oxide

>I could have died in my sleep.

The risk is real, but it's more geared toward recreational users.

Taking therapeutic doses of codeine (to which you become tolerant) along with whatever benzo that doctor gave you (ativan, xanax, clonazepam, whatever) also at therapeutic dosages doesn't present a huge risk of respiratory failure, IMO.

Harm reduction communities shout DO NOT MIX because if you don't, the teenagers asking these questions on Bluelight and Reddit will say one of each is safe, why not two of each? etc until they're dead. They're abusing the drugs, see. That's the difference.

If you weren't abusing them, you had little to no chance of dying in your sleep. At least not from 30-60mg codeine + 1mg of xanax.

Anyway, this class of drug can steal your soul. I speak from experience. Abuse of them only leads to one path, a path that involve seizures and mood swings.

This is the direct result of the "crackdown."

It only increases diversion to the black market by directly increasing demand. My own grandparents have had to buy pain pills in the past.

Doctors are terrified to prescribe painkillers to those in need lest they be prosecuted by laymen who think they know better. Pain is being under-treated now more than ever.

My ER has a massive info-poster in the lobby explaining why I won't be receiving dilaudid, fentanyl, or oxycodone.

Opiates are in the news every other day, either prescription abuse or fentanyl-laced heroin stories in local and national paper as well as cable news.

What good has it done? There will always be abusers.

Like DRM only hurting paying customers, stricter regulations and lawsuits against doctors ironically only end up hurting non-abusers.

Dependent folks, like my grandparents, who get a massive quality of life increase thanks to these drugs, especially considering the lifetime of abuse they've put their bodies through, and been through.

That's who ends up getting the shit end of the stick.

Not the junkie. Someone's Grandma. A vet.

This is why I am always polite when I have to deal with customer service, the guy at the drive-thru, anything like that.

The general public is (generally, heh) self-entitled and abusive, so a polite tone and a smile can go a long way.

A buddy of mine bought me a copy of the Steam version of Twilight Struggle. If you have a willing friend to play with, the PC digital version is just fine.

Matchmaking is there as well as async play, so you can get a game going with a stranger. but, it might take awhile.

I've played it (with a friend) about 30 hours so far, it really is a great game. After a few brutal losses I started to get the hang of it. There is depth, sacrifice and tough decision making. I'm definitely a fan of the game, now.

Speaking of which, I ought to go take my turn.

I know about as much as you:

I always thought of it as a massive success for the war effort, someone had to assemble the planes, after all. Rosie the Riveter ended up becoming an iconic piece of propaganda during the war, IIRC.

>The reason I'm not is that Windows 10 feels unfinished and buggy to me.

I agree, this is the reason I also haven't moved to Windows 10.

I figure by the time Windows 7 support is dropped in 2020, Windows 10 may be more polished.

>Maybe just to say that I'm sorry for my part in all of this bullshit.

I don't blame you. You were doing the job you swore you'd do, were paid to do, and likely ordered to do.

Thank you for sharing your story.

As an aside, I wonder what the history books will say about our time in 100 years or so. It's interesting to think that we are all a part, no matter how large or small, of history in the making. For better or worse.

Until ads went rogue and started serving me malware, I never had a problem with them.

After being served up a malicious pop-up that silently installed a bitcoin miner a few years ago, I started whitelisting javascript with a plugin, blocking ads, etc.

I haven't had a malware problem since I started doing this. I don't think it's a coincidence.

The most convenient solution I've found for my phone is using the Firefox app, which has extension support.

The title seems to suggest something nefarious, but it instead it ultimately amounts to a non-issue.

I run into this formula once a day it seems. Yesterday it was a pink tap water article.

it's just slang.

it is not an actual word that people use in conversation, but it is an abbreviation of vulnerability used as slang among certain circles.

Poor people can't get a personal loan in America. Maybe in 2006, but not in 2017.

Maybe from some kind of loanshark, but no bank is going to give someone a loan, especially if they don't have the means to make the payments, to go out and buy a new MacBook.

Well said.

I'm afraid I had to edit my comment, my point wasn't clear and I was bordering on rambling. I tend to get a little lippy first thing in the morning, but I'm glad someone caught the point regardless.

>It's the smartphone equivalent of getting chrome rims on your car wheels.

which people in poverty do all the time. even on shitty cars.

what is your point?

>The whole reason permanganate is added in the first place is twofold: it oxidizes simple organics all the way to carbon dioxide (think nail polish remover, denatured alcohol), and it oxidizes soluble ferrous iron to insoluble ferric iron. The byproduct of the oxidation, manganese dioxide, is insoluble and if balanced correctly the treatment does not increase manganese levels in the water.

Whenever I learn something like this, I always appreciate chemistry a little more. That is absolutely fascinating IMO.

The first thing that comes to mind is what the person who came up with the idea was doing at the time. Sometimes when we are intending to do one thing, we invent a solution to another problem, maybe one we didn't even know we had, along the way.

I think his point is the fact that /r/AskHistorians comments are usually sourced properly and are strictly moderated.

That's what I got out of those interviews, too. They were very informative.

I felt like I had more of a perspective on the entire situation: biking/race culture, the proliferation of cheating becoming an arms race of sorts, etc.

I had no idea that cheating in bike racing was so prevalent, I suppose that makes me a bit naive.

Facts, stats and even graphs can all be used to push a narrative. Context is pretty key.

