I happen to have been reading the book In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts by Dr. Gabor Mate for the past couple of weeks (its sits on the toilet paper stand in the bathroom awaiting my return). Good shit – the book, that is. It was a Christmas gift which arrived with a couple other books in the mail and if I wasn’t a constipated junkie I’d have probably finished it by now. The good doctor really puts some of the biological and neuro-chemical realities into plain explanations and always with compassion for the “hard core drug addict”. As well he certainly debunks the psuedo-scientific crap that passes for much of the so-called addiction science. The book has been quite a hit up here in Canada over the past year or so. I’m about half way through it and its actually quite a bit better than I expected it might be. I wouldn’t be mentioning it here if I didn’t think it is actually a worthwhile read.
Dr. Mate expresses this sort of sentiment, and therefore he’d certainly agree that: Drug dependence isn’t a moral issue
I mention Dr. Mate’s book because today I got an email with a link to this Addiction Compassion interview that Dr. Mate gave to Seattle’s Real Change Newspaper (in linked article check out the “photo slideshow of the darker side”) last December.
Another of the books within that Christmas package is a fantastic gem entitled Raise Shit! : Social Action Saving Lives which is a collaboration from three people regarding the first decade of VANDU, the drug users’ group in Vancouver. One of the big struggles (and victories) VANDU was directly involved in was establishing the first “official” safer injection site – INSITE slideshow (see post directly below). However, in the battles leading up to the opening of Insite less is known about VANDU operating an “illegal” injection site for the proceeding six months in their effort to force the issues. Raise Shit! provides background details about that sort of drug user activism throughout VANDU’s first decade:
Revealing a social justice movement that culminated through community activism in Vancouver’s downtown east side, [Raise Shit!] documents the opening of the first official safe injection site. Told from the point of view of drug users–those most affected by drug policy, political decisions, and policing–this narrative is conveyed through a montage of poetry and photos of early Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users meetings, journal entries from the Back Alley–the unofficial safe injection site–and excerpts from significant health and media reports. Chronicling the harms of prohibition and emphasizing the concepts of kindness, awakening, and collective action, this recollection spotlights a community of prophets who rebuked the system, bringing hope into situations of apparent impossibility.
- review from Flipcart, India’s biggest online bookseller
We can learn a lot about social organizing from Raise Shit! VANDU did not begin because of a conscious decision to start a drug users’ group but rather it arose out of drug users coming together (in a park and a church basement) to talk about the dire issues that they faced (such as overdose, HIV and police abuse) and their anger regarding such threats to their survival. By collectively identifying their issues, users realized they would need a group in order to struggle to address their issues in a sustainable manner.
Filed under: Drug Politics
A B.C. Court of Appeal has upheld an earlier B.C. Supreme Court ruling deciding drug users should have a fundamental right to health services such as Vancouver’s safer injection site, InSite. This is a major legal ruling legitimizing harm reduction services since the federal government had been trying to find a legal way to shut down InSite.
What isn’t much reported, or even realized, is that there were several legal arguments, and sub-arguments, within this so-called InSite case. What is reported is the main one about InSite staying open (drug users shouldn’t be denied relevant health services simply because they use illicit drugs). However, two Vancouver drug users made a very fundamental, and radical, legal argument which hasn’t received much attention at all.
These two drug users with VANDU argued that not only should the drug laws not cause a service like a safe injection site to be closed, but more fundamentally, they posited that the current drug laws themselves cause much greater harm to the community than benefit. As such, not only should InSite remain as a service, but society needs to recognized what is really causing the harms that make services such as InSite so necessary. They were asking the court to decide that the drug laws themselves are harmful and that they stand contrary to people’s fundamental right to health and well-being.
VANDU is taking a broader position, arguing that by using the criminal law to protect people from the harms of addictive substances the federal government has actually created a regime that is far more harmful, and violates the principles of fundamental justice in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
- from Dead People Don’t Detox
Essentially the judges dismissed this radical position, stating that it wasn’t really necessary to make such a sweeping determination, in order for them to rule on the question of whether InSite should be regarded as a fundamental health service for drug users.
InSite has received an enormous amount of community support and now won a second legal victory, however it is expected that the Stephen Harper’s Conservative-dominated federal government will likely still challenge InSite at the Federal Supreme Court level in its reactionary efforts to shut it down (Rudy Giuliani spews some crap also).
Filed under: Dope, JUNKe life, harm reduction | Tags: filtering drugs, mophine
Here’s a link you won’t want to miss:
Basically that’s a link to research reported in the Harm Reduction Journal about filtering out the particles from crushed morphine pills. One big concern people sometimes have is that filtering will block out lots of the morphine along with the insoluble particles. The good news is that filtering leases the morphine and just removes the crap particles. In fact, even after double and triple filtering, still up to 90 per cent of the pill’s morphine dose remained in the solution ready to inject.
