I found this Press Release put out by the DEA to be… disturbing.
It’s a tragedy. Four people went and bought heroin together, and all four used it. One became unconscious and the others, afraid to get help, left her in a bedroom. The next morning, one of them found her dead, and again, afraid of repercussions, hid her body.
So that’s a tragic story, and points out the need for drug policy reform so that nobody is ever in that situation and people who need it get help.
But this is a press release from the DEA about how the feds investigated and prosecuted and got the bad guy and how he was sentenced to 80 months in prison for tampering with evidence by hiding the body.
First, it seems odd that it’s a federal case, and second (and much worse) that it’s something that they’d brag about in a press release.
If anything, this press release is a stark indictment of what the DEA has been doing.
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If you want to be tortured with pages upon pages of bad science and self-serving rhetoric, read the link on the right at that page, entitled: “The Dangers and Consequences of Marijuana Abuse.”
If sending someone to jail for eighty years for this is justice… perhaps we should send the people who made saving that person’s life illegal in essence to jail for a similar period.
“You would have gone to jail if you had saved her. You’re going to jail for hiding your body. You’re going to jail no matter what you do, in fact. It’s called ‘rehabilitation’.”
80 months, not years, but still a very heavy handed sentence. One dead, one in prison for 7 years. This what the DEA calls “demand reduction.” For them a good result all round, hence the bragging.
This is what I get for reading things late at night.
And, oddly, I could not find that link you spoke of. Perhaps they moved it when you pointed it out or something.
I only got to see it after I disabled my ‘Adblock Plus’ app; I’m guessing you’ve got a similar app imbedded in your browser.
Javert would be proud.
Oui Monsieur
Well, what else would they have to brag about?
The Dangers and Consequences of Marijuana Abuse PDF file 9.4 MB
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Isn’t it interesting that they forgot to mention the OTC antihistamine which was as much the cause of her death as the heroin? I knew there was more to the story the second that I noticed there were no homicide charges.
Pete, it was a Federal case because they crossed State lines. I do wonder if Virginia is going to pile on with possession of heroin charges for the other three per their confessions. These people were right to be scared of the authorities. This happened in my home town’s back yard and let me tell you that Virginia LE isn’t staffed by nice people. Sheesh, the girl was a student at my high school just to reference how close to home this was for me.
High school student, 16, whose body was found two days after she went missing wasn’t killed but took a deadly cocktail of heroin and antihistamines
Oh sure, the drug war is such a great success when high school students can so easily find heroin. The poor girl probably didn’t have a clue that her OTC antihistamine could cause a fatal interaction with heroin. Well, why would she when the domestic press doesn’t bother to tell the whole story of what caused other people’s alleged heroin overdoses? Even the British press doesn’t name the antihistamine. Good work people, now maybe some more pharmaceutically ignorant school children can die of a “heroin overdose” so you can write about their deaths to scare other pharmaceutically ignorant school children which “just might save their lives!” Shit, let’s just line them up and club them over the head and prevent any more of these “heroin overdoses.” Good god, the shit that passes for “reasoning” in some people makes steam come out of my ears. Prohibitionists, you can’t live with them and you can’t murder them either. Life can be such a bitch sometimes.
Oh my, what a shock…there was drinking alcohol involved as well.
Oh hello, the spin doctors must have been off their game, she was smoking merrywanna too. The missed their chance to use “Merrywanna causes fatal heroin overdose in innocent teenage girl.” I admit I’m just guessing, but it does appear that the girl liked to get high.
I got one good belly laugh out of this, the police got a search warrant for the girl’s Facebook page. I’m just trying to picture the idiot jack boots on the SWAT team trying to figure out how to kick in the door to serve the warrant and wishing that they knew how to search the Google for answers.
Interesting to me that the OTC antihistamines are being reported on.
It’s important to note that most of the time when these antihistamines, such as diphenhydramine, are taken with opiates, it is on purpose. The antihistamines potentiate opiate activity so most addicts will take these kinds of things to make their drug usage more economical.
But of course, these cocktails are dangerous. Another side effect of prohibition: people taking deadly cocktails simply to improve the efficacy of their drug of choice, usually due to economic reasons.
As good a time as any to reiterate that there is no such thing as fatal Heroin overdose. There are always other drugs involved in cases such as these. Most commonly alcohol.
did you mean cannabis? there are thousands of well documented fatal heroin o.d.s annually.
Jean, please take a look at my presentation on youtube and it will all become clear- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kqw64lOWy1c. Or you can google “heroin the truth you tube” and it will come up in the search results. It is a powerpoint presentation with a blue background. You have been labouring under the gravest of misapprehensions. “Heroin overdose” is the foundation lie of the “war on drugs.” Heroin is just a metaphor for morphine. Whilst is is theoretically possible for it to stop breathing, it would only be possible with the most incredible overdose. The fact is that morphine is not an effective suicide drug. People in palliative care can have massive doses of morphine daily. And it is not about tolerance. Enough said, watch the presentation.
