Philadelphia- what the opioid epidemic looked like this summer

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People quit smoking not because of peer pressure but because having a job became tougher (no smoke breaks), buying insurance became more expensive (higher premiums for smokers), you couldn’t do it in restaurants any longer (so had to leave your fun group and step outside in the weather to smoke your nasty cigarette).

The people in these videos pretty much only have one thing they care care to keep, and it’s escape. These videos and the public shaming just make escape way more valuable.

Absolutely everyone in their lives looks down on them, and they know it. Reaching them is possible, but not by shaming them.

This. Absolutely everything.

+1,000,000

Public health experts have long said that shame and stigma don't work. In fact, they can exacerbate the problem. Didn't we learn this from the AIDS epidemic? Stigma kills. I understand someone being angry at a family member or friend whose drug use negatively affects them, but as a societal response, it blows.

Maybe they might deter some people from using, but probably not, because no one thinks that they'll become addicted. They think that they can just try it once, that they can stop when they want, that they can control it, but most importantly, that they are not like those people over there, the ones you're pointing to as trash and worthless. Because they are good people, the things you say happen to bad people won't happen to them. And if it does, well, then, they are bad people and they don't deserve to be helped. And when you tell someone that they aren't worth saving, don't be surprised that they believe you. That they don't save themselves, because they have internalized that they don't matter. So why give up the only thing they have left that makes them feel good, or at least not feel bad?

[Anonymous]

From people I know that work in the field I understand that the opioid and fetanyl addictions are much harder to treat than the old coke/crack addiction—which was bad enough. Think about someone like Philip Seymour Hoffman who had everything and yet couldn’t break its hold on him. It screws up the brain in ways that are hard to fix. My friend told me about some promising new research being done—I wish there was more money funding that type of research. It’s hard to get people into rehab but then the success rates in rehab aren’t great—and they pretty much know that. They all see the revolving door of people coming back to the streets.

[Anonymous]

They should just start handing out Suboxone like candy in these skidrow areas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They should just start handing out Suboxone like candy in these skidrow areas.

I agree. The problem is that too many rehabs preach the only recovery as a “completely clean” one. Heroin is a different beast than booze or coke. For many people recovery is not going to happen at all without help from a bridging substance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This scene has been playing out since the 70s in inner cities. There didn't seem to be much concern then.

I grew up in LA. Skid row has been in existence for decades pre opioid crisis. Not much has changed.

Well, except the number of deaths per capita skyrocketing.

Good. Hopefully they’ll kill themselves off before they procreate.
Too many humans make it.
The herd needs to be culled. I realize it’s heartless, but resources are finite.
These humans aren’t helping the gene pool.

You first.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I really don't like this guy's Youtube channel. It feels very exploitative, putting these people on the Internet for all to see.

He's gotten dozens and dozens of these types of videos:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOuf_kStlWnhuauw4ce8l-w/videos

He's built 100K followers by just posting human misery porn.


I'm also fairly certain he's a rightwing provocateur. A bunch of rightwing "news" websites repost his videos to say something along of the lines of "This is Biden's America!"

This sh#t has been happening all over America for centuries. It was homeless camps of drunks and the insane in the 1800s. It evolved through the opium, crack, and meth epidemics. It's been a opiate epidemic ever since pharma companies produced powerful pills by the billions starting in the 1990s and greedy doctors went along for the ride.

Want to fix the problem? Increase funding for addiction services, build more inpatient and outpatient centers with tax monies, and provide universal healthcare to every American regardless of income.

Until then, this stuff is just political posturing.

Or create jobs so that young people with normal intelligence can either get jobs or move to areas with jobs. Some of the problem is over prescribing, but the basic problem is having lives with no meaning

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People quit smoking not because of peer pressure but because having a job became tougher (no smoke breaks), buying insurance became more expensive (higher premiums for smokers), you couldn’t do it in restaurants any longer (so had to leave your fun group and step outside in the weather to smoke your nasty cigarette).

The people in these videos pretty much only have one thing they care care to keep, and it’s escape. These videos and the public shaming just make escape way more valuable.

Absolutely everyone in their lives looks down on them, and they know it. Reaching them is possible, but not by shaming them.

As an expat who's lived in countries where smoking remains the norm, in countries where smoking is in transition, and in countries where smoking is treated as a moral flaw and shamed and judged, the difference is not the cost, or higher premiums, but how society views smoking.