One problem with filtering is that coarse filters, such as cigarette filters, still let through lots of small particles. However, using really fine filters often get blocked because they remove so many particles. But there is a sensible solution – filter twice. The first time use a cigarette filter, and then the second time, run the mixture you got back through the cigarette filter into a very fine sterilizing filter. Since all the big particles are already removed by the cigarette filter, the mixture can go through the sterilizing filter and get the very fine particles removed.
In the end you’ll be left with a solution which is essentially free of tablet-derived particles yet still retains upwards of 90 per cent of all the morphine. Doubtless lots of people have been filtering this way already, but now we’ve got actual scientific proof that this method works great. It keeps us both health (particles removed) and high (no loss of dose).
Remember a good “meal” is the result of careful preparation! Happy cooking!
Earlier post about filtering and injecting
Well, at least the world isn’t totally nuts. Every so often lights of sanity shine through the doom and gloom of business as usual. One such ray of sanity is the Czech Republic’s drug decriminalization law which goes into effect on New Year’s Day.
While there has been decriminalization in the Czech Republic for the past year, the actual amounts allowed for personal possession were not clearly stated. Instead their policy simply stated “small amounts”. Of course, that was open to all sorts of interpretation and confusion and needed to be clearly defined. Now that is what the parliament of the Czech Republic has done. Here’s the precise quantities they are allowing for decriminalized personal possession in the Czech Republic:
Under the new law, possession of less than the following amounts of illicit drugs will not be a criminal offense:
Marijuana 15 grams (or five plants)
Hashish 5 grams
Magic mushrooms 40 pieces
Peyote 5 plants
LSD 5 tablets
Ecstasy 4 tablets
Amphetamine 2 grams
Methamphetamine 2 grams
Heroin 1.5 grams
Coca 5 plants
Cocaine 1 gram– source is Stop the Drug War Chronicle
Considering several examples of decriminalization policy changes in several countries over the past decade it is not too crazily optimistic to hope that this trend represents the first victories of us beginning to win the war on drugs one country at a time.
Recently the Economist reported an overview of the international drug policy situation entitled Virtually Legal and similarly a synopsis of the current situation is found at The Lippard Blog
Christmas comes but once a year and thank goodness for that. Christmas is such a tough time for many, and for junkies and tweakers it is doubly tough. Its rough and tough and all too much for some. So much of the expectations of society come crashing down on a drug user at this time of year and if they don’t watch out they can get flooded with feelings of uselessness, failure and self-disgust. Not only can’t they afford to buy presents for loved ones, a major reason for their immediate poverty is that every last penny goes to dope for themselves. That sort of realization, in the light of Christmas and its family values perspective, can be a heavy load to hoe.
Families (many of them anyways) get together at Christmas. But woe is the strung out junkie. They don’t feel like going on dismal display for relatives to appraise critically. Even if a user can find the money to make it back home, and get enough of a stash together to make it through the holidays, they know that they’ll likely stand out like a sore thumb amidst the yuletime cheer. Yet if they phone in some bogus excuse for why they won’t be coming home for the holidays, that too is just another reminder of their failure in the eyes of their family. They know there will be gossip about why they aren’t wolfing down the turkey with the rest of em.
Sadly a lot of suicide is brought on by the pressure of the holiday season. And a lot of depression. And a lot of over-using just to try and blot out the sadness and worthlessness one feels as a junkie during Christmas.
Even for those users who have come to accept themselves and have developed a pretty thick skin in the face of societal condemnations, making Christmas happen is quite an effort. Money is always so hard to come by to begin with but a user has to dig pretty darn deep to manage to get presents for the essential relatives and keep themselves well in terms of their habit at the same time. It takes a lot of planning to pull off a reasonably successful Christmas at the best of times but for a user they’ve really got to have things will thought out and have a bit of luck thrown in as well. It isn’t easy to get together enough drugs in advance to sustain oneself throughout the entire family affair that often takes place in a city which the user isn’t familiar with so that they could score easily in an emergency. Nothing is worse than needing to get well and having to make excuses to a living room of celebrating relatives about why you’re got to borrow someone’s car so you can go downtown for awhile just as the turkey is bubbling away in the oven. Yes, of course I’ll be back before dinner… yeah right!
Somehow thousands upon thousands of us manage to make it through the holidays without a major bummer. You can be damn sure a lot of work went into pulling that off. Right now we’re planning for the family visit and trying to make sure we don’t find ourselves short at precisely the wrong time. That’s a whole lot of stress on top of the normal stresses of this season. Here’s wishing well to all those users out there struggling to pull off another Christmas for themselves and the sake of those they love. And a remembrance for those who won’t be making it home for Christmas.
