From Heroin To Hope: Cannabis Saved Joey’s Future

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Recovery from heroin addiction is more than possible with the use of medicinal cannabis:

According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, in 2017 nearly 20 million Americans battled a substance abuse disorder. 1 in 8 who were addicted was found to be fighting both alcohol and illicit drug use at the same time. Joseph Kirk, Jr. of Philadelphia Pennsylvania is a survivor of the opioid epidemic, the 26-year-old made his way out of the often deadly game of roulette that those who end up addicted to illicit drugs will play. Before he found the path to freedom, Kirk ended up in the same situation most do when they become addicted to the world’s #1 most popular and deadly illicit street drug. In order to fuel his habit, he was forced to start selling it and that’s where the problems come in. Many are reluctant to buy their drugs from someone they don’t know nowadays due to the overwhelming number of overdose deaths from spiked Heroin. The very strong drug Fentanyl is being used in its place, and it’s dosed in micrograms instead of milligrams or grams. It only takes a tiny pinch of this substance added to the dose or ‘fix’ of the heroin user to cause instant death. Kirk escaped this entire scene with his life and without having someone very close to him lose their life due to the drugs he was forced to sell in order to stay high – because it’s either high or near death in withdrawal that the heroin addict faces literally on a daily basis. Nobody’s looking for pity for the heroin addict here – rather an understanding for what they face and how the beautiful cannabis place can change all of this and give a future to someone who’s headed down a road to a very dark place.

Joey tells his story:

Often Heroin addicts are looking for a way out. Medicinal Cannabis is that way, and for Joey he found it before it was too late. He already had made up his mind to quit but relapse hits over 85% of users after their cessation of use in multiple studies. Generally it takes multiple attempts if one is successful in quitting.

“I’m from Pennsylvania – just outside of Philadelphia. Drugs are readily available on the street, from some that say they are friends or just people that want to make money selling them to you. I started using dope at 19, eventually, everyone that does this will end up selling drugs as I did – not knowing the grip it would have on me. Heroin is not child’s play, it will take no hostages or prisoners while it takes away your livelihood which is what it did to me. Many think poorly of those that sell drugs and I get that, but it’s not about making money for most of us – it’s just about trying to get that next fix and that’s exactly where I was at by age 22. Things don’t always work out as planned in life, especially when you’re caught up in a scene of people selling dope. I was just trying to keep from going into withdrawal – nothing more. One night what I was given to sell went missing and those people that I considered friends, the people that called me brother, were the ones that jumped me and hit me over the back of the head with a 2×4 to try to get their drugs back. Now I had more than just an addiction, I had a head injury. I woke up in the Abington, Pennsylvania hospital with staples in the back of my head and a stitched up lip, apparently, they hit me in the face pretty hard too. I knew I had to do something, my life was life water going down a drain. Soon there would be nothing left and I knew that. I had to change and I needed a way out of the life I made.”

Addiction takes its toll on the addict’s mental health – quickly one time justifications become a daily reality. At first many will have to ‘hook up their friends’ and sell to a few people they know in order to get a lower cost or free fix. Eventually, the addict is forced to make a decision to sell drugs in order to maintain their own need – many who sell heroin do not do so with the intent of making others ill, they do it to stop themselves from becoming ‘dope sick’ which is the first stage of withdrawal.

“I got myself clean which wasn’t easy, but still had the daily struggle of fighting off the feeling of wanting to escape. The thought of being high on dope was still in the back of my mind. Then one day suddenly I lost my job and everything went into a blur, I remember the next day as I was sending out texts to my connections telling them that I was ‘back on. Once I realized what I had done I knew where It would bring me and I was right because it led me back down that awful road of addiction and attempts to find recovery – but not for long this time. I got arrested and locked up for 6 months due to my addiction – I came out and found a girl who’s now the mother of my beautiful daughter. She never did drugs and hated them even more than I did by that point. I knew I needed her in my life as addictions make us powerless. I don’t think anybody sets out in life wanting to be a Heroin addict, meth addict, alcoholic, or any other type of person that’s stuck on drugs – it just happens. Thankfully I heard from a friend that I could get my medical marijuana card based on my health situation and the cannabis would help with cravings. To this day I’ll never forget that conversation because he was right and what he told me changed my life. I found a way to escape addiction and find a future that I didn’t think would happen. I thought I’d done myself in for life with the addiction.”

