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The reason Meth use is going up is not due to Meth itself. It counter balances the effects of Fentanyl. I regularly go to Fentanyl overdoses where the bystander

The reason Meth use is going up is not due to Meth itself. It counter balances the effects of Fentanyl. I regularly go to Fentanyl overdoses where the bystanders tell me they ran out of "G" or "Glass" and simply overdid it with the "M30's"... Its a fucking nightmare. It used to be "meth" users would say..."At least I am not a dope junky using H." Heroin users would say... "At least I am not a tweaker." Now they are one in the same when I see them, which is generally cyanotic, apneic, and have been down for a while. We don't have enough Narcan to counter a bad batch of "M30" pills. Talk to your kids and tell them not to use any pills, not even once.

JumpCrisscross 5y ago
> counter balances the effects of Fentanyl Could this explain the falling prices described in the article? Fentanyl is the money maker. Meth is being priced to encourage more opioid use?
e40 5y ago
> Talk to your kids and tell them not to use any pills, not even once. Can you elaborate? I have no idea what this is about. I thought meth was smoked.
- __blockcipher__ 5y ago
  Meth doesn't have to be smoked, you can just eat the crystals orally, but meth abusers uusally don't do that because it's not nearly as fun. The pills they're referring to, 30 M (https://www.drugs.com/imprints/30-m-8232.html https://www.drugs.com/imprints/30-m-8232.html), are oxycodone pills (a powerful opioid), but he's likely actually specifically referring to pressed fent (or fent analogue) pills that are made to look like real oxycodone pills. Or perhaps a mixture of meth and fentanyl, such as what George Floyd was taking the day he died (see https://interactive.kare11.com/pdfs/Autopsy_2020-3700_Floyd.pdf https://interactive.kare11.com/pdfs/Autopsy_2020-3700_Floyd.... as well as the other evidence around the case) There's a big problem where, now that the government has really cracked down on so-called "pill mills" - which like all of the war on drugs was the worst thing they could have done, because now the demand is being filled by fentanyl and fentanyl analogues that are pressed to look like oxy pills, but aren't. Oxy alone can be dangerous, but fent is another beast (particularly illicit). As one anecdote I just had a friend-of-a-friend (I didn't know them personally) die of an overdose earlier this year. They took "oxys" orally which were actually pure fent analogue, and now they're dead. They are yet another fatality of the war on drugs (and also the war on COVID since the lockdowns were the proximate cause of them picking up their opioid habit again) -- Oh, and to elaborate on the GP's point about overdoses being the result of running out of meth, methamphetamine increases respiration rate, which will theoretically counteract the respiratory depression induced by opioids (which are how opioids always kill, with the one exception that fent and related analogues can possibly kill by an addition mechanism of action known as wooden chest syndrome)
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - e40 5y ago
    > but he's likely actually specifically referring to pressed fent (or fent analogue) pills that are made to look like real oxycodone pills That sounds like a really, really bad idea. Wow.
    - cyberbanjo 5y ago
      Bad in terms of "public health" or bad in terms of "I sold the rest of my drugs"?
      - sodality2 5y ago
        Bad in terms of hard drugs disguised as a more desirable drug.
    - __blockcipher__ 5y ago
      Yeah that and the general inclusion of fent hotspots in Heroin and the like is why overdoes have skyrocketed over the last 5+ years. And then COVID [lockdowns] in my opinion cranked the growth in ODs even higher. It was growing at something like 11% in 2019 and then in 2020 it spiked like 30% to something like 70,000 overdose deaths in the US
- goatsi 5y ago
  From the context I assume he is talking about counterfeit pain pills (a M30 is an oxycodone pill) that are made with fentanyl (often in very high or uneven doses). Though counterfeit Adderall pills made with meth are now starting to show up.
- dillondoyle 5y ago
  You can smoke, eat, or inject. Could boof it too ;)
toolz 5y ago
while I genuinely agree with your intent, I don't think abstinence has been very good at achieving the outcome we're hoping for. Education, not fear is what allows people to decide for themselves if they want to try/use something and it seems more likely that if/when they try these substances they'll at least be prepared for the consequences and be more likely to be responsible with their use. Anecdotally I have many friends who were taught abstinence. Once they got into weed they realized just how much of a lie abstinence teaching was, they then graduated to trying other drugs, but not responsibly, because they had no idea how these other drugs worked. They had no idea what an OD might look like or what the risk of getting poor quality drugs might do. e.g. look at cocaine - how many people have any clue what that is cut with? I'd imagine almost every single one of my friends couldn't tell you what north american cocaine is predominantly cut with and they couldn't tell you what to do in the event of an OD, or what the exact symptoms of a cocaine OD even are! The lack of education is terrifying, really.
- stcredzero 5y ago
