Matthew Perry- “I wonder how much this moron will pay”

I'm not sure that's true. The writing was on the wall long before he was famous. Given barbiruates as a baby and followed by an alcohol problem during his teen years. He was hungry for fame, if he hadn't got it I can see that he would have gone down the addiction path a lot sooner and with less money would have probably taken far riskier street drugs that are often cut together with other nasty things. There are often spikes in drug deaths where bad batches are in circulation etc. I'm actually surprised he made it to the age he did, albeit he'd had a few brushes with death along the way.

He was horribly exploited though and it goes to show that money can't buy happiness or keep you safe. I'm sad to read of the death of any drug addict. I think with perry it's just such a juxtaposition to see him as chandler, larger than life looking healthy to then to know what was going on in his personal life. Same as the guy from Glee. Total shock to see him die as he looked totally healthy and no one had any idea he was a drug user.

Opium dens in London weren’t like that of San Francisco ( a friend wrote a couple of books on it - they were more like a back room in someone’s house in London.
There is the Dore engraving supposedly of London, but the pipe looks very wrong.

A great grandfather as a young man worked in Limehouse 19th C as a boat builder ( tall ships back then) and did smoke at Limehouse and said it was “ the closest thing to heaven”

He died long before I was born so couldn’t ask him about it, but it was part of family history ( he had a gambling habit too) so can’t have been much fun for his poor wife and 7 children when money was tight.

In U.K. Laudanum seemed to be the preferred way.

Bizzarely in U.K. law it’s still technically illegal to own an opium pipe and lamp and yen hok - no other paraphernalia is “illegal” here, just specifically Chinese opium smoking stuff.
( Roots in a century old racism?)

During the 19th century Hong Kong turned into a British colony and opium started to come into the country along with the tea trade, Victorian London had plenty of opium dens run by the Chinese. Plenty of Brits would go to this places and it was also smoked (vaporised, never injected), plenty of photographs and drawings that document these places. Rumour is people have been getting high since prehistoric times.

Iranians use opium as one might have a cup of tea, according to an Iranian I know.
Taryok (?) I think he called it. Edit : Taryak
When Iranian revolution happened, a new wave of “Smoking heroin” came in, as many fleeing Iranians smuggled it in to London 1979

As it was smoked, ( vapourised) it appealed to people who naturally were wary of injecting .
In those days there were no needle exchanges that far back.
( worked in a drugs charity )

I was given oxycontin every time I had some sort of "major" dental work such as a root canal, tooth extraction etc.. My dentist would hand me a small plastic bottle with 10 pills "just in case you're in pain the next few days", truth is I was never in pain but I ended taking the pills just for recreation purposes. Yes, I was young and foolish.

not just Hollywood!

Yeah it is the USA you can always find someone willing to prescribe dodgy medicine!

What were you having done at the dentist?

It’s totally awful and sad. Complete case of avarice and self-serving behaviour by all those around Perry. Yanbu. They all sound awful - from the Ket Queen to the slimy assistant.
Hope they all go to prison for a long time.

Fentanyl has substituted heroin, at the present time finding organic heroin in the American streets is very difficult because it’s all fentanyl, why? Because it’s made in labs, much cheaper/easier to produce and way more profitable, problem is that it’s 50 times stronger than heroin so the risk of overdosing is massive (hence the reason junkies are dying in masse in the US last ten years and the infamous “opiate epidemic”). This said fentanyl is entering Europe slowly, mostly in the western countries. In a few years heroin will be something from the past, vintage stuff only available in Eastern Europe, Arab countries etc…where the poppies are grown.

Hold that beer.

I'm sorry to say that there is already concern about opioid addiction relating to prescription opioids in the UK, whether prescribed or sourced elsewhere.

Prescribing guidelines have changed since 2016, with effects being monitored.
The vast majority (over 75%) of people abusing opioid painkillers in the US received their drugs from friends or relatives for free, stole from friends or relatives, bought them on the street, or received from more than one medical prescriber. A tick over one-fifth was from a single HCP (doctor or PA).
www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/report_2686/ShortReport-2686.html

A DC of mine is a doctor working in an area of the US that is medically underserved, and it is common knowledge among doctors there that the vast majority of opioid addiction cases from thensurrounding counties that are seen in the local hospital system are the result of PAs having prescription privileges.

With the spread of PAs in the NHS, it will be very important to keep prescription pads away from them and to ensure that they do not as a body fall under the umbrella of any powerful lobby within the medical profession that will hamper strict supervision.

Not 30-40% of all patients though… I think that is what people are taking issue with.

They are absolutely prescribed (and widely prescribed) in the UK for chronic pain.

Maybe your clients need a medication review, have the doctors or district nurses reviewed their pain meds recently so that they are not left in pain.

Are you a doctor specialising in the treatment of chronic pain

No, I'm a home care assistant and have been for many years.

What do you mean they get nasty.

I mean that if the carers arrive late at their house to administer medication and that medication is pain relief then the clients often complain about the carers arriving late. They are rude and agressive towards the carers who arrive late, usually due to traffic problems. It's because they've become addicted to their pain relief and are sat anxiously waiting for their next dose. It's very common and very sad.

I know quite a lot about Elvis. His "doctor"/drug-pusher, Dr Nick, was so notorious that he had a Simpsons character of the same name based on him. His medical licence was eventually permanently revoked for a history of mass overprescribing. Elvis naively trusted him because he was a "doctor" and therefore saw the drugs he was taking as "good" for him.

Really. Are you a doctor specialising in the treatment of chronic pain. What do you mean they get nasty.

Ketamine is highly fashionable at the moment and a lot of young people are having serious bladder issues as a result.

Yep

You've only got to spend a few months working in home care to see how attached people are to their pain relief.

It's the reason they get so nasty when carers are late through no fault of their own.

I'd say 30-40% of the elderly I go to are drug addicts.