From today’s Irish Times comes the story of a former heroin addict called ‘Dave’ who, due to the dispute between the HSE and the pharmacies, is having a hard time getting his methadone.
The recovering heroin addict, who has been clean for more than 15 years, was queuing outside the emergency clinic at Dr Stevens Hospital last evening.
Erm … can you really be called ‘clean’ if you’ve just swapped one drug for another? They go on to say:
Dave, who appeared to be in his late 30s and wore a black bomber jacket, slacks and sunglasses, said this was the first time he had had to queue on the street for his methadone in more than 10 years.
So we can assume that since giving up heroin 15 years ago he’s been taking methadone ever since. And that’s at the expense of the taxpayer.
Does he get methadone forever? And isn’t a system which takes drug addicts and makes them better by making them addicted to another drug fundamentally flawed?
I can understand using methadone to wean people off heroin but surely the state has no responsibility to do any more than that. I know heroin is addictive but the responsibility for that addiction lies with the person who took the drugs. They shouldn’t be provided with drugs by the government forever and ever, nor do they have any right to expect that kind of treatment.
If a smoker insisted that the HSE provide them with nicotine patches every day for the rest of their lives after giving up smoking they’d be told to fuck off and the public would not accept its money being used in such a way. So what makes heroin addicts special?
By all means help them but surely there has to come a time when they’re expected to kick all drugs, methadone included.
Methadone is a really poor substitute for Heroine,its also expensive,In fact the Govt would actually save money if they switched to giving addicts Pharamcutical Heroin.. but thats besides the point.
I think they should pull the plug on the Methadone program for a week,just for a laugh.The sight of 20,000 ex-smack heads (alot of whome probably have moved up in life and have jobs etc) scratching themselves into a sweaty frenzy on the Luas would be hilarious!
i guess it’s the lesser of 2 evils. give them methadone so they’re not out robbing and committing crime to pay for heroin.
no doubt there’s a mathematical formula where they work out how much career junkie criminals cause the state in crime, damage to property, garda man hours, court hours, housing them in prison etc etc and figure giving them methadone forever will work out cheaper, im sure there isnt anything more to it than that.
take him off heroin and see what happens…
I’ve just given up the ciggies and would fucking love if the Govt gave me free nicotine patches for life – they’re fucking expensive!
i guess it’s the lesser of 2 evils. give them methadone so they’re not out robbing and committing crime to pay for heroin.
Yeah, but surely giving them methadone just enables them, why would they ever give up if they’re getting free junk?
I reckon a lot of this dependency is psychosomatic.
Swap the methadone for Jelly Tots and see if anyone notices.
“Yeah, but surely giving them methadone just enables them, why would they ever give up if they’re getting free junk?”
i guess it’s the admission that the state can offer nothing in the line of help to get junkies clean. i imagine they’ve done reports and realised giving them methadone is the cheapest/easiest/quietest way to deal with the problem becuase if they ignore it, it’ll be all our problems.
Yeah, but we shouldn’t have to pay for people who are just too weak-willed to give up properly.
Lung – heh
So our Grannies have to take to the streets to get their medical card entitlements. The challenged kiddies lose their Special Needs teachers. The lawn at Dail Eireann gets a E230,000 landscaping and the junkies complain that they have to take the bus and stand in a queue for a free dope hand-out.
Looks like business as usual in the Rohypnol Republic.
“no doubt there’s a mathematical formula where they work out how much career junkie criminals cause the state in crime, damage to property, garda man hours, court hours, housing them in prison etc etc and figure giving them methadone forever will work out cheaper, im sure there isnt anything more to it than that.”
I fell off my chair laughing at that one…giving them way too much credit there.
I know someone who doles out the methadone and many of them seem to sell the stuff on.
Seems Maggot take the bus down from the ‘civilised six’ every week then!
From wiki…..
(Methadone Maintenance Treatment) reduces and/or eliminates the use of heroin, and criminality associated with heroin use, and allows patients to improve their health and social productivity. In addition, enrollment in methadone maintenance has the potential to reduce the transmission of infectious diseases associated with heroin injection, such as hepatitis and HIV
Quite interesting…..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methadone
I know people on Methadone, and every single one of them sells it on.
It becomes a lifestyle. They trade in pills of any description. They forge prescriptions. Everything they do is drug-related.
Total scumbags for life, assisted by the state.
The question is who produces and supplys it to the HSE and who are they friends with….its just another racket waiting to be exposed…but junkies are just “sick” the poor loves
Can you imagine what Ireland would be like if the Government actually did use taxpayers’ money to pay for nicotine patches, so as to stop people from smoking. Instead of fag butts on the ground and clogging up bins, it’d be patches. The streets of Dublin would look like some huge blistered creature, with all those little pads stuck to it, and getting stuck to the bottom of your shoes too. You’d take a girl home after a night out, and as you’re having fun in the bedroom, you’re hand would rub her arm and find a patch there, instead of you having to tolerate smoker’s breath and her having to hang her head out your bedroom window after sex to have a smoke. It’d be bizzare.
