Heroington...Maybe we've found the source of Herd fan delusion?

[30CAT]

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. – Officials in a West Virginia city are warning people about an especially dangerous batch of heroin after authorities responded to 26 overdoses in within a four-hour span.

The rash of overdoses came Monday in the city of Huntington, which sits in Cabell County along the Ohio River in the western part of the state. Gordon Merry, the county's EMS director, said at a news conference Tuesday that the heroin the users had taken was laced with a strong substance, but authorities aren't sure what it is.

Many of the overdoses were in an area surrounding one apartment complex in the city, he said, leading officials to believe the cases were connected. He said the amount of calls that were received overwhelmed responders.

"Just to give you an idea, when the first few came in, three ambulances were already out dealing with overdoses," Merry said.

For a half-hour span, there were no ambulances available in the county to send, Cabell County EMS assistant supervisor David McClure added.

Merry said eight of the victims were revived Monday using the opioid-overdose-reversing drug naloxone and others by a manual resuscitator called a bag valve mask to stimulate breathing. One victim was given three doses of naloxone.

Cabell County responded to 39 overdose calls in all of August 2015.

There have been more than 440 overdoses in Huntington from all types of drugs this year through mid-July.

"As a public health problem, this is an epidemic of monumental proportions," Dr. Michael Kilkenny, director of the Cabell-Huntington Health Department, said. "We really must stop the demand side of the equation. We must attack the issue of addiction."

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/08/1...-hit-west-virginia-city-1-death-reported.html

 

[Marine03]

That stuff is everywhere. A number of articles on it in WNY area. Why the hell would anyone get started on that stuff is beyond me

 

[Marine03]

Huntington really has to do something about the drug problem, it is bad there. I'm glad I left for good. Beckley is in no better shape though, I know people I graduated with 25 years ago that have been hooked for years

 

[WhiteTailEER]

Huntington really has to do something about the drug problem, it is bad there. I'm glad I left for good. Beckley is in no better shape though, I know people I graduated with 25 years ago that have been hooked for years

It is getting bad everywhere. If everything weren't so spread out here, most of the state would look exactly like the slums of inner cities.

Not a topic for this board, but somebody has to think outside the box on this one. Doing more of what we've been doing is only window dressing to make it look like they are trying, it obviously does nothing.

 

[Tonycried2]

It is getting bad everywhere. If everything weren't so spread out here, most of the state would look exactly like the slums of inner cities.

Not a topic for this board, but somebody has to think outside the box on this one. Doing more of what we've been doing is only window dressing to make it look like they are trying, it obviously does nothing.

Eastern Kentucky in in near epidemic proportions of heroin cases. but so is Louisville, seems to cross all demographic, geographical lines. Sad!

 

[WhiteTailEER]

Eastern Kentucky in in near epidemic proportions of heroin cases. but so is Louisville, seems to cross all demographic, geographical lines. Sad!

It is sad. Many times it starts out innocently enough. Prescription pain killers for valid medical reasons and then turns into an addiction. When they can't access those anymore they get whatever they can.

I can't say I feel much sympathy for those that began the path through illegal drugs, but there's a whole lot of people that didn't start that way. I've always been very careful to ask about any pain medicines I've been prescribed because I don't want to risk addiction. I can't take most things anyway because of a genetic kidney disease.

 

[Tonycried2]

It is sad. Many times it starts out innocently enough. Prescription pain killers for valid medical reasons and then turns into an addiction. When they can't access those anymore they get whatever they can.

I can't say I feel much sympathy for those that began the path through illegal drugs, but there's a whole lot of people that didn't start that way. I've always been very careful to ask about any pain medicines I've been prescribed because I don't want to risk addiction. I can't take most things anyway because of a genetic kidney disease.

I don't if its hopelessness or just thrill seeking that attracts folks to the damn drug.

 

[WhiteTailEER]

I don't if its hopelessness or just thrill seeking that attracts folks to the damn drug.

