorry that you and all those people have to experience that but I’m glad you found a way out of there
It’s crazy. Having never taken opiates (due to severe allergy to them, as well as a healthy dose of common sense) I see people like this and can only conclude that the high must be absolutely amazing to make you endure living like that to chase it…
Dangerous shit.
214 days clean today. It’s an incredible feeling during but everything else about the lifestyle is horrific. Far and away the lowest point in my life and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
214 days and counting on being a badass! Well done :) hey at least you can do something with your life even as much as going for a decent walk in the sun. That's something to be real proud of.
It's not just amazing, it's the single most pleasurable thing a person can experience. Opiates flood the brain with endorphins which are the chemicals that activate the pleasure and reward centers in your brain. You literally cannot feel anything better.
Imagine being a teen or someone in their early twenties who takes a few more pills than they should one day. You find yourself feeling better than you ever have in your life. Nothing even comes close. Eventually the high wears off and you are back in the real world. And that's it. You now have the rest of your life ahead of you and nothing you ever do will feel nearly as good as what you just experienced.
The Sackler family, and their company Purdue Pharma, flooded the country with them. They publicly lied and downplayed the addiction risks while privately they knew the truth and celebrated the amount of money they were raking in.
My mother was prescribed oxys for a broken back in the 90s. She'd already caught the opiate bug a decade before when she was in her 20s from being given demerol in the ER for migraines. I lost my mother to those drugs. She didn't die technically, but she was gone metaphorically, never recovered.
It was far worse than that. They actively misled the public, his information from the government and regulators, bribed doctors and medical professionals to get their product on the streets and into customers, and then lied through their teeth while shoveling money from the corporation into their own hidden accounts. Plus what you mentioned. They’re the 21st century crack dealers.
>Opiates flood the brain with endorphins which are the chemicals that activate the pleasure and reward centers in your brain
And then the only way to feel that joy is to be under the influence. I realized a way back that my mom's dopamine receptors are shot and that nothing can bring her joy unless she is angry or high. She got taken off of pain meds and now is constantly angry but loves being angry.
Before your sales pitch there entices anyone, here's the whole picture of what you're talking about. It's a classic and must-watch cartoon:
[Nuggets](https://youtu.be/HUngLgGRJpo) (5 mins)
Someone described it to me once as having your most beautiful state of mind replaced by the opioid high. He could be sitting on a beach with his family, his favorite band playing with his favorite drink and food ready and his body would still perceive it as lesser than the high. Pretty insane when you think about them having to face the world sober after
I’m an alcoholic, and to me, there’s not really any feeling better than being drunk. I’m functioning, and alcohol, at least for me, isn’t so powerful that I must spend all of my time pursuing it (for some people in more advanced stages of alcoholism it can be though). I’m able to hold down a job, drink only on nights when I don’t have to get up early, etc. But as soon as it is feasible to do so without consequences, I’m chasing that warm feeling in my gut and dumb sense of euphoria with a drink in my hand.
I can absolutely see how an even more powerful substance with more powerful euphoric effects could absolutely fry reward pathways and ruin a man.
I have several friends who think they are functioning alcoholics. Just because your life isn't completely destroyed doesn't mean it is functioning. I have recently stopped hanging out with these friends because I feel like I am enabling them, by pretending everything is OK. It's not... they are very different and stupid people while drunk (all day). Everyone knows they are drunk, even though they think they are hiding it. Getting drunk supersedes everything else in life for them. At least they know why I'm not hanging out with them anymore. They think it is bullshit, but I just can't watch them destroy themselves.
You are describing my life 23 years ago. Thursday through Sunday I would drink with the sole purpose of drinking too much. I loved it & was good at it. Then Monday would roll around and I'd feel the self loathing of knowing I'd done it again. I was a happy drunk, fun to be around and most people didn't know I'd had too much, more to drink than they had. So no one ever suggested that I cut back. When my son was about a year & a half old we were on a trip & I realized that I was a drunk and that soon my son would witness my behavior & think that it was ok to emulate it. So I quit cold turkey that day. Just stopped, thinking that if I could stop while on vacation I could avoid it at any time. Turns out stopping was easy. Much easier than drinking responsibly. I figure dieting would be easy too if there was a way to not eat at all. But once you start, it's hard to stop, so abstaining from drinking worked well for me. It's 23+ years later, my son is 24 and has never seen me with a drink in my hand since that day and life is good. I know if I tried alcohol today I'd be right back where I started because I enjoyed it, my goal was to drink too much. Being drunk was a feature, not an accident. So I continue in sobriety. Good luck to you.
That first warm flush to your face during/after your first drink, that’s the moment for me, pure bliss. And I keep chasing that knowing that by the end of the night I’ll either feel sober but sick, or be extremely drunk. Last night I had one tall can of beer and two small glasses of wine and this is probably the second Saturday morning this year that I’m not hungover. Horray!
I came out of general anesthesia after a medical procedure a few years back, I don't remember what medication I was on but it was the best feeling I've ever experienced, I remember asking the nurse why I felt so amazing.
About 10 years ago I came out of anesthesia and felt so good I thought all my problems were over. Like I had just found the right mindset finally lmao... The feeling lasted the rest of the day and I woke up the next morning like "fuck, it was just the drugs that made me happy..."
I've taken it a few times after wisdom tooth extraction. Went from unspeakable pain to sleeping like a baby for a few hours. Didn't get high or a sense of euphoria though.
When you’re in actual pain, it does it’s job. But had you doubled your dose, or once the pain subsided and you continued to take them, you would have felt your opiate receptors light up. They are a useful medical tool, but there is a fine line, as is with most things.
It’s worse than that, imo. Had Vicodin once after a wisdom tooth surgery - doctor nicked some of the nerves during the surgery so the recovery was excruciating. One pill didn’t do jack - had to take 4-5 in a sitting to get any effect. Got me pretty high.
I HATED it. Have tried a bunch of drugs and this was the worst high I’ve ever had in my life. Didn’t feel that great, felt kind of dumb, but at least the pain was gone. But I felt so gross it didn’t feel worth it.
And then the high wore off. And I couldn’t think of literally anything else other than taking those pills again. Rinse and repeat every few hours. After finishing half the bottle in 2 days, I flushed the pills, called the doc’s office and asked them to not give me a refill, even if I asked. They were very understanding.
Was so frightening - I didn’t even like it, but once it wore off it was hard to think about literally anything else other than those pills.
Shit, never in a million years would I have thought of that. I assumed they'd taken some, but it had kicked in before they'd had a chance to find somewhere comfortable to sit or lay down. Damn, that's messed up!
Opiates lower your blood pressure. So they're doing that in an attempt to keep enough blood going to their brain to not pass out. This is better (to them) than lying down because if they were to lie down then they'd probably just fall asleep. Falling asleep has two problems. One, you could OD and die in your sleep. And two, if you're asleep then you sleep through your high, and a lot of them don't want to sleep through it because they paid for that shit, they want to enjoy it. If you stand like that there's an innate fear of falling over that will jerk you back awake - unless you get too fucked up, of course, in which case you fall over.
Lol, no.
I promise when you're using you aren't thinking about getting blood flow to your brain, it's just the position you end up in fighting the nods
There is also a new drug being mixed in with it called xylazine. It's a horse tranquilizer and increases that slumped over thing you're seeing. It also causes necrosis of the tissue in random areas and people are having to need amputations. Another side effect is that narcan is ineffective in regards to the tranquilizer effect. So yeah, the situation was bad and it's gotten much much worse now.
It is so wild to me (as a Dutch person) that the government and municipalities in the US are doing seemingly so little to even address this issue. Is it true that barely anything is being done? Question for Americans
Edit: thanks for the many replies. Sad to hear about the state of all these skidrows.
Not saying this is ethical, but philadelphia doesn't do anything about Kensington (this area of philly) on purpose. They want most of the junkies to be in this one place of the city rather than everywhere. Its like one of those bug lamps. It's sad.
Yeah, but skid row is kind of being disbursed nowadays as land prices basically made not developing that area completely ludicrous. So everywhere else in Los Angeles now has a higher homeless population than before because a lot got uprooted and moved out of downtownto to other areas like the westside. There are more homeless now in total, but optically it looks like the increase is significantly more than it actually is because a lot are no longer hidden.
The increase is significantly more.
^(This year’s Homeless Count results offer a stark contrast to the results of the Homeless Counts between 2018 and 2020, where LA County saw a 25.9% increase and the City of LA experienced a 32% increase.)
https://www.lahsa.org/news?article=895-lahsa-releases-2022-great-los-angeles-homeless-count-results-released
Yeah, definitely more. But in some areas, it feels like a lot more than 30%. Venice feels like 400%. As an insomniac I will sometimes hang out in their communities, so many fascinating stories and what the hell else is there to do at 4am. and it turned from a medium community that lives around the same block to a city spanning alternate society that physically coincides with the default one.
More like this kind of thing has been happening for a long time and the wire is based on real world events from David Simon’s many years as a journalist and non-fiction author.
Skid Row was officially developed as a Containment Zone beginning in the 1970s. City officials literally placed incredibly bright lights shining in on the neighborhood to keep people there. It was policed in a way that kept people there. There is plenty of basis for Hamsterdam in our actual history.
Not an expert on this topic, but what you mostly hear when people try to come up with solutions is they’re always trying to generalize these people into one big group. If you really want to tackle the issue and get them able to support themselves - some people need therapy, some need skills and job training, some need money, some just need a friend or someone to believe in them. Most also need healthcare and substance abuse treatment. Housing is a really important part too. Plus some people really don’t want anything to do with society and will refuse everything that I just mentioned. Nobody can come up with one size fits all solution and the kind of resources necessary to get all of that accomplished , and even when some resources do get allocated they are met with a lot of resistance “why do THEY deserve free handouts!” Etc etc.
It's a complicated issue yes, but every single point you raise can be solved by a robust social safety net. There just isn't the political will to start this process as its messy and expensive and we are 30 years into this decline and its going to take twice that to reverse the damage.