The US went from treating smoking as a sacred right or a normal cultural choice to a disgusting and nasty habit only by stupid trashy people. The changes were predominately driven by cultural pressures. It's how the cultural image of smoking went from sultry sexy women lighting up to gagging dying people in hospital wards. It's why teens turned off smoking on an enormous scale - not rises in insurance premiums. Smoking went from cool to totally not cool.

The same thing needs to be applied to drugs. You're just enabling people by calling these videos druggie porn. These videos are very valuable in sending strong messages to anyone curious about trying drugs - it's not cool. And see why.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People quit smoking not because of peer pressure but because having a job became tougher (no smoke breaks), buying insurance became more expensive (higher premiums for smokers), you couldn’t do it in restaurants any longer (so had to leave your fun group and step outside in the weather to smoke your nasty cigarette).

The people in these videos pretty much only have one thing they care care to keep, and it’s escape. These videos and the public shaming just make escape way more valuable.

Absolutely everyone in their lives looks down on them, and they know it. Reaching them is possible, but not by shaming them.

As an expat who's lived in countries where smoking remains the norm, in countries where smoking is in transition, and in countries where smoking is treated as a moral flaw and shamed and judged, the difference is not the cost, or higher premiums, but how society views smoking.

The US went from treating smoking as a sacred right or a normal cultural choice to a disgusting and nasty habit only by stupid trashy people. The changes were predominately driven by cultural pressures. It's how the cultural image of smoking went from sultry sexy women lighting up to gagging dying people in hospital wards. It's why teens turned off smoking on an enormous scale - not rises in insurance premiums. Smoking went from cool to totally not cool.

The same thing needs to be applied to drugs. You're just enabling people by calling these videos druggie porn. These videos are very valuable in sending strong messages to anyone curious about trying drugs - it's not cool. And see why.

A lot of these people did not in one day go from non-user to drug addict. Probably many of them were at a party and intoxicated from alcohol (the true gateway drug) or dazed from marijuana and when that seemed harmless enough, were introduced to meth or harder drugs. The person's judgment being impaired partook of the hard drug and became addicted. It takes a very strong force from the outside, or a very strong "I'm slamming the door shut on this right now no matter what" determination to get away from addiction. Most people, no matter who you are, no matter how much wealth and intelligence you have, are not strong enough to overcome drug addiction on their own.

If you are a coffee drinker, try to stop drinking coffee for a few months. Your mind will keep wandering back to wanting coffee, remembering that warm feeling how good and perky it made you in the morning. Now imagine throwing up every day with flu-like symptoms, cold sweats and cramps coupled with that desire and you see where it is just easier to do the drugs than try to fight withdrawal.

Also, for some of these people, the parents were drug users and got their own children high on drugs or, in a drug induced incident, abused or molested their own children driving them into the streets.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Washington Square Park in NY is like this now. Sad.

Ok - thanks for an actual contribution to this discussion; I did not know WSP was getting like this again.

I’m the OP. Re: the messenger - I didn’t know that but isn’t it really irrelevant to the REAL problem here? (not to mention: how do we solve this??).

Personally I think a “head in the sand / cancel the information” is the wrong way to go.

Yeah - it’s hard to look at. Easier to just ignore these people, right? But these are our people! Human beings with lives and families who need help. Least we can do it gain knowledge about the problem to maybe try to find a solution here.

Have some empathy here people!

Instead of reposting videos like this, you can...
- Call your elected officials and tell them to decriminalize drugs (criminalization does not work, the drug war does not work).
- Donate to efforts that support drug decriminalization, effective drug treatment, and harm reduction.
- Get training in how to administer naloxone and have some on hand in case you see someone overdosing.
- Be a support system for family/friends with substance use disorder because having support is a key component of recovery.

It would be much more efficient to stop resuscitating them. Let them OD.

As long as it’s not one of your loved ones, right?

I wish everyday that my drug addicted brother would OD. He has drained our middle class parents of their finances and has put a dent in the finances of his siblings from the rehabs, lawyers, bonds, suits that he has created.

My other siblings snd I recently convinced our parents that after 5 rehabs, he cannot change. Our best hope is to remove us from his next of kin. Without an advocate, we understand that addicts must fend for themselves. His next of kin will now be “none.” If you can’t fix it and n 31 years, it cannot be fixed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow, so many white people on drugs. I didn’t expect that.

The vast majority of these people are NOT from Philadelphia. They are from rural PA, middle class and upper class suburbs of Philly, southern NJ, Delaware, and north/western MD.

