9 school girls sickened by methadone

[Mugu]

ST. JOSEPH, Mo. -- Nine middle school girls were taken to a hospital Wednesday after taking what is believed to be methadone pills, and a 16-year-old boy was charged with distributing a controlled substance.

St. Joseph police Capt. Kevin Castle said the Benton High School student is believed to have given methadone -- a drug commonly used to treat heroin addiction -- to a junior high school girl on a school bus.

Police believe the girl then distributed the pills to other girls, most or all of them eighth-graders.

By late morning, the girls were nauseous and groggy, and at least one was salivating excessively, school administrators told the St. Joseph News-Press. Around noon, the girls were crying as they walked to ambulances, and one hysterical girl was taken from the school on a stretcher.

To read complete article:
http://artoriuscastus.blogspot.com/2008/03/9-school-girls-sickened-by-methadone.html

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. Please, God, don't let my kids do that :^(

[Warpy]

2. Drugs are targeted poisons

and most of us really don't like them.

I know the the first day on opiates is "whee!" and the second is "well, it's doing a good job on the pain," and the third is "will I ever be able to get off this stuff and be normal again?"

I've seen the same pattern in post surgical patients. Most of them would rather accept a certain level of pain after the third day than take opiates every 3 hours.

Those kids had a favor done to them. They'll be far less likely to do drugs again. They know what the downside is first hand.

[EOTE]

4. Is methadone an opiate?

I know it has many of the same effects as opiates, but I've heard it described as an opiate agonist. Doesn't methadone use negate the effects that opiates have on the body?

[Warpy]

5. It's a synthetic agonist/antagonist

which means it also acts to block the high from other opiates. It's long lasting and binds to opiate receptors in the nerves that carry pain impulses, so it's useful to block both the symptoms of opiate withdrawal and moderate to severe pain.

Any junkie going to a methadone clinic will not be doing heroin that day. It would be a total waste.

Personally, I think addicts should be able to get their scrips from Walgreen's like the rest of us, three days at a time to prevent them from selling the pills on the street to dumb kids like the ones in this story.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

6. It's an opioid.

If you want to argue semantics.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

8. Exactly my reaction after surgery.

First day I just woke up to push the button, by the second I was ticked it made me so sleepy, by the third I was requesting something much weaker to just take the edge off.

[knitter4democracy]

9. My first day on opiates is slightly different.

They don't block my pain at all (genetic thing), so I just get to puke randomly, go bipolar, or get the other side effects while getting zero benefit. It sucks post op, let me tell ya.

[fed-up]

3. two guys at the "clean & sober" apt across the street died in last 6 months from methadone

neither had a prescription

not a word in the paper

person that runs the clean and sober is not subject to ANY regulations but is able to chrage $465 per person-two to a tiny bedroom-
each of the two apartments has 6 bedrooms-normally a room in this neighborhood would run about $250-300 for a bedroom in an apartment!

person that runs it has about a dozen similar "clean and sober" houses-is making a ton of CASH

is liked by the county as that gives them someplace to dump the druggies after they get out of jail

why ask questions? why publicize the deaths so people understand how deadly methadone can be for those that it is not prescribed for


also read recently about a half dozen deaths in Tuolumne County, CA from methadone overdoses

[Warpy]

7. They were trying to get high

and methadone has little of the psychological effect of opiates, no matter how much of it they take.

It also blocks the high from opiates.