14 ms·

Xylazine, a dangerous new drug fuelling Canada’s opioid crisis

135 points by fortran77 4y ago

provenance 4y ago
The harm reduction activist claims the individual dealer isn’t at “fault” if the supply was laced after being passed around amongst other dealers. In that case, it would be more accurate to speak of the dealer’s intention, rather than responsibility.
- grugagag 4y ago
  I don’t know about that line of logic, the dealer is responsible whether they laced the supply themsleves or not, if not fully at least partly for passing the drugs along. They could claim not knowing but that doesn’t make then any less responsible.
  - boomboomsubban 4y ago
    Is the convenience store responsible for customers getting smoking related illnesses? Or the grocery store if some flour they stock has salmonella?
    - rejectfinite 4y ago
      No but they must remove/stop selling the affected product. The vendor does a full recall ofc.
    - icpmacdo 4y ago
      There are indeed liabilities for products sold at convenience and grocery stores
      - boomboomsubban 4y ago
        I can't find an example of an individual store being liable for unknowingly selling a preprepared item that causes illness, though my search has hardly been thorough. Plenty of examples where they're selling in-house prepared deli items, but that'd be the equivalent of the dealer adding filler themselves. And I've never heard of a seller being targeted for smoking related lawsuits.
        icpmacdo 4y ago
        I asked chatGPT for a “ example of an individual store being liable for unknowingly selling a preprepared item that causes illness” and it gave me a non hallucinated one
        boomboomsubban 4y ago
        If it's non-hallucinated, why not share it?
        icpmacdo 4y ago
        Imo because it's a waste of thread space but here you go. One example of a grocery store being held liable for unknowingly selling a pre-prepared item that caused illness is the case of In Re: King Soopers Listeria Outbreak Litigation. In this case, a number of people became ill with listeriosis, a serious and potentially life-threatening bacterial infection, after consuming pre-packaged deli meats sold at various King Soopers grocery store locations in Colorado. The outbreak was traced back to contaminated meat produced by a third-party supplier, and a number of people filed lawsuits against King Soopers alleging that the store was liable for selling the contaminated meat. The lawsuits alleged that King Soopers had a duty to ensure that the food it sold was safe for consumption and that it had breached that duty by selling the contaminated meat. The case ultimately settled for an undisclosed sum, with King Soopers agreeing to compensate those who became ill as a result of consuming the contaminated meat. This case illustrates how grocery stores can be held liable for selling pre-prepared food items that cause illness, even if the store was unaware of the contamination at the time of sale. It also highlights the importance of ensuring that food safety measures are in place throughout the supply chain, from the producers of the food to the stores that sell it to the public.
  - provenance 4y ago
    I may have worded it in a misleading way. What I meant was, if you’re sympathizing then speak of intent, since the dealer is still responsible, as you noted.
monero-xmr 4y ago
Here is a recent article about xylazine from the NYT https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/07/health/fentanyl-xylazine-drug.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/07/health/fentanyl-xylazine-... > “The tranq dope literally eats your flesh,” she said. “It’s self-destruction at its finest.” > She unrolled a bandage from elbow to palm. Beneath patches of blackened tissue, exposed white tendons and pus, the sheared flesh was hot and red. To stave off xylazine’s excruciating withdrawal, she said, she injects tranq dope several times a day. Fearful that injecting in a fresh site could create a new wound, she reluctantly shoots into her festering forearm. > The only person who would let her use a cellphone was a guy whose arm and leg had been amputated because of his tranq wounds. He was still injecting into his leg stump. If a drug that literally turns you into a melting, oozing zombie with flesh dripping off your bones doesn't make you find a different drug - not even quit, I mean, find a different drug to get fucked up on - I think that person is suicidal. This is some morbid shit right here.
- grugagag 4y ago
  Drug use can really mess with a person's ability to think logically. Yes, it’s self distruction but first of all comes getting the next hit
- lr4444lr 4y ago
  Isn't this a cost issue? Fentanyl users are already bargain hunters.
  - atchoo 4y ago
    Maybe more about the dealer's profit margin rather than the user's ability to pay. Fent is everywhere and not a choice. Celebrities are dying from Fent overdoes e.g. Michael K. Williams and Coolio.
- poink 4y ago
  > I think that person is suicidal Someone doing this stuff isn't thinking of the endgame any more than an alcoholic is thinking about cirrhosis. They just want to get high. They're not at the opiod buffet picking their fave. They're doing the best stuff their dealer has that they can afford.
triyambakam 4y ago
> How did you get involved with harm-reduction work? > ... Now, I’m a daily intravenous meth user. I really didn't expect the harm reduction worker to be actively addicted.
- TylerE 4y ago
  You’re implying a reversal of the Norse of events. He was a daily meth user before he was in harm Reduction.
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > was a daily meth user before he was in harm Reduction These stories usually feature someone who went clean. That it's someone who still using and contributing to society makes it unexpected. (I hadn’t considered the possibility of a functional meth addict.)
    - TylerE 4y ago
      Plenty of functional Ritalin users. Very similar effect profiles (assuming the meth is clean), since they metabolize to the same thing.
      - CommitSyn 4y ago
        Plenty of functional Adderall users also, which is mixed amphetamine salts. And although more rare, functional desoxyn users too, which is a methamphetamine pill typically used for narcolepsy and severe obesity.
        htag 4y ago
        How many functional Ritalin/Adderall/Desoxyn users are injecting?
        CommitSyn 4y ago
jacooper 4y ago
Stop the dumb policy of letting drugs free. This needs to end, and the government must intervene and put an end to every drug dealer, and seriously find a way to deal with addicts.
- arcticbull 4y ago
  This is literally the policy that got us here and has failed us every single step of the way. Doing more of it is how things keep getting worse. The correct answer is to decriminalize everything and improve public health programs like Portugal did 20+ years ago. They saw extremely good outcomes. [1] [1] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/05/portugals-radical-drugs-policy-is-working-why-hasnt-the-world-copied-it https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/05/portugals-radic...
  - ReptileMan 4y ago
    Singapore offers another approach that seems to work ok. Probably the real lesson is that half assed measures don't work. And you have to go all the way. No matter the direction.
