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To be fair, "gas station heroin" is a pretty apt description.
And the way it's sold, people get hooked before they realize what's going.
It's crazy that's stuff legal but cannabis isn't.
I mean, this dude is likely a giant asshole, and fuck him.
But this stuff fucks over a lot of lives of people with no idea what they're taking.
What is gas station heroin if you wouldn't mind filling me in?
Tianeptine.
https://www.npr.org/2024/07/12/nx-s1-4865955/tianeptine-gas-station-heroin-drug
Thanks.
Crazy stuff.
Aptly named at least. Honestly was not expecting actual opiates for sale with petrol.
It has Mu receptor activity at very large doses, it is a (somewhat) effective anti depression response at low doses.
What that all means is that the withdrawals from long term use as an opiate, rather than an antidepressant are absolutely legendary. Imagine having to withdraw from Heroin... but also you have to withdraw from a large dose of antidepressant at the same time... terrifying.
You know what else does that? Massive amounts of loperimide. It also causes heart problems and can kill you, but you get a minor buzz from it if you eat 100 of them.
I will never understand someone who clearly already has a drug dealer choosing to do dirtier versions of their drugs. Why not drop the cocaine and stick to those dick pills they sell at the gas stations at that point?
While I'm at it, I don't understand coke heads either. What an awful drug to try and enjoy.
Then you don't fully understand the bottoms of addiction and the unreliability of drug dealers. People will go through extreme efforts to avoid withdrawal.
Too right they will.
They sell my drug in all the gas stations, advertise it on TV, billboards and radio, just about every restaurant serves it.
And yet, there are still alcoholics that will drink sanitizer if that's all they can get and the shakes and sweats have started. I never drank sanitizer, but that doesn't mean much, knowing what I did do when I still drank.
I think most alcoholics would rather steal a tall boy or two than drink hand sanitizer.
'Would rather' implies options.
Theres always options. Addiction means usually you will start considering riskier and riskier behaviors to get your drug. Even if the alcoholic has hand sanitizer, it'll be gone quickly and then what? Hobble to the corner store and hustle or steal. Depends on the person though what they consider risky of course.
If someone's consistently drinking hand sanitizer in this day and age then they are likely ignorant. Liquor is cheaper than hand sanitizer as well.
Also most of those gas station analogues of illicit drugs are for people on probation. They can use them and pass drug tests.
Please, explain in 3 paragraphs your lack of direct experience with addiction.
Because theres only one type of addict in the world right?
I'm open to be proven wrong, is there cases of alcoholics poisoning themselves with hand sanitizer still?
It's common enough you're not going to find news stories about it unless there's some special circumstance to make it newsworthy.
It is the reason the NIH reduces the amount of alcohol in the ER sanitizer dispensers.
I also know people have emptied a whole hospital floor's sanitizers in pursuit of relief from the DTs.
You know first hand of a scenario like that? Were they on psychiatric hold or something? Why would a hospital not treat DTs?
Edit: is there hand sanitizer that isnt dangerous to drink? That might be where I'm getting hung up.
You're getting hung up on talking about something you have no experience of.
And you have drank hand sanitizer? My experience is that even as an alcoholic I would never drink it because the general consensus around my area is it would kill you or blind you.
So yes I'm very skeptical that anyone regularly drinks hand sanitizer.
Maybe in your area hand sanitizer is just vodka in a bottle though so who knows.
Just stop. You don't know what you're talking about and you're insulting people who have real afflictions you fucking sociopath.
Edit: wow just clocked the comment history. Blocked. Good luck never knowing real connection.
Could have just proven me wrong but thats cool. I was able to find some information without it anyways so that worked out fine.
Good thing you were here to defend alcoholics who drink hand sanitizer though, I'm sure I hurt their feelings immensely.
I did say choosing, as it appears this was. But yes desperate addicts will take anything.
A box of imodium isnt all that dissimilar to what was mentioned in this post.
I think this is a uniquely American problem due to our low regulations and ridiculous drug laws.
But for the most part things need to be explicitly outlawed, and everything else is fair game to be sold for human consumption as a "supplement".
We went thru it with "Spice" and your country may have as well. They used analogs to THC, and at first it really felt like weed. But we'd outlaw the current one, and the company had the next one already in production. Stores/gas stations would literally have the next generation in the back so they could rotate the day the current one was outlawed.
Like, I remember back in the day when I played sports, lots of guys wouldn't take a weightlifting supplement that had been on the market more than two years... Because anything "good" would have been taken off the market by then.
It's just a revolving door where no one really knows what's anything.
So even tho this is and opioid, no one checked if it was safe first, and when it's outlawed it'll be tweaked just enough to be something new. And that "new" version will have more negatives and less positives, but if you're hooked on the old kind, you're gonna use the new kind over nothing. Or maybe move to legit black market.
Yeah we had something similar here for a while. "Head shops" were selling bath salts and spice and what not.
The government struggled to catch up because the next analogue was ready to go the second any ban came in.
Eventually they brought out what was essentially a "fuck this shit" piece of legislation. Was a good few years ago now. More than ten if memory serves. It all shut down overnight.
Things are way more regulated here though in general (Ireland). I can't even buy melatonin over the counter which honestly is both stupid and annoying.
Edit: We do still have the good sudafed though. One with two paracetamol is great for a hangover. :)
Interesting flex to admit none of you can figure out how to make and sell meth.
/s
You jest, but the average Irish junkie just isn't as enterprising as the average American one. :D
It's the bootstraps.
Or... a side effect of living our whole lives on the financial brink of starvation or homelessness forcing us into a mindset and culture where we're always seeking to monetize things because that's all we know to do since our entire culture is bent towards growing the economy.
Nah, it's the bootstraps.
Lol. It is, in fact, the bootstraps. You were right all along.
Edit: I know we're having a laugh here but that whole bootstraps thing does seem very harsh from the outside. Like I've spent a lot of time in the US (more than 6 months over the course of my life over various trips) and I'm genuinely very fond of the place, but the whole lack of social support structure does seem kinda ruthless from the outside looking in.
It absolutely, depressingly, and soul crushingly is. Send help. Better still: ask your governments to grant US citizens asylum. I'm ok with leaving these sado-masochists to ouroboros themselves.