Philip Seymour Hoffman Didn't Have to Die

[Unknown Beatle]

-Snip-

Details are still emerging, but it appears that the heroin found in Hoffman's apartment belongs to nasty strain of laced heroin known by such names as "Ace of Spades" and "Theraflu."

Hoffman was only 46-years-old, a master of his craft, and a father of three young children. It is truly a tragedy that someone with that much talent and that much to live for died so young.

But perhaps the most tragic thing of all is that Hoffman's death could very easily have been prevented.

It could have been prevented if we in the United States started to do what countries like the United Kingdom and Switzerland have been doing for years: prescribing heroin to heroin addicts.

This sounds counterintuitive, but it actually makes perfect sense once you understand how heroin works.

More: Truth-Out

[Whisp]

1. I need a better link than that.

Very interesting and thanks for bringing it up. I'll go looking around.

http://www.extratv.com/2014/02/03/did-philip-seymour-hoffman-die-from-deadly-heroin-strain/

Eight of the empty bags were stamped with “Ace of Spades” and “Ace of Hearts,” which reportedly could be street names for a deadly mix of heroin laced with the opiate fentanyl. The drug has also been known as "Theraflu," "Bud Ice" and "24K,” and has been linked to more than 100 deaths in America.

Cops are not sure if this strain caused Hoffman's death, but they told TMZ that "everything's in play" until they get results from toxicology.

[M0rpheus]

5. Links in the article...

After the Swiss legalized prescription programs in the mid-1990s, they saw an immediate drop in both drug related deaths and deaths due AIDS among drug addicts.
More recent studies have reached the same conclusion.
A paper published by the New England Journal of Medicine in 2009 looked at a set of experimental prescription programs in Canada and found that they "led to a significant reduction of crime and overdose deaths."

Similar new research put out in 2012 by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction found that the benefits of prescription heroin include,
"...a major reduction in the extent of continued injecting of 'street' heroin, improvements in general health, psychological well-being and social functioning, as well as major disengagement from criminal activities (such as acquisitive crime to fund continued use of 'street' heroin and other street drugs)."

[RainDog]

2. Harm reduction policies aren't popular in the U.S.

This nation revels in creating classes of people to demonize and punish.

We are not a forward-thinking nation. We are infested with puritanical hate-mongers who think it is their duty to make sure those with problems suffer for them.

And they vote for the same sort of politician.

[polichick]

6. True - and we are more backward than ever...

The powers that be saw the backlash to the 60s as the perfect opportunity to use fear to their advantage.

[Barack_America]

15. Word.

You've articulated my #1 issue with this society.

[volstork]

25. A brilliant and succinct analysis.

Thank you!

[La Lioness Priyanka]

29. so true. nt

[RufusTFirefly]

30. Bingo! +100000!

What a strange country we live in where people who suffer are demonized while those who cause suffering are lionized.

[RainDog]

34. religious sadism

of course, if your religion teaches you that the almighty expected someone to kill his only son as a sign of trust or, really, blind obedience, what would you expect?

and then that same god decided it was good to impregnate a female to provide a human sacrifice for everyone, not just one tribe.

Suffering is part of the pleasure of that sort of love.

kinda icky, but there you are.

Of course, other religions recognize that suffering is part of the human condition because of our attachment to others and to ephemeral things like status. Rather than demand a human sacrifice, they ask us to recognize this suffering exists in everyone and the proper response to suffering is compassion.

The judeo-xtian god was out of the room when the compassion part of being a deity was discussed in god class, I guess.

[JDPriestly]

43. Atually, the Judeo-Christian God is a big improvement over the Greek and Roman gods and

goddesses.

[RainDog]

44. LOL

maybe in some aspects. the ritual slaughter of the divine feminine, however, is not one of them.

I choose not to reify any such myths.

[Rainngirl]

55. Well said, RainDog!

"We are infested with puritanical hate-mongers who think it is their duty to make sure those with problems suffer for them."

I am forever trying to say this to people, but you worded it perfectly. It's the puritans (and greedy 1 percenters) who are at the bottom of everything evil in this country.

[mike_c]

58. what Raindog said....

Yep.