    - triyambakam 4y ago
      Singapore's approach as in the death penalty?
      - ReptileMan 4y ago
        Makes it moderately hard to be a repeat offender. Edit: Joke aside - i am fine with marijuana, and some forms of cocaine being kinda ok-ish, but a death sentence for every person that distributes fentanyl and carfentanil won't extract too much tears from me. Some vices should be entertained - but there should be hard limits somewhere.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
cypherpunks01 4y ago
DEA 4 page report, Oct 2022: https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2022-12/The%20Growing%20Threat%20of%20Xylazine%20and%20its%20Mixture%20with%20Illicit%20Drugs.pdf https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2022-12/The%20Growin... Article quotes "We know that xylazine is a veterinary tranquilizer, but we’re not sure how the drug dealers are getting it from clinics." DEA says "A kilogram of xylazine powder can be purchased online from Chinese suppliers with common prices ranging from $6-$20 U.S. dollars per kilogram. At this low price, its use as an adulterant may increase the profit for illicit drug traffickers, as its psychoactive effects allows them to reduce the amount of fentanyl or heroin used in a mixture. It may also attract customers looking for a longer high since xylazine is described as having many of the same effects for users as opioids, but with a longer-lasting effect than fentanyl alone."
A_D_E_P_T 4y ago
> xylazine currently has no antidote. It's an alpha-2 adrenergic receptor agonist. There are indications that alpha-2 antagonists can reverse or mitigate xylazine's effects. Yohimbine, a very popular dietary supplement, is an alpha-2 antagonist. It reverses the sedative and cardiac effects of xylazine in animals [1], and should be quite well-tolerated in humans. It's also available in pure form via Amazon.com and millions of other places. So it's not as though xylazine has no antidote in principle... [1] - Spoerke, D. G., Hall, A. H., Grimes, M. J., Honea, B. N., & Rumack, B. H. (1986). Human overdose with the veterinary tranquilizer xylazine. The American Journal of Emergency Medicine, 4(3), 222–224. doi:10.1016/0735-6757(86)90070-7
- cypherpunks01 4y ago
  From Wikipedia: "In veterinary medicine, the alpha-2 antagonist atipamezole is used to reverse the effects of xylazine or the related drug dexmedetomidine, but while this has been tested in humans in Phase I trials, it is not an approved medical treatment for xylazine overdose.
  - A_D_E_P_T 4y ago
    "Not approved" simply because it hasn't gone through the drug approval process -- because, among other reasons, xylazine isn't approved for use in humans in the first place. Not because it doesn't necessarily work or would necessarily be harmful. Granted, atipamezole seems somewhat "cleaner" than yohimbine, which is a natural product with quite a few off-target effects.
    - mbreese 4y ago
      Also probably not approved because of a lack of randomized, double blind studies. But it would be really hard to run a study for a treatment like this. I can’t even imagine trying to get informed consent to try and enroll someone on the trial. So, without that, the best you could do would be to find a drug that is approved for something else that can be used off label. I don’t think there are any easy answers here.
forgingahead 4y ago
The Anglo West's approach to drugs has absolutely failed. Rehab the abusers, lock up and punish the dealers (some countries use the death penalty to strong results), and secure your borders properly. Instead, we get kvetching and hand-wringing about "what can be done", and tittering discussions on online message boards, while society decays even further.
- inconceivable 4y ago
  it's perpetuated because it makes a lot of people a lot of money. both on the criminal side and the law enforcement side. plus now you can just blame china for everything. it's super convenient and lucrative!
- rejectfinite 4y ago
  >The Anglo West's approach Doesn't Thailand/Japan etc have even harsher anti-drug laws?
  - sashenka 4y ago
    [dead]
- clnq 4y ago
  Criminalizing street drug use and distribution will probably fail so long as there is strong and inelastic demand — the kind created by addiction. This is why it is important to remove demand by effectively rehabilitating the users, educating those not using, and not facilitating continued use. There is no "safe use" in reality; all use of controlled narcotic substances leads to addiction, and poor health and occupational functioning outcomes. On the supply side, even the death penalty can be priced in when the demand is strong. The narcotics business is one of death, not just due to the criminality and the death penalty in some regions, but also due to no labor protections, prevalent drug use among the producers and distributors, and clashes with law enforcement and rival criminal orgs. This has deterred neither the suppliers nor consumers. When even the probability of death isn't a good deterrent, a probability of imprisonment won't work either. Speaking of death not being a deterrent to lucrative business, the narcotics industry is not an outlier. Industries involving underwater operations like welding, oil rig work, coal mining, logging, high-rise maintenance, stunt performance, mercenary work, experimental aircraft piloting, and similar all exploit death for large profits. It's just capitalism. So a solution to the drugs crisis needs to work within a capitalist world.
sneak 4y ago
7,300 deaths per year in canada from opioids. 48,000 deaths per year in canada from tobacco. One is legal to sell on every street corner. The other is a crisis.
- PierceJoy 4y ago
  The number of deaths isn’t the whole story though. Smoking might take 20-30 years off your life. These drugs are killing people in their teens and 20s. The affects on their life are also not the same. We don’t see smokers trying to inject nicotine into rotting flesh. Nicotine is a choice that has little effect on anyone else besides second hand smoke. The drug crisis is destroying people/families/cities.
- davrosthedalek 4y ago
  What's the average life expectancy of an opioid user compared to a smoker?
- fwlr 4y ago
  And 60,000 deaths per year in Canada from food*. My uncle has smoked 2-3 packs a day from when he was 15 years old. He is 70 now. Somewhere between one and two million cigarettes in his lifetime. Many health issues, of course, but could you eat million burgers or drink a million cans of coke in a lifetime and end up with less health issues? (No, you couldn’t: that’s something like 8,000 calories a day every day for 80 years, you die of obesity by age 35. I’m not even completely sure you could drink that many cups of water, 3 packs a day is 90 cups of water or 5.5 gallons, perilously close to the ~6 gallon maximum rate of healthy kidneys working 24/7.) My point is not that smoking is better for you than heroin or soft drinks or burgers or coffee or water. It’s that the dose makes the poison, and we tend to legislate based as much on “lethal dose” as on “total attributable deaths”. *: Adding diabetes and heart disease together from https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1310039401&pickMembers%5B0%5D=2.1&pickMembers%5B1%5D=3.1&cubeTimeFrame.startYear=2020&cubeTimeFrame.endYear=2020&referencePeriods=20200101%2C20200101 https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=131003...