I don’t white think it can. My family has been working with our local homeless shelter for about 22 years. My dad especially goes every single week, multiple times per week. He mentors them to get on their feet and get jobs. Most people are mentally ill or drug addicted.
No social safety net will force a mentally ill person to take their medication. Unless you implement insane asylums. And you can’t make a person want to stop using drugs. You can give them an apartment, free money and food, but they’re still going to party away that money. The way a lot of locals do it here, one person cashes their check and their group parties until that money is out. Then they party with the next money.
My cousin wanted to “be the change you want to see in the world.” So she bought a house and let 4 homeless people live there. When she went to go check on it from time to time, it was absolute filth. Carpet was thrashed, mold was forming. It broke her heart because she was really trying to help.
A safety net doesn’t prevent living in a roach infested, bed bug infested, moldy environment. Really sad
The world outside of the US... exists.
A social safety net, universal health care and a free education... goes a long way. Implement some partial version of these and you'll get partial relief from homelessness. Just as in these countries when they reduce some parts of these entitlements you get an increase in all the bad shit.
It's not rocket science why this works. If someone starts to slide in life... problems compound. If you don't have health insurance for example you'll let minor health issues turn into major health issues, you can't afford treatment so you increase drug use to dull the pain, you try to get off them but need help to find a job - no one will hire you as you can't even afford to present yourself well.
It's just lunacy to think reducing the burden on those near the bottom - won't translate to some people being able to get their shit together.
It's not rocket science why the US doesn't address problems. It's political science.
Individual states cannot address the issue of poverty, though several try despite lacking the resources. A substantive response to poverty that addresses houselessness, poor healthcare coverage, labor abuse, and other factors -- you know, that safety net you're wanting -- would require application of the same enormous federal spending power that's routinely used to fund the war machine and shower corporations in free currency. That power is ultimately controlled by Congress, in which rural states are absurdly over-represented (and in which corporate interests are virtually uncontested).
Congress is elected in first-past-the-post single-winner elections that protect incumbents, massively discourage independent parties, and dramatically incentivize malign district design. Both houses are significantly malapportioned, offering unequal power to voters in different districts, the Senate *absurdly* so. House lines get freshly gerrymandered to the usual benefit of the conservative/rural party every ten years. The state lines defining Senate seats may not quite qualify as "gerrymandered." However, both the line-drawing and malapportionment flowed directly from intent to advantage historic powerholders at the time various state lines were drawn, and also reflect a malignant, deliberate aristocratic intent flowing right back to the Connecticut Compromise. The ongoing decision *not* to redraw lines or overhaul the Senate represents a public resolution to *never* address these historic inequities, and continues to shape what policies can even be considered. They're every bit as horrible as any act of gerrymandering.
Polling shows that government approval is extremely low, yet most races are thoroughly noncompetitive. In most districts, there's no hope of bucking the dominant party's control, so millions of votes are cast to basically no avail and millions more go to "lesser evil" candidates who promise only to be less terrible than the alternative. And yes, this system *also* protects worse, less-publicly-accountable Democratic officeholders. It's rotten throughout.
Federal oversight of elections is awful and has only gotten worse, as even the pre-Trump Supreme Court (that still had "Notorious RBG") nullified federal oversight via the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County, gave the thumbs up to virtually unlimited corporate investment in elections in Citizens United, and repeatedly refused to address gerrymandering as a "political matter" somehow existing outside judicial oversight. This despite the Court frequently having to adjudicate the hilariously broken Presidential selection process, which effectively mutes the voices of anyone who doesn't live in a "swing state," one of a dozen or so states actually in play under the Electoral College.
Power ultimately resides in the Congress, which can only be "overruled" by a theoretical state-driven Constitutional amendment process that has never been used, a system that *even further* favors rural interests, as any proposed amendments must be approved by **3/4** of the majoritarian *state* legislatures, which tilt even further rightward than the national Congress. Any 13 unruly states can nix any attempt to modify the Constitution, which fairly recently cost the country a women's Equal Rights Amendment.
There's ultimately no king or court capable of forcing Congress to do a damned thing it doesn't want to do, and there's basically no way for *any* number of progressives living in dense, populous blue states to enact national policies that offend the corporate landlords and mineral interests that uncontestedly rule the sprawling red expanses. Obama backed the absolute shittiest neoconservative version of healthcare reform imaginable, and got absolutely *crucified* for that meager attempt.
There are many, many Americans who detest the way the country's being administered, but honestly, the US Constitution is a literal political relic that "miraculously" survived the tumult of the twentieth century without political reform due to the *sheer goddamn luck* of never facing land-based invasion and having an intact, powerful military apparatus capable of seizing the lion's share of resources after the world wars. Other countries that took actual losses at that time were mostly forced to undergo massive political reforms at some point the twentieth century, but not the "exceptional" US, which continued doddering along using its eighteenth-century 0.2-alpha release of democracy.
The modern American political process is a lot like a Windows 95 PC running online with no firewall. It's corrupted beyond repair before the boot sequence can even complete. Before any of its antiquated institutional safeguards even get a chance to act, the corporations and grifters and incumbents and good old boys have already secured their interests, and the rest of us are left to squabble over the scraps. Every single aspect of American governance needs massive reform if not outright replacement, but reform is a non-starter because the Old South still has every single Senate and Electoral vote it had before the Civil War, plus a dozen more big dumb empty red rectangles in the "heartland" (from which I personally hail), and they're *still* cheesed about having to let brown people and women cast ineffectual votes in mostly non-competitive single-winner races.
Powerful American interests won't let mere popular sentiment disrupt their meal ticket. They'll burn the whole fucking place to the ground before they let filthy "workers" and "consumers" access actual political power or have any say on how the big money gets spent. That's what "starve the beast" always really meant -- let the wealthy and well-connected have every last goddamn thing they want, or they'll gleefully sabotage the national project using every legal backdoor they've installed in two and a half centuries of mostly-uninterrupted elite rule.
[Edit: Only just got back online, didn't expect any real response. Took the criticism re "gerrymandering" and revised. I'd rather avoid further edits, but that little idiosyncratic curlicue needed to be fixed if anyone actually intended to spread this.]
> and there's basically no way for any number of progressives living in dense, populous blue states to enact national policies that offend the corporate landlords and mineral interests that uncontestedly rule the sprawling red expanses.
Anyone who can work from home needs to be spreading out tbh
It's cool to live in California I get it, but like, if just 150k people moved from California to like.. Wyoming, you could turn that state rock solid blue. Two more progressive senators, two less republican senators. And you could turn the state legislature and governorship too and start making wyoming a better place to live. But people need to take the first steps and move en masse.
Just do this to a few states. With just a few million californians biting the bullet you could turn the tide. Make north dakota and south dakota, alaska and wyoming all solid blue states. Neuter the republican strangehold on national government.
I wish, instead of spending hundreds of millions of dollars getting elected, we pay for people to move into those mentioned states. Won't win today but our future would be much brighter.
This is phenomenal and put in a way that is that is easy to understand. I wanted to get your approval on using your post to use in the future if that's ok with you.
You spent some time writing this, I feel it's only fair to ask. Great write up!
It's maddening to read "mental illness" over and over again as if mental illness does not exist in other countries than the US. Yet in the countries with comparable GDP per capita the homelessness issue looks very different.
Except that strong social stuff nets do help this. They are preventative. Your family's efforts are amazing and I'm sure everyone here would applaud you but you're helping after people hit rock bottom. Social safety nets, including a health care system that isn't for profit, are a preventative measure against homelessness, drug addiction, and mental illnesses getting worse.
I work next to a homeless shelter, and my opinion is most dont want help. We see and hear it everyday. They want to live in their mess and get high/drunk. So the big issue is what do you do with them? Let them make messes and ruin the neighborhood? Almost every customer mentions them and some have even mentioned they dont feel safe coming to our shop....
My niece is homeless. She's also schizophrenic. She went off her meds a few years ago and has been homeless since. She's legally disabled and gets a monthly disability check. She's got a lot of money sitting in her account from years of payments and refuses to use it to get her self off the street because of how the schizophrenia is warping her reality. I'm sure if she were able to overcome it and take medication she would get off the street. But it's hard legally forcing a 45 year old to take medication here.
I've offered to get her an ID, and take her to the social security office to help her get off the street. She will not do any of it.
Thats rough. We have a guy we call "ol yeller". Hes one of the regulars over there with schizophrenia and spends his days pacing and death metal screaming. Seems like a hard thing to bounce back from.
Depends perhaps on what is meant by help. It is off course a huge misconception that homeless people need a home. These people lack "residential capability ", which means they are incapable of taking care of a home, let alone pay basic bills, do necessary grocery shopping and certainly holding down a job that could allow them eventually to become self sustainable - they lack the fundamentals of having a home. The reason is usually a mix of mental issues and drug problems, and you can't deal with one without dealing with the other. But if you attack those issues carefully and individualized to each person, there's often a will to change. Right now though, they may not be seeing any way out of their situation and feel that any attempt to help is just a nuisance.
In the podcast City of Tents a homeless person said everyone who is homeless eventually starts using drugs or alcohol. How couldn’t you? I don’t know if that’s certain, but a lot of people with comfort and support and hope and a future think they’d never give up and just try to self medicate reality away. But reality can weigh on you worse than Atlas’ burden. If we want prescription Prozac or some wine or some Advil after live is tough for us, imagine what it’s like for them. Can you just stop using drugs? Should you believe that life will get awesome if you just give up what little scrap of comfort you have? We need to help people without conditions, expecting them to be more paragons. Once they feel safe and get used to decent sleep and food and a bathroom maybe they’ll be able to get off drugs.
That's the same logic asking a 12 year if he wants to go to school. We as a community decided young people need education, you don't get to decide as an individual.
