Heroin Helper Blog

Dr H, if I may share with you of my travels on this topic. You know in the heroin subculture of NYC and really the tri-state area pills have been popular since the formulation of the dillaudid triangle. It's been my experience that like minded folks sometimes preferred it. Then the big Oxy 80s came around...

Well its real interesting, especially with what youve commented - about pointing out to your friends who enjoy the pills that they like something in the same family as heroin. You know Dr. H, about 2 years ago hard times were *forced* please let me be clear, definitely *forced* and *coerced* upon me - and because of this I had no choice but to play the game of drug rehab and drug detox... I was able to win, it isn't easy, im not talking about withdrawals, which suck but which I've convinced myself is a wonderful thing...uhm...sorta like, be happy about withdrawals it is all apart of the greater greatness....ah, i know that may sound strange and it's comlicated I dont want to get into my psuedo buddhist stuff that helped me essentially change my perception of withdrawals as to not fear it - back on the topic, you know Dr. H it was sensational I promise you on all that is Poppy that I was for my period of time at both the rehab and detox, both state run (not in NYC but in FLA) counting both tenured folks who left before me and new patients arriving after me not a one had ever, ever even SEEN heroin let alone used heroin infact with the exception of several, far older than us patients who were there strictly for alcohol there were only two other kinds of patients - pill users and me the heroin guy who also liked pills. the belief of the pill users that they were somehow superior to heroin users in moral and social standing was very very prevelant (sp) and sensational to witness. I would've expected better, particularly because several had been long time pill users but in their time had never deviated from pills to H. Even within the class of pill users I encountered there was a simlar caste, at the bottom there was "yeah i may've banged roxis and oxys but i never, EVER, touched heroin" and above them "no man i never injected anything - im afraid of needles. I would just crush and snort or grab aluminum foil and smoke" and the most obscene, jaded of all "wtf is wrong with all of you i never did any of that i just swallowed them" it was something funny to see. I was treated either as the lowest scum or as a thing of interest... im not gonna go into it cause im sure no i know for 100% positive that you are a far better writer and more creative than I and I believe you to be more experienced than myself and pay you the highest compliments I can pay anyone who I admire so I would figure the list of ridiculous phrases spewed at me by ignorant and curious pill addicts (of the middle class as you rightfully pointed out) you can surely write the best of them - they did get quite sensational and ridiculous.

When the coercion had ended, Dr. H, I decided to find out what this was all about, I mean, let me not say I was a virgin, no way, I actually was on a pseudo heroin assisted treatment done with an ahead of her time doctor some years ago and this involved a monthly script of vicodin. Unfortunately vicodin wasn't potent whatsoever and after about a few months I just stock piled them until eventually the Dr. got total cold feet (surely prodded by the fact that I would tell her, professionally and kindly that vicodin was nowhere near effective due to its low potency and high asprin as applied to a multiple bundle a day banger...maybe a several bag a day inexperienced user wouldve benefited from a vicodin maintenance but no way for me i kid you not when i promise you i had several times consumed entire bottles of 30 pills of vicodin many many times within a half day usually taking almost the entire bottle in one gulp)

the pill culture of florida was out of control and i say that in a loving, admirable way that an older cousin/brother may look at the younger family member whose attempting the same foolish things the elder had and ignorantly doesnt listen. By this time Oxy80 was reformulated to be "anti abuse" the attention moved to the roxi 30s which had to be stock piled to match the mgs. The problem began showing later that roxi 30s started having shortages and believe me Dr. H i swear to you i mean CVS' and all pharmacies would be heavily monitored by police. The concept of sponsoring was insanely popular - drug dealers of different social class/heritage (if you will) often escorting much older white people to the pharmacies and paying them and buying the bottles for them. Id heard it so many times so many different CVS' having 6-8 month back ordered waiting list for pills. The pill mills were everywhere, shopping malls especially...I actually saw one and i swear to you it was directly across the street from an office for a halfway house lol. its windows were painted black and nothing but kids younger than me coming in and out. it was unreal.

