To be hacked off over "contaminated"heroin.

[fallon8]

I may have pressed wrong button and posted this elsewhere,I aplogise if I have.
Dog walking, thinking time.
Why does Radio Scotland in droning voice keep telling us that ex amount of peolple have died thru taking comtaminted heroin? Apparently is contains Anthrax and a few bods have died. Surely, they shouldnt be taking the bloody stuff in the first place.
Thru' no fault of my own,I have been treated for Breast Cancer 4 times and continue on long term stuff to try and keep it at bay. I sometimes have to argue my case to get a more expensive drug which has less side effects.Why should resources which could be spent on me and others like me be used for twats who bring it on themselves? Dont mention, smoking, too much alchohol, obesity either!!! To get into the Chemo Room,you rung the gauntlet of patients hooked up to their treatment fagging it outside,i know they maybe on the way out, but I dont care,but why waste the cash? I know, I know, I shouldnt let it get to me,but it does.

In your opinion obviously Dramainpyjamas

Sassy, yes, I thought Fallon said methadrone.

Wubbly sorry about your diagnosis x x x

so i ask you fallon, what if your daughter grew up and because of the stresses of a childhood watching her mother fight for her life, felt the need to do drugs (not saying she will but these things happen) would you then feel that she was not entitled to help!!

actually i dont no why i am even arguing with you!!

Paisley - not sure if there has been any update to this story :

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/humber/8570582.stm

ah it's a 'ph' not 'th' that's caused the confusion I think.

'Surely, they shouldnt be taking the bloody stuff in the first place'

Fantastic. I will give DP that quote to take to his next NA meeting.

What a nasty OP, I'm sorry to hear about your illness, but really you should be grateful for what you do have.

A heroin addiction takes away everything to the extent that you would prefer to be dead. Recently someone I know was in hospital with multiple organ failure due to his continous addiction to heroin. Maybe he should have been left on the doorstep, after all, he got what he asked for??

I can understand your anger to an extent, having nearly lost my mother and two aunts to cancer at the same time. (Yep, being in the C family sucked for a while!)

But the treatment of others with self-inflicted diseases did not detract from their treatment, and I doubt it dimished yours. Where do you draw the line? Lung cancer from smoking? Tis a slipperly slope when we start trying to decide who is 'worthy' and who is not. Horrible term by the way.

No one in my family has ever had cancer. To make the NHS fairer for us, people should be banned from free cancer treatment if more than two people in their family have had cancer. After all, if you have cancer in your family and have children with someone else in a similar situation, then it's pretty irresponsible.

Aloiuseg - "Smoking and drinking and eating are not illegal therefore it is churlish to compare them with taking class A drugs."

Why?

They are all public health issues. They all cost the NHS money.

Ladybiscuit - you are joking, yes?

Yes of course I am. Just pointing out the absurdity of the argument. No one sets out to become a heroin addict, just as no one sets out to get cancer.

We have finite resources. Drugs are illegal, we know what can happen yet we still expect there to be a safety net for us.

Time for some personal responsibility surely?

Aye, but why single out illegal activities? The consequences of drinking, smoking and overeating are just as well understood and cost considerably more.

In the interests of debate about the utilisation of scarce NHS resources, this article caught my eye today :

news.bbc.co.uk/panorama/hi/front_page/newsid_8615000/8615795.stm

Of course those posters only here for the trading of insults will be too busy wishing death on each other to add reasoned comment

Fallon8 - the father of my children had cancer (didnt smoke/drink or have any other "reason" to get it) and we saw a guy who had the same cancer, going through the same treatment, lost his voice, neck burnt to near a cinder through radiotherapy still go out from the ward and smoke regularly.
Made us both sick and furious, especially as he was bringing up phlem for ages after he came back in from his cigarette.

I can perfectly understand where your fury and feelings of unjustness about it comes from.

But if we start down that route of thinking some arent worthy of treatment because of their choices in life, where do we draw the line?

They are illegal for a reason.

There is a law against them because they do so much damage, if people choose to abuse drugs then why should the nhs pour scarce resources into attempting to fix them at the expense of real diseases.

If addicts don't get drugs they eventually recover, they don't need costly treatment whereas a cancer sufferer will die without treatment. It degrades illness to liken it to addiction.

If people choose to abuse drugs then why should the nhs pour scarce resources into attempting to fix them at the expense of real diseases?

If people smoke then why should the nhs pour scarce resources into attempting to fix them at the expense of real diseases?

If people choose not to exercise then why should the nhs pour scarce resources into attempting to fix them at the expense of real diseases?

You are misinformed alouise.My brother had to go through extensive testing to donate a kidney to me after 7 years of hard core heroin and about 2 yrs of crack cocaine.By the time he was put through the medical he had only been completely clean about 11 months and the 2 consultants said he was one of the healthiest fittest people they had ever seen.I on the other hand have always been fairly healthy and never abused anything and have had kidney failure twice severe heart disease and a malignant tumour!things are not always what they seem

So it's okay to treat alcoholics then Alouiseg, since they're abusing a legal substance?

Just checking I'm understanding your stance on this.

What am i misinformed about noddyholder.

The reality is that drug addicts will get ill. They get ill as a result of their behaviour. If treating the addiction costs less than treating the resulting illnesses we should do that.

Maybe we should figure in the wider social costs such as family breakdown, crime etc?

Singling out junkies is a lazy and easy argument. But they cost society a lot less than smokers for instance.

Alouiseg - You said you agreed with the OP, yet the OP makes no distinction between illegal and illegal activites.

Where do you draw the line, patient x gets no treatment because their problem may have been self inflicted?

Who decides what a 'real disease' is?