Article: Changed my way of thinking.

[L0VE]

I found this while doing a google search of heroin in philadelphia and this explains exaclty and is right on point about how it is here:

Oxy-incontinent in Philadelphia

BY JEFF DEENEY
03.10.2006 | SOCIETY


The Young Bucks, as the white boys of detox called themselves, had fade haircuts and wore tracksuits and boxy, brightly white basketball shoes that were loosely laced, their tongues lolling limply over to one side. One of the boys chewed on the plastic filter tip of an unlit Black and Mild cigarillo, another sucked on a toothpick. They had intricately trimmed facial hair that hugged the contours of their jawbones in an almost imperceptibly thin line; adolescent beards painstakingly winnowed down to mere chinstraps by friends who played barbershop with razors and clippers in their parent's kitchens. They tucked the next menthol cigarette they intended to smoke behind one ear. They had tattoos of names and dates in flowing script on their forearms signifying loves, deaths and incarceration stays in juvenile detention halls. They wore earrings of clear glass cut to look like diamonds. They looked mean and criminally experienced beyond their years. When playing spades they theatrically threw their cards in a pile by raising them high and slapping them down on the table with a flick of the wrist. They were all addicted to OxyContin, most of them also sold it and none of them was interested in stopping for more than the four days they would be sitting in detox.
The Young Bucks generally hailed from the Greater Northeast section of Philadelphia: Tacony, Mayfair, Frankford and Pennypack. OxyContin was the tricycle of narcotics for these hard-nosed working class kids; they got their balance in the world of hard drugs by forging prescriptions or some other act of thievery, selling and snorting the pills with their friends. The streets of the Greater Northeast were tightly packed with nondescript two-story red brick row houses and store fronts that hadn't been renovated or seen much upkeep in thirty years. It was a landscape dotted with refineries and factories that harkened back to industrial America, except that most of the factories were empty now and the industry gone. Against this bleak backdrop the Young Bucks became big fish in their small ponds of users and suppliers; small, at least, compared to the action down in the Zone, Philadelphia's still untamed tract of North Philadelphia where open-air drug markets operated around the clock. The Young Bucks who had already moved on to heroin had instant clout because they hung out near the dope spots, "down the way" as they referred to the Zone only a couple miles to the south where the Old Head dope addicts played all day.
In the detox smoking pit at night the talk amongst the Young Bucks was all about tolerance. They loved to go around the teeming crowd, asking how much OxyContin each was using on a daily basis before they arrived here, a game of one-upsmanship and manhood proving that led to Paul Bunyan-esque tall tales. The numbers would start off being believable, one 80-milligram pill per day, maybe two. But by the time they had made the rounds the amount of drugs these kids were claiming to consume on a daily basis became too fantastic to be real.
"Man, two 80s a day, man, y'all shouldn't even be in here man, that ain't no problem. You can't maintain that? Shit, I have two 80s for breakfast first thing in the morning and it just leaves me wantin' another. I been doing eight 80s a day. Yeah, that's right motherfucker I said 8. Shit, I'm here hopin' to get back down to two 80s a day. That ain't even a habit, man."
Now, certainly it's possible for a person's tolerance to opiates to reach stratospheric proportions where elephantine doses of the drug that would kill a normal person only affect the addict like a normal dose of painkillers. But there were economic factors to the OxyContin market that made an eight 80-milligram pill a day habit extremely improbable. OxyContin, while having flooded the streets of Philadelphia in such outstanding quantities for a government controlled substance that its tidal wave-like spread defied reasonable explanation, was not available in the essentially unlimited supply that heroin was. Heroin in Philadelphia was plentiful and potent and $10 would get you a bag that was at least equivalent in strength to one 80-milligram OxyContin pill. But due to limited supply, that one 80-milligram OxyContin pill would cost the user $40. Fifty cents a milligram was the going rate on the streets. The pills were sized in increments, from 10 mg to 20, to 40, to 80. 80 milligrams was the largest dose available in a single pill, and for purposes of pricing and tolerance comparing, the 80 milligram pill was the gold standard.
Therefore, this 19-year-old kid was claiming that he was able to support over time a $320-a-day OxyContin habit, which was an extremely unlikely piece of adolescent boasting. Drug habits don't take holidays and they don't take weekends off, so at this rate a single year worth of using would run $116,800 and there aren't too many working class teenagers with access to that kind of capital. Even for someone dealing the pills, there would be no way to obtain the kind of supply that would support both that kind of daily use and the amount of pills needed to sell to cover it, unless that person was a crooked doctor or a hooked pharmacist who had some direct access to a pipeline of pills. Wholesale connections like these for mass quantities of pills certainly existed, but they were few and far between and these kids in detox weren't likely that high enough up on the illicit distribution chain to access them.
When the young kids asked me what kind of habit I had I truthfully told them that I had recently escalated to four 80s a day. They seemed to find that acceptable and moved on to find someone else to badger and accuse of being a pussy. At some point in these conversations, though, an Old Head heroin junky was bound to throw his two cents in, killing the fun and silencing the children with a booming voice that was full of the seasoned addict's cold and calculating reason.
"Yo, man, fuck them Oxy's, man. You motherfuckers actually pay forty bucks for one of them, man, I can get five for four from my boy down on 8th and Somerset, that's forty bucks for five bags of good dope. What's that run you? For five of them pills, man, you're paying fuckin' two hundred bucks and I get the same thing for forty. It's stupid is what it is, that Oxy bullshit. I don't care how many of them damn things you can sniff in a day, it's a waste of money, man. Yo, for real, someday you knuckleheads are gonna figure that out and you come see me when you do, I'll hook you up with some good dope spots and show you how to work a needle, you'll thank me for it."
He had a point. On a dollar for dollar basis, heroin provided the bang for the buck. So why OxyContin? How could such an expensive pharmaceutical gain so much traction in a market saturated with cheap and potent heroin? It made sense that in places like West Virginia, eastern Kentucky and southern Ohio OxyContin would become the most predominantly abused opiate. The heroin distribution channels, while much more far-reaching in America than they used to be, with the drug turning up in limited quantities even in small cities like Harrisburg and Lancaster and even as far away as Allentown and Scranton, hadn't reached into the rural heartland where, like everywhere else in the world, there was a small percentage of the population that desired to get high on dope. So OxyContin, like an invasive foreign plant species, quickly took over this territory when it hit the black market because there was nothing else there to usurp or slow its immediate rise to dominance.
In Philadelphia, though, the OxyContin epidemic has had no less an effect, despite a cheaper alternative widely available on the streets. Not surprisingly, in detox most of the people hooked on OxyContin and other prescription painkillers were either young or new to opiate addiction, in either case the users hadn't been fully sucked into the vortex of North Philadelphia and its violent and lurid junky culture. Most liked not having to leave the comforts of their working class neighborhoods for worse sections of the city in order to get drugs. Since OxyContin, largely, was an off street drug (not that there weren't thriving open air Oxy markets -- there were, but they were as dangerous as any other open-air drug market and most users considered them a last resort), it made a perfect market for new dealers and users just cutting their teeth. Oxys were dealt behind closed doors, between acquaintances, in relative safety. Users could buy without worrying about getting caught in a Narc Squad street sweep and the dealers didn't have to constantly worry about getting shot. Beyond that, with each pill the users knew exactly what they were getting; there was no way to counterfeit the pills and the pills' contents were government regulated for quality, unlike a street bag of dope that could either be so weak as to be a waste of money or deadly because it contains rat poison or some other pollutant.
However, just because OxyContin was initially a safer alternative didn't mean users wouldn't at some point wind up strung out on heroin. Addictive drugs change the way people behave and think. As an addict gets hooked starts constantly calculating and projecting how much he'll have to spend getting high and always try to identify new revenue streams that will allow them to get more. He'll eventually become a hustler in some way or another, be it a burglar, dope dealer or white-collar salesmen turned embezzler. The dollar and how much dope it can purchase becomes king overall and price and potency factor into this. There was some naivete about all this left in the Young Bucks that would eventually be ground out of them. As the Young Bucks aged and became more experienced, they would confront the cold hard fact that OxyContin was expensive and heroin was cheap and at some point, if they didn't manage to get clean, most of them would make the switch.
And then it was, as they say, off to the races. Into the Zone and on the needle. http://www.freezerbox.com/images/archive/about_author.gifJeff Deeney is a Philadelphia-based writer who is in the process of submitting a book to publishing houses about the black market trade in OxyContin.

