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'That Fentanyl – That's Death': A Story of Recovery in Baltimore

106 points by Mz 9y ago

coldcode 9y ago
Why do we continue to treat this as a criminal problem. It's a healthcare problem.
- bbarn 9y ago
  No, it's a business problem. There's too much money tied up in the infrastructure that criminalizes it, too many people invested and making a lot of money on the status quo.
  - teej 9y ago
    There's also a lot of money to be made in keeping addicts hooked. In South Florida, there's a huge issue where opioid addicts are put into "treatment centers" that use them to defraud insurance carriers. The victims don't get treatment but instead get the exact opposite - handlers who make money by feeding the addiction. http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/megyn-kelly/florida-s-billion-dollar-drug-treatment-industry-plagued-overdoses-fraud-n773376 http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/megyn-kelly/florida-s-billion...
    - alikoneko 9y ago
      I live in South Florida, in Palm Beach County, where the bulk of these centers are. You see a lot of addicts. I don't know of any success stories to come out of them. But its a bit unsettling to be driving down I95 and see a billboard: "IMAGINE BEING SOBER". It's really sad and scary. Delray Beach used to be a nice place before the treatment centers came in, too. I was looking for an apartment on Craigslist here not too long ago. More than half the rooms for rent I saw were "sober living" half way houses.
  - djsumdog 9y ago
    The pharmaceutical industry is a major part of the problem. Keep in mind morphine and oxytocin were in response to the control of heroin. Adderall is not so different than methamphetamine. The well of do these drugs legally and can afford rehab. Many of the people I've know that struggled with opium addiction could not afford to join treatment programs, many of which cost $2k ~ $15k. There is a lot of money being made in all sides of this game and it's disturbing.
    - chimeracoder 9y ago
      > Keep in mind morphine and oxytocin were in response to the control of heroin. Other way around. Heroin was the response to morphine.
      - ch4s3 9y ago
        Hence the name.
    - djtriptych 9y ago
      You know someone who went to rehab for adderall?
      - 2bitencryption 9y ago
        Alcohol, weed, soft drinks. If you can get addicted to it, you can get rehab'd for it if you're willing.
        zdkl 9y ago
        *if you can pay for it or get sentenced into it. Ftfy
    - code_duck 9y ago
      You mean Oxycontin - oxytocin is the 'love hormone' released by your brain.
  - bpodgursky 9y ago
    This is a super simplistic view. This is not like pot. This is not a drug that you can eve use casually. There is no moral legal framework in which these drugs can be freely bought. After you are on these drugs, you are no longer able to make free choices. I agree that users should be receiving treatment. But anyone selling or importing these drugs absolutely deserves to be punished harshly -- they are destroying millions of lives.
    - stickfigure 9y ago
      After you are on these drugs, you are no longer able to make free choices. I don't buy it. I heard exactly this being said about cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, ecstasy, and yes marijuana in the 80s. Reefer Madness was not a parody movie, and let's not forget that pot is still officially Schedule I in the US. I'm not saying that all drugs require equal amounts of care - carfentanyl sounds more like a chemical weapon, and for that reason alone should be heavily regulated. But folks tend to overreact with panic every single time a new drug comes up, and I've watched this excuse ("no longer able to make free choices!") used to justify ratcheting up the drug war every time. This particular claim doesn't pass the obvious sniff test - if fentanyl was so compulsive, heroin addicts would be seeking it out instead of trying to avoid it. Yeah, these powerful new drugs are killing people - and we should lay the blame square where it belongs, with the prohibition of milder alternatives.
      - 2bitencryption 9y ago
        Your sniff test isn't passing my sniff test.
      - GordonS 9y ago
        If you take a look at forums for drug users, such as Blue Light, you will see most prefer heroin to fentanyl. Apparently the euphoria from fentanyl isn't as great as with other opioids.
        doikor 9y ago
        Most addicts preferring heroin shouldn't be surprise to anyone. Fentanyl was developed as an alternative to existing opioids that acts faster, goes out of your system faster and has less side effects (with the pain relief being the only wanted effect). The fact that it is very strong (easy to overdose) isn't really that much of an issue in clinical use.
