Thank you for the kind words agin.
Well, when I was 17, just after my first year in Lebanon, I was in the process fo redeploying out of Beka'a and into Shouf. We were engaged by PLA, and I took a bullet fragment through the bottom of my chin. The shards went through my jaw and into my sinus cavity. I lost 3 teeth, have many micro fractures throughout my jaw, and still have metal in my sinus. I was given an IV after they dragged me to a rear position and before the copter came.
The IV had morphine and while in Hadassh recovering I was pumped through with it and alas caught the Soldier's Disease. When I was redeployed up north I was no better than most of my mates, trading for syrettes (we carried morphine in 2 syrettes, and syrette of benzo, and another of amphetmaine).
Then, when redeployed back into Beka'a I was exposed to heroin use. Still heroin is produced there but in those days it was a major producer, the crappy #2, heroin freebase. It is the kind that one finds in the UK, you need an acidic catalyst for injection, etc. I smoked it and insufflated it which does not require the catalyst, etc.
I did not do alot of it because morphine was so plentiful and although I had certainly smoked cannabis (in Israel it is as plentiful as tobacco in other places) I was not too keen on what I then thought was some kind of plague on society.
When I was a bit older and researched it out I learned that heroin was simply a delivery vehicle for morphine, it reverts to morphine as soon as it is ingested so that thinking that it is worse than morphine is non-sensical.
Still, my usage was not constant. Then when I was just short of my 19th birthday I took shrapnel from a PSP (Druse) mortar shell that landed near our position and while not hurt too badly, was again pumped full of morphine and that was all she wrote.
When I was 21 the army became aware of my addiction, it was at epidemic levels in Infantry and we were all screened. I was sent for evaluations, had my Security Rating knocked down and went through alot of crap. In my Battalion, the 50th in NACHAL Brigade, a high porportion of us were sent to specialised training to become Command Seargents for which there is no corresponding rank in any other army so it is hard to describe. It is a Sgt. ranking but almost like an LT in Western armies as far as duties and responsibilities.
The idea is to prepare for a career officer track. In the IDF, we do not promote on talent so much as time served and time served in combat , up until the corresponding rank of Captain. After Captain it is strictly based on apptitude,etc. Until then though, time in combat can fast track you up the chain and this is why we have Generals in their late 30s,etc.
In addition, I am a native Arabic speaker and on top of that have more than a dozen other languages that I am very fluent in. Also my tests are incredibly high so that I had a high Clearance. This was all compromised by my addiction and kept me from promotion until the last war. I should have been at least a Col. already.
Anyway, after my evaluation process they offered me a choice, OST with methadone or bouncing. If I bounced I would be relegated to washing dishes or working in car washes on top of the shame to my clan and family and that was not an option. I hated the idea of methadone, then, but of course agreed and since then have not really used illict substances all that much.
A big exception was in Cambodia early this year. Well, when I got out of the army in June/July of 2007 and went to the Philippines I was given 14 bottles of methadone. They lasted 20 days with careful rationing but I still entered Acute Withdrawl and was really suffering.
The Philippines is unique in that it does not even have codeine in the country. In fact, until 5 years ago they had no opiates/opioids whatsoever having been outlawed by Marcos almost 20 years prior.
The WHO brought a lawsuit against the country in the ICC arena and as a result the country settled by providing 6 opiates/opioids while still not allowing codeine.
The 6 are: Nabulphine, Demerol (AKA Meperidine and/or Pethedine), Fentanyl Duragesic, Oxycontin (AKA Oxycodone), and morphine. Nabulphine is so worthless that is not even a controlled substance in anal retentive America ( a mixed Agonist/Antagonist that sends addicts into acute Withdrawl if ingested). Demerol is only allowed as an injectable and aside form its phenomenally expensive price tag has a very toxic major metabolite that will easily kill with sustained usage. This on top of the fact that it is worthless to addicts due to its ceiling effect.
Oxy and Fentanyl are great even though only miniscule dosages are avilable, but the pricing makes it so the extremely poor Filipinos cannot buy it. The Rx system is designed so that unsold meds are not returnable to suppliers as they usually are in the West and therefore retail outlets refuse to stock it.
