as someone who has been around since the 60's, i have seen the effects of drugs. that is why i stayed away from them.

about 25 years ago, the drummer from my band passed away. when i went to the funeral, i talked to his parents, who i hadn't seen in almost 15 years. apparently he had a major drug problem for a few years, then got sober. when his baby died suddenly, and his wife died a year later from a heart problem, he went back to drugs and alcohol for comfort. he was gone shortly after

another friend lost everything he worked for due to drugs. people he let live at his house took his stuff, sold it for drugs, and told hin somebody broke in. he still does drugs.

stay away- that's why they call it "dope."

On a seperate but related point. Just this minute on the news where I am it has been reported that the fourth person this year in the UK has died from using heroin infected with anthrax. Many more cases over a longer period.

Someone tell me: how does anthrax get into heroin? Is it put there deliberately by people cutting the drug with other things? If so, why - what does a supplier get from killing the customers?

I've had certain experiences - but not that one, thankfully. So someone who knows more, educate me please...

Cheers - C

there is a guy who was in the hospital for smoking spice, similar situation to yours. i believe the pouch has a do not consume warning of some sorts on it.

Somebody sick of our narcotic reliant society with a few quid to spare maybe?

Quite easy to do. Buy a shipment, cut it with poison of choice, sell it.

All you lose is the cost of the anthrax, which would no doubt be made up by the perceived increase in heroin. Sell it at street price and you'll more than double your money. Sell it to some would be plastic gangster, make your money back and be out the picture.
Heroin kills at what 80% purity? Better just to put pure stuff out if thats your game.

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No no and no

But honestly, that's it, is it? It's deliberate murder going on? Streuth...

There's pros and cons to Morrison's beer selection. But I have little fear they're trying to kill me with anthrax. Not on purpose, anyhow...

Cheers - C

Probably impurities picked up at manufacture. Often cut with aspirin, Vitamin B, or malaria med. even sugar.

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The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

Thomas Jefferson

I dunno mate, how easy is anthrax to get hold of?

Seems intentional to me and to be honest I'm not entirely unhappy about it. Or it could just be a byproduct of our recent political wrangling. Some goon saying we should legalise all drugs to reduce crime. (how absolutely out of sync with reality is that idea?)

There's quite a high number of heroin abusers where I live, atleast 10% of the road I live on. I fully understand why someone would want to bump em off. Theres no coming back from that world, no matter what anyone tells you.

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No no and no

I feel very naïve and innocent.

And I think perhaps I like it that way...

Cheers - C

well i read up on it, and though it is a cheap fake weed, it can have disastrous effects. most of the time it will give you a little buzz i guess, but there have been multiple cases like mine where the user's heart rate jacks and they begin throwing up. and as for the trippy effects and passing out, i had been smoking weed for hours beforehand. and i was taking some pretty big hits. when i hit the spice i also took as big a hit as i could (from a bong, remember) and shortly after that is when it happened. it being laced or dipped in anything is unlikely considering the location. (small town in southern IL). other big drugs besides weed don't find their way there often.

-Jake

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"I don't care how good you are, how fast you are. You ain't good enough no lessin' you got the soul." -Hubert Sumlin

good for you. keep it that way. the first time i ever did ANYTHING (including drinking) was around last november. i've only smoked weed a few times since then (maybe 7) and got drunk about three times. i guess i was just curious. i too have seen a very close friend go through a struggle with drugs, and i had helped him through his struggle. after seeing what he went through, i don't even know why i did drugs in the first place.

-Jake

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"I don't care how good you are, how fast you are. You ain't good enough no lessin' you got the soul." -Hubert Sumlin

Briefly scan reading a article in the Guardian, they are hinting at the chances of the infected heroin being contaminated at source, namely Afghanistan.
Could that be the real face of the terror war? No I don't think so. All the terrorists have to do is make sure enough of the stuff is imported to ensure our nations are bought to their knees.

What I find so indicitave of a murder plot is how localized the cases are. 19 addicts across Scotland, one in Blackpool, one in London and one in Aachen Germany.
It's obviously all from one delivery.
Now when these people, when they harvest, it's by the shed load. The likelyhood of one batch being contaminated at source is next to nil. They would have been dropping like flies the world over, if the drug were contaminated as part of a terrorist plot. In my very limited experience people who sell the stuff are very very careful about what the product is cut with.

I mean forget buying a bad guitar then moaning about it on the internet. It's nothing to wiping out 20 people with anthrax contaminated heroin. No one would ever buy from you again.

The Guardian goes on to say that the only other case was in Norway in 2000. If heroin were prone to such contamintation why have their not been more cases? Why aren't cocaine or speed users getting infected? Cocaine is cut far more than any other substance, simply because of how much it costs. Both Cocaine and speed have a delivery system that is guaranteed to infect, inhaling. With over half the users of heroin smoking the stuff and not injecting, you would only target the hardcore addicts, the skinpoppers, the ones more likely to mug and thieve to feed their habbit.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/feb/10/anthrax-heroin-kills-drug-user

I should work for Scotland Yard. I would if I didn't have a police record.
It's Roxanne, on 7".

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No no and no

if it isnt natural dont smoke it

_________________
Favorite bands:

Melvins
The Jesus Lizard
Cows
Big Business
R***man
Minutemen
Flight
Minor Threat
Big Black
Shellac
Karp
Scratch Acid
Wipers
Pixies

Perhaps you could catch the bad guys with a sting?