  - deleted 9y ago
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- deleted 9y ago
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- marcoperaza 9y ago
  Treating it like a criminal problem works extremely well for Singapore. If you sell drugs, you get executed. If you have any amount drugs, you almost certainly go to prison. Police have extraordinary powers to investigate and prosecute drug crimes, including compelling drug tests of suspected users. As a result, there is effectively no drug use or trafficking in Singapore. So this oft-repeated mantra that the penal code cannot solve drug problems is frankly bs. I'm not suggesting that we should throw drug addicts in prison for a dozen years, but I'd have no problem letting a fentanyl dealer rot in prison for the rest of their lives. Maybe start sending commandos to kidnap cartel leaders from Mexico to bring them to the US to face charges, for trafficking drugs and for murder. Let's run sting operations with cops posing as drug-seeking addicts to catch doctors handing them out like candy.
  - stickfigure 9y ago
    Please tell me, how many marijuana dealers would you have been willing to execute in the 80s? How many brewers would you have been comfortable executing in the 20s? How many homosexuals in the 50s? I for one am very happy not to be living in an all-powerful police state. What's obviously "moral and good" seems to be awfully fluid across history.
    - marcoperaza 9y ago
      So I'm not arguing that we should completely emulate Singapore and other Asian countries here. Life-ending punishments for low-level dealing of soft drugs is too harsh and incompatible with our vision for society. Likewise for imprisoning addicts. But I think enforcement can work if we're willing to do what must be done. People exporting and importing large quantities of hard drugs into the United States get no sympathy from me.
      - mythrwy 9y ago
        Maybe when large poppy and coca fields were needed enforcement could have worked had it been pursued vigorously. But we apparently really didn't want to do that and it was mostly all lip service. But now? Super powerful chemicals being continually adjusted. A zillion e-packets zipping around the world. Forget about full enforcement. That is no longer possible if we "just try hard enough". Unless maybe you want to stop the mail and bomb 35 countries into smithereens. And incarcerate even more people than the ridiculous number we already have. We can still "discourage" with occasional busts (and probably should for deadly drugs for now) but maybe it's time to sit down and rethink rather than continuing to playing wack-a-mole. Make better drugs. Less harmful ones. That's the eventual answer I think.
jokr004 9y ago
I'm in the process of recovering from a serious addiction to furanyl-fentanyl. I don't really care to get too into it, I really can't explain the pain that stuff has caused me. I've been through a lot in life, but I've never been through anything so traumatic.. This stuff is a nightmare like you can't possibly understand without being there yourself, I hope none of you ever find yourself in that position.. I've been in a methadone program for the past 6 months now. We really need to put money into treatment, the program that I'm in literally saved my life. I'm lucky enough to have insurance that actually covers most of the cost, but most people in my situation don't have that luxury.
- microwavecamera 9y ago
  Im glad to hear you're doing better. Keep at it. I didn't get into opioids personally but grew up in and lived in that type of environment for years and had my own addiction issues. I've seen alot of good people get caught up in it. We need more programs for addiction and mental health. It's wrong that things are the way they are. No one should have to live like that. We need to find a better way.
- stronglikedan 9y ago
  > I'm in the process of recovering from a serious addiction to furanyl-fentanyl. > This stuff is a nightmare like you can't possibly understand without being there yourself From someone who hasn't been there themselves, but just lost my best friend to fentanyl, I hope you stick with recovery. She was actually in a very nice recovery program, but managed to sneak a cell phone in. Point is, it only takes one bad decision that I hope you don't make.
- Pigo 9y ago