I realized (I've been sober for 3 days now) that this is not how I want my life to be and why I keep doing them, even though I've withdrawled so many times before. Because I don't want to face the fact that I screwed up and made one bad choice. I owe my bank money, tanning salon, spent all of my stock money, stole, lied, owe drug dealers money, and so much more, this embarrasing and so I go and get high to forget that I spent all of this money on a stupid pill and get high to erase the fact that I owe money, fucked up school, and even to erase the memories of my first high. Which is why I went back the very next day of my first time, to get more. Maybe if I read this the next time I want to get high, I'll think twice and actually remember why it is that I always seem to go back for more. It was guys like the ones in the article that got me hooked on this shit. I know guys like them and was in one of those neighborhoods the first time I did it. I know I might offend you guys and I'm not trying to preach (and if you don't live here, you might not understand where I'm getting at) but I found this interesting and now I want to clean my life up, I used to say I was doing oxys for fun, I'm young. But this isn't fun, spending obscene amounts of money is not fun, losing friends and having friends steal and lie to you so they can get just as high, is not fun anymore, and screwing up my life at this age, is not fun. I really want to quit now. :( I'm way in over my head and doing these literally everyday for two years is really just not normal. And for anyone to do this, it's not normal and it is possible to get clean and face your problems.

[candyshop]

good for you sweetheart ,i mean that-you are young beautiful and seemingly ambitous-you have EVERYTHING ahead of you---at this point your options are without limit---opiate addiction will take you a lot of places to be sure ,but not where you want to go---if you have made it 3 days you can keep going-

i envy you your youth and your wide open future -your story is just beggining, DECIDE who you want to -do not let an addiction make those choices for you

i wish you the best of luck

[L0VE]

good for you sweetheart ,i mean that-you are young beautiful and seemingly ambitous-you have EVERYTHING ahead of you---at this point your options are without limit---opiate addiction will take you a lot of places to be sure ,but not where you want to go---if you have made it 3 days you can keep going-

i envy you your youth and your wide open future -your story is just beggining, DECIDE who you want to -do not let an addiction make those choices for you

i wish you the best of luck

Thanks a lot, I think I'll try going to meetings or something to try to stay sober. It's wierd but my withdrawals are not really that bad this time, I think it is time for me to stop. I know people in their 30's that are still doing this stuff, hiding it from their spouses, hurting their loved ones, falling apart and that is not how I want to be. My sister just failed out of college for nursing due to oxys and shes still doing them, it's sick and I don't think she'll ever stop now, she's 21 and I don't want to end up like her either.:( It's seriously a pill and that's what I need to keep in mind. It's an object and nothing more than that.

[AWOL]

Smack will save you a lot of $









(That's a joke. Quit now, and good luck to ya.)

[slugbone]

Thanks a lot, I think I'll try going to meetings or something to try to stay sober. It's wierd but my withdrawals are not really that bad this time, I think it is time for me to stop. I know people in their 30's that are still doing this stuff, hiding it from their spouses, hurting their loved ones, falling apart and that is not how I want to be. My sister just failed out of college for nursing due to oxys and shes still doing them, it's sick and I don't think she'll ever stop now, she's 21 and I don't want to end up like her either.:( It's seriously a pill and that's what I need to keep in mind. It's an object and nothing more than that.

well i hope you can continue with your sobriety - you can chalk it up to lesson learned and leave OC and this place behind you. 20 yrs from now it'll be like a bad dream half forgotten.

i'll still be a junkie though, but fuck it that's the absurd life i choose to live

[applesauce]

Do all of the white kids in Philly talk as if they wish they were black?

[AWOL]

Do all of the white kids in Philly talk as if they wish they were black? Only the high maintenence ones with rich parents.


well i hope you can continue with your sobriety - you can chalk it up to lesson learned and leave OC and this place behind you.

I agree, leave this place far far behind you. Just say no.

[L0VE]

Do all of the white kids in Philly talk as if they wish they were black?

Yes, most of them do. It's very annoying hearing a white dude say "i gotz those jawnz, yo" :rolleyes: . I know black dudes who sell drugs and don't even talk like that.

[PRIZEFIGHTERINFERNO]

good for you sweetheart ,i mean that-you are young beautiful and seemingly ambitous-you have EVERYTHING ahead of you---at this point your options are without limit---opiate addiction will take you a lot of places to be sure ,but not where you want to go---if you have made it 3 days you can keep going-

i envy you your youth and your wide open future -your story is just beggining, DECIDE who you want to -do not let an addiction make those choices for you

i wish you the best of luck


i read that article and i must say I enjoyed it alot....thanks Love.

And i must say that you are one cool....real, person candyshop. i appreciate you giving that kind of wisdom to another person.

Alot of my friends see that i always have oxies and they think its cool...cool that i take 3 or more 80's a day. ITS NOT FUCKING COOL....it really sucks.
I was talking to one of my other long time opiate using buddies today...and he called looking for dope...unfortunately i couldnt help him (i live 3,000 miles away now) he wanted to see if any old connects i could hook him up with. I got to talking about how it sucks that i have to take so many oxies and all he said was Yeah that sucks...and its true it does suck.

I see alot of people come on here...wantin to try new things....and i want to let them know that sometimes its a curse...im just not goood with words.

I LOVE opiates..like many of you. Theres something about me...that just draws me to opiates. I wish i could explain it better....ive been taking op's for so long that it is a part of me. I dream of opiates....i think about the past of opiates...and all this other stuff.

At the same time opiates bring me a great deal of pain...unfortunately i have major pain issues and without em im in pain anyway but you get my point.