- wetpaws 4y ago
  They are not mutually exclusive, you know.
fwlr 4y ago
A proposal for upgrading these “safe use sites” (if we’re going to have them, might as well have good ones): The use site has a (24/7 guarded) attached pharmacy with government-produced clean heroin, meth, etc. Users can trade in their drug, the pharmacist runs it through a mass spec analyzer and dispenses back to them an amount of pharmaceutical-grade drug of interest, the amount dispensed being equal to the fraction that is present in whatever cut/mixed drug sample they handed in. In addition to the obvious safety benefits of only consuming guaranteed-pure drugs, the drug user gets an on-the-spot and very salient piece of information about the quality of the drug they purchased. This creates a lot of precise and accurate drug quality information and feeds it back into the drug abuse cycle. A user buys from a dealer, and right before their first hit they get a purity score to evaluate their dealer with - and maybe some information about what other drugs their dealer just tried to poison them with. (To avoid some obvious risks: the tested drug sample should be immediately ejected from the analyzer into a denaturing bath and regularly incinerated, so that handed-in drugs are not a theft or recycling target. You probably need to mandate they can trade in only the dose they are about take, and they have to take it on the spot, so that government supplies do not leak back into the streets. There are certainly other failure modes too, a close eye should be kept on this and further processes brought in as needed.)
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > dispenses back to them an amount of pharmaceutical-grade drug of interest, the amount dispensed being equal to the fraction that is present in whatever cut/mixed drug sample they handed in If you're distributing drugs just distribute the drugs. Why cut in the dealers and cartels?
  - Tiktaalik 4y ago
    Yep. Create a safe supply of drugs. It destroys the criminal economy and ends deaths. It's really the only way forward. Everything else within the naïve prohibition framework has been tried again and again and has continuously failed.
    - 4y ago
Tiktaalik 4y ago
Drug users have been banging the drum about the dangers here for years now. All the drugs are toxic. There is no safe dosage. There is no opioid crisis. There are no opioids. It's all a toxic mess of unknown chemicals in the street drugs. This is a core reason why the death rate has been spiking upwards. Really good to see more reporting about this, but also alarming at the delay from when the problem started and when mainstream press is starting to talk about it. Advocacy groups have achieved a bit of traction of getting some media to correctly call this a "toxic drug" crisis, but here we see an example of a major national media outlet while thankfully still ploddingly coming around to reporting on the issue, still framing things in the deprecated terms of an "opioid crisis" framework that is years out of date.
meandave 4y ago
BTNX now supplies test strips for Xylazine, I just ordered the first batch for the harm reduction outreach group my friends and I run. If you are interested in helping street drug users in NYC consider donating at https://opencollective.com/dont-forget-the-streets https://opencollective.com/dont-forget-the-streets all of our funds go directly to supplies. We also table at local DIY shows, supply bars and clubs with Fentanyl test strips, and host narcan trainings. Xylazine test strips link: https://www.btnx.com/Product?id=2019 https://www.btnx.com/Product?id=2019
MarkMarine 4y ago
Pretty shocking to read that the worker in the safe site was also a daily IV meth user, I’m pretty shocked anyone can hold down a job with a daily IV meth habit. I’m an Iraq war vet. I’ve lost friends to drugs, suicide, incredibly reckless behavior to the point it might as well be suicide. Once you’re in a cohort of people that are close to death, the mental strain of losing your friends has a way of squaring the circle for you. It takes an extraordinary amount of self control, and daily effort to change your circumstances. Being at arms distance all day from IV drug use is not going to do it. Previously I’ve been all for harm reduction centers, and safe places to test and use drugs, because I don’t believe that heavy handed prohibition solves anything. I’ve never seen a motivated human stopped from doing anything self destructive by threatening them with more self destruction. I hadn’t considered the mental tax on the employees that work in these centers. I think it’s still a net positive, but wow.
- bobbylarrybobby 4y ago
  I couldn't tell if “now” meant now-now, or then-now, as in at that point in their life (as a child when they were progressing from drug to drug). I also can't imagine anyone functioning when injecting meth daily.
  - antibasilisk 4y ago
    You would be surprised how many 'functional' meth and coke users there are.
blindriver 4y ago
I used to believe that these safe injection sites were an okay idea, but now I'm vehemently against them. These people need help, and should be FORCED into addiction relief programs. They shouldn't be left to continue their addictions unabated. That isn't freedom, it's slavery to drugs and drug dealers. After seeing the absolute mess that SF has become, what I've come to realize is that these "supporters" of drug addicts are doing NOTHING to help them break their addiction. They are letting them accelerate their addiction, and they are doing nothing to help them get rid of their addiction. If you look at all of these "progressive" programs, they look like insidious plots to hurt those they claim to want to help. "Safe injection" sites actually keep addicts addicted for longer and don't help them conquer their addiction. Education activists that want to drop education requirements because they are too hard to achieve for Black and Brown students don't help them learn, in fact they leave them uneducated by the time they graduate high school. Mental health/homeless activists don't help homeless people solve the problems that lead to homelessness (usually mental health or drug addiction), instead they give band aid solutions that keep them homeless in perpetuity. The number of homeless people passed out on SF sidewalks and using the streets as their bathrooms have skyrocketed even though homeless funding is $600 million a year. "Restorative justice" programs cause crime to skyrocket because criminals take advantage of these laws and commit crimes with no fear. Alameda County DA Pamela Price cares more about freeing criminals than helping her constituents get any modicum of justice or to keep their streets safe. She is doing the opposite of what she should be doing. Everything that was promised by these far-left progressive policies have failed in the real world, and the fact they continue pushing them in the face of their failures is indication that they don't care about science or data, all their care about is dogma.
- clnq 4y ago