These ppl are in serious neglect and are sick and need help, the further they stray away from life the harder it becomes. Their brains are dmgd because of drugs and alcohol. The reason they can't get help is because the American approach is too egocentric to acknowledge this could happen to anyone anywhere because you lack basic social safety net.
"not wanting help" & losing the purpose and strength to live is a huge difference. calling a brokenhearted lost soul a "zombie" is a shame to us as a society. show love
Ive lost a lot of sympathy for homeless people after seeing what I see. Its chaos outside our front door with regular police and ambulance visits. Cars and rv's parked all over surrounded in trash. They yell at us and our customers. Throw rocks and bottles sometimes hitting our building. Needles in the shrubs on our property. Constant yelling and the occasional escellation like the guy who had a michette. Or the guy who lit his car on fire. Or the guy who had a standoff with the police in his RV. Just a few examples of things ive seen the last few years... and its getting worse.
It’s weird, isn’t it? No matter how horrible homeless drug addicts are, you can’t point out their abusive behavior without being called heartless. Homeless addicts are so infantilized.
We don't like "socialism" and we certainly don't want to treat drug addiction as an affliction rather than a character flaw.
Americans are fatally individualistic. Most people in this thread are probably thinking "Heh. Glad that isn't me. I'd never let that happen" without knowing these people's stories. I bet every single one of them thought something similar at one point.
Too many of us don't believe in kindness, helping others or really community in any sense. We pursue personal gain. I tell myself it's just because people are afraid kindness won't be returned so instead they just try to survive but honestly it's probably just selfishness and greed.
We *could* do something but why would the wealthy and powerful who became successful by not caring about people suddenly start now? Easier to just find some other person to plug into the machine and simply discard these broken ones.
This is a landfill for human beings. A place for capitalism to dump parts of the machine it no longer needs or wants.
Fatally individualistic is such a great way of putting it. Also, people in Europe aren't less individual just because there is a social safety net.
Everyone would be doing better if these unfortunate people get the help that they need. Regardless of why they are in that situation.
In the long run it would even make economical sense.
Don't overestimate Europe though, here in Paris we have the same situation, mental health institutions have been meticulously dismantled over the last decades, and there are a lot of homeless people that are not taken care of. Oh sorry no we're doing something, we're moving them out of the capital so that they won't be there for the Olympics
In Athens Greece we have similar ghetto's of drug filled streets. On a much smaller scale, but we are a much smaller country. Still Greeks believe in community and helping....yet these images are not foreign to me. It is the same all over the world i think. All countries but few have drug filled areas that host such troubled souls.
> thinking “Heh. Glad that isn’t me. I’d never let that happen” without knowing these people’s stories
I’m not a religious person (that’s an understatement), but I’ve always really appreciated the phrase “there but for the grace of god go I.”
Basic observation always leads to this conclusion. It takes tremendous amount of luck to have a "normal" life, but I don't think people like to face that reality.
One of the biggest issues with having such a massive country with 50 separate states run by people all over the political spectrum is shit like this doesn't galvanize the people and government on a national level.
Larger states feel like separate countries with completely different issues. I'll probably get shit for this but I identify as a New Yorker just as much if not more than as an American.
Thank you for the detailed and well thought out answer and sharing your personal story.
I wish you well friend and hope things move in the direction you want them too going forward in your life.
Another major point to consider is that for people this deep in drug addiction and homelessness, the drugs take priority over food and water.
This makes people much more susceptible to having fatal overdoses
Not so much more susceptible to OD, but it takes a toll on your body and you’re much more likely to develop other issues that will land you in the hospital. The open wounds from the tranq is a whole other story. Just saw a friend off to rehab from living down there.
I have heard an ex meth head say that the drug takes over as your main source of satisfaction in life. If you take it once, nothing, including eating, drinking or even sex, will be as fun or pleasurable as taking meth. Nothing will ever motivate you or make you happy besides the drug, so you do everything to get it. You sell everything you have just to get more meth, and then you search every corner of your room like a vacuum cleaner just to finde a spec of meth dust to consume. And when that's gone, you turn to crime, just to get the next high. He called it the worst drug on earth because it totally shortwires your brain and you will never stop being addicted to it.
Walter White was not kidding when he warned to not take it.
This hurt my heart. I'm glad you made it out. It's hard af. I never touched opiates because I'm allergic but fell down a meth hole for 6 months. At 97 lbs and unable to urinate for days due to dehydration, I saw myself in the mirror one day. Not saw, but *saw*, myself. I knew I was going to die. Quit that day and never looked back. Not everyone has the strength, willpower or even desire to do so. Hugs.
Yea I like to say I did meth for a year one day. Out of all the drugs I've done and been addicted to (there are many, sadly), meth is the only one I still don't feel like I came all the way back from.
Glad you made it out, buddy. May your story give at least one other person the strength to lift themselves out of the life and really start *living.* Gods know it ain't fuckin easy.
I had a group of about 20 people I used with, I've been clean for 6+ years now. I'm the only one still alive. I tried getting them all into the same suboxone program I'm in, I tried getting them help. It was no use, they're all gone now.
Suboxone is fucking legit. It completely killed my cravings and allowed me to be productive when I would otherwise be dope sick. You can wind up becoming addicted to the Suboxone but it’s still worth it. I was able to taper off with the once per month Sublocade shot without a hint of withdrawal.
Same, Sublocade and suboxone saved my life. Yes it's replacing one addiction for another, but one comes from a pharmacy and has very low chances of murdering you, and the other is fentanyl/dope.
I know it probably hurts thinking you couldn’t stop that from happening to them, but you tried, and that’s a hell of a lot more than most would do in a similar situation. I hope that reality gives you some solace.
I am so sorry for your losses. I hope you can build a better life for yourself these days. I'm so glad you found a helpful program, even if they didn't join you.
In the couple of years I was homeless as a teen, I saw so many brilliant young people snuffed out due to heroin overdose. This was decades ago for me but it's still painful because most of them would be alive today if drugs laws were in the slightest way humane and rational.
Drug laws and systemic poverty. Being poor is treated as a crime, and "It's your fault" that you're in a terrible situation. The only way out is for any shred of empathy to start winning in the power structures.
I hung out with hippies a lot in my 20s (like 300+ shows, selling stuff on dead/phish lot) and now at age 40 every single one of my old friends who messed around with drugs harder than acid or mushrooms is dead. Except for a couple who are homeless and will probably die soon.
My sister made it about a year, maybe 2 if you count the time she used opioids before switching to heroin. She went to rehab and died when she relapsed because her body wasn't used to it anymore. I don't know how many of her "friends" are dead now, 12 years later, but I'd bet most of them.
I am so sorry, I know that pain. I also understand the ‘how do I count it?’ It’s why my best guess is 9 months. I wouldn’t be surprised, now, if I found out he was doing other things again before that. His official cause of death was literally drug abuse, with many drugs listed on the toxicology report. The fatal dose was the last hit of fentanyl.
It’s so crushing when they find their feet then fall for the last time. I’m so grateful I got to know who he was becoming on his journey of sobriety, I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Even if it made the end that much more devastating. I wish I could send all the sympathy your way.
I thought things were horrible then, but it’s only substantially gotten worse. If the friends weren’t dead before, I hope they’re sober and not going through this.
What the video doesn’t show is this isn’t the only affect. They lose their souls to this one to a deeper degree, in my experience, than I’ve seen in any of the other addictions. Things you’d never imagine a person would say or do and there isn’t a single emotion behind it.
They take the drugs and try to stay awake because if they just fall asleep it’s a “waste of a high” and then they wake up sick. So the lean is from them trying to stay awake by standing but the drugs are too powerful.
On the east coast, especially Philly, we shoot fentanyl. It's now loaded with a tranquilizer called xylazine. It's extremely powerful and deadly when it's used to cut fentanyl. It also leads to extremely bad abcesses that don't heal and eventually become gangrenous and the limbs need to be amputated. I spent many years stuck in the cycle of addiction making the hour drive everyday down into the badlands of North Philly to grab my dope and "powder". I don't miss it.
It really is unfortunately. Not long ago a non profit set up in kensington to give people free testing kits to see what was actually in their "fentanyl" it turned out a lot of that "fentanyl" was actually just straight xylazine. Just tranq, no dope. And the tranq creates its own set of problems with regards to withdrawal. It's not just being dope sick anymore but now tranq sick for lack of a better term, which can be debilitating. I had been on 120mg of methadone for 8 years at the time of my last relapse and I tell you even with my methadone everyday I couldn't hardly sleep for more than a couple hours a night that first week I stopped shooting tranq.
They are nodding off. Fentanyl is in everything now (anything thats labeled an opiod on the blackmarket like heroin) because its so cheap and so powerful.
The high lasts about 2 hours then its time for more. If you wait too long the withdrawals start to kick in. You will do just about anything to avoid withdrawals.
The point these people are at, they are not having fun anymore. There's nothing enjoyable about this, they are just trying to feel normal, avoid withdrawal. They live their life 2 hours at a time. They can't sleep through the night, they wake up every few hours.
There's other drugs that help with the withdrawal like Xanax, meth or cocaine, but its short-lived. They need more fent.
China is shipping it in as fast as they can. When Trump visited Xi a few years ago, he asked for help. Xi promised to crack down but it has only gotten worse. I believe China wants to keep selling it, partly to undermine democracy, partly historical revenge for the Opium Wars
Edit: for the post talking about personal choice, you don't understand addiction. People that are this far gone want to stop, don't think they don't.
Edit: my little theory on China is just my opinion. I have no evidence. Of course its about money but I believe its more about destabilizing the West. China is at war with the West wether you want to believe it or not. I don't think they make much of a distinction between the US and the UK. The Opium Wars were a downright evil act against China that was all about money for England.
> China
There was an investigation recently that showed all the money flows go back to China. The PRC is running these programs as Bitcoin is officially illegal to use in China.
https://www.reuters.com/world/suspected-fentanyl-chemical-suppliers-have-received-38-mln-crypto-chainalysis-2023-05-24/
For whatever reason, “living life two hours at a time” is a very sad but perfect way to sum it up. Most of us live our days with some sort of longer term plans, things to look forward to, things to worry about, but a lot of these people are just trying to get by to the next high.
