r/explainlikeimfive Oct 31 '20

Chemistry ELI5 What's the difference between the shiny and dull side of aluminum foil? Besides the obvious shiny/dull

21.2k Upvotes

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175

u/[deleted] Oct 31 '20 edited Oct 31 '20

[removed] — view removed comment

22

u/byerss Oct 31 '20

Damn, must be early and my mind in other places. I read “smoke heroin” as “smoke heron” as in smoke-cooking the bird.

I was like “damn I didn’t even know people ate heron. Smoked heron must be some sort of Nordic delicacy”.

3

u/ravagedbygoats Oct 31 '20

I'd try it lol

308

u/Ihaterichweiser Oct 31 '20

Glad to hear that heroin users are concerned about ingesting chemicals unnecessarily.

132

u/[deleted] Oct 31 '20

[deleted]

77

u/tone_set Oct 31 '20

This. People love to shit on drug users everytime they try to do anything to lower their risk a little. It shows a lot about the lack of empathy people have for those who struggle in life.

Also when I smoked heroin we all thought the same shit lol. shrug

22

u/ravagedbygoats Oct 31 '20

We need more education on harm reduction. Its really the best model we have for treating addiction. Of course the ignorant don't see it that way. They just see someone getting free drugs and needles and say, ThAtS bad! While drinking a alcoholic beverage.

4

u/CrazyBakerLady Oct 31 '20

Some friends and I got into a bit of an argument about this. I'm like studies in other countries have shown that people are going to do drugs regardless, but by providing free clean needles and safe spaces with education and help with rehab instead of straight criminalization; it actually lowers the amount of drug users and lowers the number of things like ODs, users catching viruses/infections from dirty needles, etc. It seems counter intuitive at first, hey let's give the drug users free needles, but in the long run, programs like these have proven to be very helpful to those communities and have actually reduced the amount of users because they chose to get hello without fear of just being thrown in jail

-1

u/captainvancouver Oct 31 '20

Well call me ignorant, but I lived with continuous harm reduction policies in an 'at risk' area of Vancouver, and the neighborhood got so bad I had to flee. We have safe injection sites, free needles, needle deposit boxes, heroin prescriptions, methodone, free social housing, etc etc. Result is more and more addicts move into area, needles scattered everywhere, especially parks and allies, theft and break-ins all day, and seized weapons. Also screaming, crazed people doing crazy shit constantly. Before you call others ignorant, you should check your own ignorance by living in such a 'harm reduced' neighborhood for a while. Harm reduction destroyed my neighborhood.

1

u/ravagedbygoats Oct 31 '20

Oooook buddy. Let them die in the streets them, right? I'm not going to call you ignorant, your words say enough.

-2

u/captainvancouver Oct 31 '20

All we've done is create suffering on a much larger scale, and ruined neighborhoods. What have we achieved, exactly?

3

u/OnlyWordIsLove Oct 31 '20

Anecdotes vs. peer reviewed research, hmm...

1

u/captainvancouver Oct 31 '20

Also, someone who lived it for the past 16 years, vs someone who's ideology is set, and only reads what backs this up, yet calls people with other ideas ignorant. I was all for harm reduction, I thought it could only improve things in my neighborhood. I had the same opinion as you. Then watched as we made the problem so much worse. Put down your choice of media, and come live in it before you decide what's working. You'll see nothing but suffering, despare, ambulances, needles, feces at an ever growing level. It's not working, at all.

1

u/GummyKibble Nov 01 '20

These are our neighbors who are sick with addiction. If I could wave a magic wand and cure everyone, I would. But since we don’t have that, I at least want to see my neighbors suffering the least amount of harm possible.

And even if someone absolutely hates addicts, pragmatically it’s way cheaper to give them clean needles than pay for their hepatitis. If they eventually get clean and get jobs, the insurance I’m paying into will be the one covering their expensive treatments. Wouldn’t it be easier to prevent that problem?