SORRY GUYS if im not making sense...i dont proofread this shit...i just type what i feel...and sometimes i come across it and i think to myself i totally didnt get my point across well.....i have trouble explaining how i feel sometimes.

You opiophiles are good people....its a shame we cannot all meet....although i have met some...all good people by the way.....there is an eternity waiting for us all where i believe we shall all look back on this.

Your opiated friend The PFI.

[PRIZEFIGHTERINFERNO]

Thanks a lot, I think I'll try going to meetings or something to try to stay sober. It's wierd but my withdrawals are not really that bad this time, I think it is time for me to stop. I know people in their 30's that are still doing this stuff, hiding it from their spouses, hurting their loved ones, falling apart and that is not how I want to be. My sister just failed out of college for nursing due to oxys and shes still doing them, it's sick and I don't think she'll ever stop now, she's 21 and I don't want to end up like her either.:( It's seriously a pill and that's what I need to keep in mind. It's an object and nothing more than that.

ive never been to a "meeting" dont think ill ever go. im not recomending it but all i can say is...A close loved one of mine did use the meeting/program and it worked.....a SERIOUSLY bad habbit lasting over 30 years was kicked so....maybe you should try it.
I wish you luck and i will pray that you can find joy in life...and stay clean.

[applesauce]

Yes, most of them do. It's very annoying hearing a white dude say "i gotz those jawnz, yo" :rolleyes: . I know black dudes who sell drugs and don't even talk like that.

That is a shame. Like most people here, I have friends with all kinds of skin - it is the gray matter between their ears that matters. But it creeps me out when one race assume the stereotypical model of another.

Another thought, since I am high as hell, is that if any minority group wants to be accepted and integrated and treated like everybody else, they need to play down the differences, not exaggerate them.

For example, if black people want to be accepted and treated the same as white people, they need to take the bones out of their noses and stop exaggerating their African heritage. We Americans can be a very accepting lot, but when people go so far out of their way to be different, guess what - they get what they want.

A brilliant (very socially liberal Republican) talk show host (Bob Lassiter) once said "If black people ever want to be accepted into American culture, they need to stop acting so BLACK."

I'd love to hear what he had to say about this white-acting-black trend.

(Bob was a heroin addict earlier in his life)

[candyshop]

[quote=applesauce;72287]That is a shame. Like most people here, I have friends with all kinds of skin - it is the gray matter between their ears that matters. But it creeps me out when one race assume the stereotypical model of another.

Another thought, since I am high as hell, is that if any minority group wants to be accepted and integrated and treated like everybody else, they need to play down the differences, not exaggerate them.

For example, if black people want to be accepted and treated the same as white people, they need to take the bones out of their noses and stop exaggerating their African heritage. We Americans can be a very accepting lot, but when people go so far out of their way to be different, guess what - they get what they want.

A brilliant (very socially liberal Republican) talk show host (Bob Lassiter) once said "If black people ever want to be accepted into American culture, they need to stop acting so BLACK."

I'd love to hear what he had to say about this white-acting-black trend. (quote=applesauce;72287)





not sure how you meant for this to come out but if i am reading you right ..um..that seems pretty fucked up to me--how exactly does one act white? how does one act gay?--are you saying that it is the responsibility of a minority group to homoginize themselves,to conform to a certain standard of dress,manner of speaking ect. to gain acceptence? who sets the standards and who gave them the right to do so?
does tolerance and accepance fit in to this ideology anywhere?

EARN YOUR RIGHTS BY ACTING WHITE
you may have found our new national slogan buddy
i don't like it

[PRIZEFIGHTERINFERNO]

[quote=applesauce;72287]That is a shame. Like most people here, I have friends with all kinds of skin - it is the gray matter between their ears that matters. But it creeps me out when one race assume the stereotypical model of another.

Another thought, since I am high as hell, is that if any minority group wants to be accepted and integrated and treated like everybody else, they need to play down the differences, not exaggerate them.

For example, if black people want to be accepted and treated the same as white people, they need to take the bones out of their noses and stop exaggerating their African heritage. We Americans can be a very accepting lot, but when people go so far out of their way to be different, guess what - they get what they want.

A brilliant (very socially liberal Republican) talk show host (Bob Lassiter) once said "If black people ever want to be accepted into American culture, they need to stop acting so BLACK."

I'd love to hear what he had to say about this white-acting-black trend. (quote=applesauce;72287)





not sure how you meant for this to come out but if i am reading you right ..um..that seems pretty fucked up to me--how exactly does one act white? how does one act gay?--are you saying that it is the responsibility of a minority group to homoginize themselves,to conform to a certain standard of dress,manner of speaking ect. to gain acceptence? who sets the standards and who gave them the right to do so?
does tolerance and accepance fit in to this ideology anywhere?

EARN YOUR RIGHTS BY ACTING WHITE
you may have found our new national slogan buddy
i don't like it

if i could have explained how i felt better tonight....im alittle bit sleepy right now;) ....thats what i wouldve said. It does sound alittle whacked what you said up there applesauce buddy.

[Inspektahdek]

Thanks a lot, I think I'll try going to meetings or something to try to stay sober. It's wierd but my withdrawals are not really that bad this time, I think it is time for me to stop. I know people in their 30's that are still doing this stuff, hiding it from their spouses, hurting their loved ones, falling apart and that is not how I want to be. My sister just failed out of college for nursing due to oxys and shes still doing them, it's sick and I don't think she'll ever stop now, she's 21 and I don't want to end up like her either.:( It's seriously a pill and that's what I need to keep in mind. It's an object and nothing more than that.

meetings are a way to deliver your soul away from yourself...

[OxyContinuously]

I found this while doing a google search of heroin in philadelphia and this explains exaclty and is right on point about how it is here:

Oxy-incontinent in Philadelphia

BY JEFF DEENEY
03.10.2006 | SOCIETY


The Young Bucks, as the white boys of detox called themselves, had fade haircuts and wore tracksuits and boxy, brightly white basketball shoes that were loosely laced, their tongues lolling limply over to one side. One of the boys chewed on the plastic filter tip of an unlit Black and Mild cigarillo, another sucked on a toothpick. They had intricately trimmed facial hair that hugged the contours of their jawbones in an almost imperceptibly thin line; adolescent beards painstakingly winnowed down to mere chinstraps by friends who played barbershop with razors and clippers in their parent's kitchens. They tucked the next menthol cigarette they intended to smoke behind one ear. They had tattoos of names and dates in flowing script on their forearms signifying loves, deaths and incarceration stays in juvenile detention halls. They wore earrings of clear glass cut to look like diamonds. They looked mean and criminally experienced beyond their years. When playing spades they theatrically threw their cards in a pile by raising them high and slapping them down on the table with a flick of the wrist. They were all addicted to OxyContin, most of them also sold it and none of them was interested in stopping for more than the four days they would be sitting in detox.
The Young Bucks generally hailed from the Greater Northeast section of Philadelphia: Tacony, Mayfair, Frankford and Pennypack. OxyContin was the tricycle of narcotics for these hard-nosed working class kids; they got their balance in the world of hard drugs by forging prescriptions or some other act of thievery, selling and snorting the pills with their friends. The streets of the Greater Northeast were tightly packed with nondescript two-story red brick row houses and store fronts that hadn't been renovated or seen much upkeep in thirty years. It was a landscape dotted with refineries and factories that harkened back to industrial America, except that most of the factories were empty now and the industry gone. Against this bleak backdrop the Young Bucks became big fish in their small ponds of users and suppliers; small, at least, compared to the action down in the Zone, Philadelphia's still untamed tract of North Philadelphia where open-air drug markets operated around the clock. The Young Bucks who had already moved on to heroin had instant clout because they hung out near the dope spots, "down the way" as they referred to the Zone only a couple miles to the south where the Old Head dope addicts played all day.
In the detox smoking pit at night the talk amongst the Young Bucks was all about tolerance. They loved to go around the teeming crowd, asking how much OxyContin each was using on a daily basis before they arrived here, a game of one-upsmanship and manhood proving that led to Paul Bunyan-esque tall tales. The numbers would start off being believable, one 80-milligram pill per day, maybe two. But by the time they had made the rounds the amount of drugs these kids were claiming to consume on a daily basis became too fantastic to be real.
"Man, two 80s a day, man, y'all shouldn't even be in here man, that ain't no problem. You can't maintain that? Shit, I have two 80s for breakfast first thing in the morning and it just leaves me wantin' another. I been doing eight 80s a day. Yeah, that's right motherfucker I said 8. Shit, I'm here hopin' to get back down to two 80s a day. That ain't even a habit, man."
Now, certainly it's possible for a person's tolerance to opiates to reach stratospheric proportions where elephantine doses of the drug that would kill a normal person only affect the addict like a normal dose of painkillers. But there were economic factors to the OxyContin market that made an eight 80-milligram pill a day habit extremely improbable. OxyContin, while having flooded the streets of Philadelphia in such outstanding quantities for a government controlled substance that its tidal wave-like spread defied reasonable explanation, was not available in the essentially unlimited supply that heroin was. Heroin in Philadelphia was plentiful and potent and $10 would get you a bag that was at least equivalent in strength to one 80-milligram OxyContin pill. But due to limited supply, that one 80-milligram OxyContin pill would cost the user $40. Fifty cents a milligram was the going rate on the streets. The pills were sized in increments, from 10 mg to 20, to 40, to 80. 80 milligrams was the largest dose available in a single pill, and for purposes of pricing and tolerance comparing, the 80 milligram pill was the gold standard.
Therefore, this 19-year-old kid was claiming that he was able to support over time a $320-a-day OxyContin habit, which was an extremely unlikely piece of adolescent boasting. Drug habits don't take holidays and they don't take weekends off, so at this rate a single year worth of using would run $116,800 and there aren't too many working class teenagers with access to that kind of capital. Even for someone dealing the pills, there would be no way to obtain the kind of supply that would support both that kind of daily use and the amount of pills needed to sell to cover it, unless that person was a crooked doctor or a hooked pharmacist who had some direct access to a pipeline of pills. Wholesale connections like these for mass quantities of pills certainly existed, but they were few and far between and these kids in detox weren't likely that high enough up on the illicit distribution chain to access them.
When the young kids asked me what kind of habit I had I truthfully told them that I had recently escalated to four 80s a day. They seemed to find that acceptable and moved on to find someone else to badger and accuse of being a pussy. At some point in these conversations, though, an Old Head heroin junky was bound to throw his two cents in, killing the fun and silencing the children with a booming voice that was full of the seasoned addict's cold and calculating reason.
"Yo, man, fuck them Oxy's, man. You motherfuckers actually pay forty bucks for one of them, man, I can get five for four from my boy down on 8th and Somerset, that's forty bucks for five bags of good dope. What's that run you? For five of them pills, man, you're paying fuckin' two hundred bucks and I get the same thing for forty. It's stupid is what it is, that Oxy bullshit. I don't care how many of them damn things you can sniff in a day, it's a waste of money, man. Yo, for real, someday you knuckleheads are gonna figure that out and you come see me when you do, I'll hook you up with some good dope spots and show you how to work a needle, you'll thank me for it."
He had a point. On a dollar for dollar basis, heroin provided the bang for the buck. So why OxyContin? How could such an expensive pharmaceutical gain so much traction in a market saturated with cheap and potent heroin? It made sense that in places like West Virginia, eastern Kentucky and southern Ohio OxyContin would become the most predominantly abused opiate. The heroin distribution channels, while much more far-reaching in America than they used to be, with the drug turning up in limited quantities even in small cities like Harrisburg and Lancaster and even as far away as Allentown and Scranton, hadn't reached into the rural heartland where, like everywhere else in the world, there was a small percentage of the population that desired to get high on dope. So OxyContin, like an invasive foreign plant species, quickly took over this territory when it hit the black market because there was nothing else there to usurp or slow its immediate rise to dominance.
In Philadelphia, though, the OxyContin epidemic has had no less an effect, despite a cheaper alternative widely available on the streets. Not surprisingly, in detox most of the people hooked on OxyContin and other prescription painkillers were either young or new to opiate addiction, in either case the users hadn't been fully sucked into the vortex of North Philadelphia and its violent and lurid junky culture. Most liked not having to leave the comforts of their working class neighborhoods for worse sections of the city in order to get drugs. Since OxyContin, largely, was an off street drug (not that there weren't thriving open air Oxy markets -- there were, but they were as dangerous as any other open-air drug market and most users considered them a last resort), it made a perfect market for new dealers and users just cutting their teeth. Oxys were dealt behind closed doors, between acquaintances, in relative safety. Users could buy without worrying about getting caught in a Narc Squad street sweep and the dealers didn't have to constantly worry about getting shot. Beyond that, with each pill the users knew exactly what they were getting; there was no way to counterfeit the pills and the pills' contents were government regulated for quality, unlike a street bag of dope that could either be so weak as to be a waste of money or deadly because it contains rat poison or some other pollutant.
However, just because OxyContin was initially a safer alternative didn't mean users wouldn't at some point wind up strung out on heroin. Addictive drugs change the way people behave and think. As an addict gets hooked starts constantly calculating and projecting how much he'll have to spend getting high and always try to identify new revenue streams that will allow them to get more. He'll eventually become a hustler in some way or another, be it a burglar, dope dealer or white-collar salesmen turned embezzler. The dollar and how much dope it can purchase becomes king overall and price and potency factor into this. There was some naivete about all this left in the Young Bucks that would eventually be ground out of them. As the Young Bucks aged and became more experienced, they would confront the cold hard fact that OxyContin was expensive and heroin was cheap and at some point, if they didn't manage to get clean, most of them would make the switch.
And then it was, as they say, off to the races. Into the Zone and on the needle. http://www.freezerbox.com/images/archive/about_author.gifJeff Deeney is a Philadelphia-based writer who is in the process of submitting a book to publishing houses about the black market trade in OxyContin.

