[Clemencia53]

Saw another article in the NYTimes about the heroin problem in Vermont.

Seems like such a quiet clean cut sort of place. What could be the problem?

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/26/us...T.nav=top-news

[ABQConvict]

Even 'good neighborhoods' have an illegal drug culture, often at a higher rate than the ghetto, contrary to common belief, but I suggest the recent increase in heroin/opiate use has a more insidious origin:

Many people get addicted to prescription painkillers which are chemically very similar to heroin. --->

Prescriptions run out and the addicted prescribee and/or their family members are cut off from the supply. --->

Heroin is widely available to take up the slack. --->

Heroin problem in your quiet, clean cut neighborhood.

[timberline742]

They're on the rise everywhere. Overdoses. That doesn't mean usage is increasing. Current batches have lots of fentanyl mixed in increasing the toxicity.

[cgregor]

Our attitude toward painkillers as a panacea is part of the problem.

A Canadian journalist who came down with an infection in Georgia related his prescription experience: an (unknown to him at the time) inadequate pediatric antibiotic, one-quarter the strength of what he needed and a supply of Percocet, with instructions to come back in a week. He reported that six days later an iron claw was attacking the back of his brain and could only be stopped by having another Percocet. His Canadian MD reviewed the scrips and said, "So they wanted to hook you into coming back?"

Another part is that nobody really paid attention until African-American entrepreneurs showed up in mostly-white Vermont towns. Prior to that, Springfield had a heroin problem nobody bothered with, except the public health nurse assigned to prevent a hepatitis epidemic by training the junkies how to clean their works. There were over 54 heroin users in the area, but none of them were criminals; it was reported they were all working two jobs to support their habit.

A third part is a lack of a future. Why shouldn't people who know they have nothing going for them just take the next best route-- escape from reality? We live on hope, and when it seems clear there is no hope-- except for scoring the next fix-- there's no reason not to shoot up and drop out.

[quickdraw]

this question is in every state forum

[Judder]

This comment from the NYT sums it up pretty good.

"To understand Vermont is to understand America. The Green Mountain State, like our country, is bifurcated. Behind the façade of craft breweries, homegrown espresso bars, knitting cooperatives and artisanal cheese shops created in large part by "flatlanders" as they are known, lives another, greater population who have seen their family farms and homesteads taken away from them by rising property taxes because so many move-ins who have created what looks to the outsider like an "authentic Vermont experience" but what is, in fact, a newer population's interpretation of the same.

As the more recently arrived Vermonters prosper, the rest of the state suffers. Windsor County, which used to produce well-made tools for all of America, has shuttered its tool shops in favor of manufactuers importing lesser quality tools from China. Main streets around the state have been raped by Walmart, Rite-Aid, Walgreens and CVS.

Farflung communities with deep talent in blue-collar work are forced to bus their children long distances to schools no longer connected to the immediate community. Men who used to work with their hands in skilled labor now compete to plow snow in the winter and mow the lawns of rich folks who have snapped up ridgeline, lakeside and riverfront properties that used to belong to everyone.

Forced to the periphery of their own state, once strong communities have an entrenched "us-against-them" mentality, where education and the American dream no longer play a role."

[quickdraw]

Originally Posted by Judder

This comment from the NYT sums it up pretty good.

"To understand Vermont is to understand America. The Green Mountain State, like our country, is bifurcated. Behind the façade of craft breweries, homegrown espresso bars, knitting cooperatives and artisanal cheese shops created in large part by "flatlanders" as they are known, lives another, greater population who have seen their family farms and homesteads taken away from them by rising property taxes because so many move-ins who have created what looks to the outsider like an "authentic Vermont experience" but what is, in fact, a newer population's interpretation of the same.

As the more recently arrived Vermonters prosper, the rest of the state suffers. Windsor County, which used to produce well-made tools for all of America, has shuttered its tool shops in favor of manufactuers importing lesser quality tools from China. Main streets around the state have been raped by Walmart, Rite-Aid, Walgreens and CVS.

Farflung communities with deep talent in blue-collar work are forced to bus their children long distances to schools no longer connected to the immediate community. Men who used to work with their hands in skilled labor now compete to plow snow in the winter and mow the lawns of rich folks who have snapped up ridgeline, lakeside and riverfront properties that used to belong to everyone.

Forced to the periphery of their own state, once strong communities have an entrenched "us-against-them" mentality, where education and the American dream no longer play a role."

agree with some of this, rich folks from elsewhere are driving up the prices of everything in VT.

but the loss of blue collar jobs is a global problem. if you paid americans a decent wage to make something, american consumers would opt for the cheaper asian stuff and the american companies would go out of business. american workers want wages for homes while asians are satisfied with wage to live in apartments with three generations of family. we can't compete with that. blame the american consumers, not the american manufacturers.

if it makes you feel any better, the box stores you hate will soon be put out of business by amazon, which is a little like the old sears mail order catalog.

[cgregor]

There are solutions to the realities you describe, Quickdraw.

One is the reimposition of tariffs and quotas, the systems used to industrialize America, much against the interests and preferences of the 90% of Americans who were in agriculture at the time-- they had to pay more for foreign manufactures because of the artificially higher prices or because of the limited quantity (which drove up the price), so their forced purchase of American products enabled fledgling American companies to survive, thrive and innovate to the point where American quality was the world standard.

The other is to cheapen the dollar, which would make foreign manufactures more expensive than domestic ones and make domestic manufacture more profitable.

However, as Wall Street is against either of these, neither is going to happen.

[ABQConvict]

Damn flatlanders with their artisanal cheese shops and Chinese hammers! What choice do I have but to buy some heroin from an African-American entrepreneur!

Seriously, I agree that outside influences, foreign and domestic have had a negative influence on Vermont, but the connection to heroin is a tenuous one.

[cgregor]

Not quite that tenuous; it's a matter of connecting the dots.

Most industrial world males identify most strongly with the activity by which they produce their income. Income for us men is the benchmark of social and economic status-- threaten to take away a man's house, car or wife, and he'll be upset, but not as devastated as he would be when you take away his job.

Heroin use has a lot to do with a man's feeling about his worth. If he's got a job which pays well (but not too much; view "The Wolf of Wall Street" to see what excess earnings will do to a guy; and as Richard Pryor famously once said, "Cocaine is God's way of telling you you make too much money") and which he finds rewarding in terms of status and identifiable potency, he's very unlikely to seek to escape from what he sees as a dead end in life by using heroin.

Tariffs, quotas and a cheapening of the dollar are three ways of generating employment for men; another is public works projects which has given us innumerable TV ads starring construction men selling cigarettes.

So, they do have a bearing on heroin use in Vermont.