  Your point has merit, but for a stronger argument, refrain from over-generalizing and combining unrelated issues.
  - blindriver 4y ago
    I disagree completely. I'm seeing a common thread among all of these neo-progressive efforts. They defy reality and have a feeling of insidiousness to them. They are hurting the people that they purport to want to help, and they are all destroying the communities that implement them. SF is a perfect example, because there has been decades of left wing politics in charge and there's no Republican boogeyman to blame. And it's been nothing but failure and failure, and things are getting worse and worse. Education is the thing that really makes me the most angry, because the fact that 50% of Black and Brown students are "graduating" from high school barely able to read [1] is 100% the fault of the progressives. They claim to care about equity, yet all they are producing is generations of students unable to compete in the real world. Lowell is/was a top 100 high school in the US, and the progressives gutted the admissions because too many Asians got in, so they changed it to a lottery system. All that did was admit kids who were unprepared and flunked classes. The number of flunks classes tripled in a single year after merit-based admissions was cut [2]. All of these things are related. The progressive policies since the 60s have produced fantastic policies that are important for freedom. Gays and trans deserve the right to live in safety and be treated like everyone else. Drug addicts should not be criminalized, they are addicts that need help. Mental health problems should not be stigmatized. Racism against any group should never be tolerated. Lower-income neighborhoods need to be lifted up, and yes at the expense of richer neighborhoods. But the policies we are seeing these days go too far and are damaging the people that they purport to help. [1] https://darrellowens.substack.com/p/half-of-black-students-can-hardly https://darrellowens.substack.com/p/half-of-black-students-c... [2] https://www.yahoo.com/video/top-sf-high-school-sees-192303605.html https://www.yahoo.com/video/top-sf-high-school-sees-19230360...
Mistletoe 4y ago
Ketamine-xylazine is the drug combo given to rats when I worked in a lab doing animal studies. It is approved to make them go to sleep and feel nothing before death by exsanguination. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3103284/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3103284/
Sparkyte 4y ago
Decriminalizing drugs was just a quick way to ensure the drug economy kept going. I think criminalization of drugs is essential, what isn't is the method of jailing individuals under the influence. Jail doesn't make them clean and it puts them with the sort of people who enable their habits. We need a more diverse system that helps people get passed the subtance abuse.
- mardifoufs 4y ago
  Canada has only legalized/decriminalized weed as far as I know. So I'm not sure what impact it has on opioids, which are very much still illegal here.
  - randomdata 4y ago
    Canada provided an exemption to allow decriminalization of small amounts of opioids, crack/cocaine, methamphetamine, and MDMA in British Columbia (where, as it relates to the article, Vancouver is located). It came into effect at the beginning of this year.
    - mardifoufs 4y ago
      Ah so the federal government allowed the provincial gov to pass that exemption? Or was it unilaterally decriminalized by BC, while still being federally illegal like it is in some US states?
      - randomdata 4y ago
        Federal exemption. In place for three years.
- BossingAround 4y ago
  A system to help people get pass the substance abuse is amazingly expensive. Criminalization also implies that the government has any right to tell citizens what they can and cannot do with their mind. Ridiculous.
mise_en_place 4y ago
[flagged]
w10-1 4y ago
Addicted, losing friends and family, and still trying to help others.
Haga 4y ago
[dead]
aaron695 4y ago
[dead]
kin_punishment 4y ago
[flagged]
BossingAround 4y ago
Ah, the result of war on drugs. People want to change their state of consciousness. People also self-medicate when facing issues, like chronic pains, or chronic mental stress. Why don't we take a look at each category of drugs (benzos, opiates, stimulants, psychedelics, ...) and make the least harmful one or two of those legal? Regulate it, control it, make it safe. Create clinics where people can get educated about safe use, and where people can get clean, medical-grade drugs that they'll buy off of random dude in the suburbs otherwise. People are going to use drugs. Alternatively, they'll get addicted to other things, like gambling, which can be just as destructive. Stop making drug addiction a moral failure. It's not. It's a part of life, and a very human thing. I wonder how many wall street traders still regularly do coke nowadays.
- brobdingnagians 4y ago
  We should look at why our society has such high levels of mental illness, stress, and dysfunction. Putting a bandaid on a gunshot wound or having self medication become standard isn't a real solution, the underlying problems persist. If it's something about modern lifestyles, philosophies, or social environments, then fixing those could lead to much better mental health outcomes. We can do studies on which groups have the best mental health outcomes and encourage those.
  - BossingAround 4y ago
    What I'm saying is that to a certain level, humanity will always want to change their consciousness. This has nothing to do with suffering in the world. Of course, suffering then leads to people seeking out quick fixes. But you know what? If you're suffering from chronic pains, and medical experts can't help you (as has been the case for many people), taking some of these drugs (like THC) is highly preferable to not having anything.
    - felipemnoa 4y ago
      I wouldn't really call it changing consciousness but rather just escapism. A lot of people will do drugs because they are trying to escape their lives. Once addicted they are then trying to escape withdrawal.
quattrofan 4y ago
[dead]
bitcoin_anon 4y ago
This is what happens when criminals produce drugs. Drugs of abuse should be legally produced by professionals and made available to adults, e.g. tobacco, cannabis, alcohol.
dghughes 4y ago
>we spoke to Kali Sedgemore, a long-time harm-reduction expert in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside who also works with Vancouver Coastal Health I'm not shocked the article is from BC and even less that it was Downtown Eastside.. I think all Canadians know about the Downtown Eastside. Even here on the opposite coast I know its reputation. YouTube suggested a video just a few days ago to me of a Vancouver fire hall located in the Downtown Eastside. Most fire halls in Vancouver average 600 calls per month but Fire hall 2 they get 1,600 calls per month! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVnmEpbWmhc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVnmEpbWmhc
- liketochill 4y ago
  A side effect of having so many calls for drug users in distress is that those services aren’t available to immediately respond to other types of medical emergencies that are life threatening, such as a heart attack for example.

