classification of harm

"The exclusion of alcohol and tobacco from the Misuse of Drugs Act is, from a scientific perspective, arbitrary," write Nutt and his colleagues in The Lancet.
from: washington post

a study, published in the Lancet (a very respected medical journal out of UK - ie its not the national enquirer!) proposes to replace the ancient and ridiculous (and quite class-driven, really) existing classification of 'harmful' substances with one that has scientific backing. interesting, huh? essentially, the researchers designed a ranking of drug harmfulness (20 drugs, such as heroin, cocaine, etc) based on input from psychiatric, medical, legal experts. researchers considered three dimensions of drug harmfulness:

1. the physical harm to the user
2. the drug's potential for addiction
   
3. the impact on society of drug use.

the results?

heroin and cocaine came in 1st and 2nd, respectively. following this - barbituates and street methadone. then alcohol (coming in 5th). tobacco came in 9th on the most harmful list. cannabis? 11th. somewhere near the bottom (not specified in the article) - ecstacy.

just an FYI sorta post.

**a note about cocaine and heroin. ok. i put my 'former nurse's hat' on for this one - bear with me. personally, i think cocaine should be listed as the most dangerous drug. i think the experts have underestimated its harmfulness in society and to the health of users, who likely underreport. lemme demonstrate why with a little parable.

PART 1. dude does heroin. dude ODs. dude stops breathing. dude's heart stops. dude gets revived by paramedics with oxygen and stimulant drugs - ie narcan to reverse the opiate and then others stimulants, if needed to restart the heart.

PART 2. dude does cocaine. dude ODs. dude's heart stops. dude dies. nothing will revive dude, since the cocaine has overstimulated his heart to death, and stimulants are what we use to revive asystole (ie non beating) hearts. meaning - the heart that has stopped d/t cocaine use cannot be restarted. we did not just have a power failure here. we are talking the circuitry is fried. and cannot regenerate itself. read: THE END.

so .... NOW do you get why cocaine is soooo dangerous? lol. like you knew, intuitively before. but - seriously, its more deadly that most realize. (pssst - this here's one of the few little useful facts i have retained in my brain cells from taking that $400 TNCC course a couple years ago!) **

i will have this weekend to visit blogs that i have missed visiting this past week.
see ya soon!

psssst - i have a wet mangey little pigeon friend. her pics are posted in the montage blog. take a look. i write a more detailed story maybe tonight or tomorrow.

it all starts today

i am going to quit smoking weed. i've decided. i thought about it. about the fact that it costs so fricken much $. money that i could apply in so many better ways. i thought about it. like ... with the $ i would save from 4 weeks of going without weed, i could treat myself to a weekend of solitude in the mountains. when i think on this scale, it occurs to me just what i am giving up to stay high. its ridiculous. i notice i don't really wanna smoke when i blog, do blog hacs, design and/or tweak templates, and work on my digital art. so ... i guess i need to get more expressive and less stoned.

i went to the market to get some groceries with a $10 bill. i got a nice assortment of stuff. call me crazy, but there is nothin' like some black beans on top of good ole maci-cheese ... all topped of with piquante salsa sauce. and so i feasted. i am so hungry - have not eaten well these past few days. and it seems, today my body demands recompense! and so ... what can i do, but bow down? i have learned, by now - one must listen to one's own body. and one must stop ... long enough, to hear the the message.

i cannot believe how far a $10 can go, if you don't buy drugs. a simple statement ... but you must understand - a monumental one for an addict. and so ... this merely reinforces my decision to stop. or more accurately - re-priorize. its not so much about whether or not i smoke weed. its about setting accurate life priorities. and maximizing my potential.

i emerged from the underground tunnel mall that makes me feel like a prairie dog, popping out from a hole in the ground. as i began my ascent, i imagined that the furious collective sigh i heard emanated from the ocean. and i imagined myself not walking up a concrete staircase, but along the shore of a restless sea. i imagined that the splashes which emanated from the shiny metal boxes zooming north on seymour street were, in fact, the splashes of the tide slapping the shore. i imagined ....

and all the while - my heart longed.

a smoky-silver velvet blanket
still cocoons
my immediate exterior world.
i still feel like
a magenta dot
in a sea of monotone murk.

i will NOT snort COCAINE again!

days of agony
hath i suffered
at the hands of
my decision
to insufflate
... the white stuff ...
... and ....?
for what?
for about 3 hours
of a buzz
a mostly
painful
buzz -
that scorching sensation
of the nasal mucosa;
that irritating
and obstructive
nasal congestion;
BREATHING -
suddenly a challenge.
its just not cool to
have conscious awareness
one's own breathing.
and then, there's
the lingering fever -
on again, off again;
fever brain makes one sooo
restless, unfocussed,
unable to cognate, really.
and the agony -
its still not passed -
well not entirely.
it lingers -
in my gut, now.
and my nose -
still feeling allergic
and mildly congested.
the fatigue -
its fading
slowly.
the sneezes
that feel like
they may accompany
some vomit
still linger,
tho they are
fading, too.
but never
the lesson
i have learned.
once again,
i have learned
the hard way.
i do not
plan
on ever
touching
this stuff
again.

just another saturday

the street urchin got his face kicked in, it seemed, by some thugs, for a rip off. i'm guessed its something like this which lead to the beating in the park. if anyone saw, no one remembers or saw a thing. and the asshole whole called 911 clearly did not see a fucking thing. and clearly does not live in the neighbourhood. or he would have known better.