I realized (I've been sober for 3 days now) that this is not how I want my life to be and why I keep doing them, even though I've withdrawled so many times before. Because I don't want to face the fact that I screwed up and made one bad choice. I owe my bank money, tanning salon, spent all of my stock money, stole, lied, owe drug dealers money, and so much more, this embarrasing and so I go and get high to forget that I spent all of this money on a stupid pill and get high to erase the fact that I owe money, fucked up school, and even to erase the memories of my first high. Which is why I went back the very next day of my first time, to get more. Maybe if I read this the next time I want to get high, I'll think twice and actually remember why it is that I always seem to go back for more. It was guys like the ones in the article that got me hooked on this shit. I know guys like them and was in one of those neighborhoods the first time I did it. I know I might offend you guys and I'm not trying to preach (and if you don't live here, you might not understand where I'm getting at) but I found this interesting and now I want to clean my life up, I used to say I was doing oxys for fun, I'm young. But this isn't fun, spending obscene amounts of money is not fun, losing friends and having friends steal and lie to you so they can get just as high, is not fun anymore, and screwing up my life at this age, is not fun. I really want to quit now. :( I'm way in over my head and doing these literally everyday for two years is really just not normal. And for anyone to do this, it's not normal and it is possible to get clean and face your problems.

If you are really serious about quitting, then go for it. There are many resources available to you to help you in this tough time. It won't be fun by any means, but you can definitely do it. Let us know how this turns out.

OxyC

[applesauce]

not sure how you meant for this to come out but if i am reading you right ..um..that seems pretty fucked up to me--how exactly does one act white? how does one act gay?--are you saying that it is the responsibility of a minority group to homoginize themselves,to conform to a certain standard of dress,manner of speaking ect. to gain acceptence? who sets the standards and who gave them the right to do so?
does tolerance and accepance fit in to this ideology anywhere?

EARN YOUR RIGHTS BY ACTING WHITE
you may have found our new national slogan buddy
i don't like it

Yeah that is about the size of it, and your like or dislike for it won't change how painfully true it is, or how true that it has always been, in the USA or in any other culture. We feel comfortable with people who have similar cultural traits ("compatible meme-types" if you read enough sociology and cultural biology to know what that means.) (I don't mean for that last sentence to sound insulting or condescending, but most people don't know what a meme is, and it is the core of this conversation so I thought I should mention it).

In our country, anyone can act any way they want to. If someone wants to spike their hair and dye it pink, thats fine. They won't be getting too many good job offers, but they can do it.

If women don't want to shave their legs and armpits, they have that right. Most men in America will think they are gross, but they have the right to do it.

If black people want to exaggerate their heritage by naming their kids wacked out names and by inventing a near-unintelligible language ("eubonics") then that is their right. They WILL be ostracized and laughed at by mainstream America - they will NOT get the job offers and the opportunities that are afforded more "normal-looking" Americans, but they can still behave any way they like.

That isn't fair - we should all accept one another the way we are - but we don't. That's just life.

I agree that what I'm saying is fucked up - it is 100% true and accurate and it is how reality works, but it is a pity.

If a minority group wants to "play the game" and fit in so that they can get real jobs and have a normal social life, they will have to titrate the things that make them stand out, and water them down so that they are not offensive to most Americans.

I like girls that shave their legs, and I prefer not to eat cats like people in some Asian countries. Those are just two things we do in America "to fit in". If I lived in Africa, speaking Eubonics or doing other things that exaggerate the differences between myself and Americans wouldn't be a bad thing.

I guess the bottom line that the brilliant and infamous Mr. Lassiter was trying to get across was "When in Rome, do as the Romans do."

This is Rome. Act like a freak and exaggerate the differences between yourself and "normal" society, and you will be treated like an outsider. Try to fit in instead of trying to stand out, and you will find yourself being treated as part of the proverbial American Family.

That's not prejudice, it's just honest pragmatism. Liberals would have us believe that we can all get along if we can just learn to see beyond the differences in our cultures. I agree with that 100% but we HAVEN'T learned that as a society yet. We knee-jerk and treat people who dress and act like freaks - well, like freaks.

Again, that may not be fair, but tell you what, kink your hair all out, talk in a language most people can't even begin to understand, and come down to any one of the engineering shops I work at and apply for a job. After the room stops laughing, they'll show you the door. Not fair, but reality.

[AWOL]

And that's not just true here in the US. I know everybody thinks segregation is so bad here, but it's much worse in other countries. But, if living in another countries and I don't wish to be segregated out quite so badly I'm going to adapt. The whole when in Rome thing as applesauce said. If I even had pierced ears in Mexico and went to the job that I held there in South America I would have been canned. Pierced ears are for girls in Mexico, and when living in Mexico, you deal with it. Unfortunate yes yes I know, I lived it first hand. But it holds true throughout the world. The ethnic groups crying foul here, discriminate in their mother countries just the same as we do. It's sad, but true.

[applesauce]

dv yes thank you, that is exactly my point. I didn't mean to sound like I was giving a nazi salute and shouting "White Power!" like some illiterate redneck (no offense to any illiterate rednecks in the crowd :) ) but I was just pointing out how acting a certain way can ostracize a person and single them out, and we tend not to like people who "stand out" in a certain way.

If some street punk, white or black, wants to talk like LoVE was describing in her post, that is fine - they have that RIGHT - but people are going to look down on them.

A good friend of mine is Canadian. She grew up here in the states and acts very American, and she flies back to Canada several times a year. She wears a small Canadian flag pin on her lapel so that her fellow Canadians don't think she is American - she says she does that to avoid being spit on. Many of her Canadian friends don't exactly think the world of us Americans. So she acts like a Great White Northern Roman :)

Go to a staunch Muslim nation wearing a Jesus Loves You tshirt and see what happens - it is the same thing.

If we exaggerate the differences between us and "straight mainstream culture" we will set ourselves up to be discriminated against. Uncool? Yes, it is. Normal? Yep.

This isn't about earning rights by acting white, it is about how the human brain works in social situations. We look for commonality, and many of us get uncomfortable around people who are drastically different, especially if they are openly and consciously choosing to act the opposite of what we expect. They are TRYING to stand out, so guess what? We let them. It is their right, white, black, gay, alien-hybrid-disguised-as-human whatever.

[Cybershark]

Great Article Love and thanks for sharing it! I wish you all the best of luck. As everyone else has said if you want to be sober than there are many resourses and people that will help you and support you on that. I for one do oxy 80's on the weekends and have for the last year and I have never fortuantley become addicted to them since I only do them about 2 days a week normally unless of course it is the holiday season like now and I have done them 4 days in a row. ;)

[kyuss]

For example, if black people want to be accepted and treated the same as white people, they need to take the bones out of their noses and stop exaggerating their African heritage

and stop
throwing those spears
and eating dat watermelon:rolleyes:

[applesauce]

and stop
throwing those spears
:rolleyes: and eating dat watermelon

I personally only have one really close friend that is black - I don't think it is because I'm a bigot, its just because I tend to only hang around people who have similar interests as I do, and that alone keeps my list of friends pretty small.