Cheers - C

PS Your logic sounds entirely reasonable to me. Which already puts you ahead of half the police I've ever met...

Afghanistan was the first thing that popped to mind, also been a few drug related stories in some army barracks not long ago ???
The thing with drugs is people say it's a way of making them more aware of their surrounding or whatever , most junkies I've come accross seem to be completly the opposite, encased in their own tiny brains.
Kids, don't do drugs, it's not big or glamorous, hear endeth the public health announcement

Oohh the joys of drug dependency. Now I'm not preacher and I'm not about to tell people what to do, I enjoyed drugs for a while before spiralling out of control and I won't lie, many many fun times were had. But it caught up on me.

So here is my drug tale

At first I had it under control, would regularly go on a night out drop a couple of pills and have an awesome time, wake up next day feeling much better than a hangover from having a skinful and everything was rosy. It was pretty stable here for about 18 months probably, smoking joints, drop a few pills and go out for a good dance, life was good. Then I got into coke and oxies from a couple of friends, unlike the pills these things really gave me some cravings and I was blowing far too much money and starting to become some moody psycho during the day when I couldn't get any, work was suffering and my performance on a snowboard was suffering. However this time when it happened I caught myself before it was too late and pulled myself out of that world. Ditched my girlfriend at the time who was encouraging it and distanced myself from those friends.

I spent after that probably 9 months clean, couple of joints but no hard drugs, but the cravings never quite left. Then I took a nasty fall and the doctor wanted to prescribe me Percoset and Codeine for the pain. I told him firmly that I did not want these but was too embarrassed to tell the doctor why I didn't want them (mistake number 1), so he said well I will write you the script and if you feel like you need them you can go get them.

Obviously with that in hand there was only one thing I was gonna do.

Long and short of that is it spiralled into horrendous drug usage. Not much more needs to be said about that.

The first wake up call was when I made the mistake of triple dropping pills and then double dropped an hour later, pulse rate through the roof shaking on the couch thinking that was it for me, literally the one thing that kept me focused on staying alive was listening to R.E.M. on my ipod (always comforted me as a kid so in that desperation I fell back on it), and there was a yellow mug on the table with a smiley face on it, I believed if I kept focused on the smiley face I wasn't gonna die. Rinse and repeat for 4 hours, that 4 hours felt like 4 weeks.

You'd have thought that would be enough for me, but no I was that far in and the following event when I thought about it at the time felt totally rational.

We threw a MASSIVE party, I had months of rent money in my pocket. I spent it all that night. I topped out at 15 pills, 2g of MDMA and 6g of coke that night. Then I had to teach a snowboard lesson at 8:30 in the morning (I am still so ashamed of the state I turned up to work in, considering I was meant to be the responsible guide and teacher ) To dull the fact that I was still clearly high as a kite and a complete disgrace I figured hey, why not take 5 percoset to calm me down. I spent the lesson in my own dreamworld trying to stay focuses of teaching a somewhat reasonable lesson. I somehow managed but felt so guilty when I came round. I finished the lesson and passed out in the locker room for hours, missed the rest of work and my amazing friends covered my sorry $@! for it.

Having blown all my money I of course got evicted from my housing. So here I was, 5000 miles from the family home, no flight home for 4 months and no money. Oh and a raging drug craving that hammered me everyday.

This was the moment where my true friends showed themselves to be incredible people. After months, even years of shunning them and bailing on them to chase drugs I went back to them cap in hand and ashamed, explaining the situation. I couldn't believe how supportive they were, they opened their house up to me and gave me the couch to live on for 4 months, rent free, and sat with me through my wild mood swings and general being a douchebag. Until the point where I finally came back to normality and began to feel somewhat normal again. Those guys fully accepted me right back into the group and gave me such a safe place to sort my life out. I can never thank them enough.

I left Canada this May and I still didn't have much money to pay the guys back rent they let me have for free, but I did have enough to buy them a bitchin BBQ for their porch so they can BBQ all summer. I know they were stoked and it compares nothing with what they did for me, but I just hoped it would show them my appreciation, and I think they got it

I was also lucky enough to run into the poor lady I gave that shocking snowboard lesson to that morning later in the season. I gave her my heartfelt apologies and took 3 days off work to give her 3 full days of snowboard teaching, the least I could do for her. Even then she had the heart to give me a tip for my time which I obviously felt like I did not deserve, so I took her and her family out for a meal, I just hate taking money I don't deserve!

So as it stands I've learnt a bunch and been clean for just over 6 months, even been to gigs where dealers have been roaming the crowds and been able to straight up turn them down, stoked about that! I enrolled in school for september and feel like finally I'm on the right track.

To top it off, I've been working 6 days a week minimum and what I don't pay in housekeeping or things I need I put in my drawers as a temptation, sounds ridiculous but having it sat there and being able to say no I'm not gonna spend it on coke is very satisfying. Plus I have plans for the money. It's being saved for a special treat. I'm halfway there towards the beautiful 57' reissue strat, in surf green. A beautiful guitar which will represent to me what great things I can keep in my life if I keep off the damn drugs and work hard! I still get terrible cravings but the thought of that guitar and the amazing music I am going to create with it represents everything I know I should be striving for.

I don't want to be that $@!&#*% I used to be again


Well there we go, thats the Snowjoe opens the book on his destructive recent life. Thanks for hearing me out and allowing me to bore you guys with this post