  I don't think abstinence has been very good at achieving the outcome we're hoping for. Not all abstinence is the same. Just because one is free to try anything, it doesn't mean people have to try everything. Once they got into weed they realized just how much of a lie abstinence teaching was, they then graduated to trying other drugs The problem isn't abstinence. The problem is the lie. Give people the proper, accurate information, and many will simply decide to abstain themselves. I think you and I would agree on this point about information. The lack of education is terrifying, really. That's ultimately the result of lies, deliberate obscurity, and attempts at thought control. It's far better to trust people with accurate information and let them decide for themselves.
- r00f 5y ago
  It depends on person. We are (de)motivated by different things. I was growing up in a neighborhood where most part of people above 14 were using something. Most adults were using something heavy and awful, like heroin or desomorphine or whatever. I grew up watching them every day, and I grew up with insane fear of what chemicals do to human body and brain. I am 35 today, I have never in my life tried anything, even a cigarette. For me fear works perfectly as a reason to stay away from drugs. But to be fair, it is self-induced fear, from life lessons and not from school lessons.
elliekelly 5y ago
Sorry, for someone who knows next to nothing about drugs can you clarify? I’m assuming “glass” is the meth and the “M30” pills are fentanyl? Or maybe the other way around? And, if you don’t mind, can you explain what you mean by “counterbalance”? I’m assuming it’s like drinking a red bull with vodka? Does it actually “counterbalance” chemically so someone could “safely” (for lack of a better word) take more fentanyl without overdosing if they took meth along side it? Or does it create the sensation of counterbalancing to make users take less fentanyl in the first place? I guess what I’m asking is, is taking meth + fentanyl marginally safer than taking just fentanyl? I know neither is safe. I’m just curious how the two interact and what you mean by counterbalance. I’m also curious if, somewhat counter-intuitively, fentanyl addicts could be “treated“ with adderall to make their drug use safer? At the very least adderall has to be safer than street meth? The entirety of my knowledge of street drugs came from D.A.R.E. and Breaking Bad so apologies if these are ridiculous questions.
- okareaman 5y ago
  The short answer is that opiates kill by suppressing the breathing reflex. Anything that stimulates breathing can be used to counter act the effect of opiates. In the 70's people would force people to go on walks until their lips weren't blue from 02 deprivation, even if they had to support them while they walked.
- cwkoss 5y ago
  > I’m assuming “glass” is the meth and the “M30” pills are fentanyl? Correct. M30's are opiates pressed to look like percocet - when from the street, typically fentanyl or another potent opioid.
  - _proofs 5y ago
    M30 refers to Mylin's 30mg roxicodone, which has been over the years been used as branding on fake roxicodones (pressed fetanyl).
    - gkop 5y ago
crate_barre 5y ago
This all sounds like high octane speed-ball (used to be just mixing some basic speed with something like Vicodin, or an Adderral/Ritalin + Vicodin/Percocet), but mixing Meth/Fentanly sounds beyond risky.
- loeg 5y ago
  For duration of effect, at least meth might more closely match an opioid than cocaine (classic speedball). Part of the high danger of speedballs is that the stimulant (coke) wears off much faster than the depressant. Amphetamines have a longer duration of effect than cocaine, I think.
  - onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
    If stimulants and depressants are balancing each other out - what's the appeal in taking both? Why wouldn't you only want to take one? Or do you usually only take the other, recreationally, when you get too stimulated or depressed?
    - crate_barre 5y ago
      The come down on speed is awful. The come down on high dosage Adderral is awful, you’ll be jittery and and unable to sleep. Imagine Meth or Coke now. The combination is to create the perfect drug, you speed up, hit the half life, and then instead of the awful come down, you ease in to a landing with the calmness of an Opiod that will rockabye baby you away from intense anxiety and hopefully relax you into sleep. Certainly not something to make a habit of, you’ll be dead in the long run (but I suppose no one gets out alive in this life anyway). Cheers. I honestly can’t tell what’s worse, a speedball or using Alcohol to blackout after 18 hours of being on speed. Oh I know what’s worse, Meth + Fentanyl. How the wicked live.
      - loeg 5y ago
        Benzos are probably a better come down from speed than either alcohol or opiates.
Broken_Hippo 5y ago
We don't have enough Narcan to counter a bad batch of "M30" pills. Talk to your kids and tell them not to use any pills, not even once. Because kids do what their parents say? I mean, it might be the cynic in me from the years of DARE lies, but I don't think this is enough. Most parents won't have an honest conversation about it: You know, talk about the effects and the good parts alongside the risks you take when you get it. They won't drive you to safer things. And an amount of them are going to try it nonetheless: An amount aren't going to be kids, either. And this is the real reason I support full legalisation and controlled production - even of a lot of drugs that I wouldn't do. We can more reasonably assure there aren't bad batches of pills. We can more easily realize when folks are using regularly and offer (free) help. We can more easily try to sway folks to things that harm less. And we can research ways to do this more easily. It isn't perfect, but the war on drugs definitely isn't either.