the pigs came into the building. they questioned linus, the guy that guards the front desk. the pigs asked linus if he saw anything. he said he 'knew nothing about nothing' ... that's what everyone said to the pigs when they asked, i think. the pigs went upstairs to knock on some doors - maybe someone saw something. nope. hmmmm - wouldn't you know it? no one's answering. the pigs left.

but they hung around the neighbourhood for hours, i suppose. coz when i left for work they had the whole fucking park yellow-taped off. all because some street urchin got a bleeding face from some beating he sustained when he was fucking already high and strung out on some crack or crystal meth or whatever shit he was frying in his pipe.

all that fuss over a street urchin who likely ripped of his thug dealers, somehow. y'know those street urchins would sell their mothers to get high? truly they would, without a thought, or even a pang of guilt. this .... desperate and degrading behaviour, courtesy of drug prohibition. any junkie knows that restricting the supply of the addictive substance does NOTHING to reduce deviant addictive behaviour. in fact, it just provokes deviance.

when someone has you in a stranglehold, and you cannot breathe, do you suddenly try to find ways to survive with less oxygen? NOPE. you kick and gouge and flail and fight to the death to get that airway back. and so it is here. junkie must survive. drug = survival. survival means @ all cost. the end.

life's like that.

get your umbrella outta my face!

urgh. yeah. its raining. like ... a rain forest sorta rain. woah. and well, some people need to learn umbrella ettiquite in this town! oh well, not to sweat the small stuff, right? its all good.

um, yeah. it is, now that i find this place. wooweee. kewl. its like a neat little den - like a vapor den. remember watching sherlock holmes and seeing watson find him in an opium den? it looks all cosy like that in here. and this device called a volcano, made in germany, wow ...! its way cool! i DO love this town!

well, things change, but never the DTES (downtown eastside) of Vancouver. that famous corner of Hastings and Main exists here in this little section. and its vibrant ... colourful ... alive. oh yeah. at all times of the day and night pretty much. the Safe Injection Site looks like its aged more than its 3 years, lemme tell ya. yeah - well, junkies tend not to respect property very much. what's my first clue? well maybe its that huge board, covering what used to be a large, oh so large picture window. and ... you can look inside the place and see they had to begin constructing a new exit vestibule. hmmm ... i wonder if the feds still think that's a worthwhile venture? well, i suppose vancouver officials hope to keep this place open til the olympics are done. can't have the olympic public seeing the open drug trade, and etc here in vancouver, now can we?
well, those street junkies are sure wily. yeah - every day they have this huge sort of flea market, right on the side walk outside 25 E. Hastings. just the street dudes and what they have managed to find-steal-whatever. you know what they say - one man's trash, another man's treasure! enterprising, to say the least. well, its necessity being the motherhood of invention, ain't it?

yeah. coz its not like anyone else other than themselves is gonna look after things, is it? that's sort of the impression one gets, walking west on hastings, toward cambie st. yes, when you are walking in what most of the world classifies 'a great place to live' and you see a RAT on the sidewalk, you wonder. you wonder, just what the fuck is going on. and then it occurs to you - its a great place to live, only for certain individuals. yes yes. junkies live the results of their own choices, for sure. but ... compassion? or do we have criteria for that, too? and when when when will we LEARN. THE WAR ON DRUGS IS NOT WORKING!!! when? soon, i hope.


umbrella photo originally uploaded by louru

addiction - part 1

ADDICTED
- defined - physically and mentally dependent on particular substance, and unable to stop taking it without adverse effects; enthusiastically devoted to a particular thing or activity.

- word origin - from an obsolete adjective/adverb, meaning bound or devoted; slaves given to roman soldiers to reward them for performance in battle were known as addicts. eventually, a person who was a slave to anything became known as an addict.

do a google search on the word "addicted" and the hits returned by the search engine include 'are you addicted to the internet,' the wikipedia addicted and drug addict entries , and a smattering of links providing the lyrics to a song of the same title.

the song reads like a lament of an addict. the song speaks to an entity that holds all the power, and entity from which one runs, but can never escape. the song speaks of the feeling of being unable to breath without a fix ... of being unable to see anything else. the song speaks to feeling stuck, to feeling haunted, to feeling lost and overpowered. any addict will know - the song truly speaks of addiction.

does this sound like a choice a person would make? does an addict really choose this life? i'm inclined to think its definitely NOT an informed choice. informed choice: knowing what the choice entails, its consequences, and side effects. does an individual contemplate the choice to use drugs in this way? its unlikely. and, this adds another dimension to the state of being known as 'addicted.'

society, the mass media in particular, villifies drug addicts. casting them in a blame-the-victim light. it seems to appeal to our initial intuitive reaction. after all, no one held a gun to their head and forced them to take the drug. still, this view of addiction simplifes the issue. addiction simply cannot be distilled down to such naive simplicity.

ask any street urchin who became homeless and street bound because of an addiction. ask him if he feels his life has settled where he envisioned it would. ask him if he feels happiness and joy in his life. perhaps his answer will shock you. perhaps you will not believe your ears when you hear the addicted street urchin wish for death.

i worked as a nurse, at north america's first official supervised injection site for illicit drug users. hundreds of nurses applied. and the applicants got distilled to 8 finalists. of which i happened to be one. in accepting this job offer, i unknowingly entered a dark and foreign world. of drugs. of desperation. of marginal lives. i felt excited at being a part of something so revolutionary, so new. i had no idea. no idea at all.