It looks like they really don’t understand what they have, but anything that could be considered an “immediate precursor” is also counted as a controlled substance in OK. I think he’ll be fine with a good lawyer.
They work tirelessly to combat the proliferation of dangerous drugs such as DMT, fentanyl, and methamphetamine in our community.
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Now, here is where things get really weird
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0028390811002164
“BTMPS treatment during the self-administration phase resulted in up to a 34% reduction of lever responses to morphine when compared to vehicle treated control animals, as well as a 32% reduction in the dose of morphine self-administered. When given during self-administration and acute withdrawal, BTMPS treatment decreased acute withdrawal symptoms (up to 64%) of morphine use and reduced (up to 45%) drug seeking responses after six weeks of protracted withdrawal compared to control animals.”
Anyone care to make a hypothesis as to why someone at a high level is trying to put the fentanyl trade out of business?
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very interesting… the person that invented propionanilide did so for an alternative to diacetylmorphne so maybe its a morality thing from somebody that has the means, education and the clout. I can only speculate whether theyre a glowie or traditionally affiliated.
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UCLA assistant professor Chelsea Shover added that the team had found BTMPS for sale on online platforms like Amazon and Alibaba with similar wording to what Chinese chemical companies had used in the past to market to fentanyl producers, with sellers touting their “experience getting through Mexican customs.”
I’m thinking maybe someone is/was selling a fent precursor under the name / CAS# of BTMPS and then the cartel buyer got bait’n’switched with a huge batch of the actual stuff? Not really sure that would make it all the way to the street though. Pretty sure the cartels have addicts on the team to potency test.
That’s all Gabor Maté. His work pervades every facet of addiction treatment, and his idea that addiction is based in trauma is why junkies are required to go through therapy as part of their treatment programs.
A holocaust survivor. He’s a very nice white man*, and as a white man myself, I say that with all due disrespect. Gabor Maté is the living example of, “In theory there’s no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is.” He has the impeccable academic background with no experience in the reality.
Gambling and alcohol in particular often have no basis in trauma, and instead the habit grows into an addiction organically. One majory flaw with addiction studies is they’re all post-mortem, so to speak. You can’t ask a junkie why or how they became a junkie, they don’t fucking know.
I try to push people towards Carl Hart. I don’t agree with everything he believes, but holy shit is it a step up from Gabor Maté’s work.
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Carl Hart is frequently wrong though. He dismisses dangers of drug abuse if they disagree with his personal opinions on drug use. Personally, I believe if he survives his active opioid addiction, his opinions will change accordingly. I believe his bias stems from justification of his own use, but I digress.
E.g.
"Hart refuted Duterte’s claim that methamphetamine shrinks people’s brains and causes them to become violent. "
Except methamphetamine does cause gray matter loss
and increases violence
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Re: Maté and trauma, I’d argue that he has a solid chance of being correct. In Industrial Society and its Future, T.D. states
“Imagine a society that subjects people to conditions that make them terribly unhappy then gives them the drugs to take away their unhappiness. Science fiction It is already happening to some extent in our own society. Instead of removing the conditions that make people depressed modern society gives them antidepressant drugs. In effect antidepressants are a means of modifying an individual’s internal state in such a way as to enable him to tolerate social conditions that he would otherwise find intolerable.”
If you look at the top 15 drugs given in the USA, sertaline is #11.
I’d suggest that modern life is inherently traumatic
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I gamble because it is the only time I feel like I’m able to make my own decisions. Every other moment I feel like I’m reacting and being forced to participate in a society that is not good. Yeah I get some choices, white or wheat bread for example, but every meaningful decision seems pre-determined by my situation. Plus, it is the only place to escape the woke politically correct nonsense since nobody in the casino cares about that stuff.
Alcohol also has a pretty deep basis in trauma. People who consume on the weekend and binge drink are escaping the M-F 9-5 system that makes you feel like you are not in control instead feel alive/free and are doing all sorts of things they wouldn’t ever do without alcohol. Alcohol is also consumed by people to temporarily escape trauma.
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Bingo. Pretty much why I enjoy the shit out of Vegas. I rarely ever drink these days unless i’m sitting down at a table and playing some blackjack. It just reminds me of someone I lost who was very dear to me. We would play blackjack all night long when I was a kid with his spare change. Hell, the last time I saw him we went to a casino and got drunk together. It was a fucking blast. I’ve got 2 blackjack hands tattooed on me because of it.
Gambling-wise though, I play like a grandmother. I just enjoy the social/shit talk aspect of it and feeling like my uncle is still there with me just for a little while longer.
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Gambling and alcohol can 100% have a basis in trauma.
Gabor (like any other philosophy or idea) is a part of a broader picture. it’s a part of it, not the whole sum.
Addiction can be formed by simply hitting the “pleasure button,” so to speak.
Like, if you had a button in front of you, and every time you pressed it, it gave you pleasure, how much and how often would you hit it?