  I was actually addicted to methadone, only used heroin a couple times in my life. I used it because I could work and get stuff done for days on end while being high. I knew people who died because they forgot you can't drink alcohol when you're on it, but I was delusional enough to think I was better when I was on it. It ended for me when I got old enough to notice the kids at these places I was going to by my drugs, just to do my dirt and leave. The last straw was when I stumbled into a bedroom while trying to find a bathroom at a dealers house. I walked into a room with 6 or 7 kids under 10 years old wearing big bubble coats and gloves, all huddled together in the middle of the room trying to stay warm. It was winter, and it hadn't dawned on me that the house had no heat. I've never been able to forget how I'd been contributed to their situation, my actions rippled out to affect many people beyond myself. Relying on drugs started to feel like a very selfish, narcissistic way of life
throwanem 9y ago
Glad to know naloxone kits and the training to use them are available. The first aid kit in my satchel will be a lot more useful once so augmented.
- danbolt 9y ago
  Organizing a party and having one on hand gave me a lot more security in my abilities as a host.
JonDav 9y ago
A man walked into a meeting with a fent sucker in his mouth treating it like a toothpick and I had to hold back my alarm so that everyone else did not ask why I knew exactly what it was. At that time no one outside of post-op, end of life cancer, or major pain management were really aware of this stuff. But to see a guy just stroll in on fentanyl like it was nothing at all was a watershed moment. Now an addict does not need to steal from a ped surgery floor. You can buy fentanyl straight from China in a properly wrapped packet. Dosage is the problem, mixing dry is not easy, hence the street deaths. I carried narcan back in the day because some of my friends were heroin users. But I never came across a fent addict, now I can only imagine how much of this stuff is floating out there. Average people have no idea what this stuff feels like, what the pull is like. In reality you never get away from it; it is always there in the back of your mind but you have to tell yourself that it will destroy you. sorry for the disjoint mess but I am being hit with the thoughts of those I knew who were lost to black. Apparently fent is the new black.
- JshWright 9y ago
  > I never came across a fent addict At least here in upstate New York, there aren't really 'fent addicts'. There are opioid addicts in general, but even the hardcore users are generally seeking heroin, not fentanyl. People are _really_ scared of fentanyl...
  - icantdrive55 9y ago
    And they should be. Two employees at my local hospital died sitting on the can in the bathroom, with a fentanyl Patch lying on the ground. One was a nurse, and the other a janitor. (They took the used patches out of the garbage.). (That said, we should legalize at least bupenorpine, the generic version. Addicts would have an alternative to street drugs, and doctors who just charge too much. Plus--drug education should be taught early in school. And tell the truth. Like for nine months, the drugs will work. Then you will spend years just trying to feel the way you did before you took opiates:; if you're lucky.)
    - GordonS 9y ago
peterwwillis 9y ago
Librarians in Philadelphia have started keeping naloxone in their desks so when the next addict OD's in the grass in front of the library they can bring them back to life. http://www.philly.com/philly/columnists/mike_newall/opioid-crisis-Needle-Park-McPherson-narcan.html http://www.philly.com/philly/columnists/mike_newall/opioid-c...
martinald 9y ago
Fentanyl is nothing compared to carfentanil - some 100x stronger, which is 10,000x stronger than morphine, gram for gram. So much so that first responders are suffering serious overdose from inhaling bags of it accidently. More crazy was the fact it's for sale on the darknet markets for as little as $150/gram. Worldwide legal use is about 50g a year. This is what prohibition does - inctentivizes strength per unit mass. It's much easier to import 1g of carfentanil than 10kg of heroin. And I think it will just get worse and worse.
- CoffeeDregs 9y ago
  Carfentanil is terrifying. Wound up in a Wikipedia hole looking that up. 10,000 times as potent as morphine. Only recently illegal in China. Therapeutic dose of one microgram. May have been the way the Russians subdued the Moscow Theater Attack (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_theater_hostage_crisis#Chemical_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_theater_hostage_crisis#...) by just spraying it over the crowd. It seems that many people died of asphyxiation when they passed out and flopped over. It's considered a chemical weapon. Consider the mixing requirements of carfentanil: one insufficiently ground grain of the chemical is lethal. And the people making the end-product are amateurs. One kilo from China was confiscated in Canada. Certainly a bit hyperbolic, but "According to the Canada Border Services Agency, the shipment contained 50 million lethal doses of the drug, more than enough carfentanil to wipe out the entire population of the country[...]". Divide that by ten and it's still terrifying. Dump a small bag over NYC Times Square or Mumbai and you'd create mass casualties. This isn't some crazy, Bethesda-managed super-bug or insecticide. It's a bog standard, synthetic opioid.
