Question about drug doses from foreign nurse

[Pytheas]

Hello. I'm a french nurse with 20 years experience currently working in Norway. I work in elderly care as a night shift. But, why I'm here now is because after watching Youtube videos about the homeless in USA (Invisible people, AML, etc.) I have questions about doses these people put in themselves. They say they need 7 to 12 "bags" a day, so what's in a "bag" anyway and how much of drugs is it?

 

[GBC_Student, BSN, RN]

It depends on what their drug of choice is. It's tough to say for sure, but the most common drugs of abuse I see in the population I work with are fentanyl, crystal meth, or crack cocaine. Prices vary depending on what it is and where they're buying it. I work in a safe injection site and people can easily use fentanyl 6 times in a day and we're not open 24 hours per day. A hit might cost you $10-$15 per hit in Canadian dollars. A bag might be one point, which is 0.1 grams. Heavier users can use 2-3 points at a time. Of course you can find people that use even higher doses.

If it's crack cocaine a person can use many times per day. It doesn't last that long so you could see a person buying crack 10 or more times per day. If they're shooting coke then you could easily do it 15 times a day or more. A baggy is likely a couple points and goes for about $10-20.

I don't see people using meth as frequently as fentanyl. However, meth tends to last longer than fentanyl and much longer than crack. A point of meth can run you anywhere from $5-$15 per hit. The thing with meth is you can stay awake for three or four days using which drives up how much a person spends.

All of these prices are about what these drugs cost in Toronto Canada. Obviously covid19 has changed drug prices because of supply fluctuations, but hopefully this gives you a rough idea about how much people spend and how much they might use.

[SarahMaria, MSN, RN]

Typically, "bags" refers to heroin.  In my area of the U.S. they are about $10 each.