135 points by fortran77 4y ago

The harm reduction activist claims the individual dealer isn’t at “fault” if the supply was laced after being passed around amongst other dealers. In that case, it would be more accurate to speak of the dealer’s intention, rather than responsibility.

grugagag 4y ago
I don’t know about that line of logic, the dealer is responsible whether they laced the supply themsleves or not, if not fully at least partly for passing the drugs along. They could claim not knowing but that doesn’t make then any less responsible.
- boomboomsubban 4y ago
  Is the convenience store responsible for customers getting smoking related illnesses? Or the grocery store if some flour they stock has salmonella?
  - rejectfinite 4y ago
    No but they must remove/stop selling the affected product. The vendor does a full recall ofc.
  - icpmacdo 4y ago
    There are indeed liabilities for products sold at convenience and grocery stores
    - boomboomsubban 4y ago
      I can't find an example of an individual store being liable for unknowingly selling a preprepared item that causes illness, though my search has hardly been thorough. Plenty of examples where they're selling in-house prepared deli items, but that'd be the equivalent of the dealer adding filler themselves. And I've never heard of a seller being targeted for smoking related lawsuits.
      - icpmacdo 4y ago
        I asked chatGPT for a “ example of an individual store being liable for unknowingly selling a preprepared item that causes illness” and it gave me a non hallucinated one
        boomboomsubban 4y ago
        If it's non-hallucinated, why not share it?
        icpmacdo 4y ago
        Imo because it's a waste of thread space but here you go. One example of a grocery store being held liable for unknowingly selling a pre-prepared item that caused illness is the case of In Re: King Soopers Listeria Outbreak Litigation. In this case, a number of people became ill with listeriosis, a serious and potentially life-threatening bacterial infection, after consuming pre-packaged deli meats sold at various King Soopers grocery store locations in Colorado. The outbreak was traced back to contaminated meat produced by a third-party supplier, and a number of people filed lawsuits against King Soopers alleging that the store was liable for selling the contaminated meat. The lawsuits alleged that King Soopers had a duty to ensure that the food it sold was safe for consumption and that it had breached that duty by selling the contaminated meat. The case ultimately settled for an undisclosed sum, with King Soopers agreeing to compensate those who became ill as a result of consuming the contaminated meat. This case illustrates how grocery stores can be held liable for selling pre-prepared food items that cause illness, even if the store was unaware of the contamination at the time of sale. It also highlights the importance of ensuring that food safety measures are in place throughout the supply chain, from the producers of the food to the stores that sell it to the public.
- provenance 4y ago
  I may have worded it in a misleading way. What I meant was, if you’re sympathizing then speak of intent, since the dealer is still responsible, as you noted.

monero-xmr 4y ago

Here is a recent article about xylazine from the NYT https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/07/health/fentanyl-xylazine-drug.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/07/health/fentanyl-xylazine-... > “The tranq dope literally eats your flesh,” she said. “It’s self-destruction at its finest.” > She unrolled a bandage from elbow to palm. Beneath patches of blackened tissue, exposed white tendons and pus, the sheared flesh was hot and red. To stave off xylazine’s excruciating withdrawal, she said, she injects tranq dope several times a day. Fearful that injecting in a fresh site could create a new wound, she reluctantly shoots into her festering forearm. > The only person who would let her use a cellphone was a guy whose arm and leg had been amputated because of his tranq wounds. He was still injecting into his leg stump. If a drug that literally turns you into a melting, oozing zombie with flesh dripping off your bones doesn't make you find a different drug - not even quit, I mean, find a different drug to get fucked up on - I think that person is suicidal. This is some morbid shit right here.

grugagag 4y ago
Drug use can really mess with a person's ability to think logically. Yes, it’s self distruction but first of all comes getting the next hit
lr4444lr 4y ago
Isn't this a cost issue? Fentanyl users are already bargain hunters.
- atchoo 4y ago
  Maybe more about the dealer's profit margin rather than the user's ability to pay. Fent is everywhere and not a choice. Celebrities are dying from Fent overdoes e.g. Michael K. Williams and Coolio.
poink 4y ago
> I think that person is suicidal Someone doing this stuff isn't thinking of the endgame any more than an alcoholic is thinking about cirrhosis. They just want to get high. They're not at the opiod buffet picking their fave. They're doing the best stuff their dealer has that they can afford.

triyambakam 4y ago

> How did you get involved with harm-reduction work? > ... Now, I’m a daily intravenous meth user. I really didn't expect the harm reduction worker to be actively addicted.