Other places in the region are dumping their addicts on Philadelphia. It's the same thing happening on LA's Skid Row, the southside of Chicago, and Detroit. I really wish these cities would take these folks back to the places where they came from. Let "real America" deal with their addicted adult children.

Instead, you see Fox News and lots of social media blaming places like Philadelphia or Chicago for the problem. These cities are simply getting the worst of "real America."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow, so many white people on drugs. I didn’t expect that.

The vast majority of these people are NOT from Philadelphia. They are from rural PA, middle class and upper class suburbs of Philly, southern NJ, Delaware, and north/western MD.

Other places in the region are dumping their addicts on Philadelphia. It's the same thing happening on LA's Skid Row, the southside of Chicago, and Detroit. I really wish these cities would take these folks back to the places where they came from. Let "real America" deal with their addicted adult children.

Instead, you see Fox News and lots of social media blaming places like Philadelphia or Chicago for the problem. These cities are simply getting the worst of "real America."

?? Do they put everyone on a bus in Altoona and bring them to downtown Philly?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow, so many white people on drugs. I didn’t expect that.

The vast majority of these people are NOT from Philadelphia. They are from rural PA, middle class and upper class suburbs of Philly, southern NJ, Delaware, and north/western MD.

Other places in the region are dumping their addicts on Philadelphia. It's the same thing happening on LA's Skid Row, the southside of Chicago, and Detroit. I really wish these cities would take these folks back to the places where they came from. Let "real America" deal with their addicted adult children.

Instead, you see Fox News and lots of social media blaming places like Philadelphia or Chicago for the problem. These cities are simply getting the worst of "real America."

?? Do they put everyone on a bus in Altoona and bring them to downtown Philly?

"A Philadelphia neighborhood is the largest open-air narcotics market for heroin on the East Coast. Addicts come from all over, and many never leave."
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/10/magazine/kensington-heroin-opioid-philadelphia.html

They are not from Philly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Awareness is the first step toward solving a problem.

I was not aware, until I viewed this video of this street in Philadelphia, that the opioid epidemic looked this bad in August 2021.

Did you?

I was. I didn't need to see misery porn to be aware of the seriousness of the opioid epidemic. There are news articles, books, documentaries, etc. There are lots of ways to be informed if you want to be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow, so many white people on drugs. I didn’t expect that.

The vast majority of these people are NOT from Philadelphia. They are from rural PA, middle class and upper class suburbs of Philly, southern NJ, Delaware, and north/western MD.

Other places in the region are dumping their addicts on Philadelphia. It's the same thing happening on LA's Skid Row, the southside of Chicago, and Detroit. I really wish these cities would take these folks back to the places where they came from. Let "real America" deal with their addicted adult children.

Instead, you see Fox News and lots of social media blaming places like Philadelphia or Chicago for the problem. These cities are simply getting the worst of "real America."

?? Do they put everyone on a bus in Altoona and bring them to downtown Philly?

"A Philadelphia neighborhood is the largest open-air narcotics market for heroin on the East Coast. Addicts come from all over, and many never leave."
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/10/magazine/kensington-heroin-opioid-philadelphia.html

They are not from Philly.

That doesn't mean other places are "dumping" them there. They go there of their own volition. Yes, cities have to shoulder more of this burden when people wander in. Do you think indigent in cities should get tracked and censused? And then the cities can cross-charge the areas of origin? Not a bad idea.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The universally young people in this video who are passed out and stumbling around are NOT in that state because they initially got addicted to legally prescribed Oxycontin. No, this crop of addicts went straight to street drugs, particularly fentanyl-laced everything from China labs, and ultra potent heroin.

I hate Purdue and the Sacklers as much as anyone. We need to retire the myth that they’re responsible for getting 22 yr olds “hooked on pills” . The current crop of addicts under 40 didn’t start out like their predecessors with a legal, refillable script for a high dose of Oxy for minor back pain. (And when that script runs out, you go pill mill -> heroin -> fentNyl -> overdose. )

Anyone who’s tried to get or fill a script for, say, just 5 total opioid pills following knee surgery in the last several years knows this is true. Prescription culture has shifted dramatically. Doctors are schooled and DEA tracking is real and consistent.

So again, the Sacklers suck, but they didn’t create the specific addicts in THIS video.

Agree 100% - and this is clearly China’s fault. It benefits their national agenda (just like their cyber-attack test-runs on our power grid, industry, etc.).

We need a foreign policy focused on stopping China from putting this poison on our city streets and rural towns (this epidemic reaches every part of the US).