My brother is recreationally using heroin...

[GlitteryPomPoms]

I've NC for this thread.

I found out today that my brother (28 years old) uses heroin recreationally a couple of times a month.

He's single. He has no children. He has a good job and is doing well in his career. His use of heroin doesn't appear to be affecting his life.

I'm obviously worried this is going to spiral into addiction but he says he's been doing it for a few years, that he knows what he's doing to stop it becoming a problem and that anyway it's none of my business.

I don't know what I'm asking really. I guess, is it actually possible to recreationally use heroin? What can I or should I do to help him?

so because one situation is awful, you're suggesting that another uncontrolled state-of-mind-altering substance should be more freely available, even though other people will pay the price?

The only people i've heard making that sort of speech are the users themselves.

Utter selfishness.

well no that wasn't what I was suggesting.

you do like the art of rhetoric dont you?

I think it should be controlled and then government can make money out of it, like they do with cigarettes and alcohol, and it could be standardised and therefore safer.

SeaEagle...

You really should read Chasing The Scream, you might learn some things.

And was your baby born brain damaged and addicted? I sincerely, genuinely hope not, but you were taking morphine in the last weeks of your pregnancy, so you are kinda defeating your own argument there...

I'm sorry, op

If I was you, I'd be worried sick

Whatever you do, do not lend him money.

The reason FAS is common is because alcohol is freely available and drinking in British society is the maladaptive coping mechanism of choice. It is fairly difficult to control alcohol as it can be brewed at home.

If you think making heroin a loosely regulated but freely available drug wouldn't increase public health issues related to it I think that is very naive.

You only need to ask anyone working in a&e about admissions over the weekend to see what happens when private business becomes responsible for administrating access to drugs (alcohol).

It is a difficult issue. Heroin would have to be highly regulated to ensure the danger of OD was reduced, high levels of regulation would reduce any beneficial effect of having it freely available, state infrastructure struggles to enforce the regulation of alcohol with the vast majority of licensed venues flouting the law every single day. I do not think it would be any different with other drugs.

This whole thing about legalising drugs is more neoliberal crap about shifting responsibility for public health onto individuals who may well be uninterested and uninformed about public health and setting them up for the 'personal responsibility' judgement when things inevitably go wrong.

I don't agree with liberalisation of drugs laws at all, I think it is unworkable, damaging and naive. And often called for by people who are looking for support for their own habits.

It is especially worrying to suggest liberalisation in a society with such a problem with wellbeing, especially amongst young people.

offred in fairness in the NL the decriminalization of drugs works well.

But it's an entirely different culture with a great deal more emphasis on personal responsibility. It simply wouldn't work in the UK because 1) the intense support network for people trying to get off addictive substances just isn't there and 2) there are huge areas where people are living very difficult and often unpleasant lives, which is why people start to want to escape and 3) going hand in hand with that, there is the culture of the tolerance of extremes ... the drinking culture being one. 4) the problem of people's actions affecting others won't go away, no matter how far the liberalization brigade like to shut their eyes to that.

There is an incredibly moving thread on Classics about EMIN's fostered baby who was born addicted. But that doesn't alter the fact that no matter how much love the tinies get, the brain damage is sometimes irreversible.

I don't know what the solution is since no government will/can put enough money in, and heroin itself is so addictive. A fundamental societal shift, I think, which isn't likely to happen.

See I don't think decriminalisation in NL is working well.

Gosh, op he's lucky to have you in his corner, but as others have said difficult to do anything if he doesn't want to change and telling him he might become addicted too often is likely to see him shut down. After all he's taking it, he knows what it's like and addicts lie, especially to themselves.

If it helps my advice would be to try and talk to him, but also listen to him an pick your battles.

He might not believe that he could ever become addicted, but maybe he would acknowledge that its possible for a recreational user to become addicted without realising until it's happened and that could plant a seed of doubt.

Maybe ask him if he's started having the most vivid awful nightmares and if he realises that's due to the Heroin.

Or if he's noticed a problem with his sex drive and whether he could maintain a relationship on it.

What if he got a different batch that was stronger (might not even notice depending on what it was cut with) or cut differently, what if he then became addicted or OD'd? Or if his tolerance increased over time? If he acknowledges this could be possible maybe exploring just how little help is available could give him a reality check. Would he want to addict himself to methadone - even harder to get off. How would he explain that at work? It would be noticeable. What about whilst he was waiting for treatment. Does he realise how much his life could spiral in those 6-8 weeks?

What about random drugs tests if driving?

The effect of a criminal record if his dealer is under police survelience?

Maybe pass on your take on high him, ok in a brother, but not in a relationship / an employee, etc. You said it was noticeable, this may surprise him.

Feel free to call BS on any self enabling talk. You don't have to enable or ignore you can call him out on it without even causing an argument and plant doubt just by stating the obvious or replying honestly to conversations he starts.

See I don't think decriminalisation in NL is working well.

Can you say why? Not disbelieving you, it's just that I hadn't come across that data and I'd be interested to see it.

there -is- a problem with tourists who come over to just get high one way or another so some cities are cutting down on the brown cafés. That's a concern in itself

It's a concern that the tourists can't handle it, I mean.

I mean that it unequivocally had not achieved it's four main objectives.

I used to work with an organisation that liaised with Afghan and Burmese poppy farmers - where a massive majority of the world's heroin comes from.

The farmers were terrorised into producing the opium poppies by the local regimes. Often those regimes would hurt, rape or kill members of those farmers' families to ensure compliance. I worked with some of the victims.

Then, when it came to smuggling the opium across the borders - particularly the Golden Triangle and into China, the traffickers would employ the most disturbing methods. Including buying unwanted Chinese baby girls, killing them and filling their bodies with packets of opium.

That's how heroin gets on the streets of Europe. It starts there.

So there's no such thing as recreational use. There's already a horrific human cost attached to heroin before it's even ingested. About as far from fun and games as you can get.

Oh Christ. I'd heard that and prayed it wasn't true.

In theory if the government produced it, it wouldnt be so dirty. But Im not convinced that the government should be producing a dangerously addictive and brain-changing substance at everyone else's expense in order to feed destructive habits (medical use is another matter)