JumpCrisscross 5y ago

> counter balances the effects of Fentanyl Could this explain the falling prices described in the article? Fentanyl is the money maker. Meth is being priced to encourage more opioid use?

e40 5y ago

> Talk to your kids and tell them not to use any pills, not even once. Can you elaborate? I have no idea what this is about. I thought meth was smoked.

__blockcipher__ 5y ago
Meth doesn't have to be smoked, you can just eat the crystals orally, but meth abusers uusally don't do that because it's not nearly as fun. The pills they're referring to, 30 M (https://www.drugs.com/imprints/30-m-8232.html https://www.drugs.com/imprints/30-m-8232.html), are oxycodone pills (a powerful opioid), but he's likely actually specifically referring to pressed fent (or fent analogue) pills that are made to look like real oxycodone pills. Or perhaps a mixture of meth and fentanyl, such as what George Floyd was taking the day he died (see https://interactive.kare11.com/pdfs/Autopsy_2020-3700_Floyd.pdf https://interactive.kare11.com/pdfs/Autopsy_2020-3700_Floyd.... as well as the other evidence around the case) There's a big problem where, now that the government has really cracked down on so-called "pill mills" - which like all of the war on drugs was the worst thing they could have done, because now the demand is being filled by fentanyl and fentanyl analogues that are pressed to look like oxy pills, but aren't. Oxy alone can be dangerous, but fent is another beast (particularly illicit). As one anecdote I just had a friend-of-a-friend (I didn't know them personally) die of an overdose earlier this year. They took "oxys" orally which were actually pure fent analogue, and now they're dead. They are yet another fatality of the war on drugs (and also the war on COVID since the lockdowns were the proximate cause of them picking up their opioid habit again) -- Oh, and to elaborate on the GP's point about overdoses being the result of running out of meth, methamphetamine increases respiration rate, which will theoretically counteract the respiratory depression induced by opioids (which are how opioids always kill, with the one exception that fent and related analogues can possibly kill by an addition mechanism of action known as wooden chest syndrome)
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- e40 5y ago
  > but he's likely actually specifically referring to pressed fent (or fent analogue) pills that are made to look like real oxycodone pills That sounds like a really, really bad idea. Wow.
  - cyberbanjo 5y ago
    Bad in terms of "public health" or bad in terms of "I sold the rest of my drugs"?
    - sodality2 5y ago
      Bad in terms of hard drugs disguised as a more desirable drug.
  - __blockcipher__ 5y ago
    Yeah that and the general inclusion of fent hotspots in Heroin and the like is why overdoes have skyrocketed over the last 5+ years. And then COVID [lockdowns] in my opinion cranked the growth in ODs even higher. It was growing at something like 11% in 2019 and then in 2020 it spiked like 30% to something like 70,000 overdose deaths in the US
goatsi 5y ago
From the context I assume he is talking about counterfeit pain pills (a M30 is an oxycodone pill) that are made with fentanyl (often in very high or uneven doses). Though counterfeit Adderall pills made with meth are now starting to show up.
dillondoyle 5y ago
You can smoke, eat, or inject. Could boof it too ;)

toolz 5y ago

while I genuinely agree with your intent, I don't think abstinence has been very good at achieving the outcome we're hoping for. Education, not fear is what allows people to decide for themselves if they want to try/use something and it seems more likely that if/when they try these substances they'll at least be prepared for the consequences and be more likely to be responsible with their use. Anecdotally I have many friends who were taught abstinence. Once they got into weed they realized just how much of a lie abstinence teaching was, they then graduated to trying other drugs, but not responsibly, because they had no idea how these other drugs worked. They had no idea what an OD might look like or what the risk of getting poor quality drugs might do. e.g. look at cocaine - how many people have any clue what that is cut with? I'd imagine almost every single one of my friends couldn't tell you what north american cocaine is predominantly cut with and they couldn't tell you what to do in the event of an OD, or what the exact symptoms of a cocaine OD even are! The lack of education is terrifying, really.

