Drought goes on (am I bovered?) And the evil GREEN*.

*UK methadone is usually green.

I HAVE TAKEN NO GEAR today or last night and don't intend to.

Yesterday I ran into 2 brothers. We got talking on the inevitable topic ~ huge heroin shortage all across UK. I said I couldn't be bothered and was drinking instead. At least it is legal and therefore 100% safe, 100% respectable. Nobody has ever died because of alcohol, because the govt. allow it, we all know this. Anyway, they asked where I found the rubbish I found, and I told them. Then I asked them where they got their rubbish and they told me. They said one person had "decent gear" (ie it was rubbish), I didn't know them and didn't ask for the number. I did have money on me (was carrying huge Andy Warhol Diaries back), but sensed they did not. I have one of their mobile numbers and will not be ringing asking for an introduction. Their parting shot after the good gear mention was "I bet everyone's saying that" and that said it all.

It is 11am and I've had just over half a can, mixed down with fruit juice. This is way down on yesterday and especially Monday's consumption. Bearing in mind I get up at 6 to 7am and usually guzzle it down then (if I'm carrying on) drink more smoothly just supping it from there on.

The govt. (and what do they know about any real life? The rubbish MPs spouted about casinos was a case in point. If they knew anything about gambling, they'd have seen that every local betting shop has at least a couple of roulette machines and I've seen people feed the best part of a month's wages in there every half hour. Staff have to empty them several times a day, they collect so much money. + roulette is now on ITV! That, is channel 3 of old-fashioned television, every night!)... what was I saying? O the government. They want to increase the price on alcohol per unit ~ ie 8g or 10mls of neat booze. It's easy to work out units per can. Mine are half a litre at 7.5% ABV so that's 3.75 units per can, 7.5 units or 75 mls alcohol in each litre. They want to make my cyder something like four times more expensive. What is this if not a tax on the poor? All they will do is take food from poor kids' mouths. Make people with drink problems even more undernourished than they already are. And what doesn't come off the food bill will come off clothes, bills anything else, because to a drinker, drink comes first, and always will. If this policy is introduced, a huge market in bootleg liquor will spring up overnight, and I know exactly where to go to get it. Everyone will switch to spirits, thus causing themselves more harm because most won't bother mixing in lemonade or just water. All the profits will go to fund other criminal activities. So nice one, Tories. Just go ahead, see what happens.

Booze rant over. Actually just writing that has made me want a drink...

... Ha! It's right here and I didn't do it. Am I actually getting cleaner in my old age??

Was I really offensive yesterday? I had to edit what I said twice after posting, bc 2 particularly ridiculous things were in there. Proof if any is needed that less gear does not (instantly at least) bring more sanity. Opiates are antipsychotic. You can google this yourself, though you won't find much official research. First thing I noticed about heroin was a marked mood-stabilizing effect. It still is a huge antidepressant, especially compared to methadone. I think the clinics are (by and large) barking up the wrong tree with methadone. Morphine continus pills would work far better and can be taken twice daily. Injectable diamorphine is far safer than injectable methadone. It's only expensive bc the manufacturers are taking the pee-pees. (It costs £4.50 or so for a 100mg dry amp, about half what very good gear would cost. It just shows the "we profit from your pain" motto levelled at pharmaceuticals corporations is so true. Diamorphine is mostly used for terminal pain management here, NOT for addiction.) I fit the criteria for diamorphine treatment exactly. If they'd only given that several years ago, I might actually be clean now. What would not work about diamorphine therapy is making it really hard to get on to, or not letting people up the dose if it's dipped, or when people switch from injectable diamorphine to oral morphine, or actually come off altogether, not to let them back on. If they do make it seem so hard-won, as it is now, people will feel like they're onto a sure thing, to be prized and treasured. And they will not give it up. Basic psychology, but I'm sure the govt don't understand that either.

What they are saying now is that because methadone only has a 3% success rate (I haven't seen it to be that high), rehab style treatment is the answer. Well good luck paying for it in a recession. How many rehabs are they thinking of paying for for each client? They may well need 4 or 5 or 6 before they finally get clean. I've been in City Roads Detox once (horrible) and proper rehab/detox once. I left on day 3 both times. Couldn't do the detox. Too in love with heroin. Nothing else about life grabbed me. Not without heroin being there as well. In other words I was trying to exit into outer space, where there was nothing for me.

Stop smoking clinics like to compare nicotine to heroin, saying it's more addictive. Perhaps it addicts faster, but even that would be spurious. When I had no habit at all, I now know (only by looking back in confusion on a certain day when I decided to give up long-sleeved teeshirts forever because I was too hot/too cold/never right) that I got myself a mild one, and I do mean very mild ~ still but noticeable ~ within just five days in a row of smoking it from tinfoil. I can tell you this. Craving heroin and craving a cigarette aren't even in the same universe of comparability. Have you ever seen someone puking because they needed a cigarette that badly? Well then. Anyone who wants to enough can give up smoking without too much bother. Just use gum or something else that gives a nicotine hit, albeit tiny when you want it ~ I don't think a patch would work for me. I've given up twice, for months on end, and I used gum. Heroin is a totally different ballpark. Whoever they used to be, whatever they did, once people get a taste for it, they invariably go on and on and on taking heroin. Just the average habit is 14 years. These people aren't weaker than you or me. A lot of them are stronger. In fact heroin turns your strength against you. The more willpower you have before heroin, the more willfully you will use it, once you get addicted. Now that has to be an obvious equation.

The drug treatment system in this country (not to mention elsewhere ~ AMERICA, very good example) is totally corrupt. Run for the convenience of the staff. All about box-ticking, quota-filling. Workers being seen to work successfully. This actually makes them complicit in all the lying that goes on in-clinic. Typical pattern on methadone is: cut down heroin perhaps by as much as three-quarters. Give up crime, if you're tired of it. But then whenever money comes gear is what comes first. Crack usually goes out the window relatively early on. From my experience anyone in treatment still using crack frequently 6 months on is probably barely following the programme at all. Or has just been pushed into it because they got caught shoplifting. Lots of that about.

I have seen old age pensioners, who've given up "grafting" up money, been on methadone for years. And yet they still spend the best part of their pension on heroin. The image of an old lady injecting heroin, reading glasses on, is still emblazoned on my brain. Methadone does not sooth the itch for heroin. Unless the person is unusually motivated. Simple fact: it just doesn't. Keeps you OK. How anyone could possibly hold down a job on methadone I do not understand.

I think a better way of running things would be to give people an assessment but NOT put them on methadone, or anything else automatically, unless they really do want it. You could give them a card, and then when they actually want it, they can get scripted within one hour something that really will take them off street drugs. Ie probably not methadone.

Methadone is a tool, so I am using it. But it certainly is not the best, and absolutely not the most suitable tool in the pharmaceutical box.

Alprazolam (Xanx) + Subutex/buprenorphine (no!) found in UK heroin thanks to shortage:
http://www.talkingdrugs.org/benzodiazepines-sold-as-heroin
Thanks for the comment directing me to this; I had heard about the alprazolam (somewhere) and someone told me he tested Subtex positive, even though he doesn't take it.
Alprazolam is really weak compared to Valium and Subutex you would never in a million years mix in heroin. It has no hit, to any hardened junkie. It actually REVERSES the effects of heroin. Whoever did that has no clue...