[anneboleyn]

70. Amen! The approach in Europe has been quite successful. Here we smear, judge, and condemn

so that even a brilliant, gifted man like Hoffman, a father of three young children and an Oscar winner, an actor who by all accounts was incredibly generous and dedicated, who clearly had a terrible problem (reports have been saying now that he had at least fifty bags of this stuff!), is rubbed into the dirt by the judgmental Puritans who have no empathy and no desire to help other human beings. Forget empathy for ordinary addicts who are not famous actors -- they are ruthlessly condemning an Oscar winner who appeared in a dozen films and was adored by many fans and film critics. No empathy. Not a shred of it.

[HipChick]

3. He would have died eventually...

[HERVEPA]

7. Yes, everyone dies eventually, byt

You don't have to die from heroin. You die from bad heroin ar unknown strength.

[Baclava]

54. meanwhile, Keith Richards rocks on

[HERVEPA]

59. Yup!

[Upward]

68. And, Like Hoffman, He Can Afford the Best

PSH made a choice. An unfortunate one.

Anyone who thinks this drive isn't about business needs to read up on the Opium Wars.

[whathehell]

8. No shit, sherlock, everyone does, but probably not at 46 years of age.

[Liberal Veteran]

9. That sorta goes without saying for everyone.

But the question is whether he would have died of a heroin overdose yesterday or gotten help sometime later or possibly been a functioning heroin addict for another thirty years.

[Laffy Kat]

12. Either way, you don't see 70-year-old herion addicts.

But I agree that it should be safely prescribed. What an enormous loss.

[Comrade Grumpy]

14. You never met William Burroughs. n/t

[rickyhall]

32. Not to mention

Pete and Keith, who are clean but still living. And, contrary to that rehab commercial, even when you are clean you're still an addict. Right?

[Laffy Kat]

41. Yes, once an addict always an addict.

Pete and Keith are in their 70s? Holy cow.

[dbackjon]

33. Or, if legally available

Had not seen the need to be clean for 23 years, and not produced the body of work he did.

[Fumesucker]

19. Wisdom from Grandmaster Dubya...

"In the long run we are all dead."

[MH1]

64. Dubya? I thought that was Keynes.

(or did I miss a funny?)

Keynes' point (or whoever's) being that economic progress over "the long run" doesn't generally help any of us as individuals, because in the long run we're all dead. In other words, don't sacrifice people to policies aimed at the "long run" that they'll never get to see.

That's what I got out of it, anyway. A rather valuable point that I would hate to see attributed to the guy I normally call Dubya. And I can't imagine him quoting Keynes but who knows.

[Aerows]

38. It's compassion like this

that keeps us all going.

[LiberalEsto]

4. Perhaps, perhaps not

How many times have we read about perfectly legal, theoretically regulated products like cantaloupes, lettuce, beef, cheese, etc. causing mass poisonings and/or deaths?

[eggplant]

35. False equivalence

Food and manufactured medicine don't fall under the same inspection rules, nor the same liability.

[spinbaby]

10. Theraflu has been in the news in Pittsburgh

22 deaths so far, if I remember correctly.

[Common Sense Party]

11. No, he didn't HAVE to die. He CHOSE to die.

He made a very poor choice.

[beachbum bob]

16. TOTALLY AGREE

He let his compulsion rule is world...


selfish act that left some kids without a father

[Common Sense Party]

24. And wasn't he shooting up the night before he was supposed to go pick up his kids?

I don't know how long a heroin high lasts, but that was a choice he made.

[Comrade Grumpy]

17. Are you saying Hoffman committed suicide? That his death was intentional?

If not, he didn't choose to die. He may have died because the illegality of heroin makes it difficult to have good quality control.

[Common Sense Party]

20. He was shooting up heroin. He had to know that was a very likely possibility.

He knew the risks.

[Skittles]

56. arguing with people who fail to understand addiction

is very often futile

[Upward]

69. Arguing With People Who Can't Acknowledge the Damage Addicts Do

Is even worse.

[Skittles]

73. ridiculous

who said I do not understand the damage done? My own brother drank himself to death and MY MOTHER FOUND HIM. Think I really don't know the damage done? Now, off you go.

