Jump to content
Chapala.com Webboard

Mexican Opium Towns


CHILLIN

Recommended Posts

People must think I am shilling for Washington Post. I am not, but they often have interesting articles about Mexico, in English language. So here is the link, interesting in light of a recent forum discussion about opioids (I finally spell it right).

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/02/17/inside-the-mexican-towns-that-produce-americas-heroin/?utm_term=.36c0900e4f86

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 51
  • Created
  • Last Reply
9 minutes ago, Mainecoons said:

That wouldn't surprise me in the least but it is an apples and oranges comparison.  :)

Well it certainly surprises me! I mean, all those well thought out posts I read here, ideas expressed after deep thought and introspection, proper use of sentence structure and grammar, I mean could stoners actually crank out such profound stuff? Frankly, I'm shocked to read that!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You have be careful with today's cannabis. A lot of the growers are developing "two toke" grade cannabis. It maybe up to 25% pure THC - more than two tokes you can even have audio and visual hallucinations. Whereas back "in the day" they passed around a joint of 6-8 % THC. It has become more like a drug than a social event.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, CHILLIN said:

You have be careful with today's cannabis. A lot of the growers are developing "two toke" grade cannabis. It maybe up to 25% pure THC - more than two tokes you can even have audio and visual hallucinations. Whereas back "in the day" they passed around a joint of 6-8 % THC. It has become more like a drug than a social event.

Nobody sells their stuff without describing it exactly, because the price varies depending on the type and the strength, and whether it is for pain or for getting high. So there is no more danger than "back in the day". And I use the word "danger" very, very loosely. A few hallucinations are not going to hurt anyone lieing on the couch. Very few smokers get high and then jump in the car to bomb around town.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, ComputerGuy said:

Very few smokers get high and then jump in the car to bomb around town.

Well we sure did when were teens, in my 1957 VW Van:D. It was all sativa back then- made you want to dance, sing and laugh. Indica is the couch potato one. Pure sativa, high potentcy, strains have only recently been introduced. They would be very hard to find locally anyways. If you ran across them, they would not be for sale. They only grow in tropical or sub-tropical areas, and the cartels are growing them in Southern Mexico and probably in the local mountains - to meet high U.S. demand. I don't have to tell you be careful at parties as to what is being passed around, and watch your drinks too.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There is absolutely nothing dangerous about smoking pot. Any kind of pot. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zero. Forget it.

Cherry-picking the odd report to the contrary shows less integrity than discarding 97% of scientists who believe in the reality of global warming... 3% don't,  so it's not true!

This does not mean to suggest that anything should be done to the point of stupidity. I remember when scientists discovered that a certain sweetener would case rats to melt; only later did they reveal that they fed the rats the equivalent of a 24-wheeler full of Pepsi.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Pot has been legal in my state of WA since 2013. Every time I go north I think gosh I want to try it just one more time. But I never get around to driving ten blocks to the closest pot store to my Seattle Condo.

Oh well. I guess I'm getting old. It is just no big deal anymore.

I was in my mid twenties when I was in the Army and for 13 months was stationed in the Netherlands. Pot was legal in Amsterdam too. But because it wasn't illegal non of us younger soldiers wanted to smoke it.

It was like what was great about it was that it was then illegal in the states.

Oh well I can always have some Bacardi Rum and diet coke.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not really. Poppy growth is now a huge industry with the cartels, to supplant the loss of cannabis sales, and getting bigger. Another reason to legalize drugs. Pot gets legal, cartels lose. Heroin gets legal, cartels lose. Unfortunately, I see them simply turning to other lucrative crimes anyway.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeh but. These tropical sativa strains sell for up to four times the price of "normal" cannabis - about the same price as heroin. They have to be smuggled into the U.S. and make use of cartel trade routes. The cartels are moving more heavily into human trafficking. The DEA breaks down your door, and a girls says she is from Mexico, visiting her Uncle Ramone. Much easier to explain than a big gob of black tar sitting on the table.

https://herb.co/marijuana/news/tropical-cannabis

Link to comment
Share on other sites

29 minutes ago, ComputerGuy said:

Not really. Poppy growth is now a huge industry with the cartels, to supplant the loss of cannabis sales, and getting bigger. Another reason to legalize drugs. Pot gets legal, cartels lose. Heroin gets legal, cartels lose. Unfortunately, I see them simply turning to other lucrative crimes anyway.

I think you misunderstood what I said. The heroin produced in Mexico is meant for export to the U.S. and not to be sold in Mexico. The cartels feel they are protecting Mexican youth from what they see as an American problem. They do not want the scourge of rampant heroin addiction in Mexico.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 2/22/2018 at 12:07 PM, alex45920 said:

The cartels take a dim view of heroin use...and an even dimmer view of anyone caught selling it to Mexicans. 