Anyway, if my "black friend" saw your comment, he would undoubtedly crack up. He doesn't throw spears, he shoots a .357 at the range, and he doesn't eat watermelon, but he puts more wasabi on his sushi than anybody I've ever met. He just built a new house and he mentioned what it cost him once - I forget the exact number, but it was in the $300k range. In this area that is a damned nice house.

And he didn't get it by acting "black" he got it by acting like a normal American businessman, and by being good at what he does. If he insisted that people call him "Kubutomaddon" and he wore tribal headgear, he would probably be living several miles from here, in the ghetto. How we act matters a lot. Those of us who succeed learn to play the game. The people with the bones in their noses and who insist on being called by their weirdass made-up sounding foreign name get laughed at.

[kyuss]

I personally only have one really close friend that is black - I don't think it is because I'm a bigot, its just because I tend to only hang around people who have similar interests as I do, and that alone keeps my list of friends pretty small.

Anyway, if my "black friend" saw your comment, he would undoubtedly crack up. He doesn't throw spears, he shoots a .357 at the range, and he doesn't eat watermelon, but he puts more wasabi on his sushi than anybody I've ever met. He just built a new house and he mentioned what it cost him once - I forget the exact number, but it was in the $300k range. In this area that is a damned nice house.

And he didn't get it by acting "black" he got it by acting like a normal American businessman, and by being good at what he does. If he insisted that people call him "Kubutomaddon" and he wore tribal headgear, he would probably be living several miles from here, in the ghetto. How we act matters a lot. Those of us who succeed learn to play the game. The people with the bones in their noses and who insist on being called by their weirdass made-up sounding foreign name get laughed at.

I live in the south
down here blacks
and whites grow up together
and I've never met anyone black
who wears a bone in their nose
that's mainly a white thing down here
and if you called a black guy something african
he'd probably beat the shit out of you.

[applesauce]

Here in North Carolina where I live, the blacks DO wear bones through their nose, and I did some programming for a web shop where a lady was trying to start an African clothing line. I've lived all over the US and I've never seen a more prejudice black community than here in the south. I live less than 10 miles from a Nation of Islam HQ building.

I have met a FEW black people in NC who act like normal successful Americans, but most of them want to be called by their weirdass made-up names. My g/f is a schoolteacher here, and she brings home the most hilarious stories about kids who have been told by their parents not to respond to a teacher who doesn't call them by their full "proper" African name. Those moronic parents think they are honoring their roots, but in reality they are virtually eliminating any chance their kid will have to succeed. It is a shame to see the prejudice of black people shoot themselves in the foot because they don't know how to act American (black white mexican whatever, but AMERICAN) they want to force the rest of us to accept them. That's fine, and in 200 years maybe we will, but for now, like all humans from every corner of the globe, we don't like people trying to stand out so far.

I don't know what part of the south you are in, but here in NC, it is VERY different from what you are describing.

[kyuss]

Here in North Carolina where I live, the blacks DO wear bones through their nose, and I did some programming for a web shop where a lady was trying to start an African clothing line. I've lived all over the US and I've never seen a more prejudice black community than here in the south. I live less than 10 miles from a Nation of Islam HQ building.

I have met a FEW black people in NC who act like normal successful Americans, but most of them want to be called by their weirdass made-up names. My g/f is a schoolteacher here, and she brings home the most hilarious stories about kids who have been told by their parents not to respond to a teacher who doesn't call them by their full "proper" African name.

I don't know what part of the south you are in, but here in NC, it is VERY different from what you are describing.


I'm here
in NC too.
I think
perceptions
are colored.
How many times
have you watched Roots?

[applesauce]

Just once, why?

The black people I work with are professional and college-educated, and the only black person I frequently associate with socially has a Masters degree.

They all act like normal educated Americans. They don't act identical to white people any more than two white people act the same, but they play by normal fashion rules and they speak English and avoid slang.

Down the street a few miles where the Nation of Islam ("White people are the devil" believers) live it is quite different. There you see people who want to push THEIR heritage on us, and that is where the line is drawn in a lot of people's minds, certainly mine. If a person of any race or color or creed acts like a polite integrated American, they're cool by me, skin color and nationality is irrelevant.

NC is not the MOST prejudice state in the country, but it is certainly one of the worst I've personally lived in. Blacks make it so much worse on themselves by going out of their way to stand out and draw attention to the differences between us, instead of just acting normal. Normal isn't necessarily white, normal just means not going out of your way to be weird. Here, much of the black population just hasn't learned that yet, and it is a terrible disservice to the children most of all.

[kyuss]

Just once, why?

The black people I work with are professional and college-educated, and the only black person I frequently associate with socially has a Masters degree.

They all act like normal educated Americans. They don't act identical to white people any more than two white people act the same, but they play by normal fashion rules and they speak English and avoid slang.

Down the street a few miles where the Nation of Islam ("White people are the devil" believers) live it is quite different. There you see people who want to push THEIR heritage on us, and that is where the line is drawn in a lot of people's minds, certainly mine. If a person of any race or color or creed acts like a polite integrated American, they're cool by me, skin color and nationality is irrelevant.

NC is not the MOST prejudice state in the country, but it is certainly one of the worst I've personally lived in. Blacks make it so much worse on themselves by going out of their way to stand out and draw attention to the differences between us, instead of just acting normal. Normal isn't necessarily white, normal just means not going out of your way to be weird. Here, much of the black population just hasn't learned that yet, and it is a terrible disservice to the children most of all.

Interesting.
I was gonna pm you
but, you can't pm yet.
Anyway,applesauce is a great
I like it with my porkchops.

[applesauce]

Me too - pork chops and applesauce, the breakfast of champions.

I don't know what the criteria for PM is, but I'll look forward to some more good conversation with ya kyuss. Especially since we're both in NC, maybe we can grab a beer sometime. We can grab one in one part of town, then go to the other part of town, and then compare the two. There is one particular bar a couple miles down the street from me where we'd probably get shot for walking in (unless you are black, in which case you could pretend I am your friend).

We can bring an educated black person along and watch his face cringe when we get into the "bone-through-the-nose" part of town. He will be the first person to say how much it disgusts him that his own race hasn't learned how to play the game yet. If I used the proverbial "N" word in a derogatory way around him (well he would assume I was kidding because he knows me, but...) he would be upset. He isn't a bigot either. It is just that we both know that people of all races will be better able to work together once we start finding our common ground and emphasizing how similar we are in many ways. When people start trying to push away from that middle-ground and go out into left field, they do everyone a disservice.

I'm all for black history month and for museum pieces teaching us about the wonders of other cultures, African, Japanese whatever. But once we are all in the same melting pot, we should stress our similarities and work together instead of playing up our differences.