[Comrade Grumpy]

18. Do you say that about anyone who dies doing something risky?

[Common Sense Party]

22. They all know the risks. And they choose to do it anyway.

He was doing something both risky AND illegal.

And he knew that other entertainers had died by overdosing on the same crap.

[Comrade Grumpy]

26. The motorcycle rider who gets hit by an SUV? Did he choose to die?

He was doing something risky (albeit not illegal).

The whole "he made a bad choice" meme seems callous and Republican to me.

[Common Sense Party]

27. If he chose to ride without a helmet, he made a poor choice.

In your analogy, Hoffman was riding the motorcycle, without a helmet, and he was ALSO driving the SUV at himself.

[Maedhros]

53. Your attitude toward heroin addiction seems to be anything but "common sense."

You are taking the view of (among others) Reagan Drug Czar William Bennett that drug addiction is not a health condition but is instead a moral failing, and therefore drug addicts are not worthy of treatment or even compassion.

Needless to say, like everything else about the Reagan Presidency this had a deleterious effect on the nation.

[Common Sense Party]

74. The ol' ad hominem Reagan attack.

Yawn.

Addicts make choices.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/17/science/the-rational-choices-of-crack-addicts.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

[Maedhros]

76. There are two ways to approach drug addiction:

1. Treat it as a health issue and try to help the addict recover

or

2. Treat it as a moral failing and blame the victim.


I choose #1, because it has been shown to be much more effective than #2.

(And it's not an ad hominem attack to point out that your position is the same as William Bennett's. It would be an ad hominem attack if I said your argument was invalid because you are a clueless conservative troll).

[SalviaBlue]

79. Thank you for the helpful breakdown.

#2 is not a liberal viewpoint.

[Logical]

47. Motorcycles are dangerous. No airbags, etc. Shit happens. They accept the risk. n-t

[Glassunion]

77. The rider accepts the risk... Yes. But that does not mean that they choose to die.

In fact everyone who travels by automobile accepts risk. It is one of the leading causes of death in the US.

[anneboleyn]

71. This post reinforces everything Raindog said.

[cbdo2007]

13. True! He could have stopped using heroin and he would have lived.

[mimi85]

21. Oh yeah, it's that simple.

Ever know anyone addicted to opiates?

[cbdo2007]

23. Yep, I work with people with chemical dependencies every day.

I didn't say it was simple, but it is a choice.

[SaveOurDemocracy]

36. If you work with chemically dependent people every day, then you know how...

...pathetically inadequate our current system is.

[Logical]

48. PSH had ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD and kept doing drugs. What possible "system" could....

of helped him?

[Logical]

63. Pot should be 100% legal. Small if any risks.....

I am sorry about your son. I cannot imagine how hard that is.

We need to stop putting people in jail for drug use. Dealing is another issue for me.

[Dustlawyer]

61. Is not having money the only reason someone would do drugs?

I see a lot of argument here about whether or not he deserved it, "chose it," whatever. Look, the man was human. Whether or not you are a celebrity, rich, or both, you still have to face life which can be stressful, sad, frustrating..., no matter who you are. A certain percentage of the population, across all income/wealth measures, will become addicted to something. A celebrity has that stuff thrown at them if they want.
If blame has to be directed somewhere, just understand this, after you have blamed who you want to blame, what should we do about it? Nothing but what we are doing, or should we lock up even more people? Or, should we try treating addiction and drastically modifying our penal code as it relates to drug offenses? What's the old saying, "If you do what you have always done, you get what you always got."

[Logical]

62. I dont want to lock up any drug users.....

But some drugs are damn dangerous. And I think some need to be illegal.

Pot cannot kill you. So no laws needed.

Some drugs can. So regulation is needed.

[idendoit]

51. Yes, it is that simple.

Now if anyone says that it is easy, they aren't being honest. Simple is not always easy.

[justiceischeap]

28. What's funny is that in the US they'll prescribe methadone to help heroin addicts kick

but methadone is actually more addictive than heroin. Go figure.

[nomorenomore08]

39. Which why there's now buprenorphine (brand name Suboxone). Actually possible to get off of.

[Abq_Sarah]

75. They found buprenorphine in his apartment

But it couldn't compete with the heroin.