If so how do you explain this?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/world/mexico-s-drug-traffic-is-now-hitting-home/?utm_term=.f28eca5987af

Or this?

Quote

The rest of Mexico is starting to feel much the same way. Once mainly a smuggling corridor for drugs heading to the United States, Mexico is grappling with the effects of a fast-rising addiction rate as relatively cheap versions of cocaine and methamphetamine find a market south of the border. Experts say the supply has increased as U.S. enforcement on the border has made it more difficult to move illegal drugs north.

A recent government survey of drug use shows Mexicans are trying drugs, and getting hooked, earlier in life and more frequently. The number of people who said they had tried drugs rose by more than a fourth, to 4.5 million, since the last survey in 2002. More than 460,000 Mexicans are addicted to drugs, a 51% jump from six years ago, according to preliminary results of the survey released last month.

 

http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-mexaddict15-2008oct15-story.html

Respectfully I think you are giving the Mexican drug criminals credit they don't deserve.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It is misinformation to talk about addiction to marijuana or cocaine, both of which are non- physically addictive drugs. Can be mentally addictive, but no one goes through physical withdrawal when ceasing to use either.  Opiates, meth, are a different story. Caffeine is also a physically addictive drug.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Physical addiction includes withdrawal symptoms and compulsively taking the drug to feel normal. With cocaine, people who abuse the drug may strongly desire the physical effects, not just the mental effects, of the stimulant. They may enjoy the increased energy, higher self-esteem, sense of accomplishment, or even the suppressed appetite (leading to rapid weight loss) that the drug causes. However, as a person enters into binge cycles with cocaine abuse, they are more likely to also suffer serious, dangerous side effects, including damage to the cardiovascular system, paranoia and delusions, and damage to the nose, mouth, throat, and upper respiratory system.

Cocaine’s Potential for Reinforcement

What Are the Effects of Cocaine on the Brain?
Cocaine is one of the most potent stimulants available, and it is highly addictive. It affects neurochemistry through the brain’s reward pathway immediately, so taking it even once can trigger addiction in many people.

The drug prevents dopamine, a neurotransmitter associated with elevated mood, pleasure, and excitement, from being reabsorbed, so instead, it lingers in the brain, causing intense euphoria. Once cocaine begins to wear off and dopamine is absorbed, the brain is too exhausted to make more dopamine without help; this leads to depression, exhaustion, mood swings, and other early withdrawal symptoms. To avoid these feelings, the person may immediately take another dose of cocaine in a process is called reinforcement.

Not only does cocaine change how neurotransmitters are released, but a study found that cocaine addiction actually changes a person’s genetics, and this could lead to physical addiction. The drug activates genes that code for the protein delta-FosB; this protein, in turn, activates production of GluR2, a component of glutamate receptors, and these bind to the neurotransmitter glutamate. An increase in the ability to bind to glutamate intensifies a person’s sensitivity to cocaine’s rewarding effects, which is a physical change leading to reinforcement for taking the drug.

Most of the withdrawal symptoms associated with cocaine addiction are mental and emotional, but the body can strongly crave the drug to regulate resulting depression, fatigue, anhedonia, and other symptoms. This can lead to relapse.

https://americanaddictioncenters.org/cocaine-treatment/is-it-physically-addictive/

It is splitting hairs to pretend cocaine isn't physically addictive.  Of course it is and quite frankly the heavy pot users I have known are similarly addicted.  Mental or physical, addiction is addiction and in addition pot smoking damages the lungs in a similar manner as regular smoking.

Get high on life, not drugs.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, Mainecoons said:

If so how do you explain this?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/world/mexico-s-drug-traffic-is-now-hitting-home/?utm_term=.f28eca5987af

Or this?

 

http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-mexaddict15-2008oct15-story.html

Respectfully I think you are giving the Mexican drug criminals credit they don't deserve.

 

I suggest you actually read the article that we are discussing in this thread. According to Myles Estey, who is quoted in that article:

"Along the border in Ciudad Juarez and Tijuana have been the two places you see extreme heroin use, but they’re relatively small. In Mexico City, we tried to look into whether there was a community, and we just didn’t find very much. In Guerrero, there are a handful of people in town who will use some of the products, but it’s generally discouraged and it's very frowned upon. Certainly people who are working as hit men are not allowed to be doing that. One of Don Miguel's crews that we were with are not even allowed to drink, let alone do heroin."

 That would seem to corroborate what I said. Even the article you cited could only point to the border area around Tijuana as a location where heroin is readily available in Mexico. I would call that further corroboration; however, you may call it whatever you wish. The statistical information you presented about the rising number of Mexicans who have tried illegal drugs is irrelevant to this discussion since it makes no specific analysis of how many Mexicans have tried heroin. My remarks about the cartels' attitudes toward heroin use in Mexico were meant to point out their amazing hypocrisy and not to give them credit in any way.
 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.




×
×
  • Create New...