  - QAPereo 9y ago
    I remember when I first learned of Carfentanil years ago under the name Wildnil, very large game tranquilizer. What I remember most was the speech we got about handling is and how little time we have if we were exposed, how much reversal agent will be needed in the reversal agent was always to be had whenever carfentanil was to be handled. The idea of humans actually trying to get high on the stuff is insane and terrifying.
dreamcompiler 9y ago
Fentanyl is a wonderful, miraculous, lifesaving drug when used by doctors and paramedics. In a hospital setting, it's a much better drug than morphine for acute pain management in most cases. It's also -- no question -- really freaking dangerous when abused. I worry about stories like this painting such a one-sided picture that Fentanyl will be demonized out of existence.
- loeg 9y ago
  Just curious -- what makes fentanyl better than morphine in a hospital setting?
  - microcolonel 9y ago
    That I understand, The fentanyl lollipop has completely changed battlefield pain relief, it's also been used for cancer patients. Morphine can take 15-20 minutes to kick in, and needs to be injected into muscle, whereas the fentanyl citrate lollipops take considerably less time and can be administered and removed abruptly by putting it in or taking it out of the mouth. It also lacks some of the unpleasant side effects of morphine.
    - GordonS 9y ago
      Morphine can be administered IV too, in which case its effects will be felt immediately. If taken orally, it generally takes around 40 minutes to be felt, the same as for most opioids when taken orally. Do you have a source for fentanyl lollipops acting faster than that? Also, you say it lacks some of the side effects of morphine - do you have a source for that too? Morphine causes respiratory depression, histamine release, constipation, nausea, loss of libido, inability to orgasm; actually, any opioid that doesn't recruit beta-arrestin (such as mitragynine) will have much the same side effects.
      - JshWright 9y ago
        IV fentanyl is a lot faster than IV morphine (3-5 minutes vs 20 minutes for peak analgesia).
kazinator 9y ago
[Fentanyl] is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines, the most effective and safe medicines needed in a health system. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fentanyl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fentanyl
- JshWright 9y ago
  I'm not sure the intent behind your quote, but that's very true. Used in a clinical setting, fentanyl is generally the best choice for acute pain management (post-op, traumatic injury, etc).
cody8295 9y ago
Legalizing heroin and regulating it like alcohol would save so many lives. Not sure where everyone here is from, but in Connecticut we've seen hundreds of people die from fentanyl overdoses in just the past few years. In an overwhelming majority of the cases, they were sold what they thought was heroin. Why should we keep forcing drug addicts to buy from dangerous and expensive dealers? Not only would legalizing heroin save millions of lives, it would bring in trillions of dollars in tax revenue
- vesche 9y ago
  Obligatory Ron Paul - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4Eca-INIOw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4Eca-INIOw
- cuckcuckspruce 9y ago
  Not only that, the response to the opiate epidemic has negative impacts on people actually in pain. My girlfriend, who has lupus and constant pain, was recently denied pain medication because the doctor was concerned that continuing to write prescriptions for opiates would cost him his license. So my girlfriend has been in excruciating, 9/10 pain for the last month because doctors are too concerned about over-prescribing because every soccer mom is suddenly concerned that responsible adults in pain are suddenly going to turn into opiate crazed monsters. As much as addicts need help, the feeling of the general population is that it's better for someone in pain to suffer than for someone to get a safe, known, pure quantity of opiates without having a good enough reason.
acjohnson55 9y ago
I'm surprised it hasn't been said yet on this thread, but Fentanyl is what killed the musician Prince (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_(musician)#Illness_and_death https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_(musician)#Illness_and_...).

