My local DPH offers nasal Narcan to anyone willing to sit thru a 45 minute instructional workshop detailing how to use it.
Off and on IV opioid user for the past 6 or 7 years. Heroin preferred. Used to shoot oxycodone tablets, or morphine or hydromorphone (Dilaudid), whatever would keep the withdrawals at bay. One day when I was a teenager I actually found some dope, just a bundle in the street. Deduced what it was and took it as a gift\sign from God. Didn't inject anything until years later.
Where I am from we do have [usually] decent quality powder diesel, from an off-white to beige to brown color but mostly will dissolve completely with simple mixing. I would always heat in an effort to kill microbes unless I ended up in a situation where I didn't have a lighter. No way in hell would I be able to prep without cotton (or cigarette filter), although I have actually seen\heard of junkies doing this. My veins were good, luckily, and cleanliness was a must for me even if I was forced to prep and shoot in an unsanitary environment. Spoon had to be cleaned or cleaned prior and wrapped up. Surfaces HAD to be washed with antimicrobial soap (hopefully available in whatever public restroom I was in), or cleaned with something and\or a clean folded napkin\paper towel placed down. My thumb and forefinger on one hand needed to remain absolutely isolated and clean so I could roll up a little piece of cotton for filtering. Sometimes I was lucky enough to have iso swabs on me. Still, syringes cost money, new ones had to be obtained and inevitably wound up re-used (only my own). Managed to avoid any kind of infection, although I did "extrovert" once when I was younger which was NOT cool and caused my entire arm to swell.
I absolutely HATED it when I noticed little pieces of crap, dirt, sand, hair, etc. in the dope or WORSE the dealer needs to split my stuff up and decides she has to do it on filthy money. The one time I had actually tried to get micron filters, I found a compounding pharmacy in the area and I called them up and I said "Hey you have these .22 such and such micron filters?..." and the guy on the phone confirms, they have them. Then he proceeds, bewilderingly, to ask me what in God's name I would want to do with them. So I try to explain to him that I want to filter a solution for injection because "this is what they are for, isn't it?" and of course he is utterly baffled by all of this and finally exclaims something along the lines of the packaging states federal law prohibits their sale or something.
