Phillip Seymour Hoffmann Dead

[RobertNashville]

Was going to say never heard of him until I opened the attachment and seen his face. Yea, seen him in a number of films and thought he was a good actor.

 

I thought it odd at his age he died via drug injection. Most don't live that long?

As I understand it he had gone into rehab and been clean for over 20 years but recently got hooked again.

I enjoyed his acting...I don't know what it is that drives so many talented people (actors and others) to drugs but it's such a waste.

[Oh Shoot]

.....noticed Cold Mountain was on the list but I don't remember him in it, I may have to revisit that one and a few others.
 

 

He was Veasey,  the debauching constipated preacher who wound up in the chained prisoner group with Inman.

 

- OS

Edited February 3, 2014 by Oh Shoot

[tartanphantom]

Acting career aside, he was also a useful idiot for the gun grabbers... and people like this want to tell us as gun owners how to live our lives. I don't take advice from junkies.

 

http://www.examiner.com/article/hoffman-was-narrator-of-gun-control-cartoon

 

http://youtu.be/UKq9ZKZljlA

Edited February 3, 2014 by tartanphantom

[Bigiron]

My sympathy lies with the three small children and their mother he left behind.  Weren't they important enough to stay off drugs for?

[Ted S.]

Addiction is a lot more complicated than a matter of choice...as is dependency...don't know which he had, so unless he was just a junkie, my sentiments are for him and his loved ones, regardless of political beliefs.

[TerryW]

I really couldn't care less that this dude cashed out, I didn't know him.  He was a big boy and knew what he was doing when he poked that needle into his arm.  I was entertained by some of the characters he played.  But now the news is going to capitalize on his death by dragging up any dirt they can get from his death.  The news is like buzzards flying over a dead carcass waiting for an eyeball to roll out of a skull to eat it.  The news needs to report it like this; He's dead, he died of a drug overdose, end of story.

[Chucktshoes]

http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2013/mar/09/russell-brand-life-without-drugs

[Jonnin]

That stuff is horrible. We have seen a huge increase in heroin in the area. Many people are going to heroin from their pain pills.

 

I am another who knew the face, a little, but not really. 

 

As far as it goes, heroin pure is not so bad.  Its addictive as all get out, and withdrawal varies from fatal to miserable at best, but the biggest issue with the drug has always been the horrible things cut into it by the dealers trying to get more $$ per weight.   A person can survive heroine for a long, long time and get off of it and live on after that as well.   A person does not do so well injecting a heroine/comet mix.

[Ted S.]

I am another who knew the face, a little, but not really.

As far as it goes, heroin pure is not so bad. Its addictive as all get out, and withdrawal varies from fatal to miserable at best, but the biggest issue with the drug has always been the horrible things cut into it by the dealers trying to get more $$ per weight. A person can survive heroine for a long, long time and get off of it and live on after that as well. A person does not do so well injecting a heroine/comet mix.

Not to hijack a thread, at the same time something that may have helped him...but drug purity would be just one benefit from decriminalization of drugs...and may I also propound that those with drug related problems may be unfearful of prosecution thus be more willing to seek help sooner(but who knows, I could be wrong)... Edited February 5, 2014 by Ted S.

[Oh Shoot]

I am another who knew the face, a little, but not really. 

 

As far as it goes, heroin pure is not so bad.  Its addictive as all get out, and withdrawal varies from fatal to miserable at best, but the biggest issue with the drug has always been the horrible things cut into it by the dealers trying to get more $$ per weight.   A person can survive heroine for a long, long time and get off of it and live on after that as well.   A person does not do so well injecting a heroine/comet mix.

 

Yep, (non) purity of street drugs is bigger immediate health threat to the user than the drug itself, hence in part the high price for illicit pharmaceuticals. Though all amphetamines are pretty rough on the ole neuro-system over time, meth is no worse than dextro or others, but homemade is full of horrible byproducts.

 

- OS

[Ted S.]

Yep, (non) purity of street drugs is bigger immediate health threat to the user than the drug itself, hence in part the high price for illicit pharmaceuticals. Though all amphetamines are pretty rough on the ole neuro-system over time, meth is no worse than dextro or others, but homemade is full of horrible byproducts.
 
- OS

I may be way off, but isn't dextro just pharma grade meth?

[Chucktshoes]

Legalization and the creation of a stable market that provides a predictable product would go a long way towards reducing the number of negative health side effects, let alone the overdoses and deaths.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

I may be way off, but isn't dextro just pharma grade meth?

 

As best I recall from many decades ago when I worked in substance abuse counseling, dextro and levo amphetamine are the same amphetamine molecule in right-hand and left-hand isomers-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isomer

 

The right-hand isomer has stronger effect on the central nervous system, causing stimulation, and the left-hand isomer has greater effect on the peripheral nervous system, raising blood pressure and pulse, sweating, sometimes improving lung function or clearing sinuses, etc.

 

A mix of the two is called a racemic mix-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racemic

 

As best I recall, for instance adderal or the old brand biphetamine black capsules of yesteryear are racemic amphetamine mix, but for instance the old brand name dexedrine was mostly dextro isomer.

 

Methamphetamine is a different molecule than simple amphetamine, but "amphetamine" is also used as a generic name for the entire family of such compounds, so one would say more or less properly that methamphetamine is an amphetamine.

 

Levo meth is primarily stimulating of peripheral nervous system, and the dextro meth is primarily stimulating of central nervous system, as with the simpler amphetamine. From what I read on the web, the old biker meth back in the 1960's and 1970's, before source feedstocks were so restricted, manufactured without pseudo-ephedrine as a starting stock, tended to be a racemic mix, about 50/50. But supposedly the old biker meth tended to be "farily pure" manufactured by people who might have taken a chemistry class some time or t'other. A person wanting to get "high" on meth, would risk more heart attacks and strokes taking large doses of a racemic mix, and relatively pure d-meth would present the least risk of heart attack/stroke at the massive doses they take.