106 points by Mz 9y ago

coldcode 9y ago

Why do we continue to treat this as a criminal problem. It's a healthcare problem.

bbarn 9y ago
No, it's a business problem. There's too much money tied up in the infrastructure that criminalizes it, too many people invested and making a lot of money on the status quo.
- teej 9y ago
  There's also a lot of money to be made in keeping addicts hooked. In South Florida, there's a huge issue where opioid addicts are put into "treatment centers" that use them to defraud insurance carriers. The victims don't get treatment but instead get the exact opposite - handlers who make money by feeding the addiction. http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/megyn-kelly/florida-s-billion-dollar-drug-treatment-industry-plagued-overdoses-fraud-n773376 http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/megyn-kelly/florida-s-billion...
  - alikoneko 9y ago
    I live in South Florida, in Palm Beach County, where the bulk of these centers are. You see a lot of addicts. I don't know of any success stories to come out of them. But its a bit unsettling to be driving down I95 and see a billboard: "IMAGINE BEING SOBER". It's really sad and scary. Delray Beach used to be a nice place before the treatment centers came in, too. I was looking for an apartment on Craigslist here not too long ago. More than half the rooms for rent I saw were "sober living" half way houses.
- djsumdog 9y ago
  The pharmaceutical industry is a major part of the problem. Keep in mind morphine and oxytocin were in response to the control of heroin. Adderall is not so different than methamphetamine. The well of do these drugs legally and can afford rehab. Many of the people I've know that struggled with opium addiction could not afford to join treatment programs, many of which cost $2k ~ $15k. There is a lot of money being made in all sides of this game and it's disturbing.
  - chimeracoder 9y ago
    > Keep in mind morphine and oxytocin were in response to the control of heroin. Other way around. Heroin was the response to morphine.
    - ch4s3 9y ago
      Hence the name.
  - djtriptych 9y ago
    You know someone who went to rehab for adderall?
    - 2bitencryption 9y ago
      Alcohol, weed, soft drinks. If you can get addicted to it, you can get rehab'd for it if you're willing.
      - zdkl 9y ago
        *if you can pay for it or get sentenced into it. Ftfy
  - code_duck 9y ago
    You mean Oxycontin - oxytocin is the 'love hormone' released by your brain.
- bpodgursky 9y ago
  This is a super simplistic view. This is not like pot. This is not a drug that you can eve use casually. There is no moral legal framework in which these drugs can be freely bought. After you are on these drugs, you are no longer able to make free choices. I agree that users should be receiving treatment. But anyone selling or importing these drugs absolutely deserves to be punished harshly -- they are destroying millions of lives.
  - stickfigure 9y ago
    After you are on these drugs, you are no longer able to make free choices. I don't buy it. I heard exactly this being said about cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, ecstasy, and yes marijuana in the 80s. Reefer Madness was not a parody movie, and let's not forget that pot is still officially Schedule I in the US. I'm not saying that all drugs require equal amounts of care - carfentanyl sounds more like a chemical weapon, and for that reason alone should be heavily regulated. But folks tend to overreact with panic every single time a new drug comes up, and I've watched this excuse ("no longer able to make free choices!") used to justify ratcheting up the drug war every time. This particular claim doesn't pass the obvious sniff test - if fentanyl was so compulsive, heroin addicts would be seeking it out instead of trying to avoid it. Yeah, these powerful new drugs are killing people - and we should lay the blame square where it belongs, with the prohibition of milder alternatives.
    - 2bitencryption 9y ago
      Your sniff test isn't passing my sniff test.
    - GordonS 9y ago
      If you take a look at forums for drug users, such as Blue Light, you will see most prefer heroin to fentanyl. Apparently the euphoria from fentanyl isn't as great as with other opioids.
      - doikor 9y ago
        Most addicts preferring heroin shouldn't be surprise to anyone. Fentanyl was developed as an alternative to existing opioids that acts faster, goes out of your system faster and has less side effects (with the pain relief being the only wanted effect). The fact that it is very strong (easy to overdose) isn't really that much of an issue in clinical use.
- deleted 9y ago
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deleted 9y ago
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marcoperaza 9y ago
Treating it like a criminal problem works extremely well for Singapore. If you sell drugs, you get executed. If you have any amount drugs, you almost certainly go to prison. Police have extraordinary powers to investigate and prosecute drug crimes, including compelling drug tests of suspected users. As a result, there is effectively no drug use or trafficking in Singapore. So this oft-repeated mantra that the penal code cannot solve drug problems is frankly bs. I'm not suggesting that we should throw drug addicts in prison for a dozen years, but I'd have no problem letting a fentanyl dealer rot in prison for the rest of their lives. Maybe start sending commandos to kidnap cartel leaders from Mexico to bring them to the US to face charges, for trafficking drugs and for murder. Let's run sting operations with cops posing as drug-seeking addicts to catch doctors handing them out like candy.
- stickfigure 9y ago
  Please tell me, how many marijuana dealers would you have been willing to execute in the 80s? How many brewers would you have been comfortable executing in the 20s? How many homosexuals in the 50s? I for one am very happy not to be living in an all-powerful police state. What's obviously "moral and good" seems to be awfully fluid across history.
  - marcoperaza 9y ago
    So I'm not arguing that we should completely emulate Singapore and other Asian countries here. Life-ending punishments for low-level dealing of soft drugs is too harsh and incompatible with our vision for society. Likewise for imprisoning addicts. But I think enforcement can work if we're willing to do what must be done. People exporting and importing large quantities of hard drugs into the United States get no sympathy from me.
    - mythrwy 9y ago
      Maybe when large poppy and coca fields were needed enforcement could have worked had it been pursued vigorously. But we apparently really didn't want to do that and it was mostly all lip service. But now? Super powerful chemicals being continually adjusted. A zillion e-packets zipping around the world. Forget about full enforcement. That is no longer possible if we "just try hard enough". Unless maybe you want to stop the mail and bomb 35 countries into smithereens. And incarcerate even more people than the ridiculous number we already have. We can still "discourage" with occasional busts (and probably should for deadly drugs for now) but maybe it's time to sit down and rethink rather than continuing to playing wack-a-mole. Make better drugs. Less harmful ones. That's the eventual answer I think.