This leaves morphine. it too is very expensive but less than others. Still, aside from the lack of customer base, the Rx system is a 2 tier system that inhbits prescriptions since only a tiny portion of MDs can even prescribe it. Then you also have a society that sees pain as redeeming (I am not kidding) and a Catholic Church that encourages this asinine concept so...
Even with all that, travelling 6 hours each way for a 100 tablets costing me 75 US dollars, I was on morphine maintenance thanks to a compliant MD.
If there was an illicit trade in heroin,etc I very well might have resorted to it. the only illicit presence is bulk shipments being transshiped through. None hits the locals. In fact, the only illcit opiate/opioid usage is a circle of about 500 long term Nabulphine addicts in Cebu City and that is it, end of story.
Then came my 3.5 month jaunt to Cambodia. In Cambodia there used to be no Rx system, you cvould buy even morphine OTC but drug tourism put some wrinkles into the game and it was no longer available ...and pharmacies do not even stock it anymore. They do have Oxy of all things and that is even better but it costs an amazing 1 dollar per milligram so that it would be 200 US a day for me to maintain, and that is not realistic for any real length of time.
What to do? Heroin, unadulterated #4 in rock form is available for 22 to 85 US per gram depending on quantity and connection. Ergo, it was much less expensive, law enforcement is non-existent for users , and it was wide open.
Aside from the 3 months or so of that trip, I have not really used it for any length of time and not at all for anout 8 years.
Here in the States I was allowed by Customs to import 50 tablets of 100 mg. oral morphine but was compelled to make alternative arrangements naturally. I entered into methadone treatment here and I will remain on it until leaving for home. I expect to bring a couple of bottles at least, and switch to morphine on my first week back home.
As for the comment about usage in the IDF, yes, it is pervasive. My own Battalion was hit hard on Western New Year's Eve. Our home base is Mt. Hermon, a mountain on the Lebanese and Syrian borders. While on duty 7 or 8 of our men were found to be under the influence of morphine or heroin and were bounced after imprisonment. Naturally we cannot have soldiers on duty nodding off, especially at that vital base of all places.
Well, when I was 17, just after my first year in Lebanon, I was in the process fo redeploying out of Beka'a and into Shouf. We were engaged by PLA, and I took a bullet fragment through the bottom of my chin. The shards went through my jaw and into my sinus cavity. I lost 3 teeth, have many micro fractures throughout my jaw, and still have metal in my sinus. I was given an IV after they dragged me to a rear position and before the copter came.
The IV had morphine and while in Hadassh recovering I was pumped through with it and alas caught the Soldier's Disease. When I was redeployed up north I was no better than most of my mates, trading for syrettes (we carried morphine in 2 syrettes, and syrette of benzo, and another of amphetmaine).
Then, when redeployed back into Beka'a I was exposed to heroin use. Still heroin is produced there but in those days it was a major producer, the crappy #2, heroin freebase. It is the kind that one finds in the UK, you need an acidic catalyst for injection, etc. I smoked it and insufflated it which does not require the catalyst, etc.
I did not do alot of it because morphine was so plentiful and although I had certainly smoked cannabis (in Israel it is as plentiful as tobacco in other places) I was not too keen on what I then thought was some kind of plague on society.
When I was a bit older and researched it out I learned that heroin was simply a delivery vehicle for morphine, it reverts to morphine as soon as it is ingested so that thinking that it is worse than morphine is non-sensical.
Still, my usage was not constant. Then when I was just short of my 19th birthday I took shrapnel from a PSP (Druse) mortar shell that landed near our position and while not hurt too badly, was again pumped full of morphine and that was all she wrote.
When I was 21 the army became aware of my addiction, it was at epidemic levels in Infantry and we were all screened. I was sent for evaluations, had my Security Rating knocked down and went through alot of crap. In my Battalion, the 50th in NACHAL Brigade, a high porportion of us were sent to specialised training to become Command Seargents for which there is no corresponding rank in any other army so it is hard to describe. It is a Sgt. ranking but almost like an LT in Western armies as far as duties and responsibilities.
The idea is to prepare for a career officer track. In the IDF, we do not promote on talent so much as time served and time served in combat , up until the corresponding rank of Captain. After Captain it is strictly based on apptitude,etc. Until then though, time in combat can fast track you up the chain and this is why we have Generals in their late 30s,etc.