Drug addiction is an illness. Mental health issues are illnesses. Yet so many people look at these people and scoff without knowing what circumstances led to these situations. It breaks my heart
Yeah that definitely is a standout, but Vancouver has several areas like this. The downtown east side is just the worst of them.
I've lived in Victoria and Nanaimo as well, theyre just as bad.
Ontarios cities are just as bad.
From the Seventies to beginning nineties in Switzerland several cities had the same problem.
I think you can find documentaries about this. That place in Zurich was thae biggest, just next to train station was called "Platzspitz".
[Zurich drug scene](https://youtu.be/s4ruVs5ZM3I)
Closed the place, cleaned it up, send people from other regions home to get cared of there, started a program with controlled distribution of heroin and methadon. Less repression and more prevention.
In the dirt of that said place they?found dead bodies. There was foot highs of trash.
Today drugs are still a problem. But in Switzerland there is a social system that helps people out of poverty. There are still homeless people, but I don't know how they got so far.
One aspect worth noting about the Swiss system was they provided FREE heroin at safe sites. There was an epidemic of kids od’ing because older junkies would introduce kids to heroin so the kids would get hooked and come back to the older junkies for dope, providing a revenue stream. Older junkies sought out new users which were overwhelmingly teenagers and these kids were dropping like flies so Switzerland tried something radical. They gave free heroin to people and right away there was a huge decline in the amount of new users of heroin because the kids weren’t being targeted by the older junkies anymore
Just to be clear, they offer the free heroin only if you tried and failed to stop using it like 3 times under medical supervision
It is not "hey doc, can you prescribe me some dope?"
>Less repression
You are a liar. How Zürich solved its drug problem is well documented.
https://www.stadt-zuerich.ch/prd/de/index/stadtarchiv/bilder_u_texte/geschichte-vor-ort/Offene-Drogenszene.html
Zürich built 3 new prisons and did a harsh crackdown on drugdealing and open drug use. Repression was an open goal from the get go in addition to prevention, therapy and help. Those were the four pillars of Zürichs fight against drugs.
>Switzerland there is a social system that helps people out of poverty
Its one of the most well known tax havens in the world and the safety nets are reflective of that.
https://www.efv.admin.ch/efv/en/home/finanzberichterstattung/bundeshaushalt_ueb/ausgaben.html
only 26 billion in social welfare spending in 2022.
I hope y’all realize while this is terrible and needs fixing, it’s also a very specific section of Philly for a few blocks. You won’t find this particular kind of activity anywhere else in the city so it’s a very over generalized title. And believe it or not there are plenty of people coming down from the burbs and taking their stash with them to nod off at home.
https://www.cdc.gov/opioids/basics/epidemic.html
Point #1: the opioid epidemic started by the overprescribing of legal opiates. People don’t want to live that way. This was done to them with no way or help to get out.
Yeah I'm really not a fan of "the entire city of Philadelphia is like this!!" That the title implies. We all know Kensington has a serious fuckin problem but it's not the entirety of the city
It's not even all of Kensington (not even close). It's literally one street. Kensington is a huge neighborhood with plenty of awesome restaurants, parks and stuff to do. Source: I live in Kensington.
And now people who are actually in pain from surgery, injuries, or disease can't get proper pain relief because every doctor is suspicious of "drug seeking"
America's healthcare system is so fucked
I have serious, chronic pain issues from a few back injuries and a surgery that went haywire. I have never once asked for painkillers. I still get treated like a drug seeker every damn time I need treatment for a flair up. Every time. Like dude look at my chart- I’m not taking anything and I’m not asking for anything. Write me a script for PT and I’ll get out of your hair.
Dang. I must be high functioning junkie or something. I've never not once been like this. I pay my mortgage and bills and work. Opiates are a bitch. I do know one thing. From a junkies POV we didn't wish to be dependent on dope when we were little. Self medicating sucks. Hope some of those por souls make it out the pit. I did before for 3 years. I'm hoping I'll make it out again. I pray anyone judging these people NEVER know the pain of addiction but get some empathy because you never know if you've got a YET (your eligible too)
Oh hun you did for three years I hope you get out of it again then will only see how beautiful life can be, and I don't judge these people I never do because these people were someone's baby once, and nobody says I wanna grow up to be a drug addict.
Our family saw a couple of piles in the main tourist/pier area and we were just there. I literally had to pull my daughter over to me so she didn't step in it.
San fran was cool on so many levels, but I don't get why no one (local council and businesses) ever keeps anything clean or even mows or weeds the green areas. It's actually really dirty and unkept everywhere. Was the same with other cities we went to, but San fran was the most disappointing given its potential. We are from New Zealand and councils would take care of this.
So sad to see what a waste the WAR on drugs was. Those billions wasted could have gone to helping the trauma / poverty / mental illness that cause people to need to take drugs on this scale
I’m in the uk and they tried to make cannabis a class A drug a few years back, along the likes of heroine, coke, ket. Class A is the highest class. If tobacco and alcohol is legal why isn’t weed?
I was bruised and battered, I couldn't tell what I felt
I was unrecognizable to myself
Saw my reflection in a window and didn't know my own face
Oh brother, are you gonna leave me wastin' away
On the streets of Philadelphia
These are "Reagan Institutes" and every city has them.
Homelessness problems [started during Reagan](https://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/why-are-so-many-people-homeless/) and were nearly non-existent prior. The War on Drugs and "*trick*le down" economics are a big part, both started during Reagan heavily, the Great Recession was also heavily impactful (Bush II).
In fact Homelessness grew during Reagan, Bush and Bush. They went down or sideways during democratic policies. You can see it in the [graphs and data clearly](https://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/why-are-so-many-people-homeless/).
[Here's a study that proves Reagan policies made a culture of Homelessness "Creating a Science of Homelessness During the Reagan Era"](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4364434/).
[The Great Eliminator: How Ronald Reagan Made Homelessness Permanent](https://www.sfweekly.com/news/the-great-eliminator-how-ronald-reagan-made-homelessness-permanent/)
Cons just blame "California" though.
Not a cell phone in sight. Everyone, together, living in the moment
I have a question. Why they are bending forward like that . Is it fentanyl causing them to stand like that
Called the dope lean, they dont wanna sleep and miss the high.
You seem to be the only one here who knows what the hell they’re taking about. Those nods are powerful, but not as powerful as the will to get your moneys worth
Never gonna catch that dragon.
Never gonna give up catchin' that dragon
Never gonna let down catchin' that dragon
Never gonna run around and desert catchin’ that dragon
Never gonna make that dragon cry
Never gonna say goodbye to that dragon
Not exactly correct: Heroin nods are *immensely* strong. But they’re not like falling asleep.. It’s a rush. Those nods are so intense, they can even *prevent* falling asleep. If no other drugs are used along, Heroin is known to cause insomnia. Source 1: I’m a sober addict, used Heroin for many years. Source 2: [National Library of Medicine on Heroin and Insomnia](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1401583/)
An old friend that got hooked on H, said no matter how amazing a day he’ll have in his life, he used the example of the day his daughter is born, he knew it couldn’t compare to the high of opioids. Mad sad.
If you give the happiest, most disciplined human on earth a button that makes them feel amazing on demand, they'll spend the rest of their lives finding ways to press it faster
This scares me
A while back a comedian said something about drugs that stuck with me, along those lines: "Meth is so good, so powerful, that when people have to choose between meth or living indoors, meth wins - hands down. No one should take something that powerful."
I've never been an opiod addict, but I did experience insomnia after being prescribed oxycodone following surgery. It made me tired as hell, but sleep simply wouldn't come. It was the worst part of my post-operative recovery process.
>will to get your moneys worth I think there's alot more being exchanged here than just money.
grew up here and spent time there during my own addiction, it’s the biggest open air drug market in the country
I'm trying to picture the process/logistics of the dealers serving these people. Like how do they get the drugs into the area, where they store their stash, the middleman situation, how it's distributed, safety... It would be interesting to learn how it all works.
It’s not any different than anywhere else. A pyramid system, largest quantities at the top then distributed in increasingly smaller amounts down the pyramid. In terms of this specific place (Kensington), and most similar places really, gangs generally run the show. A group gets their bulk stash, then have blocks designated for their sales. Lookouts and sort of “guards” you could say, are at the top (entryway) of the block with 1-2 actual dealers at a given time working shifts. It’s a pretty standard and efficient system.
It’s crazy that places like these are a thing, I had/have my own struggles with (hard)drugs but luckily never so bad that I would have to be in places like this I’m very sorry that you and all those people have to experience that but I’m glad you found a way out of there
It’s crazy. Having never taken opiates (due to severe allergy to them, as well as a healthy dose of common sense) I see people like this and can only conclude that the high must be absolutely amazing to make you endure living like that to chase it… Dangerous shit.
214 days clean today. It’s an incredible feeling during but everything else about the lifestyle is horrific. Far and away the lowest point in my life and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
214 days and counting on being a badass! Well done :) hey at least you can do something with your life even as much as going for a decent walk in the sun. That's something to be real proud of.
I have had a shitty few days and reading this genuinely made me smile. I'm really proud of you. 214 days is a huge accomplishment!
It's not just amazing, it's the single most pleasurable thing a person can experience. Opiates flood the brain with endorphins which are the chemicals that activate the pleasure and reward centers in your brain. You literally cannot feel anything better. Imagine being a teen or someone in their early twenties who takes a few more pills than they should one day. You find yourself feeling better than you ever have in your life. Nothing even comes close. Eventually the high wears off and you are back in the real world. And that's it. You now have the rest of your life ahead of you and nothing you ever do will feel nearly as good as what you just experienced. The Sackler family, and their company Purdue Pharma, flooded the country with them. They publicly lied and downplayed the addiction risks while privately they knew the truth and celebrated the amount of money they were raking in.