Russell Newcombe, a researcher with the Lifeline Project in the U.K., presented a paper entitled “Details of 10 Specific Rights on Drug Users” at at the 7 th International Conference on Diversity in Communities, Organizations and Nations (website) in Amsterdam in July 2007.
Since being reprinted and passed around, discussed and debated, Newcombe’s paper has come to be regarded at the Drug Users’ Charter of Rights (link). This Charter begins by stating:
Drug users have the three general rights to (a) consume drugs, (b) receive help for drug problems, and (c) be subject to fair drug laws and policies.
The Charter then elaborates 10 specific rights arising from those three general rights. All in all, the rights are really right on. And they comprise a great launching point for a serious discussion of the place of drug users, as a group within society inclusively. In fact, the Charter concludes with a right regarding inclusiveness:
Drug users have the right to equal opportunities with regard to the institutions and organizations of society – including work, education, housing, finances, driving, travel, parenting, leisure, health services and criminal justice. This means that people should never be treated differently from other people just because they are known to use drugs, nor should sub-groups of drug users be treated differently from each other.
Download the Charter of Drug Users’ Rights document here
Well known are the old medicine labels for cocaine and opium based products. Also well known is that barbiturates and valium was widely prescribed to women “mother’s little helper” several decades ago.
I heard a professor from a NY University give a presentation about speed being marketed to women in the ’50s but she didn’t have the accompanying images with her. Finally I’ve found some pictures of ads marketing speed – Norodin – to women from magazine from those times.
Check out a good presentation of “dope” advertising here
… previously was Part One
The bus doors opened outward and out stepped Mr. Dealer Man. He saw me immediately because I had begun moving toward him, quickly and aggressively, the second I saw him leave the bus. I could see a perplexed fearful look come to his face, not surprising since my body language clearly announced “Danger!” and my eyes surely were firing with a violent intensity. Baring down upon him I was as focused (and fucked up) as a desperate coke fiend trying to do their fifteenth fix of the evening. Before he’d taken a dozen steps I was upon him.
“What’s going on?” he asked, cautiously, obviously recognizing I wasn’t my normal mellow, even docile, junkie shows dealer deference, self.
“What’s going on is you’re going to front me a couple of pills and you’re going to give them to me right now!”
“What? Why? Just a sec..”
“No just a sec! I want those friggin’ pills and I want them right now. You know we get our money tonight [everyone knows when welfare day is] and you know I’ll be by tonight to pay you. So just give me the two pills now! You know its my sweetie’s birthday and we just want to chill at home. We’ve bought tens of thousands of dollars of dope from you. You know I’ll pay you tonight. So I want a two pills front. Give me the pills now and lets be done with it. I’m not fuckin’ kidding!”
As this conversation unfolded we were still standing near the bus stop, directly in front of his apartment building. He was beginning to regain his bearings, no longer looking so nervous, and I knew from experience with him that he was starting to try to figure out some way to weasel his way out of upping me those pills. I was having none of that crap.
“What the fuck man! I said I want a two pill front, just two god damn pills. I’ve told ya I’ll be back later with the money. You know me man! We always pay on time, and we’ve never ripped you off. Never! So quit stalling and give me the pills! I’m serious man! I want those pills, fucking NOW! I’m not asking anymore man, I want those pills.”
I really didn’t give a fuck. I didn’t care that we were standing on a fairly busy street, in front of an apartment with balconies with people on them, or with open sliding glass windows, standing and yelling where any number of people nearby could hear us. I was at the point where I didn’t care about anything about being cool or keeping a low profile. I didn’t care about nothing but getting those couple pills so my sweetie didn’t have to run the streets, scrounging for scratch, on her birthday. In fact, as crazy as it is, I was quite prepared to kill him, right then and there, if that’s what it took to make sure I got those pills. Stab him multiple times, and rob him right there in broad daylight, if he didn’t cough up the pills.
“Fucking now man!” I literally screamed.
Finally the arrogant prick perceived that I was about to do violence. Finally he realized that he was going to be hurt if he stalled any longer. He was scared. Finally he submitted.
“Okay, okay, okay. Not here.” he said and started moving toward his building’s front door.
In my mind I figured he might actually be thinking of unlocking the apartment’s front door, slipping in, and pulling the door shut, trying to lose me. He probably wasn’t, but I wasn’t taking any chances.
“I said NOW man, I said fucking NOW” I yelled, and grabbed his shoulder, and spun him backwards.
We were now standing at the apartment’s front vestibule, where the apartment residents are listed on the wall, beside the two way speaker system you use to get buzzed in. Up in a corner was a security camera pointed at whomever is standing at the front door. Lots of the building’s residents defaulted their tv’s to the channel that security camera appeared on whenever they weren’t watching any particular show – particularly the druggies so they could see cops at the apartment door or get a clear visual of who might be buzzing their apartment. So this altercation was on candid camera and we definitely had an audience.