If you are seeking thrills, walk around Daytona Beach after midnight and try to guess which are men and which are women

 

[MikeRafone]

You said it Tony. Just a lot of under educated young people with no hope. I know a lot of tucked away places on the edges of the towns in the Charleston area that are for lack of a better term "White Ghettos". A lot of abandoned housing, squatters, poor folks and drugs. Most the guys in those places worked seasonal construction while Mom had a retail job and got by until the big crash of '06. That construction work is long gone and may come back one day, but with the collapse of the coal industry, it's not going to be a shade of what it was. Now the best thing those same folks can hope for is part-time fast food and retail. The big choice for them is to struggle along that way until the bank takes the house, or go on welfare.

The young guys see there parents busting there humps and getting further behind, while at the same time see the guys who are selling smack, pills, and meth with nice cars, decent houses, boats, motorcycles, etc..... and figure they've got nothing to lose. Half the neighborhood is strung out one way or another, taking drugs to escape, or taking them to be able to get through the two jobs you've got to take on to have 2/3's the income you had before.

If you make too much, the state takes away your benefits, if you don't, you loose everything and are at best living with relatives "until you get on your feet" which isn't going to be happening any time soon.

In the meanwhile your drug dealing kid/ spouse becomes the main breadwinner, which brings nine kinds of Hell to your life. Skeezers, junkies, and tweakers showing up at all hours to cop, the very real threat of violent robbery and break-ins, and the straight up criminal crazies that rule that world, for a lot of the folks that fall into it, the cops are the least of their worries.

It runs in cycles, I'm in my late 50's and this at least the 5th big one I've seen. The first was the late Vietnam heroin epidemic that rolled into the major multi drug speed and PCP boom of the recession in the mid-70's. Things calmed down until the cocaine boom of of the late 70's/ early 90's. That made today's woes look minor, especially for Miami, "The City That Cocaine Built". Bodies along the freeways, shootouts in the streets, crazy stuff. If you like South Beach and pleasures of South Florida, thank Pablo Escobar, that region was Detroit on Biscayne Bay before the Colombians came with their powder and money around '79.

Next there was Crack starting around '83. I've never seen anything devastate a generation like that stuff did, and it went on for 15 years straight. Next came the Meth boom, not just an inner city phenomena like the earlier crack and heroin ones, this went coast to coast and was mainly rural and small towns. There's an area across the Coal from my house that used to be called Lickskillet, but is now known as Fairview Drive. The main White Ghetto in Kanawha County. In the summer when it was hot, the combo of chemicals they used to cook the stuff became very unstable. You literally had a meth lab a day blowing up over there every summer until sudafed was banned. A meth lab going up sound exactly like someone firing a mortar. You hear the implosion, and then a second later "Boom!" as the place goes up. Crazy sh!t, people on fire, kids who lived in the meth houses exposed to chemicals that is going to do God knows what to them.

About 2011 it all switched to pills. Big money in those things. In fact too much. They priced themselves out of the market and the switch started to heroin again, which is full bore now.

You know what the real kicker is? The guys I knew who came back from Vietnam strung out are the late grandfathers of the current crop of heroin addicts. How f'd up is that?

 

[Tonycried2]

You said it Tony. Just a lot of under educated young people with no hope. I know a lot of tucked away places on the edges of the towns in the Charleston area that are for lack of a better term "White Ghettos". A lot of abandoned housing, squatters, poor folks and drugs. Most the guys in those places worked seasonal construction while Mom had a retail job and got by until the big crash of '06. That construction work is long gone and may come back one day, but with the collapse of the coal industry, it's not going to be a shade of what it was. Now the best thing those same folks can hope for is part-time fast food and retail. The big choice for them is to struggle along that way until the bank takes the house, or go on welfare.

The young guys see there parents busting there humps and getting further behind, while at the same time see the guys who are selling smack, pills, and meth with nice cars, decent houses, boats, motorcycles, etc..... and figure they've got nothing to lose. Half the neighborhood is strung out one way or another, taking drugs to escape, or taking them to be able to get through the two jobs you've got to take on to have 2/3's the income you had before.

If you make too much, the state takes away your benefits, if you don't, you loose everything and are at best living with relatives "until you get on your feet" which isn't going to be happening any time soon.