 

The old pharmaceutical name of d-meth was desoxyn. Dunno if it is still available in the USA, for any purpose. It was available a few years ago, but last time I looked it up, couldn't tell if that name is ever used any more for narcolepsy or ADD.

 

I have read that sudaphed-based illegal meth is more dextro than levo, but the stuff is made by toothless rednecks who never even saw the inside of a chemistry class, and somebody would have to be crazy to take such stuff.

 

Dunno much about the quality or nature of the meth supposedly made nowadays in high quantity in mexican underground labs.

 

Another variation-- Many pharmaceutical pills are on a sulfate base, which dissolve in the stomach but do not dissolve if injected or snorted. I think that was done to reduce the abusability of such pills. They would also make time-release pills, which were difficult to administer in a "quick-acting" abusable form.

 

The hydrochloride base easily dissolves and so can be administered by many methods.  Methamphetamine Hydrochloride racemic for old biker crank, Dextro Methamphetamine Hydrochloride for the old desoxyn pills.

Edited February 5, 2014 by Lester Weevils

[Guest Lester Weevils]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desoxyn

 

Something I didn't remember reading, or maybe never read this before--

Unlike amphetamine and cocaine, methamphetamine is neurotoxic to humans, damaging both dopamine and serotonin neurons in the CNS. Entirely opposite to the long-term use of amphetamine, there is evidence that methamphetamine causes brain damage from long-term use in humans; this damage includes adverse changes in brain structure and function, such as reductions in gray matter volume in several brain regions and adverse changes in markers of metabolic integrity.

 

And later in the article--

Comparison to amphetamine pharmacodynamics

Both amphetamine and methamphetamine are potent CNS stimulants with a few biomolecular targets and affected transporters in common; however, there are important pharmacodynamic differences between the two compounds.^{[Refnote 2]} Both compounds are potent trace amine-associated receptor 1 (TAAR1) agonists (causing non-competitive inhibition of DAT, NET, and SERT) and inhibitors of VMAT2, SLC22A3, and SLC22A5.^{[Refnote 3]} However, methamphetamine appears to bind at a different site at VMAT2 than amphetamine.^[56] Methamphetamine also inhibits VMAT1, has agonist activity at all alpha-2 adrenergic receptor subtypes, and is a neurotoxin in humans, whereas there is no evidence of amphetamine neurotoxicity in humans.^[21][26][42] Amphetamine is an agonist of cocaine and amphetamine regulated transcript (CART), a psychostimulant neuropeptide with neurogenerative and neuroprotective effects in vitro;^[54][55] in contrast, the limited available research on the association between methamphetamine and CART in humans suggests methamphetamine has no significant effects on the neuropeptide.^[42][57]

In contrast to the adverse neuroplastic effects evident in methamphetamine addicts and abusers, long-term use of amphetamine or methylphenidate at therapeutic doses appears to produce beneficial changes in brain function and structure, such as normalization of the right caudate nucleus.^[58][59]

 

So the source references above, to possible beneficial neurological effects of amphetamine, versus neuro-toxic effects of meth, are mostly dated 2013, so maybe these are indeed relatively new findings. Or at least new BS to be later refuted. :)

 

Back in the old days all amphetamines were alleged to cause brain damage at high sustained doses. Though some of the mechanisms blamed back then were such as "mini-strokes" destroying small regions of the brain, causing small brain lesions.

 

In old studies of di-methyl-tryptomine, in abusers of the drug, and also the spontaneous over-generation of the chemical in schizophrenic brains, it was alleged that the DMT caused brain damage by metabolizing into methl alcohol in the brain. Like drinking bad moonshine. The article doesn't mention such a theory for brain damage caused by meth. So maybe meth metabolizes differently (not into methl alcohol groups) or maybe they've changed their minds by now on the mechanism of brain damage caused by DMT as well? Interesting, but I'm profoundly ignorant of it.

Edited February 5, 2014 by Lester Weevils

[FUJIMO]

Well I've heard some actors say that drugs help to enhance their ability to act so I guess ole Phil is playing his best role ever. Too bad you have to be in hell to see his performance... :)

[Oh Shoot]

I may be way off, but isn't dextro just pharma grade meth?

 

Lester covered it pretty well.

 

Used to get meth back when in "pink hearts" (forget the trade name), the Desoxyn and a couple of other pharmaceutical forms, but generally preferred the dextro based ones; mainly because the better ones were blends with some measure of phenobarb and whatever in them to keep you on the planet while driving to California non stop or writing all your term papers in one 56 hour stretch while keeping your heart rate below explosion level,  etc. :)

 

Best were Eskatrol ("Eskies") and Dexamyl (dexies or Christmas Trees), timed release caps, so very steady effect.  Biphetamine (California Turn Arounds, Black Widows), and the old standard Benzedrine (bennies) were always available, but they were rough, no ameliorating downer in there -- even got some WWII military surplus bennies one time, I think it was the first upper formulated for mass consumption, fav of pilots, truck drivers and jazz musicians from the '40's on.

 

I would never have made it through college without this stuff, what with working various jobs and of course still needing lots of party time. :)

 

Dirt cheap back in the 60-70's too, as were pharmaceutical downs, too. Hell, I had a PDR as part of my reference books.

 

Anyway, serious stuff, ups and downs, not to mention the opiates. But at least with pharmaceutical stuff, you know exactly what compound and what dosage you're getting, which eliminates a whole other level of danger if you accept the initial one of using the stuff at all.

 

- OS

Edited February 6, 2014 by Oh Shoot