TylerE 4y ago
You’re implying a reversal of the Norse of events. He was a daily meth user before he was in harm Reduction.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > was a daily meth user before he was in harm Reduction These stories usually feature someone who went clean. That it's someone who still using and contributing to society makes it unexpected. (I hadn’t considered the possibility of a functional meth addict.)
  - TylerE 4y ago
    Plenty of functional Ritalin users. Very similar effect profiles (assuming the meth is clean), since they metabolize to the same thing.
    - CommitSyn 4y ago
      Plenty of functional Adderall users also, which is mixed amphetamine salts. And although more rare, functional desoxyn users too, which is a methamphetamine pill typically used for narcolepsy and severe obesity.
      - htag 4y ago
        How many functional Ritalin/Adderall/Desoxyn users are injecting?
        CommitSyn 4y ago

jacooper 4y ago

Stop the dumb policy of letting drugs free. This needs to end, and the government must intervene and put an end to every drug dealer, and seriously find a way to deal with addicts.

arcticbull 4y ago
This is literally the policy that got us here and has failed us every single step of the way. Doing more of it is how things keep getting worse. The correct answer is to decriminalize everything and improve public health programs like Portugal did 20+ years ago. They saw extremely good outcomes. [1] [1] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/05/portugals-radical-drugs-policy-is-working-why-hasnt-the-world-copied-it https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/05/portugals-radic...
- ReptileMan 4y ago
  Singapore offers another approach that seems to work ok. Probably the real lesson is that half assed measures don't work. And you have to go all the way. No matter the direction.
  - triyambakam 4y ago
    Singapore's approach as in the death penalty?
    - ReptileMan 4y ago
      Makes it moderately hard to be a repeat offender. Edit: Joke aside - i am fine with marijuana, and some forms of cocaine being kinda ok-ish, but a death sentence for every person that distributes fentanyl and carfentanil won't extract too much tears from me. Some vices should be entertained - but there should be hard limits somewhere.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]

cypherpunks01 4y ago

DEA 4 page report, Oct 2022: https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2022-12/The%20Growing%20Threat%20of%20Xylazine%20and%20its%20Mixture%20with%20Illicit%20Drugs.pdf https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2022-12/The%20Growin... Article quotes "We know that xylazine is a veterinary tranquilizer, but we’re not sure how the drug dealers are getting it from clinics." DEA says "A kilogram of xylazine powder can be purchased online from Chinese suppliers with common prices ranging from $6-$20 U.S. dollars per kilogram. At this low price, its use as an adulterant may increase the profit for illicit drug traffickers, as its psychoactive effects allows them to reduce the amount of fentanyl or heroin used in a mixture. It may also attract customers looking for a longer high since xylazine is described as having many of the same effects for users as opioids, but with a longer-lasting effect than fentanyl alone."

A_D_E_P_T 4y ago

> xylazine currently has no antidote. It's an alpha-2 adrenergic receptor agonist. There are indications that alpha-2 antagonists can reverse or mitigate xylazine's effects. Yohimbine, a very popular dietary supplement, is an alpha-2 antagonist. It reverses the sedative and cardiac effects of xylazine in animals [1], and should be quite well-tolerated in humans. It's also available in pure form via Amazon.com and millions of other places. So it's not as though xylazine has no antidote in principle... [1] - Spoerke, D. G., Hall, A. H., Grimes, M. J., Honea, B. N., & Rumack, B. H. (1986). Human overdose with the veterinary tranquilizer xylazine. The American Journal of Emergency Medicine, 4(3), 222–224. doi:10.1016/0735-6757(86)90070-7

cypherpunks01 4y ago
From Wikipedia: "In veterinary medicine, the alpha-2 antagonist atipamezole is used to reverse the effects of xylazine or the related drug dexmedetomidine, but while this has been tested in humans in Phase I trials, it is not an approved medical treatment for xylazine overdose.
- A_D_E_P_T 4y ago
  "Not approved" simply because it hasn't gone through the drug approval process -- because, among other reasons, xylazine isn't approved for use in humans in the first place. Not because it doesn't necessarily work or would necessarily be harmful. Granted, atipamezole seems somewhat "cleaner" than yohimbine, which is a natural product with quite a few off-target effects.
  - mbreese 4y ago
    Also probably not approved because of a lack of randomized, double blind studies. But it would be really hard to run a study for a treatment like this. I can’t even imagine trying to get informed consent to try and enroll someone on the trial. So, without that, the best you could do would be to find a drug that is approved for something else that can be used off label. I don’t think there are any easy answers here.

forgingahead 4y ago

The Anglo West's approach to drugs has absolutely failed. Rehab the abusers, lock up and punish the dealers (some countries use the death penalty to strong results), and secure your borders properly. Instead, we get kvetching and hand-wringing about "what can be done", and tittering discussions on online message boards, while society decays even further.

inconceivable 4y ago
it's perpetuated because it makes a lot of people a lot of money. both on the criminal side and the law enforcement side. plus now you can just blame china for everything. it's super convenient and lucrative!
rejectfinite 4y ago
>The Anglo West's approach Doesn't Thailand/Japan etc have even harsher anti-drug laws?
- sashenka 4y ago
  [dead]
clnq 4y ago
Criminalizing street drug use and distribution will probably fail so long as there is strong and inelastic demand — the kind created by addiction. This is why it is important to remove demand by effectively rehabilitating the users, educating those not using, and not facilitating continued use. There is no "safe use" in reality; all use of controlled narcotic substances leads to addiction, and poor health and occupational functioning outcomes. On the supply side, even the death penalty can be priced in when the demand is strong. The narcotics business is one of death, not just due to the criminality and the death penalty in some regions, but also due to no labor protections, prevalent drug use among the producers and distributors, and clashes with law enforcement and rival criminal orgs. This has deterred neither the suppliers nor consumers. When even the probability of death isn't a good deterrent, a probability of imprisonment won't work either. Speaking of death not being a deterrent to lucrative business, the narcotics industry is not an outlier. Industries involving underwater operations like welding, oil rig work, coal mining, logging, high-rise maintenance, stunt performance, mercenary work, experimental aircraft piloting, and similar all exploit death for large profits. It's just capitalism. So a solution to the drugs crisis needs to work within a capitalist world.

sneak 4y ago

7,300 deaths per year in canada from opioids. 48,000 deaths per year in canada from tobacco. One is legal to sell on every street corner. The other is a crisis.