Matt…I am opposed to all prohibition in regards to drugs, but I have to say, with respect, I think you are in deep denial about the “safety” of heroin. I spent 15 years addicted to heroin and other opiates and have known at least ten people who over-dosed and died. On more than one occasion I have had to give mouth to mouth to restart their breathing…blue lips and all that. Most deaths occur when the consumer is isolated and no one sees that they stopped breathing, which is a good argument for safe injection sites. And, before you blame it on impurities in street heroin, let me say that some at least of these deaths were the result of pharmaceutical diamorphine issued by the British government to addicts. Ironically, they might have survived had the heroin been cut instead of pure.
Jean, I have contributed to many forums and blogs etc and your response is very common. I am bemused when you accuse me of being in denial when you steadfastly refuse to examine the facts of the matter. Did you even view the presentation? It is easy to follow and gives references to the evidence and professional opinions on which it is based. I am just regurgitating what has been known for decades. You are for whatever reason asserting that Heroin (morphine) stops people breathing for long enough to kill them without a shred of evidence. I am very sceptical about your story for several reasons, one of which is the following. You are asserting that you have been with people that have taken Heroin (morphine) and apparently enough to kill them. Yet you have returned (restarted) the breathing mechanism simply by administering mouth to mouth without any antidote to the supposed effects of the morphine. This just defies common sense. If they had taken enough morphine to stop their breathing simply “restarting” it by mouth to mouth is plainly absurd. Secondly and the most obvious point here is that if it is indeed true (that you were present with these people), you had no way of knowing what other drugs were in their systems. To simply assert that the person had “overdosed” soley because of opiates is obviously simplistic and naive. One more point, you say you were addicted for 15 years. You apparently used a drug (heroin) which mythology says is easy to fatally overdose on and yet you are alive. A very interesting and telling observation wouldnt you think?
And, if you doubt government statistics on this subject try googling Dr Harold Shipman who murdered at least 250 of his patients with a single injection of diamorphine (heroin).
Matt, Jean, you both have it half right; Matt is right in that heroin overdoses seen today are the result of adulteration or cross intoxication, not the effects of the heroin alone. Jean is correct that heroin can cause death by suppression of the CNS and subsequent breathing cessation. Prior to prohibition, laudanum, a preparation of heroin in alcohol, bought OTC was used extensively for pain relief and somewhat for suicide. If pharmaceutical grade heroin of known potency is available, opioid users do not need to use other drugs to intensify the high, they can just use a little more to get the effect. This virtually eliminates the multiplier effect which is the usual killer. There is no adulteration, no overdose due to variable potency, as there is now with street heroin. In jurisdictions which use heroin assisted maintenance to deal with hard core addiction, they see an end to ALL the harmful outcomes of street heroin. Heroin is not the problem, it is not causing negative health outcomes, it is prohibited heroin which is to blame. The doctor/murderer probably used heroin or other opioids to kill in order to hide his actions, reasoning that because of opioid use in the hospital setting, it would be unlikely that anyone would realize he had murdered the patient. Heroin is not to blame, it was merely his weapon. The article is an example of bragging mass murderers.
I really wasn’t talking about “blaming” heroin…I leave that for the prohibs. I was correcting the statement that there is “no such thing as a fatal Heroin overdose.” Regardless of the added dangers caused by prohibition, a sufficient dose of pure heroin (for most people about half a gram) will likely cause breathing to stop.
I’m no expert on heroin but in Dr Carl Hart’s book he said that almost all heroin and cocaine overdose situations involved the consumption of alcohol in addition to the illicit drug.
He said it was possible to have a fatal OD from these drugs without alcohol but it doesn’t happen often because most of the users he knew were careful to titrate properly.
I know I can’t even handle a cannabis/alcohol combo…generally too powerful for me.
No Primus. Heroin is just a metaphor for morphine. Morphine doesn’t stop people breathing. It has the ability to slow it, but as far as stopping breathing, well no. I have never seen evidence that it can. I have only seen evidence that “heroin overdose” is a very successful LIE. If morphine was capable of stopping breathing for long enough, it would be be an effective suicide drug. The fact is that it is NOT an effective suicide drug. Anyway the complete story is in my presentation on you tube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kqw64lOWy1c. Just a pedantic point, if someone did “overdose” (and I use the term to describe a non-fatal event) on heroin, it is not actually a “heroin” overdose, it would actually be a morphine overdose. The physiological effects would be from heroin’s primary active metabolite, morphine. Matt.
Jean, lets actually see the toxicology and autopsy reports for Shipmans cases. Lets actually get to the bottom of what happened here. As with supposed fatal “heroin overdose”, just because some coroners, the police or the press say this is what happened does not mean that it actually did. Matt.
Since I discovered that cannabis/alcohol causes the back of my head to touch the floor, I have cut way back on my alcohol consumption. Don’t seem to miss it.