Some people might every now and again, and others might be mashing it all the time.
Some addiction is organically grown, but the facilitation of the need to feed it or the reasoning behind why someone has to use something is, for the most part, driven by trauma, or some lacking that person percieves in their mind, something they didnt get. People will seek anything that can change their emotional state, especially if not comforted by their baseline emotional state.
Most healthy normal people aren’t driven by addiction…
Some enjoy pleasure, but most can fit it into a box or don’t have an incessant need for it.
Trauma is the #1 reason for the vast majority of psychological ailments, if not driven by a physiological factor.
Gabor has a good point, and so does Carl Hart. I’m not sure why we were being mutually exclusive.
@lolwut 100% what I’ve been scratching at, and I agree about Carl Hart being dismissive about drug abuse, he has a bit too laxxed of an attitude that can be dangerous, but his holistic view is still very insightful.
Like I LOVE Hamilton Morris, but he also has very much so a chemists view on drugs, and kind of dismisses the human factors around them.
@Worcestershire_Farms the thing is, every time I’ve asked or worked with various addicts as to why, they could always describe (with borderline laser precision) exactly why they use. Some might blow you off and just say “they just like it” but that response is just that, a way to not have to explain it.
An otherwise well adjusted person would only hit the button as often as it didn’t negatively impact their life.
Personally, I don’t believe in the disease model of addiction as espoused by AA/NA, the bulk of the medical industry, or the courts. I believe the individual that habitually seeks dopamine short term at the expense of long term reward is simply a lack of maturity of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. This lack of maturity is either due to early exposure to dopamine dysregulation, or due to trauma.
This may be biased in my own personal experiences, however.
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I agree with your bias, though, as that’s been my observation and affliction as well.
The disease model was only implemented as legalese to get insurance companies to help cover and foot the bill for a lot of it.
If its not a disease, they can’t cover it, sadly…
I don’t buy the genetic or disease model either…
I firmly believe it’s developmental.
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I’m not a huge fan of the ‘disease’ model but I like to look at addiction in this way…
Us humans are not all born with the same operating system. It’s too easy for neurotypicals tend to assume their subjective experience of reality is consistent among the populace - that other humans have the experience. That they inherently experience life the same way.
It couldn’t be farther from the truth. If one is privileged to grow up with good genes, in a stable environment, around stable people… Genetically and environmentally there is an advantage, and in turn - the environment tends to be nurturing, calm and not chaotic - like there would be in an alcoholic/drug addicted household.
Think a rock solid unix platform (successful person) vs. Windows 95 blue screens of death (ADHD, clinical anxiety, depression, bi-polar, schizophenic etc.)
Normal brain, normal environment VS. Neurodivergence, self medication… chaos… in turn leading to trauma from an already more ‘sensitive’ individual. A lot can be generational.
Individuals vary in what was historically called neuroticism. Varying levels of background anxiety, depression, mood fluctuation etc. Highly neurotic folks are more tempted to self medicate for the relief of their psychological pain. This is especially true if the pain is constant or consistently brought to the forefront of consciousness through trauma.
There is an enormous genetic component to addiction. Children of alcoholics have elevated levels of ADHD and folks with ADHD tend to suffer from comorbid mood dyregulation. They thus seek out novel means of elevating dopamine. When properly medicated, seeking dopamine from inappropriate sources (excessive drugs/sex/violence) tend to not be a problem anymore.
Gabor is onto something in regards to trauma - but it is not the full picture.
It is very easy to instantly solve an apeshit ADHD child or adults’ problem by elevating dopamine via moderate dose of traditional stimulants (Methylphenidate or Amphetamine) or the new drugs out there.
All of a sudden they appear calm, focused with better executive function. It can be night and day.
But I think before medication is thrown at folks, they are best trying traditional means of reaching homeostasis…
Physical workout (strength + cardio)
Stable environment
Proper sleep hygiene
Meditation
Focused passion/purpose
My 2 cents.
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100% all of this.
I’ve made that argument plenty before considering the last bit you got onto there.
I think medication facilitated means of getting non-neurotypicals to meet baseline should absolutely be the very last resort.
If you can give them a level start, and a good environment, with regularity, predictability, is the best place to begin.
Food, and activity should be the first thing looked at.
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At the end of 2023, the quarterly death toll statewide was down 9% after rising nearly every quarter since 2019. While synthetic opioid fatalities are still rising in some parts of the state, the rate in King County has fallen since July 2023, when nearly four people died each day, on average, from overdoses involving fentanyl.
Caleb Banta-Green, a research professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine, said the change seems primarily due to so many Seattle-area fentanyl users having already died.
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Talk about killing your business.
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Long ago not when it would seem that the only interventions that seemed to be working included harm reduction strategies and community support. Time to keep going with the momentum in these two areas. Much appreciated for raising the awareness of this very important topic. Cheers!
Can’t have over doses if everyone is dead