jokr004 9y ago

I'm in the process of recovering from a serious addiction to furanyl-fentanyl. I don't really care to get too into it, I really can't explain the pain that stuff has caused me. I've been through a lot in life, but I've never been through anything so traumatic.. This stuff is a nightmare like you can't possibly understand without being there yourself, I hope none of you ever find yourself in that position.. I've been in a methadone program for the past 6 months now. We really need to put money into treatment, the program that I'm in literally saved my life. I'm lucky enough to have insurance that actually covers most of the cost, but most people in my situation don't have that luxury.

microwavecamera 9y ago
Im glad to hear you're doing better. Keep at it. I didn't get into opioids personally but grew up in and lived in that type of environment for years and had my own addiction issues. I've seen alot of good people get caught up in it. We need more programs for addiction and mental health. It's wrong that things are the way they are. No one should have to live like that. We need to find a better way.
stronglikedan 9y ago
> I'm in the process of recovering from a serious addiction to furanyl-fentanyl. > This stuff is a nightmare like you can't possibly understand without being there yourself From someone who hasn't been there themselves, but just lost my best friend to fentanyl, I hope you stick with recovery. She was actually in a very nice recovery program, but managed to sneak a cell phone in. Point is, it only takes one bad decision that I hope you don't make.
Pigo 9y ago
I was actually addicted to methadone, only used heroin a couple times in my life. I used it because I could work and get stuff done for days on end while being high. I knew people who died because they forgot you can't drink alcohol when you're on it, but I was delusional enough to think I was better when I was on it. It ended for me when I got old enough to notice the kids at these places I was going to by my drugs, just to do my dirt and leave. The last straw was when I stumbled into a bedroom while trying to find a bathroom at a dealers house. I walked into a room with 6 or 7 kids under 10 years old wearing big bubble coats and gloves, all huddled together in the middle of the room trying to stay warm. It was winter, and it hadn't dawned on me that the house had no heat. I've never been able to forget how I'd been contributed to their situation, my actions rippled out to affect many people beyond myself. Relying on drugs started to feel like a very selfish, narcissistic way of life