In the meanwhile your drug dealing kid/ spouse becomes the main breadwinner, which brings nine kinds of Hell to your life. Skeezers, junkies, and tweakers showing up at all hours to cop, the very real threat of violent robbery and break-ins, and the straight up criminal crazies that rule that world, for a lot of the folks that fall into it, the cops are the least of their worries.

It runs in cycles, I'm in my late 50's and this at least the 5th big one I've seen. The first was the late Vietnam heroin epidemic that rolled into the major multi drug speed and PCP boom of the recession in the mid-70's. Things calmed down until the cocaine boom of of the late 70's/ early 90's. That made today's woes look minor, especially for Miami, "The City That Cocaine Built". Bodies along the freeways, shootouts in the streets, crazy stuff. If you like South Beach and pleasures of South Florida, thank Pablo Escobar, that region was Detroit on Biscayne Bay before the Colombians came with their powder and money around '79.

Next there was Crack starting around '83. I've never seen anything devastate a generation like that stuff did, and it went on for 15 years straight. Next came the Meth boom, not just an inner city phenomena like the earlier crack and heroin ones, this went coast to coast and was mainly rural and small towns. There's an area across the Coal from my house that used to be called Lickskillet, but is now known as Fairview Drive. The main White Ghetto in Kanawha County. In the summer when it was hot, the combo of chemicals they used to cook the stuff became very unstable. You literally had a meth lab a day blowing up over there every summer until sudafed was banned. A meth lab going up sound exactly like someone firing a mortar. You hear the implosion, and then a second later "Boom!" as the place goes up. Crazy sh!t, people on fire, kids who lived in the meth houses exposed to chemicals that is going to do God knows what to them.

About 2011 it all switched to pills. Big money in those things. In fact too much. They priced themselves out of the market and the switch started to heroin again, which is full bore now.

You know what the real kicker is? The guys I knew who came back from Vietnam strung out are the late grandfathers of the current crop of heroin addicts. How f'd up is that?

 

[Tonycried2]

Very astute and sad commentary on the problem.....I have a personal anecdote to add, two dear friends of mine both lawyers married to each other , had a son, a senior at one of the better Catholic HS's in Louisville, a kid with everything to live for, overdose and die on that junk! His mom found him in the morning dead.

 

[MikeRafone]

I know a kid who was heading to med school, got strung out and got popped. Now he'll be lucky to wait tables somewhere and maybe not that. The pills he was snorting and shooting contained a small amount Tylenol which trashes the liver. His liver is shot and he's 23. If he makes to 30 or 35 I'll be shocked. Ruined his life and his body for a year and a half of getting high.

 

[Snow Sled Baby]

Huntington really has to do something about the drug problem, it is bad there. I'm glad I left for good. Beckley is in no better shape though, I know people I graduated with 25 years ago that have been hooked for years

my son lives in Huntington and he says it's shifted from crack/meth to heroin down there.....damn....26 people?....the herd didn't even have enough left to practice did they?

 

[MikeRafone]

I ran into two young guys I know yesterday. Their late father was a boyhood friend of mine. They were scratching and shaking in front of a convenience store waiting for "a ride".

I busted my hump trying to keep the youngest one straight after his Dad died, but his brothers have a strong influence on him.

I thought I had him convinced to join the Coast Guard a couple-three years back? The best thing for him would have been to get away from the crazy land his home life became after his Dad died. Mama talked him out of it and now he's just like his older brothers. That was a damned good kid, still is at heart, but looking in his eyes yesterday you could see there was nothing there but a drive to get those drugs. Someone had recently stomped the crap out of him. His face is all messed up. Running with that gang of thugs his brothers hang with is going to put him in an early grave.

Man, I loathe heroin, but I loathe their mother even more. She and her parade of low life boyfriends exposed those boys to world they would have never been introduced to if their Dad had lived. I never liked the woman, but I despise her now. She ruined those kids plain and simple. Look up " aging coke whore" and you'll find her pictured prominently.

 

[Herd Fever]

It is getting bad everywhere. If everything weren't so spread out here, most of the state would look exactly like the slums of inner cities.