To my eyes, Wikileaks seems to be cherrypicking and giving passes to others. The timing of the leaks has been nothing short of convenient, which makes me suspicious. That's my opinion, though. I have nothing to back it up and I wouldn't even try to prove it.

But, hey, we're speculating here.

Yeah, it's all over. Prescription stimulants get diverted, resold at a markup, etc.

The demand is high and the supply is there. Low doses of oral methamphetamine arent entirely uncommon either. Meth is cheaper, more potent and more widely available.

I completely agree. My example wasn't exactly the best, but relatively applicable to the US nevertheless.

You raise many good points about drug use being different geographically and culturally. It's very much about availability, local drug culture, etc.

For example, the speed paste. As you said, in the UK and in other European countries amphetamine is usually amphetamine in paste form, not crystal methylamphetamine like we usually see here in the states.

Culture and availability absolutely affects use massively, a point I didn't mean to gloss over, and one I'm glad you raised.

Amphetamine will be abused by college students. Alcohol will be abused by highschool kids. It's a given. The allure of stuff like cocaine, with the "what else was I lied to about, what am I missing out on" mindset goes out the window when you stop lying and start letting people make their own choices.

The resulting crackdown did exactly what you said, drove people straight into the open arms of heroin.

Tightening the already tightened restrictions would only worsen the issue.

Diversion, etc cannot be stopped and you might just see a sudden uptick in pharmacy truck heists like the one that happened five or so years ago. Corrupt pharmacists unable to resist the temptation of easy money, etc.

Or worse, heroin continues to spread like wildfire. Heroin has no QC, it's being cut with fentanyl across the country and addicts are dropping like flies. Sicker addicts have been seeking out these OD stories and score from those areas looking for the fentanyl cut H. It's bad and only getting worse, as if the government overcorrected its steering and has now spun out of control. The result is going to be a grisly accident.

>There also needs to be much stricter control of new prescriptions for opioids

Like the extremely strict controls in place? Like the prosecution of doctors who run pill mills? Like the rescheduling of hydrocodone formulations?

In my local ER there is an entire framed info-poster explaining why you aren't getting your meds refilled at the ER, you won't be getting fentanyl, dilaudid or oxycodone prescribed to you no matter what. ED's work with your primary care doctor and relay info to them. States have implemented pharmacy tech that allows them to track prescriptions state-wide. (a former massive problem)

Hospitals are already doing this. Pharmacies, already doing this. Doctors are terrified of the laymen telling them they know better in the court of law. Pain is being undertreated now more than ever, which is the flipside to the crackdown you don't seem aware of, which has been happening for years now.

There will always be abusers. It's inevitable. The people who really suffer from this kind of over-reach are people like my grandparents who are nearing life's end. People dependent on pain medication for their quality of life. Non-abusers.

Maybe quality of life means nothing to you, but to them it's all they have left keeping them going. It's the only reason they can continue to live through the constant pain, the enduring misery old age and lives of very hard work has wrought upon them.

I've gone ahead and edited my comment, not because of your comment, but just because I felt like I wasn't making a clear point. Kratom is not even mentioned anymore, sorry.

While kratom is habit forming and can "fuck you up" if you have no tolerance, the true value is for the person already addicted to opiates looking to get clean.

If you want to keep drugs out of the hands of kids, make them all legal and watch the usage numbers fall. Banning a powdered leaf, that is quite self-regulating, albeit habit-forming, is a step backwards in the quest to put out the structure fire that the opiate crises has become.

Maintenance treatments with long-acting opioids like methadone tend to come with a withdrawal that lasts for months.

Meanwhile, short-acting opiates like heroin have a withdrawal period that lasts about a week. Is it any wonder methadone patients switch back to heroin when they try to quit for good?

Mark my words, this isn't going away or getting any better. You can prosecute doctors, regulate all you want, burn fields of poppies. None of it will affect the demand nor the supply. You can't price or regulate someone out of an addiction.

If people get cut off wholesale from their prescriptions because doctors are being prosecuted for prescribing pain medication, they'll turn to heroin. Which will be available, regardless of all the opium seized, regardless of cartels dismantled.

Just like when Oxycontin went under a formulation change making it resistant to abuse, which also caused the price to spike to a dollar per milligram.

People turned to heroin because it was cheaper, more potent, and much more widely available than pharmaceuticals could ever be.

If you think pill junkies are bad, wait until you look down an alley to see a heroin junkie injecting another junkie in the jugular because all her veins are blown out. Watch your step, though, lest you get a syringe in your foot.

Calories in, calories out. I know this because I struggle to gain weight, quite the opposite problem most folk have.

If I eat over 3k calories, I gain weight. If I eat less than 3k, I lose it.

Not tracking my calories and quitting my workouts due to wisdom teeth extraction and a nasty sinus infection turned chronic has cost me 20lbs.

20lbs I worked very, very hard to gain. Consuming half a gallon of whole milk a day, forcing myself to eat even when I had no appetite, etc. Working out. I felt great and looked better than I had in awhile. All gone now, back to square one.

My goal is to get over this sinus infection, (black plague, whatever it is) continue counting calories, as well as exercising, to put that weight back on and then some.

This is routine. The accused has money for a lawyer, otherwise this would have been a plea deal and a conviction with no reveal requested.

when the world is out of sand, will the desert dune sand or traditional beach sand be worth more?

Wow! I had no idea the state actually piped water down like that, over mountain ranges no less.

or even that the dam served that purpose. thanks for sharing.

Agreed. I didn't mean to bust teenage chops so hard, haha.