“One last time man”, I said with clear menace, “I am not fucking kidding. Give them to me now or I’m fucking taking them from ya!”.
The all-purpose multi-tool knife, all-purpose except unintended for the lethal purpose I was sickenly close to using it for, was still clenched in my fist. I had not forgotten about it in the least. I had clearly run over in my mind, many times, how I would hold the tool, and stab with the solid pliers end because it would do the most damage.
Finally he exhaled and shook his head in resignation, “Ah fuck” he sighed, and began undoing his belt. I knew then I was getting the pills. This dealer always kept his stash in a bag, tucked down beneath his bag. So there he stood, at the front door to his apartment building, in direct view of the security camera and all who might be watching, pulling his pants down to his knees, and withdrawing his stash bag from within his briefs. You know I’ve had a good laugh about this many times since.
Out came the plastic bag from within the stash bag. It contained literally hundreds of pills of dozen different shapes and colours, several half-point flaps of junk, plus a couple baggies of coke powder. He was the kind of small time dealer who spent most of his earnings on dope and often dropped by his coke dealer after his selling downtown was done to get an eight ball for the evening. Altogether it was a pretty considerable stash that he’d exposed, along with his bare butt and nuts. Looking truly pathetic, he held forth the baggie and pleaded, “please don’t take it all”.
“Please don’t take it all. What the fuck man. I told you I just want a couple pills. A couple pills and I’ll pay you for them tonight. Fuck man, you know me. I’m not going to take your fucking dope. I don’t do shit like that. I just want a couple pills”.
He picked out two greys and handed them to me. Then he looked at me, like some kid who standing before a teacher at detention. He wasn’t going to do anything, he just stood there, pants around his knees, he wasn’t going to move until he was certain I was satisfied.
“Okay” I said, and turned to leave. After a few strides, I stopped and looked back. “I will be by just a bit after midnight to pay for these”.
He was bent over, wiggling his pants back up to his waist, and I don’t think he even heard me.
“Fucking asshole” I muttered to myself, and started hightailing it outta there. Mission accomplished. My sweetie wouldn’t have to hit the streets on her birthday.
Later, after midnight, i phoned him to say I had the money and would be by in a couple minutes to pay him. Not too surprisingly, he said I shouldn’t bother coming by because his old lady was pissed at me for yelling at her over the intercom when she’d turned me down for a front earlier in the day. It was that b.s. which drove me to start stalking the front of his apartment waiting to confront him when he got home.
“Sure thing man” I replied, “Just don’t forget I was willing to pay you tonight. You don’t want my money now, okay, but know I would have come and paid you for those two pills just like I said I would” and I hung up.
What a day! That bastard had come so close to dying. And I was insanely close to spending the rest of my life in prison because I had reached the snapping point with dealer power tripping. And the day wasn’t over yet. I had intended to buy several more pills when I saw him that evening. Now that he wasn’t letting me come to his place I had to hunt down someone else to score from. Fucking hell! Does the shit ever end?
Filed under: Good Stuff, harm reduction | Tags: filtering drugs, mophine
The Network Against Prohibition, an Australian user group, has an excellent page at their website about how to safely prepare morphine pills (MS Contin) for injection.
Filtering Morphine for Injection
Very similar info can be found at the Safer Injecting website on two separate pages there: Injecting MS Contin and Wheel Filters for Injectors
Unfortunately it is rare to find a needle exchange in Canada or the US which provide syringe filters such as the Sterifilt or even better, wheel filters, for harm reduction provision to injectors.
Great blog that focuses on “dope bags, drug branding, brooklyn”.
I cannot legally visit the great satan due to the fact I’ve had many extended shithole visits up in the great white north courtesy of little satan’s keepers. Fuck’em if they can’t take a poke! Eh? Right?
Anyhow, I have always wanted to visit the denizens of the NYC area, seek out the local haunts, and partake of the little (well likely a lot) of the local “culture”. And now that I’m grown up, I’d still like to partake. But now I’d like to partake in this sort of culture:
Don’t see bags like those in Canada… unfortunately. Instead of culturally cool touches like branded bags, we just have boring flaps made from magazine cuttings, or more commonly, a square cut from a Pro-Line sports betting or Lotto parlay card which can be grabbed by the handful from any corner grocery store up here. They are made of good solid heavy bond paper, so they don’t break down easily. Nothing worse than the heat or sweat in your pants pocket getting to a couple flaps made of cheap magazine paper and messing shit up. Regardless of the quality of the powder inside, the fact remains that the packaging up here is just plain boring.
Usually I’m getting more than street corner quantity so what I get doesn’t come in paper flaps (or glassine baggies). However the last time I did get me some flaps, I got a ten pack bundle of half-point (that’s the norm) flaps for $80 in Vancouver. Individual’s go for $10. I hear the quality varies greatly. What I got had little initial buzz, and a long lazy last.