Dr. H, heroin was nowhere to be found. One of my stories is like this, having been down there for some time, I found alot of my acquaintances from rehabs and detoxes down there were just as full of it as I was about any idea of living the "other way" and I ended up becoming the ring leader if you will of a group of about 10 of us whod all recently gone to the same rehab. The reason was because of this, some of us had money, some of us didnt and I was homeless (nothing new.) Dr. H as Im sure you know in rehabs how they make you go to AA/NA groups...well let me tell you in West Palm beach I know this will sound an exaggeration but I swear 60-70% of the AA/NA/detox/rehab community are from NEW JERSEY - i swear its insane and its almost a joke. The next highest population are Floridians usually from a different city. In my case my little group was both. So the thing was that even though we had Floridian natives who wouldve had connects otherwise but in this new city they were in, they knew noone. We'd often stockpile at this unbelievably straight out of 60s-70s drug user exploitation film 30 dollar a night motel. It was crazy. They all would watch in awe as I, having never been to West Palm in my life before this time, would simply go out and find pill dealers. I would go alone, I recall a brave "friend" in the group willing to go with me but I'd always insist theyd probably screw it up besides i thought (correctly) itd be easy because when things would dry up or what have you in NYC this is the way of life. They thought it was how heroin users rolled and couldnt believe it but night after night I'd manage a contact sometimes the same one from a previous day and usually everybody would be taken care of. I wont go into details about it but I was almost raped once in Florida after being swindled (it happens) by a crackhead and other bizarre things had happened.

One thing I'd like to share is that one of my homeless nights (what gratitude from my "friends" who'd all rented motel rooms but would insist I couldn't sleep on the floor even and they wouldn't be getting anything without my assistance - I handled them well when my time of come-uppance (sp) came, I didnt forget the way they treated me as a second class citizen all while depending on me to go out on the street at night and risk my dignity, butthole and perhaps life.... so while I had sworn away stealing (believing it to not be the way of a junkie samurai but rather a cowardly prohibition fearing coward of prohibition) i happily let them all go through withdrawals and ran them after setting up the biggest transaction up until that day... (ah sweet revenge) but anyway - the interesting bit is, on a homeless night, you see, the city of West Palm is incorporated as well as it's immediate neighbors... Cops told me because of this theres no homeless allowed - you cant sleep anywhere in public. Anyhow they wont bother you on the beach which stretches the city and more however it is absolutely horrid freezing - usually most places you sleep outside are, cold is one of the biggest issues of homelessness. I couldnt take the cold of the beach one night and just walked. I could no longer walk due to exhaustion and sat down on a bench, cops came by, sirens ablaze, illegally searched me (thank god i'd noticed cops checking me out earlier and ditched a bag of used works in the garbage or i'd have been toast) and told me that i had to keep walking or theyd arrest me. They actually followed me as I just walked, exhausted, for over a mile until they finally pulled up and told me to get in. He told me he was doing this only because he was originally from long island and noted my NYC drivers license. He drove me to a different state run detox where I found tons of other homeless people sleeping on the property. On the way there, this is the interesting bit, we had a conversation about drugs and he told me that he was a 15 year veteran of the West Palm force...he talked about how his job consisted of pills and nothing more. He said that his department was convinced that his region of Florida no longer had any heroin in it saying he had only seen it once in his entire career and that was at the beginning and that the department he was with hadn't seen any heroin in many years. It was unbelievable. he even said how frustrating it was for him to pull over a 16 year old as he said this often happened, find a bottle of pills on him but be powerless because the bottle was a prescription in the kids name.

I'll also say this Dr. H, what the locals told me was that when things started picking up you could find everything you needed a pill per 5-7 dollars. By the time I was involved it'd gone to 15-25 (20-30$ NYC drug exchange rate for the same stuff in NYC when I would get it home) and after I'd left I heard the same stuff I was getting for myself and everyone at 15-25 had gone up to 30-35.