PierceJoy 4y ago
The number of deaths isn’t the whole story though. Smoking might take 20-30 years off your life. These drugs are killing people in their teens and 20s. The affects on their life are also not the same. We don’t see smokers trying to inject nicotine into rotting flesh. Nicotine is a choice that has little effect on anyone else besides second hand smoke. The drug crisis is destroying people/families/cities.
davrosthedalek 4y ago
What's the average life expectancy of an opioid user compared to a smoker?
fwlr 4y ago
And 60,000 deaths per year in Canada from food*. My uncle has smoked 2-3 packs a day from when he was 15 years old. He is 70 now. Somewhere between one and two million cigarettes in his lifetime. Many health issues, of course, but could you eat million burgers or drink a million cans of coke in a lifetime and end up with less health issues? (No, you couldn’t: that’s something like 8,000 calories a day every day for 80 years, you die of obesity by age 35. I’m not even completely sure you could drink that many cups of water, 3 packs a day is 90 cups of water or 5.5 gallons, perilously close to the ~6 gallon maximum rate of healthy kidneys working 24/7.) My point is not that smoking is better for you than heroin or soft drinks or burgers or coffee or water. It’s that the dose makes the poison, and we tend to legislate based as much on “lethal dose” as on “total attributable deaths”. *: Adding diabetes and heart disease together from https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1310039401&pickMembers%5B0%5D=2.1&pickMembers%5B1%5D=3.1&cubeTimeFrame.startYear=2020&cubeTimeFrame.endYear=2020&referencePeriods=20200101%2C20200101 https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=131003...
wetpaws 4y ago
They are not mutually exclusive, you know.

fwlr 4y ago

A proposal for upgrading these “safe use sites” (if we’re going to have them, might as well have good ones): The use site has a (24/7 guarded) attached pharmacy with government-produced clean heroin, meth, etc. Users can trade in their drug, the pharmacist runs it through a mass spec analyzer and dispenses back to them an amount of pharmaceutical-grade drug of interest, the amount dispensed being equal to the fraction that is present in whatever cut/mixed drug sample they handed in. In addition to the obvious safety benefits of only consuming guaranteed-pure drugs, the drug user gets an on-the-spot and very salient piece of information about the quality of the drug they purchased. This creates a lot of precise and accurate drug quality information and feeds it back into the drug abuse cycle. A user buys from a dealer, and right before their first hit they get a purity score to evaluate their dealer with - and maybe some information about what other drugs their dealer just tried to poison them with. (To avoid some obvious risks: the tested drug sample should be immediately ejected from the analyzer into a denaturing bath and regularly incinerated, so that handed-in drugs are not a theft or recycling target. You probably need to mandate they can trade in only the dose they are about take, and they have to take it on the spot, so that government supplies do not leak back into the streets. There are certainly other failure modes too, a close eye should be kept on this and further processes brought in as needed.)

JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> dispenses back to them an amount of pharmaceutical-grade drug of interest, the amount dispensed being equal to the fraction that is present in whatever cut/mixed drug sample they handed in If you're distributing drugs just distribute the drugs. Why cut in the dealers and cartels?
- Tiktaalik 4y ago
  Yep. Create a safe supply of drugs. It destroys the criminal economy and ends deaths. It's really the only way forward. Everything else within the naïve prohibition framework has been tried again and again and has continuously failed.
  - 4y ago

Tiktaalik 4y ago

Drug users have been banging the drum about the dangers here for years now. All the drugs are toxic. There is no safe dosage. There is no opioid crisis. There are no opioids. It's all a toxic mess of unknown chemicals in the street drugs. This is a core reason why the death rate has been spiking upwards. Really good to see more reporting about this, but also alarming at the delay from when the problem started and when mainstream press is starting to talk about it. Advocacy groups have achieved a bit of traction of getting some media to correctly call this a "toxic drug" crisis, but here we see an example of a major national media outlet while thankfully still ploddingly coming around to reporting on the issue, still framing things in the deprecated terms of an "opioid crisis" framework that is years out of date.

meandave 4y ago

BTNX now supplies test strips for Xylazine, I just ordered the first batch for the harm reduction outreach group my friends and I run. If you are interested in helping street drug users in NYC consider donating at https://opencollective.com/dont-forget-the-streets https://opencollective.com/dont-forget-the-streets all of our funds go directly to supplies. We also table at local DIY shows, supply bars and clubs with Fentanyl test strips, and host narcan trainings. Xylazine test strips link: https://www.btnx.com/Product?id=2019 https://www.btnx.com/Product?id=2019

MarkMarine 4y ago

Pretty shocking to read that the worker in the safe site was also a daily IV meth user, I’m pretty shocked anyone can hold down a job with a daily IV meth habit. I’m an Iraq war vet. I’ve lost friends to drugs, suicide, incredibly reckless behavior to the point it might as well be suicide. Once you’re in a cohort of people that are close to death, the mental strain of losing your friends has a way of squaring the circle for you. It takes an extraordinary amount of self control, and daily effort to change your circumstances. Being at arms distance all day from IV drug use is not going to do it. Previously I’ve been all for harm reduction centers, and safe places to test and use drugs, because I don’t believe that heavy handed prohibition solves anything. I’ve never seen a motivated human stopped from doing anything self destructive by threatening them with more self destruction. I hadn’t considered the mental tax on the employees that work in these centers. I think it’s still a net positive, but wow.

