[girvo]

Heroin, coke, and alcohol. Quickest way to overdose, even if it is fun... RIP mate, we'll miss you.

My worst OD was with that mixture as well, only I was lucky enough to have people with me and live in a country where calling the emergency services doesn't end with police at your door for overdoses. Narcan in the back of the ambulance brought me back. I got clean a month later, and am still clean 20 months later.

Some of my friends weren't so lucky, and neither was Jack, the poor bastard. He did awesome work. Mudge had an awesome talk at Defcon where he told a story about Jack in Dubai, go have a listen, it's well worth it.

Drug abuse (opiates in particular) is more common in our field than we think, I believe.

[drewblaisdell]

> Mudge had an awesome talk at Defcon where he told a story about Jack in Dubai, go have a listen, it's well worth it.

For those interested: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tPPD0MRX7I

[nate_meurer]

Legal opiates are now the biggest killer of addicts, according to at least one new study:

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/vicodin-oxycontin-drug-deaths-vos-l...

[spikels]

I think the fact the use and abuse of legal opiates are much more common (abuse is estimated an 10% of US population each year) than heroin (use is estimate at only 1.6% of US population even once during their entire lifetime) explains this.

Heroin is made much more dangerous because it is illegal and therefore of unknown potency and purity.

[bertil]

(Hate to be that guy, but:) Not ‘legal’, but licensed opiates that are abused, beyond or outside of a prescription — and as such can often fall under the law. Some of those can have the appearance of licensed drugs but be imported without control or be replicas. I’d talk about “opiates under their licensed forms”.

[girvo]

Doesn't surprise me. While being a heroin addict requires knowledge of risks (dealers don't like customers dying on them), popping a few OxyContin that you have left over from surgery doesn't, despite being nearly as strong.

[wil421]

In the area I live in oxycontin could be considered an epidemic at times.

[zaporozhets]

"Drug abuse (opiates in particular) is more common in our field than we think"

Even opiates aside, drug & alcohol abuse is ridiculously common for people that have a very /public/ and forced extraverted role in any field. The creative field is probably one of the most heavy cases for this sort of thing.

[Nrsolis]

I can attest to this. I spent some time in the stand-up comedy community. The penetration of serious alcohol or drug abuse within the stage professions is mind-boggling.

I got out when I realized that I was consuming far too much alcohol for the life I wanted to live.

[pclark]

> Heroin, coke, and alcohol. Quickest way to overdose

Is there something specific about this combination or do you simply mean generally with Class A drugs?

[girvo]

This combination in particular. A speedball is simply one of the most intense and amazing feelings you can experience on this earth. The problem is, the coke stops an overdose of heroin from being dangerous to begin with, as the stimulant stops the respiratory depression from being too bad. The thing is, alcohol adds to the respiratory depression far too much, and when the coke wears off (as heroin lasts far longer), suddenly you've gone under....

[Crito]

Coke and heroin, mainlined together, is infamous for killing many people: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speedball_(drug)#Notable_deaths...

[eruditely]

The situation cannot be analyzed w/o alcohol. Combining alcohol is too much. Coke gives you sort of a 'mental buff' where it gives you your mental control back but your body still has the same amount of alcohol in it.

This allows you to do more of the alcohol, even past where you would have normally stopped and this is OK up to a point, but if the coke wears off you get re-drunk far past you could have gone. It hits you like a brick wall. Shit goes bad fast.

Coke has a much shorter duration than either alcohol or heroin. Timing is key and can get complicated. Either 2 combinations of the three are already dangerous enough.Adding the other is too much.

[Crito]

Yeah, it sounds like coke/alcohol is dangerous for the same reason that coke/heroin is. All three at once is a really bad recipe.

[streetnigga]

DEA classing is best to be ignored. The specific combination of booze and opiates has killed many due to how it depresses functions of the body like breathing. Really is a wicked one two punch.

Again, best ignore DEA classing. I have yet to figure out rhyme or reason of it.

[ieatdots]

Class A, B, etc. are from the UK's drug laws, DEA uses Schedule 1, 2, etc.

But your point stands that things get grossly mis-classified.

[streetnigga]

Ugh, correct. Thanks for that.