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Sad that the message of this piece will likely be discounted and discredited. It amazes me the blasé attitudes towards drugs in the tech world. Hearing even hig

by milesf 10y ago

Sad that the message of this piece will likely be discounted and discredited. It amazes me the blasé attitudes towards drugs in the tech world. Hearing even high-profile tech leaders extoll the 'virtues' of getting high while ignoring the huge toll it takes on individuals and their families seems selfish to me.

pierrec 10y ago
I have never heard of any high-profile tech leaders defending the recreational use of opioids, nor is it a popular position on HN. What's often praised, however, is education (eg. not throwing all drugs into the same bag).
- notyourloops 10y ago
  One of the top posts in here is describing how to start your own opioid business. I'd consider that praise on some level, unfortunately.
  - openasocket 10y ago
    Are you referring to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12212241 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12212241 ? (if not, disregard this) It read to me like the user just said that fentanyl isn't that much cheaper than making heroin, and showed his work. They aren't actually advocating or advising for anything.
    - notyourloops 10y ago
      Starting material, precursors, cost analysis, and a darknet market for sales. You can say they're not advocating or advising for anything, but they just did to anyone who could be interested, from start to completed product to where to sell it.
      - soundwave106 10y ago
        That really isn't a worry in my opinion. Generally speaking, when a drug exists in prescription form, you don't see too many people rushing out to make it. (Methamphetamine's probably one of the few exceptions because it can relatively easily be (badly) made by "home chemists".) Instead, the focus becomes more on obtaining diverted prescription drugs via illicit channels ("doctor shopping", shady pharmacies, pharmacy theft, etc.). See: oxycodone, vicodin, etc. Beyond that, most of these compounds are patented or have been at one point, and there's certainly plenty of patents on fentanyl. Patents pretty much contain much of the information you need to make the compound, easy enough to look this information up. This is not very "top secret" information. Actually the poster provided hardly the information needed to actually make the compound in comparison to what you can Google. Finally, for those wishing to pursue this for some reason, said poster did not describe what to do when "the law" shows up at your door to inquire just what in the heck you are doing ordering acetic anhydride (it is, er, a U.S. DEA List II compound after all) or other watched chemicals. :) If someone's going to get into the illicit drug manufacturing business, they're going to need far more than a Hacker News post to do such.
fmihaila 10y ago
I don't remember ever hearing a 'high-profile tech leader' extoll the virtues of getting high on opiates. Yes, Steve Jobs talked about his experience with LSD in positive terms, but LSD is as similar to fentanyl as Advil is to Viagra or alcohol is to coffee. They really have nothing in common other than being labeled 'drugs', which at this point is a term just as empty of meaning as 'chemicals'.
- MichaelGG 10y ago
  FWIW Advil and other OTC painkillers (NSAIDs) cause almost as many deaths as opiates. If opiates were readily legally available in proper dosages and cheap prices, NSAIDs would almost certainly pass them in harm.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > FWIW Advil and other OTC painkillers (NSAIDs) cause almost as many deaths as opiates. Maybe, maybe not. The basis on which that claim has usually been made has been discredited, but there is a dearth of good data on which to make a claim either way. [0] [0] http://www.practicalpainmanagement.com/treatments/pharmacological/opioids/ask-expert-do-nsaids-cause-more-deaths-opioids http://www.practicalpainmanagement.com/treatments/pharmacolo...
duaneb 10y ago
There are recreational drugs, and then there are addictions. I don't think I've witnessed the blasé attitude towards highly addictive substances you have witnessed, except possibly with nicotine. Certainly not in person.
MichaelGG 10y ago
The issue here was not caused by the actual substance. It was caused to due to terrible social and legal attitudes that encourage mislabeled medicines to be sold. If anything else in our society was mislabeled by a factor of 50, there'd be outrage over the vendor, regulators, etc. But with drugs, it's always "user error". Opiates are extremely well tolerated, with basically no upper bound on use. They are incredibly cheap, black market aside. There's probably a fair amount of libertarian-leaning people here that see the harm as caused by things other than drugs. The "toll" it takes on people is almost 100% caused by the legal status. Hence why millions of people in America alone enjoy prescribed opiate usage without dying or having their life spin out of control.
- sremani 10y ago
  As much as I want to agree with you, the story of the two dudes losing their jobs and constantly being broke says otherwise. I know there are lot of functioning addicts, and I have seen them in life. But the two guys in the article are anything but functioning. Their education suffered, their job prospects suffered.
  - MichaelGG 10y ago
    The issue of being broke is directly related to having to buy off a black market. Opiates are stupidly cheap - for a naive user, they are cheaper than Tylenol. A lot of the problem almost certainly stems from this broke/steal/intervention/etc. cycle. Do legally sanctioned opiate users suffer from a high rate of financial and employment issues?
    - mindslight 10y ago
      To be fair, users that are sanctioned under the current legal regime are forced to keep up appearances, which likely includes holding down a job. If they do run into financial issues, their legal supply likely gets cut off when the prescriber sees them deteriorate. At which point they're no longer legally sanctioned. (FWIW I do agree with your general viewpoint. Not because I have much of an interest in drugs, but because if somebody purports to tell you how and how not you can affect your own body, that person is an enemy of your freedom. Freedom necessarily must include the option to harm yourself, otherwise you are actually just picking from preordained choices.)