[nomorenomore08]

80. For those who want to quit, though, bupe can be a miracle drug.

Key word being can, I suppose. No guarantees.

[bravenak]

31. Yes yes yes!!

We need to treat them, not jail them.

[Warren DeMontague]

37. It's hard to look at those kids and be not angry at his selfishness, addiction or no.

That said, I support Harm Reduction policies, wholeheartedly.

[nomorenomore08]

40. Agreed on both counts. This is an incredibly senseless death, for many reasons.

[Mr.Bill]

42. It's difficult to understand.

I've been a drug user and could have been killed countless times by even a small amount of poorly manufactured drugs. I knew I was taking a risk, but I never intended to die. Robert Downey Jr. put it well, I think, when he said to a judge at one of his court hearings "It's like I have a gun in my mouth with my finger on the trigger and I like the taste of the gun metal."

I was a more casual user, but If I had the money and connections some of these celebrities have, there's no telling what may have happened. I know I always casually said if I won the lottery I would be dead in a matter of months. I still don't buy lottery tickets.

[Logical]

45. He choose to do a high risk activity. Like sky diving or street racing. He wanted the thrill....

and accepted the risk.

[mimi85]

66. Where did you read that

he wanted the thrill? I'd like to see that. Usually opiate users are tryin to numb feelings...it's not like a coke high or skydiving.

The only thing I do know is that I will
miss his acting. What a great talent! Hope his family is hanging in there. So sad.

[Blue_In_AK]

46. It will be interesting to find out if this is indeed the case.

The Fentanyl-laced heroin was the first thing I thought of.

[reddread]

49. if youre gonna party like that

do it with John Travolta and Eric Stoltz nearby.
Rosanna Arquette optional.
Hate to disagree with Bill Hicks, but
I have sympathy for gas station attendants who get killed.
Not this fellow.

[JDPriestly]

50. We may or may not inherit a tendency toward addiction per Wikipedia.

Here is a rating of the addictiveness of various substances:

Addictive potential

The addictive potential of a drug varies from substance to substance, and from individual to individual. Dose, frequency, pharmacokinetics of a particular substance, route of administration, and time are critical factors for developing a drug addiction.

An article in The Lancet compared the harm and addiction of 20 drugs, using a scale from 0 to 3 for physical addiction, psychological addiction, and pleasure to create a mean score for addiction. Selected results can be seen in the chart below.[9]

(The columns in the chart did not align correctly so you have to go to this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substance_dependence

Alcohol and tobacco very often harm the body. When I reached my 50s, I noticed that the heavy smokers among my friends were dying first. They are harmful drugs also and more commonly used.

Note that tobacco not only harms the body but is rated as highly for physical addiction as barbiturates and benzodiazapines on this list.

But tobacco and alcohol are legal.

Tobacco is rated as more addictive than cocaine. But heroin is the worst.

Maybe this is not news to a lot of DUers, but I think it is worth remembering. What drugs are and are not legal has little to do with the danger of the drugs and more to do with social tolerance of the use of the drug. But clearly, again, heroin is the most physically addictive.

[tavernier]

52. We all die

and many of us don't have the luxury of moving the odds in our favor: kids with cancer, the family hit by a drunk driver...
But there are ways that most people choose to avoid an earlier exit. He knew the risks.

[wercal]

57. I think this is a bit of hyperbole

Even in nations that prescribe heroin to addicts, it is reserved for the incredibly addicted, who have exhausted other means of treatment.

Hoffman went to rehab for 10 days last year. That's all we know. And that sounds incredibly short, and suggests that he wasn't yet fully committed to rehab.

Until I hear that he tried methadone and suboxone, and they proved ineffective, I consider it a leap to suggest that current drug policy killed him.

[Jenoch]

65. Many years ago, I knew a guy who was on prescription methadone for his heroin addiction.

[Upward]

67. Yay! Exploitative Journalism! Wheee!

One of the best actors of our time died a tragic death. Can't we at least bury him before people try to use the corpse for their own business agenda?

[mimi85]

72. Well said! nt