throwanem 9y ago

Glad to know naloxone kits and the training to use them are available. The first aid kit in my satchel will be a lot more useful once so augmented.

danbolt 9y ago
Organizing a party and having one on hand gave me a lot more security in my abilities as a host.

JonDav 9y ago

A man walked into a meeting with a fent sucker in his mouth treating it like a toothpick and I had to hold back my alarm so that everyone else did not ask why I knew exactly what it was. At that time no one outside of post-op, end of life cancer, or major pain management were really aware of this stuff. But to see a guy just stroll in on fentanyl like it was nothing at all was a watershed moment. Now an addict does not need to steal from a ped surgery floor. You can buy fentanyl straight from China in a properly wrapped packet. Dosage is the problem, mixing dry is not easy, hence the street deaths. I carried narcan back in the day because some of my friends were heroin users. But I never came across a fent addict, now I can only imagine how much of this stuff is floating out there. Average people have no idea what this stuff feels like, what the pull is like. In reality you never get away from it; it is always there in the back of your mind but you have to tell yourself that it will destroy you. sorry for the disjoint mess but I am being hit with the thoughts of those I knew who were lost to black. Apparently fent is the new black.

JshWright 9y ago
> I never came across a fent addict At least here in upstate New York, there aren't really 'fent addicts'. There are opioid addicts in general, but even the hardcore users are generally seeking heroin, not fentanyl. People are _really_ scared of fentanyl...
- icantdrive55 9y ago
  And they should be. Two employees at my local hospital died sitting on the can in the bathroom, with a fentanyl Patch lying on the ground. One was a nurse, and the other a janitor. (They took the used patches out of the garbage.). (That said, we should legalize at least bupenorpine, the generic version. Addicts would have an alternative to street drugs, and doctors who just charge too much. Plus--drug education should be taught early in school. And tell the truth. Like for nine months, the drugs will work. Then you will spend years just trying to feel the way you did before you took opiates:; if you're lucky.)
  - GordonS 9y ago

peterwwillis 9y ago

Librarians in Philadelphia have started keeping naloxone in their desks so when the next addict OD's in the grass in front of the library they can bring them back to life. http://www.philly.com/philly/columnists/mike_newall/opioid-crisis-Needle-Park-McPherson-narcan.html http://www.philly.com/philly/columnists/mike_newall/opioid-c...

martinald 9y ago

Fentanyl is nothing compared to carfentanil - some 100x stronger, which is 10,000x stronger than morphine, gram for gram. So much so that first responders are suffering serious overdose from inhaling bags of it accidently. More crazy was the fact it's for sale on the darknet markets for as little as $150/gram. Worldwide legal use is about 50g a year. This is what prohibition does - inctentivizes strength per unit mass. It's much easier to import 1g of carfentanil than 10kg of heroin. And I think it will just get worse and worse.