Just my opinion - what do I know. I'm a geek, not a sociologist. And to think, I started all this by quoting a talk radio host :)

[kyuss]

Me too - pork chops and applesauce, the breakfast of champions.

I don't know what the criteria for PM is, but I'll look forward to some more good conversation with ya kyuss. Especially since we're both in NC, maybe we can grab a beer sometime. We can grab one in one part of town, then go to the other part of town, and then compare the two. There is one particular bar a couple miles down the street from me where we'd probably get shot for walking in (unless you are black, in which case you could pretend I am your friend).

We can bring an educated black person along and watch his face cringe when we get into the "bone-through-the-nose" part of town. He will be the first person to say how much it disgusts him that his own race hasn't learned how to play the game yet. If I used the proverbial "N" word in a derogatory way around him (well he would assume I was kidding because he knows me, but...) he would be upset. He isn't a bigot either. It is just that we both know that people of all races will be better able to work together once we start finding our common ground and emphasizing how similar we are in many ways. When people start trying to push away from that middle-ground and go out into left field, they do everyone a disservice.

I'm all for black history month and for museum pieces teaching us about the wonders of other cultures, African, Japanese whatever. But once we are all in the same melting pot, we should stress our similarities and work together instead of playing up our differences.

Just my opinion - what do I know. I'm a geek, not a sociologist. And to think, I started all this by quoting a talk radio host :)


Sounds good.
I too am a fan
of Black History Month.
Why don't we have a
White History Month?
I think it's because
of all the jews in hollywood.:rolleyes:

[applesauce]

LOL or because the Freemasons run the Trilateral Commission.

[AWOL]

I'm not an advocate of *conform and adapt*, and I'm sure none of us are, we all here cause we use drugs. I can't speak for anyone else, but I think what most people would agree with is; Yes, celebrate our diferences ... but don't act surprised when your differences segregate you. If I don't want to be segregated here, or anywhere in the world I have to adapt to the situation (if I don't wish to be segregated.) Going to apply for a job as an engineer, or a bank teller, or whatever and being different is not going to get you the job. Just because an overwhelming majority of blacks feel it is ok for them, and only them to use that N word ... well come on. If you want to seperate yourself and say, it's ok for me, but if you do it I'll beat your cracker ass ... don't act surprised when you are segregated, you just did it to yourself!

I have no personal problem with any race, sexuality, or differences otherwise. But in any society throughout the world there is common ground that you can stand on if you wish to engage that socitety and not be segregated. If you use the N word, speak english in a restaurant in Mexico while wearing a shirt with a US flag, or are openly gay in Pakistan, don't act so shocked at the results.

How in the hell did we get on this topic? And how did I get involved ...... Oh yeah, cause I have a big mouth.



I too am a fan
of Black History Month.
Why don't we have a
White History Month?


We do, it's American history 101. :p But why we can't have white pride clubs in highschools is a prime example of a nice hot load of steamy BS. I'm going back to Mexico to start up white pride clubs in schools down there, I'm sure it's going to greeted with open arms and flying american flags.

[applesauce]

I can't speak for anyone else, but I think what most people would agree with is; Yes, celebrate our diferences ... but don't act surprised when your differences segregate you.

That is kind of why I was surprised that people were upset I had posted the Lassiter quote. I expected that people would understand that when we go out of our way to be different from the herd, we will get treated differently. Drug users, *especially* hard drug users, should be painfully aware of this fact.

Anyway I'm going to bail from this thread, I think things have been explained thoroughly enough that people understand. I could probably have explained better in that very first post where I started to accidentally derail this topic, but I was really wasted and not thinking things through as clearly as possible. I hope that error has been corrected by the good conversation that followed.

[hurtbirdbath]

There is definately a cultural problem in the country.

Last night I was at a mall with a friend. we were walking out and there was a few young kids behind me. They were talking loud and jibberish swearing alot. As much as think its direspectful there not my responsibility so i just keep my comments to myself. Then as were walking out the kid sais fucking white people and something about a cracker. So then I stop and tell them I bet your parents didnt raise you to have a trash mouth like that and basically told them they had no class or respect. The kid was black and I beleive the 2 girls were white, they were teenagers.

Im no bigot and certainly not better than them or anybody else. I do however have respect for others especially in public places where alot of people are around and have a problem with people that dont.

[robojunkie]

So let me get this straight: If the majority (race, class, non-junkies, whatever) decides it is generally intolerant of the the minority (blacks, other groups, the poor, junkies, whatever) then its the minorities fault and they "get what they deserve" for not conforming? WTF? I mean there's pragmatic conformity (where your suit to work, don't shoot up in your cubicle, etc) but who the f is the "majority" to demand on no rationale basis other than numerical dominance that the minority fit their definition of a "good citizen"?

Yeah maybe a black person who grew up on the streets and speaks a nearly different language is gonna have to learn "proper english" to go to college, etc. (Just like any other student that doesn't speak english) but why the f should he have to change his entire "style" or whatever in general to be respected in this country? I mean I look generally like a freak (well maybe not so much compared to some people I see, but where I go to school/work I'm the freak, appearance wise). And it generally doesn't matter as I do my work well and get a lot done so no one really cares what I look like when I come in, unless I was doing some formal presentation, in which case see line 4.

I get that its reasonable to look at the world (openly gay in Pakistan, etc.) and see how the minority can put themselves "out there" but it still doesn't make the response often received right or fair!

Don't mean to come off harsh/angry, just disagreeing with a bunch of the above posts, thats why i'm not quoting any particular one.

[hurtbirdbath]

So let me get this straight: If the majority (race, class, non-junkies, whatever) decides it is generally intolerant of the the minority (blacks, other groups, the poor, junkies, whatever) then its the minorities fault and they "get what they deserve" for not conforming? WTF? I mean there's pragmatic conformity (where your suit to work, don't shoot up in your cubicle, etc) but who the f is the "majority" to demand on no rationale basis other than numerical dominance that the minority fit their definition of a "good citizen"?

Yeah maybe a black person who grew up on the streets and speaks a nearly different language is gonna have to learn "proper english" to go to college, etc. (Just like any other student that doesn't speak english) but why the f should he have to change his entire "style" or whatever in general to be respected in this country? I mean I look generally like a freak (well maybe not so much compared to some people I see, but where I go to school/work I'm the freak, appearance wise). And it generally doesn't matter as I do my work well and get a lot done so no one really cares what I look like when I come in, unless I was doing some formal presentation, in which case see line 4.

I get that its reasonable to look at the world (openly gay in Pakistan, etc.) and see how the minority can put themselves "out there" but it still doesn't make the response often received right or fair!

Don't mean to come off harsh/angry, just disagreeing with a bunch of the above posts, thats why i'm not quoting any particular one.

Nothing wrong with having your own style. It sounds like you do just like everyone else. My problem is with people being obnoxtious and direspectful especially in public settings like movie theatres and malls etc, where theres little kids and families around. Dress or look however you want just show some respect for others in public.

[L0VE]

.. ...............