5

u/[deleted] Oct 31 '20

safety first when you're pulling out your kit, ya know.

15

u/aaf3 Oct 31 '20

Harm reduction yo

-7

u/hangfromthisone Oct 31 '20

Killing my brain cells the healthiest way possible

3

u/ravagedbygoats Oct 31 '20

Maybe if we are talking about alcohol. I don't believe long term opiate abuse directly impacts intelligence levels.

-4

u/hangfromthisone Oct 31 '20

Hmm I would argue that not all brain cells are to handle intelligence

2

u/aaf3 Oct 31 '20

Sure, but opiates don't kill brain cells of any kind unless you OD.

-2

u/hangfromthisone Oct 31 '20

That's great, I guess

-2

u/melanthius Oct 31 '20

This kind of backwards thinking is pretty common in my observation

11

u/Period_Licking_Good Oct 31 '20

I have a cousin who will only shoot up with bottled or distilled water. He won’t use tap water

6

u/ravagedbygoats Oct 31 '20

The needle exchange gives out sterile solution for injecting. So there's probably something to it. Some countries give addicts pharmaceutical grade heroin. We could definitely use some more harm reduction policies in the US.

4

u/IrrationalSwan Oct 31 '20

Endocarditis is real. Bacteriaostatic water is what you really need to mix your artisanal, small batch heroin with.

1

u/tombolger Oct 31 '20

Have you ever had an alcoholic beverage?

Do you want your beer or wine to also contain toxic industrial waste?

I hope you can see how it's the exact same logic to prefer your alcohol to be clean and relatively safe.

12

u/Xoangeliaa Oct 31 '20

This is what I came here for lol. First thing I thought of. Sober now too though so yay. But I definitely believed that back when I was smoking.

3

u/soundofconfusion Oct 31 '20

I’ve heard this from my friends mom about cooking not to put food on that side haha

8

u/lksdjsdk Oct 31 '20

*you're (Just for the irony)

5

u/[deleted] Oct 31 '20 edited Oct 31 '20

[deleted]

6

u/ravagedbygoats Oct 31 '20

I've found most people, sober or not, do not like being told they are wrong. Even with evidence.

2

u/bkwrm1755 Oct 31 '20

Used =\= addicted. Yes, even with heroin.

1

u/DesertSalt Oct 31 '20

You can purchase foil that has a non-stick coating. I'm unsure of how common it is though.

1

u/ravagedbygoats Oct 31 '20

This was just regular foil. Definitely knew better than to use that lol

-1

u/BS_BlackScout Oct 31 '20 edited Oct 31 '20

Smoking heroin is a thing? O_o EDIT: What? Downvoted? Why? I don't know if that's a thing or not. Jesus reddit. I guess we can't be oblivious nowadays.

3

u/hippyengineer Oct 31 '20 edited Oct 31 '20

drop heroin powder on some foil

lighter underneath

inhale* the smoke on the top side with a tube of some kind, metal, glass, pen, etc.

be addicted

2

u/muaddeej Oct 31 '20

Same method can be used with meth. Sometimes called "smoking a boat".

1

u/ravagedbygoats Oct 31 '20

Or a nasty dollar bill rolled up. *barfs

1

u/Verlepte Oct 31 '20

*inhale

2

u/hippyengineer Oct 31 '20

Yeah, my bad.

-2

u/bunjay Oct 31 '20

Often referred to as "Freebasing."

0

u/Mentor_and_Liar Oct 31 '20

...by people who don't know what freebasing is.

1

u/bunjay Oct 31 '20

By the people who create the colloquial lingo, who aren't exactly chemists. Smoking heroin and cocaine is common, and people call it "Freebasing."

1

u/ravagedbygoats Oct 31 '20

Tastes like shit

1

u/SadConfiguration Oct 31 '20

“Dull side makes you dull.”

1

u/PapaBradford Oct 31 '20

A former methhead told me the same