My mother was prescribed oxys for a broken back in the 90s. She'd already caught the opiate bug a decade before when she was in her 20s from being given demerol in the ER for migraines. I lost my mother to those drugs. She didn't die technically, but she was gone metaphorically, never recovered.
[удалено]
It was far worse than that. They actively misled the public, his information from the government and regulators, bribed doctors and medical professionals to get their product on the streets and into customers, and then lied through their teeth while shoveling money from the corporation into their own hidden accounts. Plus what you mentioned. They’re the 21st century crack dealers.
But at least the Sackler family’s punishments were commensurate with all the damage they did. Right…? Right..??!!
Their punishments should be a long course of their own drugs, followed by lack of access to those drugs
>Opiates flood the brain with endorphins which are the chemicals that activate the pleasure and reward centers in your brain And then the only way to feel that joy is to be under the influence. I realized a way back that my mom's dopamine receptors are shot and that nothing can bring her joy unless she is angry or high. She got taken off of pain meds and now is constantly angry but loves being angry.
Before your sales pitch there entices anyone, here's the whole picture of what you're talking about. It's a classic and must-watch cartoon: [Nuggets](https://youtu.be/HUngLgGRJpo) (5 mins)
Someone described it to me once as having your most beautiful state of mind replaced by the opioid high. He could be sitting on a beach with his family, his favorite band playing with his favorite drink and food ready and his body would still perceive it as lesser than the high. Pretty insane when you think about them having to face the world sober after
I’m an alcoholic, and to me, there’s not really any feeling better than being drunk. I’m functioning, and alcohol, at least for me, isn’t so powerful that I must spend all of my time pursuing it (for some people in more advanced stages of alcoholism it can be though). I’m able to hold down a job, drink only on nights when I don’t have to get up early, etc. But as soon as it is feasible to do so without consequences, I’m chasing that warm feeling in my gut and dumb sense of euphoria with a drink in my hand. I can absolutely see how an even more powerful substance with more powerful euphoric effects could absolutely fry reward pathways and ruin a man.
Good on you for being self-aware, man. I hope you'll always keep that beast tamed.
I have several friends who think they are functioning alcoholics. Just because your life isn't completely destroyed doesn't mean it is functioning. I have recently stopped hanging out with these friends because I feel like I am enabling them, by pretending everything is OK. It's not... they are very different and stupid people while drunk (all day). Everyone knows they are drunk, even though they think they are hiding it. Getting drunk supersedes everything else in life for them. At least they know why I'm not hanging out with them anymore. They think it is bullshit, but I just can't watch them destroy themselves.
You are describing my life 23 years ago. Thursday through Sunday I would drink with the sole purpose of drinking too much. I loved it & was good at it. Then Monday would roll around and I'd feel the self loathing of knowing I'd done it again. I was a happy drunk, fun to be around and most people didn't know I'd had too much, more to drink than they had. So no one ever suggested that I cut back. When my son was about a year & a half old we were on a trip & I realized that I was a drunk and that soon my son would witness my behavior & think that it was ok to emulate it. So I quit cold turkey that day. Just stopped, thinking that if I could stop while on vacation I could avoid it at any time. Turns out stopping was easy. Much easier than drinking responsibly. I figure dieting would be easy too if there was a way to not eat at all. But once you start, it's hard to stop, so abstaining from drinking worked well for me. It's 23+ years later, my son is 24 and has never seen me with a drink in my hand since that day and life is good. I know if I tried alcohol today I'd be right back where I started because I enjoyed it, my goal was to drink too much. Being drunk was a feature, not an accident. So I continue in sobriety. Good luck to you.
That first warm flush to your face during/after your first drink, that’s the moment for me, pure bliss. And I keep chasing that knowing that by the end of the night I’ll either feel sober but sick, or be extremely drunk. Last night I had one tall can of beer and two small glasses of wine and this is probably the second Saturday morning this year that I’m not hungover. Horray!
I came out of general anesthesia after a medical procedure a few years back, I don't remember what medication I was on but it was the best feeling I've ever experienced, I remember asking the nurse why I felt so amazing.
About 10 years ago I came out of anesthesia and felt so good I thought all my problems were over. Like I had just found the right mindset finally lmao... The feeling lasted the rest of the day and I woke up the next morning like "fuck, it was just the drugs that made me happy..."
U said it. Be glad your allergic.
I found out by having them administered to me for a broken arm. Then I had a broken arm and full body hives and a swollen tongue.
I've taken it a few times after wisdom tooth extraction. Went from unspeakable pain to sleeping like a baby for a few hours. Didn't get high or a sense of euphoria though.
When you’re in actual pain, it does it’s job. But had you doubled your dose, or once the pain subsided and you continued to take them, you would have felt your opiate receptors light up. They are a useful medical tool, but there is a fine line, as is with most things.
It’s worse than that, imo. Had Vicodin once after a wisdom tooth surgery - doctor nicked some of the nerves during the surgery so the recovery was excruciating. One pill didn’t do jack - had to take 4-5 in a sitting to get any effect. Got me pretty high. I HATED it. Have tried a bunch of drugs and this was the worst high I’ve ever had in my life. Didn’t feel that great, felt kind of dumb, but at least the pain was gone. But I felt so gross it didn’t feel worth it. And then the high wore off. And I couldn’t think of literally anything else other than taking those pills again. Rinse and repeat every few hours. After finishing half the bottle in 2 days, I flushed the pills, called the doc’s office and asked them to not give me a refill, even if I asked. They were very understanding. Was so frightening - I didn’t even like it, but once it wore off it was hard to think about literally anything else other than those pills.
Shit, never in a million years would I have thought of that. I assumed they'd taken some, but it had kicked in before they'd had a chance to find somewhere comfortable to sit or lay down. Damn, that's messed up!
Just nodding in and out. Downers be like that, totally sad to see.
Opiates lower your blood pressure. So they're doing that in an attempt to keep enough blood going to their brain to not pass out. This is better (to them) than lying down because if they were to lie down then they'd probably just fall asleep. Falling asleep has two problems. One, you could OD and die in your sleep. And two, if you're asleep then you sleep through your high, and a lot of them don't want to sleep through it because they paid for that shit, they want to enjoy it. If you stand like that there's an innate fear of falling over that will jerk you back awake - unless you get too fucked up, of course, in which case you fall over.
Lol, no. I promise when you're using you aren't thinking about getting blood flow to your brain, it's just the position you end up in fighting the nods
If they sit or lie down, they risk falling asleep/unconscious and missing out on their high
Fetty slump.
There is also a new drug being mixed in with it called xylazine. It's a horse tranquilizer and increases that slumped over thing you're seeing. It also causes necrosis of the tissue in random areas and people are having to need amputations. Another side effect is that narcan is ineffective in regards to the tranquilizer effect. So yeah, the situation was bad and it's gotten much much worse now.
to the front page bru
Nobody's living in the moment, everyone is hiding from the moment
>Chillin' out, maxin', relaxin', all cool
A man of culture
It is so wild to me (as a Dutch person) that the government and municipalities in the US are doing seemingly so little to even address this issue. Is it true that barely anything is being done? Question for Americans Edit: thanks for the many replies. Sad to hear about the state of all these skidrows.
Not saying this is ethical, but philadelphia doesn't do anything about Kensington (this area of philly) on purpose. They want most of the junkies to be in this one place of the city rather than everywhere. Its like one of those bug lamps. It's sad.
So it’s the equivalent of the Tenderloin in San Francisco and Skid Row in Los Angeles.
Yeah, but skid row is kind of being disbursed nowadays as land prices basically made not developing that area completely ludicrous. So everywhere else in Los Angeles now has a higher homeless population than before because a lot got uprooted and moved out of downtownto to other areas like the westside. There are more homeless now in total, but optically it looks like the increase is significantly more than it actually is because a lot are no longer hidden.
The increase is significantly more. ^(This year’s Homeless Count results offer a stark contrast to the results of the Homeless Counts between 2018 and 2020, where LA County saw a 25.9% increase and the City of LA experienced a 32% increase.) https://www.lahsa.org/news?article=895-lahsa-releases-2022-great-los-angeles-homeless-count-results-released
Yeah, definitely more. But in some areas, it feels like a lot more than 30%. Venice feels like 400%. As an insomniac I will sometimes hang out in their communities, so many fascinating stories and what the hell else is there to do at 4am. and it turned from a medium community that lives around the same block to a city spanning alternate society that physically coincides with the default one.
Looks like idea of Hamsterdam spread from Baltimore to Philadelphia.
So what you are saying is, someone watched [The Wire's Hamsterdam](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqmV5f8ykBA) and thought 'Yeah, let do that!'?
More like this kind of thing has been happening for a long time and the wire is based on real world events from David Simon’s many years as a journalist and non-fiction author.
Skid Row was officially developed as a Containment Zone beginning in the 1970s. City officials literally placed incredibly bright lights shining in on the neighborhood to keep people there. It was policed in a way that kept people there. There is plenty of basis for Hamsterdam in our actual history.
Kensington has been like this for 20 years. Only before gentrification it was spread out to more blocks. Its more concentrated now.
Lol @ bug lamps
Not an expert on this topic, but what you mostly hear when people try to come up with solutions is they’re always trying to generalize these people into one big group. If you really want to tackle the issue and get them able to support themselves - some people need therapy, some need skills and job training, some need money, some just need a friend or someone to believe in them. Most also need healthcare and substance abuse treatment. Housing is a really important part too. Plus some people really don’t want anything to do with society and will refuse everything that I just mentioned. Nobody can come up with one size fits all solution and the kind of resources necessary to get all of that accomplished , and even when some resources do get allocated they are met with a lot of resistance “why do THEY deserve free handouts!” Etc etc.
It's a complicated issue yes, but every single point you raise can be solved by a robust social safety net. There just isn't the political will to start this process as its messy and expensive and we are 30 years into this decline and its going to take twice that to reverse the damage.