CoffeeDregs 9y ago
Carfentanil is terrifying. Wound up in a Wikipedia hole looking that up. 10,000 times as potent as morphine. Only recently illegal in China. Therapeutic dose of one microgram. May have been the way the Russians subdued the Moscow Theater Attack (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_theater_hostage_crisis#Chemical_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_theater_hostage_crisis#...) by just spraying it over the crowd. It seems that many people died of asphyxiation when they passed out and flopped over. It's considered a chemical weapon. Consider the mixing requirements of carfentanil: one insufficiently ground grain of the chemical is lethal. And the people making the end-product are amateurs. One kilo from China was confiscated in Canada. Certainly a bit hyperbolic, but "According to the Canada Border Services Agency, the shipment contained 50 million lethal doses of the drug, more than enough carfentanil to wipe out the entire population of the country[...]". Divide that by ten and it's still terrifying. Dump a small bag over NYC Times Square or Mumbai and you'd create mass casualties. This isn't some crazy, Bethesda-managed super-bug or insecticide. It's a bog standard, synthetic opioid.
- QAPereo 9y ago
  I remember when I first learned of Carfentanil years ago under the name Wildnil, very large game tranquilizer. What I remember most was the speech we got about handling is and how little time we have if we were exposed, how much reversal agent will be needed in the reversal agent was always to be had whenever carfentanil was to be handled. The idea of humans actually trying to get high on the stuff is insane and terrifying.

dreamcompiler 9y ago

Fentanyl is a wonderful, miraculous, lifesaving drug when used by doctors and paramedics. In a hospital setting, it's a much better drug than morphine for acute pain management in most cases. It's also -- no question -- really freaking dangerous when abused. I worry about stories like this painting such a one-sided picture that Fentanyl will be demonized out of existence.

loeg 9y ago
Just curious -- what makes fentanyl better than morphine in a hospital setting?
- microcolonel 9y ago
  That I understand, The fentanyl lollipop has completely changed battlefield pain relief, it's also been used for cancer patients. Morphine can take 15-20 minutes to kick in, and needs to be injected into muscle, whereas the fentanyl citrate lollipops take considerably less time and can be administered and removed abruptly by putting it in or taking it out of the mouth. It also lacks some of the unpleasant side effects of morphine.
  - GordonS 9y ago
    Morphine can be administered IV too, in which case its effects will be felt immediately. If taken orally, it generally takes around 40 minutes to be felt, the same as for most opioids when taken orally. Do you have a source for fentanyl lollipops acting faster than that? Also, you say it lacks some of the side effects of morphine - do you have a source for that too? Morphine causes respiratory depression, histamine release, constipation, nausea, loss of libido, inability to orgasm; actually, any opioid that doesn't recruit beta-arrestin (such as mitragynine) will have much the same side effects.
    - JshWright 9y ago
      IV fentanyl is a lot faster than IV morphine (3-5 minutes vs 20 minutes for peak analgesia).

kazinator 9y ago

[Fentanyl] is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines, the most effective and safe medicines needed in a health system. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fentanyl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fentanyl

JshWright 9y ago
I'm not sure the intent behind your quote, but that's very true. Used in a clinical setting, fentanyl is generally the best choice for acute pain management (post-op, traumatic injury, etc).

cody8295 9y ago

Legalizing heroin and regulating it like alcohol would save so many lives. Not sure where everyone here is from, but in Connecticut we've seen hundreds of people die from fentanyl overdoses in just the past few years. In an overwhelming majority of the cases, they were sold what they thought was heroin. Why should we keep forcing drug addicts to buy from dangerous and expensive dealers? Not only would legalizing heroin save millions of lives, it would bring in trillions of dollars in tax revenue

vesche 9y ago
Obligatory Ron Paul - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4Eca-INIOw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4Eca-INIOw
cuckcuckspruce 9y ago
Not only that, the response to the opiate epidemic has negative impacts on people actually in pain. My girlfriend, who has lupus and constant pain, was recently denied pain medication because the doctor was concerned that continuing to write prescriptions for opiates would cost him his license. So my girlfriend has been in excruciating, 9/10 pain for the last month because doctors are too concerned about over-prescribing because every soccer mom is suddenly concerned that responsible adults in pain are suddenly going to turn into opiate crazed monsters. As much as addicts need help, the feeling of the general population is that it's better for someone in pain to suffer than for someone to get a safe, known, pure quantity of opiates without having a good enough reason.

acjohnson55 9y ago

I'm surprised it hasn't been said yet on this thread, but Fentanyl is what killed the musician Prince (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_(musician)#Illness_and_death https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_(musician)#Illness_and_...).