Not a topic for this board, but somebody has to think outside the box on this one. Doing more of what we've been doing is only window dressing to make it look like they are trying, it obviously does nothing.

legalizing Marijuana is a start. Sending the Doctors that caused the heroin epidemic to prison is another.

Also stop prescribing kids Opiods

 

[dave]

legalizing Marijuana is a start. Sending the Doctors that caused the heroin epidemic to prison is another.

Also stop prescribing kids Opiods

Or we could just throw all druggies in prison and let you die there.

 

[dave]

That stuff is everywhere. A number of articles on it in WNY area. Why the hell would anyone get started on that stuff is beyond me

Some folks get stuck on Oxy and when the docs pull the plug on it they turn to heroine.

 

[Herd Fever]

Or we could just throw all druggies in prison and let you die there.

Yea because doing that the last 40 years has helped America??

Do you know the definition of insane??

 

[dave]

Yea because doing that the last 40 years has helped America??

Do you know the definition of insane??

Yes. I read your posts.

 

[MikeRafone]

Some folks get stuck on Oxy and when the docs pull the plug on it they turn to heroine.

That's on the doctor , Dave. Their supposed to wean those folks off the painkillers over an extended period. Cutting them off cold after prescribing the stuff to them for a condition for years is grounds for malpractice.

I was in a nearby town yesterday where a doctor once ran a practice and pill mill. At the height of the oxycontin craze that place had a tip jar for the staff at the receptionists window. I'm not kidding.

From what I understand he charged 250 bucks for a six month script, cash on the desk and no exam. My first cousin worked as pharmacy tech at nearby drugstore. When the Doc was going full bore, they couldn't keep oxycontin in stock. Three pharmacies in a small town that sold the largest amounts of the stuff in the State and over 80% of the scripts were coming from one guy. Those oxy pills sold for 60-80 bucks apiece from what I understand. Crews of drug dealers were traveling to the clinic from out of state, to load up on scripts.

The pharmacies tipped off the county drug task about it , and they tipped of the DEA. This Doc's name was showing up on pill bottles taken in busts across a multistate region. They popped him and his staff. He and the members of the staff landed in jail for various amounts of time, many of the staff opting for pleas out in exchange for testimony and a shorter sentence.The Doc recently died behind bars in the midst of long sentence, he went to jail in the middle of the last decade.


I'll see if my cousin still has the pic of the tip jar a Deputy friend of her husbands gave her and download so you guys can see it. It had a little homemade sign taped to it that reads "Tips: 15 dollars. Thank You!"

 

[dave]

That's on the doctor , Dave. Their supposed to wean those folks off the painkillers over an extended period. Cutting them off cold after prescribing the stuff to them for a condition for years is grounds for malpractice.

I was in a nearby town yesterday where a doctor once ran a practice and pill mill. At the height of the oxycontin craze that place had a tip jar for the staff at the receptionists window. I'm not kidding.

From what I understand he charged 250 bucks for a six month script, cash on the desk and no exam. My first cousin worked as pharmacy tech at nearby drugstore. When the Doc was going full bore, they couldn't keep oxycontin in stock. Three pharmacies in a small town that sold the largest amounts of the stuff in the State and over 80% of the scripts were coming from one guy. Those oxy pills sold for 60-80 bucks apiece from what I understand. Crews of drug dealers were traveling to the clinic from out of state, to load up on scripts.

The pharmacies tipped off the county drug task about it , and they tipped of the DEA. This Doc's name was showing up on pill bottles taken in busts across a multistate region. They popped him and his staff. He and the members of the staff landed in jail for various amounts of time, many of the staff opting for pleas out in exchange for testimony and a shorter sentence.The Doc recently died behind bars in the midst of long sentence, he went to jail in the middle of the last decade.


I'll see if my cousin still has the pic of the tip jar a Deputy friend of her husbands gave her and download so you guys can see it. It had a little homemade sign taped to it that reads "Tips: 15 dollars. Thank You!"

That was too long to read. I agree the docs are partly at fault. Let them all expire.

 

[Marine03]

Yes. I read your posts.

I admit I laughed