stcredzero 5y ago
I don't think abstinence has been very good at achieving the outcome we're hoping for. Not all abstinence is the same. Just because one is free to try anything, it doesn't mean people have to try everything. Once they got into weed they realized just how much of a lie abstinence teaching was, they then graduated to trying other drugs The problem isn't abstinence. The problem is the lie. Give people the proper, accurate information, and many will simply decide to abstain themselves. I think you and I would agree on this point about information. The lack of education is terrifying, really. That's ultimately the result of lies, deliberate obscurity, and attempts at thought control. It's far better to trust people with accurate information and let them decide for themselves.
r00f 5y ago
It depends on person. We are (de)motivated by different things. I was growing up in a neighborhood where most part of people above 14 were using something. Most adults were using something heavy and awful, like heroin or desomorphine or whatever. I grew up watching them every day, and I grew up with insane fear of what chemicals do to human body and brain. I am 35 today, I have never in my life tried anything, even a cigarette. For me fear works perfectly as a reason to stay away from drugs. But to be fair, it is self-induced fear, from life lessons and not from school lessons.

elliekelly 5y ago

Sorry, for someone who knows next to nothing about drugs can you clarify? I’m assuming “glass” is the meth and the “M30” pills are fentanyl? Or maybe the other way around? And, if you don’t mind, can you explain what you mean by “counterbalance”? I’m assuming it’s like drinking a red bull with vodka? Does it actually “counterbalance” chemically so someone could “safely” (for lack of a better word) take more fentanyl without overdosing if they took meth along side it? Or does it create the sensation of counterbalancing to make users take less fentanyl in the first place? I guess what I’m asking is, is taking meth + fentanyl marginally safer than taking just fentanyl? I know neither is safe. I’m just curious how the two interact and what you mean by counterbalance. I’m also curious if, somewhat counter-intuitively, fentanyl addicts could be “treated“ with adderall to make their drug use safer? At the very least adderall has to be safer than street meth? The entirety of my knowledge of street drugs came from D.A.R.E. and Breaking Bad so apologies if these are ridiculous questions.

okareaman 5y ago
The short answer is that opiates kill by suppressing the breathing reflex. Anything that stimulates breathing can be used to counter act the effect of opiates. In the 70's people would force people to go on walks until their lips weren't blue from 02 deprivation, even if they had to support them while they walked.
cwkoss 5y ago
> I’m assuming “glass” is the meth and the “M30” pills are fentanyl? Correct. M30's are opiates pressed to look like percocet - when from the street, typically fentanyl or another potent opioid.
- _proofs 5y ago
  M30 refers to Mylin's 30mg roxicodone, which has been over the years been used as branding on fake roxicodones (pressed fetanyl).
  - gkop 5y ago

crate_barre 5y ago

This all sounds like high octane speed-ball (used to be just mixing some basic speed with something like Vicodin, or an Adderral/Ritalin + Vicodin/Percocet), but mixing Meth/Fentanly sounds beyond risky.

loeg 5y ago
For duration of effect, at least meth might more closely match an opioid than cocaine (classic speedball). Part of the high danger of speedballs is that the stimulant (coke) wears off much faster than the depressant. Amphetamines have a longer duration of effect than cocaine, I think.
- onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
  If stimulants and depressants are balancing each other out - what's the appeal in taking both? Why wouldn't you only want to take one? Or do you usually only take the other, recreationally, when you get too stimulated or depressed?
  - crate_barre 5y ago
    The come down on speed is awful. The come down on high dosage Adderral is awful, you’ll be jittery and and unable to sleep. Imagine Meth or Coke now. The combination is to create the perfect drug, you speed up, hit the half life, and then instead of the awful come down, you ease in to a landing with the calmness of an Opiod that will rockabye baby you away from intense anxiety and hopefully relax you into sleep. Certainly not something to make a habit of, you’ll be dead in the long run (but I suppose no one gets out alive in this life anyway). Cheers. I honestly can’t tell what’s worse, a speedball or using Alcohol to blackout after 18 hours of being on speed. Oh I know what’s worse, Meth + Fentanyl. How the wicked live.
    - loeg 5y ago
      Benzos are probably a better come down from speed than either alcohol or opiates.

Broken_Hippo 5y ago

We don't have enough Narcan to counter a bad batch of "M30" pills. Talk to your kids and tell them not to use any pills, not even once. Because kids do what their parents say? I mean, it might be the cynic in me from the years of DARE lies, but I don't think this is enough. Most parents won't have an honest conversation about it: You know, talk about the effects and the good parts alongside the risks you take when you get it. They won't drive you to safer things. And an amount of them are going to try it nonetheless: An amount aren't going to be kids, either. And this is the real reason I support full legalisation and controlled production - even of a lot of drugs that I wouldn't do. We can more reasonably assure there aren't bad batches of pills. We can more easily realize when folks are using regularly and offer (free) help. We can more easily try to sway folks to things that harm less. And we can research ways to do this more easily. It isn't perfect, but the war on drugs definitely isn't either.