Dr. H, in closing I'll just say this, that is one of my experiences in a pill world thought I have had plenty. I do agree that, for atleast until recently, Florida was the "mecca" of the pill world if you will and thats why I share my Florida pill experiences.... I will say this, as you know, I've made no bones about using heroin, being proud of it, wishing we could do as a group what youve eloquently written about, helping ourselves....standing up for ourselves..perhaps if you are the MLK of H reform, I would say, I'm sorta akin to Malcolm X in that I would prefer us to be aggressive about it, dont just sit back and let that bob marley shirt wearing stoner kid get away with that, put on a shirt of Sid Vicious's famous picture of him booted up and banging away and listen to some kinda H music and be proud...but, whereas MLK and X were adversaries, I obviously consider you a teacher, mentor, acquiantence (sp) etc. lol. Nevertheless I'll say this, im not sure if you're aware Dr. H about SALOME and NAOMI but if your not, please look into it. The thing about the one going on now is that although it doesnt publicly talk much about the fact they're using diacetylmorphine, they claim the primary purpose is to test hydromorphone (dillaudid) as a maintenance drug due to surprising findings they'd had in the prior study using dillaudid for maintenance. I wish I could go into detail, but there is a well known facility in NYC that has been around for a very long time in which they have, for many, many years, provided some special patients with dillaudid for maintenance. Unfortunately, Im not special, though I tried to get into this NYC facility many times and still do. (Its not public knowledge - word of mouth) the people involved with the hydromorphone for maintenance trials will indeed discover its effectiveness and this is good. I want to say that I think the opiate pills are wonderful. I like them alot. They are great. I want to say Dr. H, i've read many articles disputing the claims of a pill epidemic and I want to say that I agree with them. I do believe pill use is up but I dont think its an epidemic and I do think that it should be legal, no script needed. I am glad that the middle class is involved now but am afraid that they will just feel like so many do, not capable of asking themselves the important question of "wait a minute, i love this stuff, why the hell should anybody tell me i need to stop?" and therefore find out all the information there is to find out and empower themselves. Unfortunately I think they will be pressured by a ill-guided conscience into thinking they and what they do are wrong, which is really sad and frustrating. I would encourage you Dr. H, if youre not familiar with the works that dispute the so called pill epidemic, look into it. I've read several good articles where they cite sources to counter the notion of a pill epidemic. I think the DEA is on a witch hunt or Spanish Inquisition type proportions, which is the status quo for them. I hate them all so very, very much. Anyway, I wish all the best to my fellow pill users and hope they can weather the storm and break free, fix the proverbial broken surf board and make it into the water despite the doings of those pieces of crap DEA and prohibitionists.

have a good one Dr. H
;) cause i will ;)

MAH!!! I'll break all that into neat, short little paragraphs for ya'll :p $10/hr isn't bad, right?

Also, sorry for the double post. But it seems you interested in the idea of a pill epidemic/fad. The Birth of Heroin and the Demonization of the Dope Fiend, hence the title, is all about such "outbreaks" or "epidemics." I'd be interested into exploring any connections the current "pill epidemic" has to do with racism/bigotry, maybe xenophobia, or maybe yet something like a democratic dis-ease/disease... :p

You'd enjoy it CJ.

@Mike - Birth of Heroin? You mean you didn't read that because *I* recommended it? That's strange given that it is probably the number one book I recommend people. Jim and I have this idea of putting it back in print with a proper cover. It is an excellent book. Required reading if you want to understand the meaning of heroin in America.

@CJ - You're worse than Hazlitt. I will get to you soon.

I would just like to say something. I am not inferring that you don't understand any of what I say Dr H, but I just get so frustrated with the language used. This is what is happening here. Capitalism results in substantial surplus of labour, largely through mechanisation making people redundant. Much of industry is not actually "economically" sustainable, it only survives because of subsidy by the taxpayer. There never was a "war on drugs"; a large part of the American economy actually depends on the oppression of people that use drugs other than caffeine, tobacco and alcohol. The DEA are absolutely not interested in stopping the consumption of any controlled drug. THEIR JOBS DEPEND ON THE CONSUMPTION OF SUCH DRUGS. Their job is the maintenance of a black market under the guise of "protecting" society from drugs that are actually much safer than alcohol and tobacco. Their job also is to feed the criminal justice system with people who use drugs other than the "legal" three. The ruse of "dangerous drugs" is just a front so the American president can ask for $25 billion each year to subsidize jobs in the prison, law enforcement and arms industries and everybody that supplies them. A very brief rant. Just had to get that off my chest. Hope you understand.

@Matt - I agree. I tend to limit my writing here, but if you check out Frankly Curious, you will see that my focus is more in line with your concerns.

I will counter you in one way: the drug prohibition industry isn't against people getting off drugs, they just don't care one way or the other. As I've noted, if cannabis gets legalized, they will just start incarcerating more people for MDMA and prescription drugs. If necessary, they will put people away for taking 600 mg of ibuprofen, because that is drug abuse given that the stated dosage is 400 mg.

Let me end by saying, following Exquisite Corpse, "Mas!" That was a great rant. Please get more things off your chest here.

Well worded. Thank you for taking the time. I will check back to see what's new and inform my coworkers about your website