Some things in there are quite redundant but being a knife and flashlight i can agree the need for redundancy. :)
The flint thing might be a good idea since lighters breaks easily. The flintstone is virtually indestructable.
Diacetylmorphine (heroin) was first synthesized in 1874 by C. R. Alder Wright, an English chemist working at St. Mary's Hospital Medical School in London. Bayer pharmaceutical rediscovered it twenty years later and marketed the drug as "Heroin".Considering the war was over thirty years earlier, they were morphine addicted.
i stand corrected, my facts were mixed up in my head.
so, do not put MORPHINE in your survival kit,. heroin is ok
You make heroin by acetylating morphine - it is more soluble than morphine so can be administered using a smaller injection - it's official name is diacetylmorphine, often shortened to diamorphine. Because the US had huge problems with opiate abuse, they banned the medical use of natural opiates in the 1920's (AFAIR). So as a result, US pain meds are made from synthetic opiates instead - at a very much greater cost. Oxycodone costs several times as much as pharmaceutical grade heroin.
Heroin is actually a brand name, the German pharmaceutical firm Bayer invented it in 1898 and marketed it as the non-addictive replacement for morphine. They lost the trademark in 1918 along with Aspirin which was another of their trademarks. Fentanyl is much more powerful but is harder to get consistent dosages as the amounts involved are in the class of "too small to see". We use the patches extensively in terminal care - but from (quite likely fallible) memory they don't have a long shelf-life so aren't ideal for an emergency kit. They also have the drawback of taking 6 hours to work so you need heroin for 6 hours anyway. And cost 10x as much.
They were extensively manufactured by the better quality Indian pharma outfits in the 1980's. I don't know if they still do. The Prime Minister of the country I lived in at the time (Zambia - a guy called Sikota Wina) was busted in South Africa with a train-load of the things that he'd bought with the proceeds from looting the national pension fund.
i believe you are correct. that said, the 80s were 30 years ago and the overdoses and abuse admits we see in our e.r. in boston, that say quaaludes were involved, seem to originate in sketchy home labs south of the u.s. border.
their quality control is, shall we say, less than adequate.
my comment was a poor attempt at humor around the idea that MORPHINE was out, HEROIN was ok. either one will get you talking to a judge pretty fast in the u.s. today. we use fentanyl a bunch in critical care but i have been doing this long enough to remember when it just sort of sat around in paitients rooms and in med rooms without anyone paying too much attention, but then, there used to be premixed syringes of valium on the unlocked code carts too.
I have to say that I was shaken but not stirred by that last post............
...and still no room for an altoid? Nothing like an altoid, to make a mouth feel "fresh as the morning dew", after a tough day of surviving!
For now, I keep mine in the bottom of the lunch bag I carry to work (as long as this does not transform my manly camo lunch bag into a purse). Also stashed it under my car seat for a trip. During winter, it should ride fairly unnoticed in heavier coats.
I plan to put together a more extensive fanny pack kit for the car, with more emphasis on first aid and defense (to include pepper spray and other things not antagonistic to law enforcement).
Altoids are great, and such a treat can be uplifting if things go south. They are a bit bulky, though, for how long they last. Sticks of chewing gum might be easier to pack and should last longer. Again, in the context of a compact tin where every bit of space counts.
----dimeotane, love that kit! Filed under "first aid". 
I put together a survival kit when I was in the Boy Scouts. It's in a metal band-aid tin.
I'll have to find it to post the contents. Memory says I made it sometime around 1966.
later,