by milesf 10y ago

pierrec 10y ago

I have never heard of any high-profile tech leaders defending the recreational use of opioids, nor is it a popular position on HN. What's often praised, however, is education (eg. not throwing all drugs into the same bag).

notyourloops 10y ago
One of the top posts in here is describing how to start your own opioid business. I'd consider that praise on some level, unfortunately.
- openasocket 10y ago
  Are you referring to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12212241 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12212241 ? (if not, disregard this) It read to me like the user just said that fentanyl isn't that much cheaper than making heroin, and showed his work. They aren't actually advocating or advising for anything.
  - notyourloops 10y ago
    Starting material, precursors, cost analysis, and a darknet market for sales. You can say they're not advocating or advising for anything, but they just did to anyone who could be interested, from start to completed product to where to sell it.
    - soundwave106 10y ago
      That really isn't a worry in my opinion. Generally speaking, when a drug exists in prescription form, you don't see too many people rushing out to make it. (Methamphetamine's probably one of the few exceptions because it can relatively easily be (badly) made by "home chemists".) Instead, the focus becomes more on obtaining diverted prescription drugs via illicit channels ("doctor shopping", shady pharmacies, pharmacy theft, etc.). See: oxycodone, vicodin, etc. Beyond that, most of these compounds are patented or have been at one point, and there's certainly plenty of patents on fentanyl. Patents pretty much contain much of the information you need to make the compound, easy enough to look this information up. This is not very "top secret" information. Actually the poster provided hardly the information needed to actually make the compound in comparison to what you can Google. Finally, for those wishing to pursue this for some reason, said poster did not describe what to do when "the law" shows up at your door to inquire just what in the heck you are doing ordering acetic anhydride (it is, er, a U.S. DEA List II compound after all) or other watched chemicals. :) If someone's going to get into the illicit drug manufacturing business, they're going to need far more than a Hacker News post to do such.

fmihaila 10y ago

I don't remember ever hearing a 'high-profile tech leader' extoll the virtues of getting high on opiates. Yes, Steve Jobs talked about his experience with LSD in positive terms, but LSD is as similar to fentanyl as Advil is to Viagra or alcohol is to coffee. They really have nothing in common other than being labeled 'drugs', which at this point is a term just as empty of meaning as 'chemicals'.

MichaelGG 10y ago
FWIW Advil and other OTC painkillers (NSAIDs) cause almost as many deaths as opiates. If opiates were readily legally available in proper dosages and cheap prices, NSAIDs would almost certainly pass them in harm.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > FWIW Advil and other OTC painkillers (NSAIDs) cause almost as many deaths as opiates. Maybe, maybe not. The basis on which that claim has usually been made has been discredited, but there is a dearth of good data on which to make a claim either way. [0] [0] http://www.practicalpainmanagement.com/treatments/pharmacological/opioids/ask-expert-do-nsaids-cause-more-deaths-opioids http://www.practicalpainmanagement.com/treatments/pharmacolo...

duaneb 10y ago

There are recreational drugs, and then there are addictions. I don't think I've witnessed the blasé attitude towards highly addictive substances you have witnessed, except possibly with nicotine. Certainly not in person.

MichaelGG 10y ago

The issue here was not caused by the actual substance. It was caused to due to terrible social and legal attitudes that encourage mislabeled medicines to be sold. If anything else in our society was mislabeled by a factor of 50, there'd be outrage over the vendor, regulators, etc. But with drugs, it's always "user error". Opiates are extremely well tolerated, with basically no upper bound on use. They are incredibly cheap, black market aside. There's probably a fair amount of libertarian-leaning people here that see the harm as caused by things other than drugs. The "toll" it takes on people is almost 100% caused by the legal status. Hence why millions of people in America alone enjoy prescribed opiate usage without dying or having their life spin out of control.

sremani 10y ago
As much as I want to agree with you, the story of the two dudes losing their jobs and constantly being broke says otherwise. I know there are lot of functioning addicts, and I have seen them in life. But the two guys in the article are anything but functioning. Their education suffered, their job prospects suffered.
- MichaelGG 10y ago
  The issue of being broke is directly related to having to buy off a black market. Opiates are stupidly cheap - for a naive user, they are cheaper than Tylenol. A lot of the problem almost certainly stems from this broke/steal/intervention/etc. cycle. Do legally sanctioned opiate users suffer from a high rate of financial and employment issues?
  - mindslight 10y ago
    To be fair, users that are sanctioned under the current legal regime are forced to keep up appearances, which likely includes holding down a job. If they do run into financial issues, their legal supply likely gets cut off when the prescriber sees them deteriorate. At which point they're no longer legally sanctioned. (FWIW I do agree with your general viewpoint. Not because I have much of an interest in drugs, but because if somebody purports to tell you how and how not you can affect your own body, that person is an enemy of your freedom. Freedom necessarily must include the option to harm yourself, otherwise you are actually just picking from preordained choices.)