RealSurf Surfers' Forum

^^ great piece, great writing Shep.
Let the ventilation begin.

BA wrote: ↑

Sun May 06, 2018 9:54 am

Excellent stuff Steve.

https://beachgrit.com/2018/05/kissed-by-god/

Nailed it shearer

I offer this to you as saying thanks

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ztIEogFr9j4

I see no reason why surf journos should have reported on Andy's drug use. He wasn't trying to run the country or drive the school bus. He's a surfer. He surfs really well. That's the story.

The public doesn't have a right to know his private life. The only perceived need to know is for the pleasures of gossip and schadenfreude.

Anyway, journos did flag that Andy was erratic and he partied very hard. If you know how to read journalese, that's a pretty clear indication. Also, I imagine most of the actual ingestion of the more serious drugs happened out of plain sight.

May not have a right to know, but that doesn't mean it's not newsworthy.

Crosses the line when he dies alone in a hotel room in Texas.

would you apply the same logic to lance Armstrong Foamy?

foamy wrote: ↑

Sun May 06, 2018 2:58 pm

I see no reason why surf journos should have reported on Andy's drug use. He wasn't trying to run the country or drive the school bus. He's a surfer. He surfs really well. That's the story.

The public doesn't have a right to know his private life. The only perceived need to know is for the pleasures of gossip and schadenfreude.

Anyway, journos did flag that Andy was erratic and he partied very hard. If you know how to read journalese, that's a pretty clear indication. Also, I imagine most of the actual ingestion of the more serious drugs happened out of plain sight.

I don't think it's about "the public". Least of all "gossip and shadenreude" ... It's about all surfers in the first instance - groms, first timer 30 somethings, hodads and a way of lifers.
Most, if not all, would cite AI above and beyond any PM or school bus driver as more relevant to their lives.

Irrespective of where or how or when ingestion took place. It did.
And, that's not the point of revisiting this sad saga.
It's about identifying those amongst us, in the second instance, those who're vulnerable to deep, critical falls.
Irrespective of their role in society/arts/culture/sport/politics.

Perhaps the question best asked is, (in any instance) "who are the journalists best equipped with insight, humility and care to investigate and report, non partisanly, the truth for the greater good"?

...

steve shearer wrote: ↑

Sun May 06, 2018 4:20 pm

would you apply the same logic to lance Armstrong Foamy?

That's cheating, like ball tampering. Very different.

Cocaine is a performance enhancing drug according to WADA.
Andy was high on cocaine at many events according to the film.

i never read about oxycontin until yesterday, but apparently andy was taking it? i had no idea. how's this article from two years ago: http://www.latimes.com/projects/oxycontin-part1/

Over the last 20 years, more than 7 million Americans have abused OxyContin, according to the federal government’s National Survey on Drug Use and Health. The drug is widely blamed for setting off the nation’s prescription opioid epidemic, which has claimed more than 190,000 lives from overdoses involving OxyContin and other painkillers since 1999.

and this one from last year: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017 ... re-of-pain

Purdue had a speakers’ bureau, and it paid several thousand clinicians to attend medical conferences and deliver presentations about the merits of the drug. Doctors were offered all-expenses-paid trips to pain-management seminars in places like Boca Raton. Such spending was worth the investment: internal Purdue records indicate that doctors who attended these seminars in 1996 wrote OxyContin prescriptions more than twice as often as those who didn’t. The company advertised in medical journals, sponsored Web sites about chronic pain, and distributed a dizzying variety of OxyContin swag: fishing hats, plush toys, luggage tags. Purdue also produced promotional videos featuring satisfied patients—like a construction worker who talked about how OxyContin had eased his chronic back pain, allowing him to return to work. The videos, which also included testimonials from pain specialists, were sent to tens of thousands of doctors.

Oxycontin fishing hats?

.....swoon....

kidding Al.

that second article says purdue pharma wants to bring oxycontin to the rest of the world now. i can just see my mother-in-law getting hooked on this shit!

As OxyContin spread outside the U.S., the pattern of dysfunction repeated itself: to map the geographic distribution of the drug was also to map a rash of addiction, abuse, and death. But the Sackler family has only increased its efforts abroad, and is now pushing the drug, through a Purdue-related company called Mundipharma, into Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. Part of Purdue’s strategy from the beginning has been to create a market for OxyContin—to instill a perceived need by making bold claims about the existence of large numbers of people suffering from untreated chronic pain. As Purdue moves into countries like China and Brazil, where opioids may still retain the kind of stigma that the company so assiduously broke down in the United States, its marketing approach has not changed.

are you staying up watching the contest steve? i stayed up to see brazil. going to bed now. look forward to your report tomorrow. good night!

I am Al, I'm very sleepy and already drank 5 cups of coffee.
I want more coffee but I'm scared I'll wake my wife up.

OxyContin is a brand name, Al, it's Oxycodone that is the drug. OxyContin has been in Australia for ages, at least since 2006. We often use it under the brand name Endone.
There are different strengths and some are designed to prevent injection but it's basically the same stuff.

We have opioid and codeine problems in Australia, too.

Heroin (diamorphine), even though it was the best painkiller by far, was completely banned long ago because of addiction problems.

Strange that no one is talking of banning the even stronger new generation of drugs.

alakaboo wrote: ↑

Mon May 07, 2018 6:55 am

OxyContin is a brand name, Al, it's Oxycodone that is the drug. OxyContin has been in Australia for ages, at least since 2006. We often use it under the brand name Endone.
There are different strengths and some are designed to prevent injection but it's basically the same stuff.

We have opioid and codeine problems in Australia, too.

I still have some Oxycodone (Endone) on the shelf.