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‘Mike’s Candyshop’: Behind the Overdose Death of Colin Kroll
- rolltiide 7y agoTest your drugs folks! This service seemed to be missing the rating system that is default behavior on darknet drug bazaars. Operating instead under the lure of exclusivity. The ratings systems tend to call out impure or mis-advertised substances. Consumers have to keep testing kits in this unregulated environment, and especially decriminalized environments where the state is totally hands off. Consumers can mistake this as tacit consent where peddlers can distribute their snake oil with no regard for their supply chain or their customers.
- undefined3840 7y agoTesting only tells you whether a certain drug is in something. It doesn’t tell you if it contains something else as well.
- Nursie 7y agoSome testing services exist in some countries that can do better than just a reagent test.
- abacadaba 7y agoAlso testing a powder / pill shaving doesn't necessarily mean that a speck sized grain of fent didn't make it into the bag somewhere. But hey at least there's mushies still. Stay safe kids.
- jes5199 7y agoyes, but fentanyl is usually unwanted and is much more dangerous than the others (due to wildly varying potencies). Some shelters have been handing out fentanyl test strips - fentanyl contamination has dramatically increased the number of fatalities among opioid users
- rozab 7y agoWhatever drug you are taking, you would test for fentanyl (usually 5 or so reagents are used). This would have saved this guys life.
- thrwn_frthr_awy 7y agoAccording to the article he died from a lethal combination of heroin, cocaine and fentanyl. Did you read something in the article that lead you to believe that he would be alive if he was testing?
- 0x00000000 7y agoProbably. “In early February, the New York City medical examiner’s office found Mr. Kroll’s cause of death was an accidental overdose by fentanyl-laced heroin” https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-tech-whiz-behind-vine-and-hq-trivia-made-millions-in-his-20s-he-was-dead-by-34-11550283078 https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-tech-whiz-behind-vine-and-h...
- md224 7y agoYep. The important thing to keep in mind when you read these toxicology reports is that it tells you what drugs the person took, but it doesn't tell you what they intended to take. I hope people don't think that the epidemic of fentanyl deaths is due to fentanyl increasing in popularity among drug users... what increased in popularity was the tendency of immoral drug dealers to lace their heroin with fentanyl in order to increase the strength of it. When you see heroin and fentanyl in a toxicology report, there's a very good chance that the drug user didn't realize they were consuming the latter.
- o-__-o 7y agoProblem is testing won’t always catch hot shots. You gonna test all 25 of them Molly pills to make sure they all good? No.
- dbuder 7y agoNever got into pills of any sort but that's why people grind it all up and put it in caps.
- thrwn_frthr_awy 7y ago
- jklein11 7y agoNot sure why you are getting all of the downvotes. I think you have a pretty interesting point. If drug users were educated on how to test the purity and had better information on dosing maybe it would prevent overdoses. Then again, maybe it would give them a false sense of security and be more reckless. I wonder if this has been studied.
- rolltiide 7y agoBecause admitting the normalization of drug use across all socioeconomic classes is a taboo topic. Also because apparently consumer level tests have limitations.
- golergka 7y agoIt also helps when the marketplace takes this seriously as well. A regular user can be expected to, at most, use a ready made test from the internet. A marketplace quality control can use a spectrometer and identify the exact purity, as well as the exact contents.
- goatsi 7y agoIf a group of regular users band together it's pretty easy to crowdfund detailed testing. Take a look at sites like DNStars. https://dnstars.vip/results/ https://dnstars.vip/results/
- solemn-vow 7y agoAs someone who's been dependent on medication for much of my life, first for asthma as a child, now for allergies and autoimmune conditions, I have zero sympathy for people that chose to become dependent on substances for purely recreational purposes. This guy was a degenerate junkie. Good riddance.
- bpchaps 7y agoYou okay?
- solemn-vow 7y agoI also find HN's pro-drug culture disgusting: >Test your drugs folks! As if frying your brain with dope, weed, coke, and more exotic poisons is perfectly normal and OK, and just needs to be gone about with extra care.
- detaro 7y agoThat's not "pro-drug culture". That's realism that drug use is going to happen, despite the large efforts spent on fighting it, and testing is a fairly easy way of saving some lives.
- mcfdyn 7y agoI can't imagine anyone starts using these sorts of drugs with the intent of becoming addicted. Rather, it's much more likely that they are in a dark place that bends their perspective to the point where they think that starting said drugs is a logical decision. Of course, if your issue is that you are incapable of seeing people who are also suffering from a medical condition[1] as human beings, then I have no words for you. [1]: https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/media-guide/science-drug-use-addiction-basics https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/media-guide/science-d...
- dwoozle 7y agoAnd what was his 100 hour work weeks fueling a drug addiction leading to an early death all for? A flash in the pan Trivia fad which is all but completely forgotten.
- IIAOPSW 7y agoThe narrative being pushed here is "its bad that techbros can order drugs with the same convenience as they order pizza". I say narrative being pushed because this is taken as a given. Would it have been better if Mr. Kroll was doing things the old fashion way, face to face in a back alley with potentially violent rabble? Would it make the news? Would the DA be bragging about it? I think not.
- girvo 7y agoThe bigger thing I’m annoyed at here is that “Mike’s Candyshop” isn’t anything new. It’s how the drug industry is run in basically every place that doesn’t have “open air” drug markets. Yes, even the level of organisation that they’re talking about. A decade ago when I was still a heroin addict, I’d have it delivered to my house within a few hours of a single text message, any day of the week, from the afternoon through til early morning.
- dwoozle 7y agoIn every market in human history, increased convenience has led to increased transaction volumes.
- Scoundreller 7y agoAnd fewer fatal transactions.
- celticninja 7y agoI think you are wrong. But an all encompassing statement like that is probably easy to disprove. However I will limit my response to drug use specifically. https://www.rand.org/news/press/2018/12/21.html https://www.rand.org/news/press/2018/12/21.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSL5730185 https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/...
- kanokun 7y agoThis culture of drugs being cool and acceptable needs to stop. We don't need drug testing. We need education that taking drugs is wrong. The drug taker is as much as a criminal as the drug provider. I work around these tech-bros who talk about equality and solving world problems but then would go and do drugs. I feel it's a bit hypocritical. No?
- mirimir 7y agoNot at all. It's very simple. It's my body, so it's my choice.
- Nursie 7y agoTaking drugs isn't wrong, any more than drinking coffee or beer is wrong, or going rock-climbing or any other leisure activity. What's wrong is the 'war on drugs' which kills people by forcing drug sales underground, so that people have no idea what they're getting. We should be allowing our scientific companies to research safer compounds, rather than just moralistically banning the whole area - and condemning people to death, black markets, gangs and cartels.
- mantoto 7y agoSry what? You should not even have such a strong opinion on this topic as long as it doesn't affect you. If I like to drink alcohol without hurting others or smoke weed or do amphetamines, who gives you the right to judge this?