If heroin were available legally and not stigmatized the way it is, then the stereotypical image of the streetwalking, haggard, dirty junkie wouldn’t exist. Heroin use itself, if engaged under proper conditions, is not nearly as dangerous. It’s everything that is peripheral to the sustaining and consequences of the heroin habit when heroin is illegal that is the main culprit.
Say what?
You caught me before I edited. I said “not nearly as dangerous”, which is certainly true. If addicts were able to get pharmaceutical quality heroin, that right there would alleviate a lot of the danger and unknown associated with street heroin. Also, if it were legal, people wouldn’t be forced into the shadows for fear of legal punishment. It would also prevent a lot of illicit behavior committed in order to secure a supply of drugs for the addict. I mean, of course it would still kill people. Just not as many. IMO.
Ambivalid, are you aware that I am a former heroin junkie? I’m not speculating, I am stating my personal experiences with the substance, and the experiences I personally witnessed.
In my actual experience, you have this completely backwards. The vast majority of heroin users are functional addicts or recreational users. The outliers are the ones who become non-functional. The non-functional addicts merely get a lot more public attention, because compared to the others they are not trying to hide their addiction. Unless you are actually selling H to the first group like I was, you will never know how big that group is.
I know multiple people who have maintained that dynamic for over a decade, so I don’t agree with that either. I will admit it’s not exactly common, but it does happen, and more than you would think.
This is the only part I’ll call out as flat-out Wrong. I never injected, and most of functional addicts I knew didn’t either, though some did. I actually find this part ironic as hell, as there is a definite stigma among the heroin users I know against those who inject. Even junkies want someone to look down on, and IV users seem to fill that niche in the circles I’ve traveled in.
How many heroin users do you personally know to create your assertion that “nothing but the smallest minority” can function in society? I’m not snarking here, I’m honestly curious.
Now this paragraph I can happily agree 100% with. The main thing I saw kill addicts was a sudden difference in the potency of their dope. Once your tolerance gets high enough, the difference between an effective dose and death gets very, very small. This would be much less of a problem if it was available legally and a consistent potency.
Almost missed this, caught on preview. H cost me 10 bucks for a dose, which is point one of a gram, or just a “point” for short. A dose lasts several hours, which makes H cheaper than beer for the buzz you get … at least in the beginning until tolerance starts to catch up with you.
Did you meet any women that you thought might be in a bad situation? Bruises or seemed upset?
FWIW I knew a couple working girls and they were supporting their kids. They lived three houses down and I helped out with minor repairs a few times. Became friends. I never asked about their work. It was none of my business. They didn’t work from their home. The traffic would have seemed very unusual in my neighborhood.
I didn’t see their situation as exploitive. Their work paid the rent and their kids were clean and nicely dressed. They were home much of the day and I thought they were great parents.
Flipping burgers at McDonald’s wouldn’t have paid the bills. Working, long hours, at 2 jobs for low pay and tips is more exploitive than their work. Imho
Btw, I was a friend. Not a customer.
I’m married and my wife knew both the ladies too. We babysat their kids a few evenings. (their regular sitter was unavailable). That’s when we learned about their work.
Didn’t bother us. They were very nice people and that’s what matters. Never saw any indication of drug use. One of them had an ex that wasn’t around. I think he lived in another state. The other one’s ex stopped by occasionally. He drove a truck for a local construction company.
I’m not going to continue hijacking this thread arguing with you but its suffice to say we’re arguing personal experience vs personal experience. I stand by my statements completely. I have known dozens of heroin addicts, whom I’ve known in various stages of addiction. Bar none, other than those who managed to get clean, they all ultimately ended up injecting. Some took longer tham others but they all ended up in the same place. Snorting/smoking ends up not doing the job as far as getting tjem high.
I’ve even snorted the stuff myself on a few occasions. While i never was addicted, my very light usage caused a tolerance that would have needed a regular escalation of dosage if i wanted to continue getting the same high.
Lets not muddy the waters by conflating abuse with addiction. Recreational users are not relevant to what we’re discussing.
One of these statements doesn’t look like the others.
Again, I’ll state that your story doesn’t make sense. You claim to have had (or have) a yearly income between $250,000 to $300,000. That’s between $20,000 to $25,000 per month.
You could have all of that expenses in one single month and unless you were really, really bad with finances, should have been able to cover it. Spread over even just three years, that’s nothing.
Our family income was previously in that range, and my individual income was good chunk of that. I was a functional alcoholic at the time and my drinking costs far exceeding your monthly average.
I’m wondering why you claim it was an addiction. I have friends who are self proclaimed sex addicts and your behavior just isn’t at the same level.
I may be wrong but monetary amounts don’t make something an addiction. There have been many very rich addicts.
Busted. :o I got drawn back in and ended up looking kinda foolish. It’s certainly not the first time. 
That’s not the point at all.
Yeah, I was wondering that too. Honestly, 25 women is an average month for some people I know. But I’m not sure if frequency or money spent is what makes an addiction.
OP, why do you consider yourself an addict?
I’m in Ireland, but it’s pretty typical throughout Europe (western Europe, at least) that most sex workers are migrants. Particularly since the 2004 accession of so many Eastern European countries. Of course some of these women are literally forced into it, but not most of them. They do it for better money than they could ever make otherwise. They don’t have to do it.
I have to ask, how did you figure out what they did?
I do believe that you have met dozens of addicts, and I also believe that all of those addicts ended up injecting. Heroin is both a hell of a drug. and a drug that will make your life hell.
However, unless you sold H, there are huge numbers of users that you have never met. When I was selling, I met hundreds of users. You would never think that some of these people are addicts, and they will never admit that they are either. They hide their addiction from everyone. (I recall one particularly memorable paranoid person who setup a dead drop system the CIA would have been proud of.) They work their jobs, they do all the “normal” things that people do, they just also get high on H on a regular basis. I was frankly shocked at how many there where when I started selling. In total, I’d ballpark this second group outnumbering the first by at least 2:1, if not more.
I never saw any girl with signs of physical abuse. I was with a couple that were on drugs at the time - one flat out told me and the other it was obvious but she denied it. Most girls were pretty normal. Now they were likely from the lower income neighborhoods but not the “hood”. One girl who I believe had a young kid flat out told me working at McDonalds doesn’t pay the bills.
I said early on, I wasn’t going to miss a few hundred bucks a month. Sure I could have spent more based on my income but I am cheap and wasn’t seeing high end escorts. Some months I saw 3 or 4 and then would go a few months with none.