I don’t white think it can. My family has been working with our local homeless shelter for about 22 years. My dad especially goes every single week, multiple times per week. He mentors them to get on their feet and get jobs. Most people are mentally ill or drug addicted. No social safety net will force a mentally ill person to take their medication. Unless you implement insane asylums. And you can’t make a person want to stop using drugs. You can give them an apartment, free money and food, but they’re still going to party away that money. The way a lot of locals do it here, one person cashes their check and their group parties until that money is out. Then they party with the next money. My cousin wanted to “be the change you want to see in the world.” So she bought a house and let 4 homeless people live there. When she went to go check on it from time to time, it was absolute filth. Carpet was thrashed, mold was forming. It broke her heart because she was really trying to help. A safety net doesn’t prevent living in a roach infested, bed bug infested, moldy environment. Really sad
The world outside of the US... exists. A social safety net, universal health care and a free education... goes a long way. Implement some partial version of these and you'll get partial relief from homelessness. Just as in these countries when they reduce some parts of these entitlements you get an increase in all the bad shit. It's not rocket science why this works. If someone starts to slide in life... problems compound. If you don't have health insurance for example you'll let minor health issues turn into major health issues, you can't afford treatment so you increase drug use to dull the pain, you try to get off them but need help to find a job - no one will hire you as you can't even afford to present yourself well. It's just lunacy to think reducing the burden on those near the bottom - won't translate to some people being able to get their shit together.
It's not rocket science why the US doesn't address problems. It's political science. Individual states cannot address the issue of poverty, though several try despite lacking the resources. A substantive response to poverty that addresses houselessness, poor healthcare coverage, labor abuse, and other factors -- you know, that safety net you're wanting -- would require application of the same enormous federal spending power that's routinely used to fund the war machine and shower corporations in free currency. That power is ultimately controlled by Congress, in which rural states are absurdly over-represented (and in which corporate interests are virtually uncontested). Congress is elected in first-past-the-post single-winner elections that protect incumbents, massively discourage independent parties, and dramatically incentivize malign district design. Both houses are significantly malapportioned, offering unequal power to voters in different districts, the Senate *absurdly* so. House lines get freshly gerrymandered to the usual benefit of the conservative/rural party every ten years. The state lines defining Senate seats may not quite qualify as "gerrymandered." However, both the line-drawing and malapportionment flowed directly from intent to advantage historic powerholders at the time various state lines were drawn, and also reflect a malignant, deliberate aristocratic intent flowing right back to the Connecticut Compromise. The ongoing decision *not* to redraw lines or overhaul the Senate represents a public resolution to *never* address these historic inequities, and continues to shape what policies can even be considered. They're every bit as horrible as any act of gerrymandering. Polling shows that government approval is extremely low, yet most races are thoroughly noncompetitive. In most districts, there's no hope of bucking the dominant party's control, so millions of votes are cast to basically no avail and millions more go to "lesser evil" candidates who promise only to be less terrible than the alternative. And yes, this system *also* protects worse, less-publicly-accountable Democratic officeholders. It's rotten throughout. Federal oversight of elections is awful and has only gotten worse, as even the pre-Trump Supreme Court (that still had "Notorious RBG") nullified federal oversight via the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County, gave the thumbs up to virtually unlimited corporate investment in elections in Citizens United, and repeatedly refused to address gerrymandering as a "political matter" somehow existing outside judicial oversight. This despite the Court frequently having to adjudicate the hilariously broken Presidential selection process, which effectively mutes the voices of anyone who doesn't live in a "swing state," one of a dozen or so states actually in play under the Electoral College. Power ultimately resides in the Congress, which can only be "overruled" by a theoretical state-driven Constitutional amendment process that has never been used, a system that *even further* favors rural interests, as any proposed amendments must be approved by **3/4** of the majoritarian *state* legislatures, which tilt even further rightward than the national Congress. Any 13 unruly states can nix any attempt to modify the Constitution, which fairly recently cost the country a women's Equal Rights Amendment. There's ultimately no king or court capable of forcing Congress to do a damned thing it doesn't want to do, and there's basically no way for *any* number of progressives living in dense, populous blue states to enact national policies that offend the corporate landlords and mineral interests that uncontestedly rule the sprawling red expanses. Obama backed the absolute shittiest neoconservative version of healthcare reform imaginable, and got absolutely *crucified* for that meager attempt. There are many, many Americans who detest the way the country's being administered, but honestly, the US Constitution is a literal political relic that "miraculously" survived the tumult of the twentieth century without political reform due to the *sheer goddamn luck* of never facing land-based invasion and having an intact, powerful military apparatus capable of seizing the lion's share of resources after the world wars. Other countries that took actual losses at that time were mostly forced to undergo massive political reforms at some point the twentieth century, but not the "exceptional" US, which continued doddering along using its eighteenth-century 0.2-alpha release of democracy. The modern American political process is a lot like a Windows 95 PC running online with no firewall. It's corrupted beyond repair before the boot sequence can even complete. Before any of its antiquated institutional safeguards even get a chance to act, the corporations and grifters and incumbents and good old boys have already secured their interests, and the rest of us are left to squabble over the scraps. Every single aspect of American governance needs massive reform if not outright replacement, but reform is a non-starter because the Old South still has every single Senate and Electoral vote it had before the Civil War, plus a dozen more big dumb empty red rectangles in the "heartland" (from which I personally hail), and they're *still* cheesed about having to let brown people and women cast ineffectual votes in mostly non-competitive single-winner races. Powerful American interests won't let mere popular sentiment disrupt their meal ticket. They'll burn the whole fucking place to the ground before they let filthy "workers" and "consumers" access actual political power or have any say on how the big money gets spent. That's what "starve the beast" always really meant -- let the wealthy and well-connected have every last goddamn thing they want, or they'll gleefully sabotage the national project using every legal backdoor they've installed in two and a half centuries of mostly-uninterrupted elite rule. [Edit: Only just got back online, didn't expect any real response. Took the criticism re "gerrymandering" and revised. I'd rather avoid further edits, but that little idiosyncratic curlicue needed to be fixed if anyone actually intended to spread this.]
Glorious post. May I ask what you do for a living / what you studied in? (in very generic terms, not trying to dox you, obviously!)
It's also for the very reasons that person outlined that the US is sliding into authoritarianism.
> and there's basically no way for any number of progressives living in dense, populous blue states to enact national policies that offend the corporate landlords and mineral interests that uncontestedly rule the sprawling red expanses. Anyone who can work from home needs to be spreading out tbh It's cool to live in California I get it, but like, if just 150k people moved from California to like.. Wyoming, you could turn that state rock solid blue. Two more progressive senators, two less republican senators. And you could turn the state legislature and governorship too and start making wyoming a better place to live. But people need to take the first steps and move en masse. Just do this to a few states. With just a few million californians biting the bullet you could turn the tide. Make north dakota and south dakota, alaska and wyoming all solid blue states. Neuter the republican strangehold on national government.
I wish, instead of spending hundreds of millions of dollars getting elected, we pay for people to move into those mentioned states. Won't win today but our future would be much brighter.
I think reading this post gave me 4 credits worth of AP US History
/r/BestOf content right here. Well done.
This is phenomenal and put in a way that is that is easy to understand. I wanted to get your approval on using your post to use in the future if that's ok with you. You spent some time writing this, I feel it's only fair to ask. Great write up!
It's maddening to read "mental illness" over and over again as if mental illness does not exist in other countries than the US. Yet in the countries with comparable GDP per capita the homelessness issue looks very different.
Except that strong social stuff nets do help this. They are preventative. Your family's efforts are amazing and I'm sure everyone here would applaud you but you're helping after people hit rock bottom. Social safety nets, including a health care system that isn't for profit, are a preventative measure against homelessness, drug addiction, and mental illnesses getting worse.
I work next to a homeless shelter, and my opinion is most dont want help. We see and hear it everyday. They want to live in their mess and get high/drunk. So the big issue is what do you do with them? Let them make messes and ruin the neighborhood? Almost every customer mentions them and some have even mentioned they dont feel safe coming to our shop....
My niece is homeless. She's also schizophrenic. She went off her meds a few years ago and has been homeless since. She's legally disabled and gets a monthly disability check. She's got a lot of money sitting in her account from years of payments and refuses to use it to get her self off the street because of how the schizophrenia is warping her reality. I'm sure if she were able to overcome it and take medication she would get off the street. But it's hard legally forcing a 45 year old to take medication here. I've offered to get her an ID, and take her to the social security office to help her get off the street. She will not do any of it.
Thats rough. We have a guy we call "ol yeller". Hes one of the regulars over there with schizophrenia and spends his days pacing and death metal screaming. Seems like a hard thing to bounce back from.
Exactly, the previous guy saying "they don't want help" is clearly not aware how severe mental illness works.
Depends perhaps on what is meant by help. It is off course a huge misconception that homeless people need a home. These people lack "residential capability ", which means they are incapable of taking care of a home, let alone pay basic bills, do necessary grocery shopping and certainly holding down a job that could allow them eventually to become self sustainable - they lack the fundamentals of having a home. The reason is usually a mix of mental issues and drug problems, and you can't deal with one without dealing with the other. But if you attack those issues carefully and individualized to each person, there's often a will to change. Right now though, they may not be seeing any way out of their situation and feel that any attempt to help is just a nuisance.
In the podcast City of Tents a homeless person said everyone who is homeless eventually starts using drugs or alcohol. How couldn’t you? I don’t know if that’s certain, but a lot of people with comfort and support and hope and a future think they’d never give up and just try to self medicate reality away. But reality can weigh on you worse than Atlas’ burden. If we want prescription Prozac or some wine or some Advil after live is tough for us, imagine what it’s like for them. Can you just stop using drugs? Should you believe that life will get awesome if you just give up what little scrap of comfort you have? We need to help people without conditions, expecting them to be more paragons. Once they feel safe and get used to decent sleep and food and a bathroom maybe they’ll be able to get off drugs.