For many, it takes a life-changing experience to find a route away from drugs of dependence. For Joey, that’s exactly what happened when he was arrested and ended up in jail. Then he found the woman of his dreams that then had his baby – he’s a proud father now and his concentration is on his daughter well being – not drugs. As the opioid crisis sweeps across our nation people like Joey highlight the value of cannabis.

“Now don’t underestimate the power of those drugs, to this day I still have the evil thoughts in the back of my mind but as soon as I inhale and exhale the amazing medication that comes from cannabis the evil leaves with it and I have a better look on my life. I’m not blinded by my mind anymore, we end up trying and getting addicted to heavy drugs to escape life and feel numb but I don’t want that – I want to feel it and I do as it beats me up. When we hide from our addictions and hide from our pasts all we do is go further down that evil road. We have to face our feelings and feel our emotions, only then can we overcome the powerful drug called Dope, Heroin, or any other name for drugs sold on the street that kill so many people. I’m now 26, I’m not dead, I’m not in jail, and I’m very much in love with my daughter and life – she’s napping upstairs as I type this. I want to scream from the Rooftops in Kensington, Philadelphia about how the cannabis plant works. And how I believe 110% that I’m alive and my daughter has a good laugh – and it’s all because of marijuana.”

“No one wanted to be around me before I got sober. Those drugs had me so bad that my personality changed on them and it caused a split up between my daughter’s mom and me. My parents had a different reaction to me using cannabis to stop the strong drugs, but they stopped acting funny when they saw how I could go to work every day and still take good care of my daughter. They saw how cannabis made me laugh and smile – I get into my own goofy self of a mood and start making everyone around me laugh and smile. Medical Marijuana has changed my life so much that my conservative parents now believe in it too and the only negative they point out is how much it costs. Life is better and the only reason for that is Cannabis. I’m thankful to that one real true friend who gave me the advice to ‘go get your mmj card’ to stop the cravings from dope. It worked, and because of that I can share this story, and hopefully, someone else puts the deadly drugs down and finds nature.”

I can relate to Joey in so many ways. While I never got caught up in that type of opioid use – easily it could have happened. Over the years the amount of trauma, both physical and psychological has been immense, and that’s what leads many towards this type of addiction. Easily it could have been me that ended up in the same position he did – I look back over the decades of my own intense pharmaceutical addiction to opioids and the sheer amount of drugs I used and wonder “How did I survive that”? I’m sure Joey has many of those same feelings – memories of being so faded that we could barely breathe. Memories of people telling me they had to check on me because I was sleeping for so many hours at a time and they ‘couldn’t tell if I was alive’. Now I wasn’t using Heroin but when it comes to high-dose Oxycodone and Fentanyl patches it’s literally the same thing. Freedom came only when I realized that utilizing cannabis and its extracts was the answer – and that I had to deal with the withdrawal. I believe we become too comfortable with our numb state of mind and the easy way to continue life is to continue the pills or in Joey’s case to continue the Dope. When it comes down to it, it’s all the same evil. Addiction is addiction and it tears apart lives, families, destructs friendships, leaves an ugly past, and often robs people of their future.

Joey made it out alive – while we worked together over the past 24 hours to put his story out there for the world to read over 130 have died to overdoses of opioids alone. That doesn’t include countless other drugs of dependence. Our world, especially America, is engulfed in an addiction pandemic in which people are struggling to get away from the drugs of dependence and find freedom. Cannabis is that freedom.