Overwritten.net
Community => Serious Topics => Topic started by: Ace_O_Spades on Friday, December 23, 2016, 08:22:17 PM
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It's a rampaging horror right now for addicts, and the first-responders and social services that respond to the overdoses. It's a problem all-over, but it seems particularly in Vancouver. Anyone else been seeing the news about this? Where I work now, so many of my coworkers are losing clients left and right due to fentanyl overdoses. It's insane. I'm so glad I no longer work in the Downtown East Side, I'd be right in the eye of the shitticane.
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Haven't heard about this, but I don't tend to follow the news all that closely. I'm assuming this isn't Canada-specific?
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Vancouver had I think 11 overdose deaths in one night a week or so ago.
Here's a news story about it from last year. It's only gotten worse since then (http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/fentanyl-deaths-are-a-canada-wide-disaster-1.3181725)
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Man. That's pretty rough. Don't think I've heard of any instances of this in the US, though I find it surprising that it would stay limited to Canada.
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There's an epidemic of heroin overdose in the US, and I think it's especially prevalent in the middle of the country. One of the regular TV networks did a story on it just about 90 miles North of here in Columbus, OH. A drug they use to rescue overdosers is in short supply, and way expensive. It's apparently overwhelming the system.
The root cause, from what I've heard and read, is the healthcare system itself. Opioids have been overprescribed to such an extent that they've become ubiquitous, and have hooked a lot of people on, well, opium. A bag of heroin on the street costs a small fraction of what the prescription opioids do. So if someone can no longer get an insurance-paid prescription, they can turn to their friendly pusher. And pills are everywhere. I guess that's the bigger story in Canada. So very sad.
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It really is. The state of the US when it comes to drug addiction is just deplorable. Like many things, we have a much larger problem with it than many other countries. I'm sure the reasons for that are many and varied, and thus hard to address, but it's one of those things that certainly seems to need attention.