[L0VE]

So let me get this straight: If the majority (race, class, non-junkies, whatever) decides it is generally intolerant of the the minority (blacks, other groups, the poor, junkies, whatever) then its the minorities fault and they "get what they deserve" for not conforming? WTF? I mean there's pragmatic conformity (where your suit to work, don't shoot up in your cubicle, etc) but who the f is the "majority" to demand on no rationale basis other than numerical dominance that the minority fit their definition of a "good citizen"?

Yeah maybe a black person who grew up on the streets and speaks a nearly different language is gonna have to learn "proper english" to go to college, etc. (Just like any other student that doesn't speak english) but why the f should he have to change his entire "style" or whatever in general to be respected in this country? I mean I look generally like a freak (well maybe not so much compared to some people I see, but where I go to school/work I'm the freak, appearance wise). And it generally doesn't matter as I do my work well and get a lot done so no one really cares what I look like when I come in, unless I was doing some formal presentation, in which case see line 4.

I get that its reasonable to look at the world (openly gay in Pakistan, etc.) and see how the minority can put themselves "out there" but it still doesn't make the response often received right or fair!

Don't mean to come off harsh/angry, just disagreeing with a bunch of the above posts, thats why i'm not quoting any particular one.

Junkies are NOT the minority, they're the majority. Seriously, I think theres way more people on drugs that hide it, then you may think.

[Duckfeet]

Junkies are NOT the minority, they're the majority. Seriously, I think theres way more people on drugs that hide it, then you may think.

My gay neighbor claims that, too...that they are undercounted.

Me, after all these years, I know it's a behavior thing. Live and let live is my motto. I give benefit of the doubt to anybody, but at same time, I don't try to dress up crappy behavior in a nice package. It's a survival instinct to be mistrustful of someone who looks different. But I try to act decently until I'm shown that won't work. At the same time, I try *not* to use white guilt as a cowardly excuse for being a doormat. I don't fuck with people, better not fuck with me. Everybody gets along that way. But I do get tired of phony California thing, of treating people differently because they have historical grievances. By pretending that any group of people is cooler or smarter we propogate the same old bullshit. And make it impossible to be friends. Or by thinking that one area of the country has a lock on diversity, while other area is racist is chickenshit.

Again, I treat people as I find them, expect the same. Arguing over it, pointing the finger at each other is ridiculous. And finally, I try to remember when I'm tempted to make jokes, that there are all kinds of people on opiophile. Girls with weight problems, black people... We're pretty thick skinned though, if not this place would suck. I like Y'all, glad u put up with me.

[slugbone]

My gay neighbor claims that, too...that they are undercounted.

Me, after all these years, I know it's a behavior thing. Live and let live is my motto. I give benefit of the doubt to anybody, but at same time, I don't try to dress up crappy behavior in a nice package. It's a survival instinct to be mistrustful of someone who looks different. But I try to act decently until I'm shown that won't work. At the same time, I try *not* to use white guilt as a cowardly excuse for being a doormat. I don't fuck with people, better not fuck with me. Everybody gets along that way. But I do get tired of phony California thing, of treating people differently because they have historical grievances. By pretending that any group of people is cooler or smarter we propogate the same old bullshit. And make it impossible to be friends. Or by thinking that one area of the country has a lock on diversity, while other area is racist is chickenshit.

Again, I treat people as I find them, expect the same. Arguing over it, pointing the finger at each other is ridiculous. And finally, I try to remember when I'm tempted to make jokes, that there are all kinds of people on opiophile. Girls with weight problems, black people... We're pretty thick skinned though, if not this place would suck. I like Y'all, glad u put up with me.

if you don't mind my asking duck, what was the general vibe in your experience with your fellow black/white soldiers in Vietnam? was the depiction in platoon realisic?

[AWOL]

So let me get this straight: If the majority (race, class, non-junkies, whatever) decides it is generally intolerant of the the minority (blacks, other groups, the poor, junkies, whatever) then its the minorities fault and they "get what they deserve" for not conforming? WTF? I mean there's pragmatic conformity (where your suit to work, don't shoot up in your cubicle, etc) but who the f is the "majority" to demand on no rationale basis other than numerical dominance that the minority fit their definition of a "good citizen"?

Yeah maybe a black person who grew up on the streets and speaks a nearly different language is gonna have to learn "proper english" to go to college, etc. (Just like any other student that doesn't speak english) but why the f should he have to change his entire "style" or whatever in general to be respected in this country? I mean I look generally like a freak (well maybe not so much compared to some people I see, but where I go to school/work I'm the freak, appearance wise). And it generally doesn't matter as I do my work well and get a lot done so no one really cares what I look like when I come in, unless I was doing some formal presentation, in which case see line 4.

I get that its reasonable to look at the world (openly gay in Pakistan, etc.) and see how the minority can put themselves "out there" but it still doesn't make the response often received right or fair!

Don't mean to come off harsh/angry, just disagreeing with a bunch of the above posts, thats why i'm not quoting any particular one.


The point being made is about how the world is, not how the world should be. We aren't debating a utopian dream, we're talking about the way things are. If you come out in Pakistan and say you're gay while holding your boyfriends hand, don't be so surprised when you get stoned. That is the way the world is. I could give a fuck less about your sexual orientation.


And LOVE, so you refer to yourself as a junky now? When I called you one you went off something about how you are not one, and that junkys all use too much of too many different types of drugs and live in the gutter or something.

[Duckfeet]

if you don't mind my asking duck, what was the general vibe in your experience with your fellow black/white soldiers in Vietnam? was the depiction in platoon realisic?

First, I was lucky to not be exposed to a lot of racist crap in my formative years. I spent most of my teens in a small city in Argentina, and only one black man, a Cuban, who played piano and sang. And I kind of looked up to him. I'd sneak out and go to this club he ran, and listen to him play boleros and other caribbean music. He was always nice to me. Down there, there was no "carding" so I'd sneak out of the house and go to his little jazz joint.

I came back at seventeen, spun around between Miami and Nicaragua, then enlisted. Interesting, that in Germany the racism and distrust between the two races was huge. Rarely spoke, meanness and bad behavior on both sides. After six month there, I went to Vietnam, where once u were away from base camps, away from miliary hierarchy it was pretty cool and supportive, like we depended on each other--and like this war, blacks and hispanics were heavily represented--but it also seems like it was less politically correct than it is now...you could actually ask questions about the differences, talk about your families. Christ you'd be stuck in some hole in the mud, shoved up against a motherfucker, people out in jungle wanting to kill you, you became as close to that overused word "brothers" as I ever saw since. young and frightened, and how could you not see each other's humanity, and love the man you are stuck with.

But again, once you got back to the bases and such, it was angry and divided. Strange how awkaward it would get, then. If you ever have had a close friend who is black--or white, if you are black--you may have noticed how different things get when other people are around. Sad really...we need to all intermarry, and end up like Brazl. But it seems like every generation gets better at not having time for that bullshit. Sadly, we deal often with hopeless dregs of any society--jails, dope dens--so we may not get the opportunity to see the best...