Awesome personal story bro, powerful! Meth and opiates are some of the most addictive and harmful drugs around. It's scary that 'meth' is given to children with ADHD (or just a lot of energy), and opiates are given to EVERYBODY. When I was a nurse I think about 1 in 3 patients was on Tylenol #3 (codeine)... a gateway to harder addictive dangerous drugs.
There's a great program here in Vancouver called the Cannabis Substitution Project which hands out free cannabis (joints, cookies, gummies, sandwhiches, slurpees, capsules, and tinctures) twice a week to the needy. It started to help people get off opiates (as we are losing several people every day to overdoses, and we aren't a huge city). Vancouver is known around the world for our cheap heroin. People come here specifically to die on our drugs. Tragic.
My friend Neil Magnuson runs the CSP. He's a great local activist who I look up to. The CSP was a sister project to the "Vancouver 420 Farmers Markets" which ran for 2.5 years. That was started by MediKatie, me, and a couple other activists. We sold over 25000 brownies (not to mention thousands of dabs and probably 100k joints) to anyone 19+, every Saturday in downtown Vancouver. RIGHT in the heart of the banking and shopping sector. I dabbed doctors, pro sports team coaches and athletes, off-duty cops, even a judge. And many homeless people who couldn't afford the $2 price tag. We did it to help people make a healthy choice. Cannabis is saving lives, as you know! I'm really glad it was there to help you through parts of your recovery. It's really hard (and even dangerous) coming off some drugs, but cannabis can help with the withdrawals, as well as the need to do a ritual (like smoke or vape something), and it fills a social need as well. Plus it's often working behind the scenes to heal some of the root problem. Opiates don't, they just mask pain and give you constipation :P
I appreciate your comment and story!!