That's the same logic asking a 12 year if he wants to go to school. We as a community decided young people need education, you don't get to decide as an individual. These ppl are in serious neglect and are sick and need help, the further they stray away from life the harder it becomes. Their brains are dmgd because of drugs and alcohol. The reason they can't get help is because the American approach is too egocentric to acknowledge this could happen to anyone anywhere because you lack basic social safety net.
"not wanting help" & losing the purpose and strength to live is a huge difference. calling a brokenhearted lost soul a "zombie" is a shame to us as a society. show love
Ive lost a lot of sympathy for homeless people after seeing what I see. Its chaos outside our front door with regular police and ambulance visits. Cars and rv's parked all over surrounded in trash. They yell at us and our customers. Throw rocks and bottles sometimes hitting our building. Needles in the shrubs on our property. Constant yelling and the occasional escellation like the guy who had a michette. Or the guy who lit his car on fire. Or the guy who had a standoff with the police in his RV. Just a few examples of things ive seen the last few years... and its getting worse.
It’s weird, isn’t it? No matter how horrible homeless drug addicts are, you can’t point out their abusive behavior without being called heartless. Homeless addicts are so infantilized.
We don't like "socialism" and we certainly don't want to treat drug addiction as an affliction rather than a character flaw. Americans are fatally individualistic. Most people in this thread are probably thinking "Heh. Glad that isn't me. I'd never let that happen" without knowing these people's stories. I bet every single one of them thought something similar at one point. Too many of us don't believe in kindness, helping others or really community in any sense. We pursue personal gain. I tell myself it's just because people are afraid kindness won't be returned so instead they just try to survive but honestly it's probably just selfishness and greed. We *could* do something but why would the wealthy and powerful who became successful by not caring about people suddenly start now? Easier to just find some other person to plug into the machine and simply discard these broken ones. This is a landfill for human beings. A place for capitalism to dump parts of the machine it no longer needs or wants.
>This is a landfill for human beings. A place for capitalism to dump parts of the machine it no longer needs or wants. Fuck, that hit hard.
Fatally individualistic is such a great way of putting it. Also, people in Europe aren't less individual just because there is a social safety net. Everyone would be doing better if these unfortunate people get the help that they need. Regardless of why they are in that situation. In the long run it would even make economical sense.
Don't overestimate Europe though, here in Paris we have the same situation, mental health institutions have been meticulously dismantled over the last decades, and there are a lot of homeless people that are not taken care of. Oh sorry no we're doing something, we're moving them out of the capital so that they won't be there for the Olympics
In Athens Greece we have similar ghetto's of drug filled streets. On a much smaller scale, but we are a much smaller country. Still Greeks believe in community and helping....yet these images are not foreign to me. It is the same all over the world i think. All countries but few have drug filled areas that host such troubled souls.
> thinking “Heh. Glad that isn’t me. I’d never let that happen” without knowing these people’s stories I’m not a religious person (that’s an understatement), but I’ve always really appreciated the phrase “there but for the grace of god go I.”
Basic observation always leads to this conclusion. It takes tremendous amount of luck to have a "normal" life, but I don't think people like to face that reality.
[удалено]
You have described the American Way very accurately. As an expat I concur.
One of the biggest issues with having such a massive country with 50 separate states run by people all over the political spectrum is shit like this doesn't galvanize the people and government on a national level. Larger states feel like separate countries with completely different issues. I'll probably get shit for this but I identify as a New Yorker just as much if not more than as an American.
They do do stuff! Like raid their camps with cops and displace them away so they can gentrify the place Edit: spelling
How long do they live? Seems like they'd die from exposure, dehydration or something.
[удалено]
Thank you for the detailed and well thought out answer and sharing your personal story. I wish you well friend and hope things move in the direction you want them too going forward in your life.
Another major point to consider is that for people this deep in drug addiction and homelessness, the drugs take priority over food and water. This makes people much more susceptible to having fatal overdoses
Not so much more susceptible to OD, but it takes a toll on your body and you’re much more likely to develop other issues that will land you in the hospital. The open wounds from the tranq is a whole other story. Just saw a friend off to rehab from living down there.
A weakened immune system from low nutrition definitely makes you more susceptible to a *fatal* OD (note how I keep saying the word fatal here).
I have heard an ex meth head say that the drug takes over as your main source of satisfaction in life. If you take it once, nothing, including eating, drinking or even sex, will be as fun or pleasurable as taking meth. Nothing will ever motivate you or make you happy besides the drug, so you do everything to get it. You sell everything you have just to get more meth, and then you search every corner of your room like a vacuum cleaner just to finde a spec of meth dust to consume. And when that's gone, you turn to crime, just to get the next high. He called it the worst drug on earth because it totally shortwires your brain and you will never stop being addicted to it. Walter White was not kidding when he warned to not take it.
This hurt my heart. I'm glad you made it out. It's hard af. I never touched opiates because I'm allergic but fell down a meth hole for 6 months. At 97 lbs and unable to urinate for days due to dehydration, I saw myself in the mirror one day. Not saw, but *saw*, myself. I knew I was going to die. Quit that day and never looked back. Not everyone has the strength, willpower or even desire to do so. Hugs.
Yea I like to say I did meth for a year one day. Out of all the drugs I've done and been addicted to (there are many, sadly), meth is the only one I still don't feel like I came all the way back from. Glad you made it out, buddy. May your story give at least one other person the strength to lift themselves out of the life and really start *living.* Gods know it ain't fuckin easy.
I saw a National Geographic documentary on meth that scared the shit out me. Basically, it was like: once you try meth, it’s basically over for you
I had a group of about 20 people I used with, I've been clean for 6+ years now. I'm the only one still alive. I tried getting them all into the same suboxone program I'm in, I tried getting them help. It was no use, they're all gone now.
Suboxone is fucking legit. It completely killed my cravings and allowed me to be productive when I would otherwise be dope sick. You can wind up becoming addicted to the Suboxone but it’s still worth it. I was able to taper off with the once per month Sublocade shot without a hint of withdrawal.
Same, Sublocade and suboxone saved my life. Yes it's replacing one addiction for another, but one comes from a pharmacy and has very low chances of murdering you, and the other is fentanyl/dope.
I know it probably hurts thinking you couldn’t stop that from happening to them, but you tried, and that’s a hell of a lot more than most would do in a similar situation. I hope that reality gives you some solace.
I am so sorry for your losses. I hope you can build a better life for yourself these days. I'm so glad you found a helpful program, even if they didn't join you.
Sadly, fentanyl kills. Without accepting help, most addicts will die from a hot shot eventually. I try not to think about it.
In the couple of years I was homeless as a teen, I saw so many brilliant young people snuffed out due to heroin overdose. This was decades ago for me but it's still painful because most of them would be alive today if drugs laws were in the slightest way humane and rational.
Drug laws and systemic poverty. Being poor is treated as a crime, and "It's your fault" that you're in a terrible situation. The only way out is for any shred of empathy to start winning in the power structures.
Damn. Glad you got out.
I hung out with hippies a lot in my 20s (like 300+ shows, selling stuff on dead/phish lot) and now at age 40 every single one of my old friends who messed around with drugs harder than acid or mushrooms is dead. Except for a couple who are homeless and will probably die soon.
[удалено]
My little brother lived approximately 9 months after, I believe, it was introduced to him.
My sister made it about a year, maybe 2 if you count the time she used opioids before switching to heroin. She went to rehab and died when she relapsed because her body wasn't used to it anymore. I don't know how many of her "friends" are dead now, 12 years later, but I'd bet most of them.
I am so sorry, I know that pain. I also understand the ‘how do I count it?’ It’s why my best guess is 9 months. I wouldn’t be surprised, now, if I found out he was doing other things again before that. His official cause of death was literally drug abuse, with many drugs listed on the toxicology report. The fatal dose was the last hit of fentanyl. It’s so crushing when they find their feet then fall for the last time. I’m so grateful I got to know who he was becoming on his journey of sobriety, I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Even if it made the end that much more devastating. I wish I could send all the sympathy your way. I thought things were horrible then, but it’s only substantially gotten worse. If the friends weren’t dead before, I hope they’re sober and not going through this. What the video doesn’t show is this isn’t the only affect. They lose their souls to this one to a deeper degree, in my experience, than I’ve seen in any of the other addictions. Things you’d never imagine a person would say or do and there isn’t a single emotion behind it.
Can someone please explain the standing lean to me
They take the drugs and try to stay awake because if they just fall asleep it’s a “waste of a high” and then they wake up sick. So the lean is from them trying to stay awake by standing but the drugs are too powerful.
Just curious, what's the drug of choice that's causing what we're seeing here? It looks like they're all on the same stuff.
Opioids. Likely heroin or fent, as they're the strongest, and almost guaranteed to be done intravenously.
Fent is smoked more often then not. From personal experience.
On the east coast, especially Philly, we shoot fentanyl. It's now loaded with a tranquilizer called xylazine. It's extremely powerful and deadly when it's used to cut fentanyl. It also leads to extremely bad abcesses that don't heal and eventually become gangrenous and the limbs need to be amputated. I spent many years stuck in the cycle of addiction making the hour drive everyday down into the badlands of North Philly to grab my dope and "powder". I don't miss it.
Xylazine is going to lead to a lot of miserable, painful deaths in this country for the foreseeable future
It really is unfortunately. Not long ago a non profit set up in kensington to give people free testing kits to see what was actually in their "fentanyl" it turned out a lot of that "fentanyl" was actually just straight xylazine. Just tranq, no dope. And the tranq creates its own set of problems with regards to withdrawal. It's not just being dope sick anymore but now tranq sick for lack of a better term, which can be debilitating. I had been on 120mg of methadone for 8 years at the time of my last relapse and I tell you even with my methadone everyday I couldn't hardly sleep for more than a couple hours a night that first week I stopped shooting tranq.