In addition, I am a native Arabic speaker and on top of that have more than a dozen other languages that I am very fluent in. Also my tests are incredibly high so that I had a high Clearance. This was all compromised by my addiction and kept me from promotion until the last war. I should have been at least a Col. already.
Anyway, after my evaluation process they offered me a choice, OST with methadone or bouncing. If I bounced I would be relegated to washing dishes or working in car washes on top of the shame to my clan and family and that was not an option. I hated the idea of methadone, then, but of course agreed and since then have not really used illict substances all that much.
A big exception was in Cambodia early this year. Well, when I got out of the army in June/July of 2007 and went to the Philippines I was given 14 bottles of methadone. They lasted 20 days with careful rationing but I still entered Acute Withdrawl and was really suffering.
The Philippines is unique in that it does not even have codeine in the country. In fact, until 5 years ago they had no opiates/opioids whatsoever having been outlawed by Marcos almost 20 years prior.
The WHO brought a lawsuit against the country in the ICC arena and as a result the country settled by providing 6 opiates/opioids while still not allowing codeine.
The 6 are: Nabulphine, Demerol (AKA Meperidine and/or Pethedine), Fentanyl Duragesic, Oxycontin (AKA Oxycodone), and morphine. Nabulphine is so worthless that is not even a controlled substance in anal retentive America ( a mixed Agonist/Antagonist that sends addicts into acute Withdrawl if ingested). Demerol is only allowed as an injectable and aside form its phenomenally expensive price tag has a very toxic major metabolite that will easily kill with sustained usage. This on top of the fact that it is worthless to addicts due to its ceiling effect.
Oxy and Fentanyl are great even though only miniscule dosages are avilable, but the pricing makes it so the extremely poor Filipinos cannot buy it. The Rx system is designed so that unsold meds are not returnable to suppliers as they usually are in the West and therefore retail outlets refuse to stock it.
This leaves morphine. it too is very expensive but less than others. Still, aside from the lack of customer base, the Rx system is a 2 tier system that inhbits prescriptions since only a tiny portion of MDs can even prescribe it. Then you also have a society that sees pain as redeeming (I am not kidding) and a Catholic Church that encourages this asinine concept so...
Even with all that, travelling 6 hours each way for a 100 tablets costing me 75 US dollars, I was on morphine maintenance thanks to a compliant MD.
If there was an illicit trade in heroin,etc I very well might have resorted to it. the only illicit presence is bulk shipments being transshiped through. None hits the locals. In fact, the only illcit opiate/opioid usage is a circle of about 500 long term Nabulphine addicts in Cebu City and that is it, end of story.
Then came my 3.5 month jaunt to Cambodia. In Cambodia there used to be no Rx system, you cvould buy even morphine OTC but drug tourism put some wrinkles into the game and it was no longer available ...and pharmacies do not even stock it anymore. They do have Oxy of all things and that is even better but it costs an amazing 1 dollar per milligram so that it would be 200 US a day for me to maintain, and that is not realistic for any real length of time.
What to do? Heroin, unadulterated #4 in rock form is available for 22 to 85 US per gram depending on quantity and connection. Ergo, it was much less expensive, law enforcement is non-existent for users , and it was wide open.
Aside from the 3 months or so of that trip, I have not really used it for any length of time and not at all for anout 8 years.
Here in the States I was allowed by Customs to import 50 tablets of 100 mg. oral morphine but was compelled to make alternative arrangements naturally. I entered into methadone treatment here and I will remain on it until leaving for home. I expect to bring a couple of bottles at least, and switch to morphine on my first week back home.
As for the comment about usage in the IDF, yes, it is pervasive. My own Battalion was hit hard on Western New Year's Eve. Our home base is Mt. Hermon, a mountain on the Lebanese and Syrian borders. While on duty 7 or 8 of our men were found to be under the influence of morphine or heroin and were bounced after imprisonment. Naturally we cannot have soldiers on duty nodding off, especially at that vital base of all places.
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. Perhaps you should seek medication for this ????? You can't want him banned, you'd have nothing left to do!
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