Legalise it all, regulate it and tax it.
I can see a case for hash/grass but not for the really heavy stuff.
Governments should provide Heroin. It would save a fortune – directly and indirectly in respect of crime and in reduced social and health problems.
That time of the month Gluestain? I’m a Northern Prod – thank God – why on earth would I want to travel to a banána republic ? Last time some of my friends went slumming the natives got ugly.
‘Denise Smith, said she usually got her methadone from a chemist in Camden Street.
“On Friday the chemist told us to come back on Saturday and when I went back there was a notice on the door saying they were closed. They never rang or anything to tell us.”
She was one of about three who said they had had to buy heroin over the weekend as they could not access methadone.
“I don’t want to go back to using but I had to get something. I was in bits sick’
It seems as though the cravings for heroin never disappear no matter how long you have been selling, sorry, taking methadone.
Lock them up with a stack of magazines, orange juice and 3 buckets, a la Renton. Cold turkey, its yer only man.
They should give them methadone for 6 months, then tell them to go fuck themselves.
If they go back on the junk they should be given a complimentary heroin overdose, administered by Mary Harney wearing a French maid’s outfit.
What have you been told? No mention of Mary Harney and any of the following phrases in the same sentence: french maids outfit, minge, ride, sex, gobble, eat, horny, cleavage, naked.
I nearly lost my breakfast…
It’s only fair that they go out in sheer terror that one of her semi-deflated beachball funbags might pop out over the top.
That really is a visceral image
“I know people on Methadone, and every single one of them sells it on.”
Who buys it, then?
Methadone is used to wean junkies off heroin, what is there to wean them off Methadone? & if there is a product / substance are thes fuckers encouraged / forced to take it.
The fuckers on Methadone should be forced to take blood tests on a regular basis to ensure they are taking it & not selling it on to pay for Heroin.
Methadone should be a stepping stone to getting clean & not a permanent solution to addiction, we have no money left to pay for addiction centres and proper treatment as NAMA and the builder & banker buddies of FF have to be prioritised.
SG: Who buys it, then?
They work like a little self-contained community. Most of the time it’s bartering for something else, anything else, whatever’s going around at the time, so perhaps I shouldn’t have used the word ‘selling’.
Valium, Painkillers and even Viagra do the rounds regularly.
Mercifully, I have nothing to do with any of them anymore, but it was an eye-opener.
Does Methadone give them the seem effect as Heroin. Does it have any negative health effects?
15 years on it is fucking crazy
Ever noticed the amount of Solapdeine in pharmacies? Loads and loads of it stacked up. People are addicted to it and the pharmacists know it. They make a fortune from it.
Yeah..its cool isnt it *plink,plink..fffzzzzzz*
I’m not addicted to it but it is the ultimate hangover cure
Fucking hell, two weeks off and this has turned into the Daily Mail. Twenty, when did you become “angry from killiney”.
I wasn’t angry – I just find it staggering that just because you used to be a heroin addict the rest of us have to pay for free drugs for you for the rest of your life.
Not you personally. Although probably, you Trainspotting Scotch cunny.
because you used to be a heroin addict the rest of us have to pay for free drugs for you for the rest of your life.
Cheaper in the long run Twenty.
Dear Maggot – I have to apologise to you. All along I thought you were joking about your background/circumstances in life. Now I realise my error. I deeply regret engaging in bantering with someone who is so deprived materially, deficient mentally and – above all – disadvantaged geographically. You suffer enough without the rest of us making fun of you, though I really admire those here who humour your delusions of wit and intelligence.
Shoot the cunts!! That would be a lot cheaper!….Oh but theres so many fuckers to kill, junkies, alcho drivers, pols, priests, bankers, developers, crims, paedophiles, rapists, wifebeaters etc etc, I`m presently unemployed, what a great fuckin` job. I`d take my time while being incredibly productive, just send them in.
Dear Sir/Madame
In response to your advertisement in the Evening Herald I very much enjoy executing social reprobates as I believe them to be a stain on the very beliefs on which our wonderful country is built and I very much believe that this can only be productively done on a commision basis as your advertisement stated and I look forward to a chance to discuss this further in interview.
Yours Sincerely blah blah blah
Surely to God there must be an empty IDA factory somewhere where the Government could take a couple of Industrial chemists off the dole queue, plonk them in said factory and start making their own metadone, cut out the middlemen.
It would be a cottage industry in it’s purest form.
I know there’d have to be committees, and sub-committees and sub-sub-committees and advisory committees and sub-advisory committees, and talks and discussions and red tape to be cut, and a few scoops in the Dáil bar,and after a recess there’d be more talks and it could go on the order of business again and then maybe a feasability study or two and …….it’s not beyond the realms of possibility.
You make more sense in Caps Gluey !
Referring to an earlier post – we could just stick them all on Spike Island with a pile of buckets and several hundred gallons of ice cream. Kill two birds with one stone.
..oh and my idea to make a reality show out of it still stands.