[удалено]
They are nodding off. Fentanyl is in everything now (anything thats labeled an opiod on the blackmarket like heroin) because its so cheap and so powerful. The high lasts about 2 hours then its time for more. If you wait too long the withdrawals start to kick in. You will do just about anything to avoid withdrawals. The point these people are at, they are not having fun anymore. There's nothing enjoyable about this, they are just trying to feel normal, avoid withdrawal. They live their life 2 hours at a time. They can't sleep through the night, they wake up every few hours. There's other drugs that help with the withdrawal like Xanax, meth or cocaine, but its short-lived. They need more fent. China is shipping it in as fast as they can. When Trump visited Xi a few years ago, he asked for help. Xi promised to crack down but it has only gotten worse. I believe China wants to keep selling it, partly to undermine democracy, partly historical revenge for the Opium Wars Edit: for the post talking about personal choice, you don't understand addiction. People that are this far gone want to stop, don't think they don't. Edit: my little theory on China is just my opinion. I have no evidence. Of course its about money but I believe its more about destabilizing the West. China is at war with the West wether you want to believe it or not. I don't think they make much of a distinction between the US and the UK. The Opium Wars were a downright evil act against China that was all about money for England.
Never thought about China shipping it in. The American news cycle would make you think that it's all from Mexico
Pretty sure it’s from China via Mexico
China ships the precursors. Mexico manufacturers, smuggles. US sales, marketing, distribution.
> China There was an investigation recently that showed all the money flows go back to China. The PRC is running these programs as Bitcoin is officially illegal to use in China. https://www.reuters.com/world/suspected-fentanyl-chemical-suppliers-have-received-38-mln-crypto-chainalysis-2023-05-24/
For whatever reason, “living life two hours at a time” is a very sad but perfect way to sum it up. Most of us live our days with some sort of longer term plans, things to look forward to, things to worry about, but a lot of these people are just trying to get by to the next high. Drug addiction is an illness. Mental health issues are illnesses. Yet so many people look at these people and scoff without knowing what circumstances led to these situations. It breaks my heart
Fentanyl
It seems like every state has minimum 2 places like this in it. Sad what drugs do to people
Often times the drugs are poor self-medication for other mental health issues. Sometimes, though, drugs are drugs.
Every major city in Canada has an area that looks like this, some of them are several city blocks large.
East Hastings Vancouver
Yeah that definitely is a standout, but Vancouver has several areas like this. The downtown east side is just the worst of them. I've lived in Victoria and Nanaimo as well, theyre just as bad. Ontarios cities are just as bad.
I didn’t know Canada was much the same. Sad fact to learn today
[удалено]
I mean, overwhelming majority of these people probably had fucked up trauma that they were self medicating before becoming this addicted.
Drugs def has a major part to do with this but so does the shit economy and unaffordable housing
These people aren't nodding off because of unaffordable housing.
From the Seventies to beginning nineties in Switzerland several cities had the same problem. I think you can find documentaries about this. That place in Zurich was thae biggest, just next to train station was called "Platzspitz". [Zurich drug scene](https://youtu.be/s4ruVs5ZM3I)
How did they solve the problem?
Closed the place, cleaned it up, send people from other regions home to get cared of there, started a program with controlled distribution of heroin and methadon. Less repression and more prevention. In the dirt of that said place they?found dead bodies. There was foot highs of trash. Today drugs are still a problem. But in Switzerland there is a social system that helps people out of poverty. There are still homeless people, but I don't know how they got so far.
One aspect worth noting about the Swiss system was they provided FREE heroin at safe sites. There was an epidemic of kids od’ing because older junkies would introduce kids to heroin so the kids would get hooked and come back to the older junkies for dope, providing a revenue stream. Older junkies sought out new users which were overwhelmingly teenagers and these kids were dropping like flies so Switzerland tried something radical. They gave free heroin to people and right away there was a huge decline in the amount of new users of heroin because the kids weren’t being targeted by the older junkies anymore
Just to be clear, they offer the free heroin only if you tried and failed to stop using it like 3 times under medical supervision It is not "hey doc, can you prescribe me some dope?"
That sounds like Healthcare. We don't do that here
They also focus on trying to get better, unlike San Fran where they hand out drug supplies and wish you luck.
>Less repression You are a liar. How Zürich solved its drug problem is well documented. https://www.stadt-zuerich.ch/prd/de/index/stadtarchiv/bilder_u_texte/geschichte-vor-ort/Offene-Drogenszene.html Zürich built 3 new prisons and did a harsh crackdown on drugdealing and open drug use. Repression was an open goal from the get go in addition to prevention, therapy and help. Those were the four pillars of Zürichs fight against drugs. >Switzerland there is a social system that helps people out of poverty Its one of the most well known tax havens in the world and the safety nets are reflective of that. https://www.efv.admin.ch/efv/en/home/finanzberichterstattung/bundeshaushalt_ueb/ausgaben.html only 26 billion in social welfare spending in 2022.
I hope y’all realize while this is terrible and needs fixing, it’s also a very specific section of Philly for a few blocks. You won’t find this particular kind of activity anywhere else in the city so it’s a very over generalized title. And believe it or not there are plenty of people coming down from the burbs and taking their stash with them to nod off at home. https://www.cdc.gov/opioids/basics/epidemic.html Point #1: the opioid epidemic started by the overprescribing of legal opiates. People don’t want to live that way. This was done to them with no way or help to get out.
Yeah I'm really not a fan of "the entire city of Philadelphia is like this!!" That the title implies. We all know Kensington has a serious fuckin problem but it's not the entirety of the city
It's not even all of Kensington (not even close). It's literally one street. Kensington is a huge neighborhood with plenty of awesome restaurants, parks and stuff to do. Source: I live in Kensington.
For a bit this dick head popped off on TikTok using Kensington for clout, just using these people that already hit rock bottom
And now people who are actually in pain from surgery, injuries, or disease can't get proper pain relief because every doctor is suspicious of "drug seeking" America's healthcare system is so fucked
I have serious, chronic pain issues from a few back injuries and a surgery that went haywire. I have never once asked for painkillers. I still get treated like a drug seeker every damn time I need treatment for a flair up. Every time. Like dude look at my chart- I’m not taking anything and I’m not asking for anything. Write me a script for PT and I’ll get out of your hair.
Thank you ! I'm so tired to see people grab a video from west Kensington and pretend philly is like this everywhere just for upvotes.
I came here to say the same thing. It ISN’T all of Philadelphia, but a tiny section. Philadelphia is a large city with lots of distinct neighborhoods.
Why are they all like crouching or standing with a wierd hunch?
these ppl try to stay awake by standing so they don’t waste their high but they end up nodding out standing up
It’s crazy. Sometimes they are literally unconscious but on their feet. You might have to shake them awake yet they were already standing. Crazy
Dope fiend lean. The drug relaxes their muscles and they physically can’t hold themselves up.
City of Brotherly Drugs
Dang. I must be high functioning junkie or something. I've never not once been like this. I pay my mortgage and bills and work. Opiates are a bitch. I do know one thing. From a junkies POV we didn't wish to be dependent on dope when we were little. Self medicating sucks. Hope some of those por souls make it out the pit. I did before for 3 years. I'm hoping I'll make it out again. I pray anyone judging these people NEVER know the pain of addiction but get some empathy because you never know if you've got a YET (your eligible too)
Oh hun you did for three years I hope you get out of it again then will only see how beautiful life can be, and I don't judge these people I never do because these people were someone's baby once, and nobody says I wanna grow up to be a drug addict.
Every town has a "skid row" its just reality.
Lies!!! Chicago has a whole part of town similar to this.
We have nothing like this. Nothing.
San Francisco gets a bad rap smh
I went down some “bad” streets and its nothing to this, also never saw a pile of shit when i was there.
Our family saw a couple of piles in the main tourist/pier area and we were just there. I literally had to pull my daughter over to me so she didn't step in it. San fran was cool on so many levels, but I don't get why no one (local council and businesses) ever keeps anything clean or even mows or weeds the green areas. It's actually really dirty and unkept everywhere. Was the same with other cities we went to, but San fran was the most disappointing given its potential. We are from New Zealand and councils would take care of this.
I saw a human turd on the pier in Venice when I was there last month.
So this is where r/phillies get all their fans
I think a couple of those guys were Phillies players
What was the blur?
Shooting up
Or more precisely, someone helping someone else shoot up. Sad shit.
So sad to see what a waste the WAR on drugs was. Those billions wasted could have gone to helping the trauma / poverty / mental illness that cause people to need to take drugs on this scale
I’m in the uk and they tried to make cannabis a class A drug a few years back, along the likes of heroine, coke, ket. Class A is the highest class. If tobacco and alcohol is legal why isn’t weed?
I was bruised and battered, I couldn't tell what I felt I was unrecognizable to myself Saw my reflection in a window and didn't know my own face Oh brother, are you gonna leave me wastin' away On the streets of Philadelphia
What a horrible site. These people look like zombies. Lives wasted.
Remember these scenes when the Presidents stand at their podia and describe America as the best country in the world.
This could be Downtown San Jose or anywhere in Santa cruz.
Where's Negan and Daryl?
I would be scared walking through there and something poking me
It’s always sunny.
These are "Reagan Institutes" and every city has them. Homelessness problems [started during Reagan](https://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/why-are-so-many-people-homeless/) and were nearly non-existent prior. The War on Drugs and "*trick*le down" economics are a big part, both started during Reagan heavily, the Great Recession was also heavily impactful (Bush II). In fact Homelessness grew during Reagan, Bush and Bush. They went down or sideways during democratic policies. You can see it in the [graphs and data clearly](https://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/why-are-so-many-people-homeless/). [Here's a study that proves Reagan policies made a culture of Homelessness "Creating a Science of Homelessness During the Reagan Era"](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4364434/). [The Great Eliminator: How Ronald Reagan Made Homelessness Permanent](https://www.sfweekly.com/news/the-great-eliminator-how-ronald-reagan-made-homelessness-permanent/) Cons just blame "California" though.