bobbylarrybobby 4y ago
I couldn't tell if “now” meant now-now, or then-now, as in at that point in their life (as a child when they were progressing from drug to drug). I also can't imagine anyone functioning when injecting meth daily.
- antibasilisk 4y ago
  You would be surprised how many 'functional' meth and coke users there are.

blindriver 4y ago

I used to believe that these safe injection sites were an okay idea, but now I'm vehemently against them. These people need help, and should be FORCED into addiction relief programs. They shouldn't be left to continue their addictions unabated. That isn't freedom, it's slavery to drugs and drug dealers. After seeing the absolute mess that SF has become, what I've come to realize is that these "supporters" of drug addicts are doing NOTHING to help them break their addiction. They are letting them accelerate their addiction, and they are doing nothing to help them get rid of their addiction. If you look at all of these "progressive" programs, they look like insidious plots to hurt those they claim to want to help. "Safe injection" sites actually keep addicts addicted for longer and don't help them conquer their addiction. Education activists that want to drop education requirements because they are too hard to achieve for Black and Brown students don't help them learn, in fact they leave them uneducated by the time they graduate high school. Mental health/homeless activists don't help homeless people solve the problems that lead to homelessness (usually mental health or drug addiction), instead they give band aid solutions that keep them homeless in perpetuity. The number of homeless people passed out on SF sidewalks and using the streets as their bathrooms have skyrocketed even though homeless funding is $600 million a year. "Restorative justice" programs cause crime to skyrocket because criminals take advantage of these laws and commit crimes with no fear. Alameda County DA Pamela Price cares more about freeing criminals than helping her constituents get any modicum of justice or to keep their streets safe. She is doing the opposite of what she should be doing. Everything that was promised by these far-left progressive policies have failed in the real world, and the fact they continue pushing them in the face of their failures is indication that they don't care about science or data, all their care about is dogma.

clnq 4y ago
Your point has merit, but for a stronger argument, refrain from over-generalizing and combining unrelated issues.
- blindriver 4y ago
  I disagree completely. I'm seeing a common thread among all of these neo-progressive efforts. They defy reality and have a feeling of insidiousness to them. They are hurting the people that they purport to want to help, and they are all destroying the communities that implement them. SF is a perfect example, because there has been decades of left wing politics in charge and there's no Republican boogeyman to blame. And it's been nothing but failure and failure, and things are getting worse and worse. Education is the thing that really makes me the most angry, because the fact that 50% of Black and Brown students are "graduating" from high school barely able to read [1] is 100% the fault of the progressives. They claim to care about equity, yet all they are producing is generations of students unable to compete in the real world. Lowell is/was a top 100 high school in the US, and the progressives gutted the admissions because too many Asians got in, so they changed it to a lottery system. All that did was admit kids who were unprepared and flunked classes. The number of flunks classes tripled in a single year after merit-based admissions was cut [2]. All of these things are related. The progressive policies since the 60s have produced fantastic policies that are important for freedom. Gays and trans deserve the right to live in safety and be treated like everyone else. Drug addicts should not be criminalized, they are addicts that need help. Mental health problems should not be stigmatized. Racism against any group should never be tolerated. Lower-income neighborhoods need to be lifted up, and yes at the expense of richer neighborhoods. But the policies we are seeing these days go too far and are damaging the people that they purport to help. [1] https://darrellowens.substack.com/p/half-of-black-students-can-hardly https://darrellowens.substack.com/p/half-of-black-students-c... [2] https://www.yahoo.com/video/top-sf-high-school-sees-192303605.html https://www.yahoo.com/video/top-sf-high-school-sees-19230360...

Mistletoe 4y ago

Ketamine-xylazine is the drug combo given to rats when I worked in a lab doing animal studies. It is approved to make them go to sleep and feel nothing before death by exsanguination. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3103284/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3103284/

Sparkyte 4y ago

Decriminalizing drugs was just a quick way to ensure the drug economy kept going. I think criminalization of drugs is essential, what isn't is the method of jailing individuals under the influence. Jail doesn't make them clean and it puts them with the sort of people who enable their habits. We need a more diverse system that helps people get passed the subtance abuse.

mardifoufs 4y ago
Canada has only legalized/decriminalized weed as far as I know. So I'm not sure what impact it has on opioids, which are very much still illegal here.
- randomdata 4y ago
  Canada provided an exemption to allow decriminalization of small amounts of opioids, crack/cocaine, methamphetamine, and MDMA in British Columbia (where, as it relates to the article, Vancouver is located). It came into effect at the beginning of this year.
  - mardifoufs 4y ago
    Ah so the federal government allowed the provincial gov to pass that exemption? Or was it unilaterally decriminalized by BC, while still being federally illegal like it is in some US states?
    - randomdata 4y ago
      Federal exemption. In place for three years.
BossingAround 4y ago
A system to help people get pass the substance abuse is amazingly expensive. Criminalization also implies that the government has any right to tell citizens what they can and cannot do with their mind. Ridiculous.

mise_en_place 4y ago

[flagged]

w10-1 4y ago

Addicted, losing friends and family, and still trying to help others.

Haga 4y ago

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aaron695 4y ago

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kin_punishment 4y ago

[flagged]

BossingAround 4y ago

Ah, the result of war on drugs. People want to change their state of consciousness. People also self-medicate when facing issues, like chronic pains, or chronic mental stress. Why don't we take a look at each category of drugs (benzos, opiates, stimulants, psychedelics, ...) and make the least harmful one or two of those legal? Regulate it, control it, make it safe. Create clinics where people can get educated about safe use, and where people can get clean, medical-grade drugs that they'll buy off of random dude in the suburbs otherwise. People are going to use drugs. Alternatively, they'll get addicted to other things, like gambling, which can be just as destructive. Stop making drug addiction a moral failure. It's not. It's a part of life, and a very human thing. I wonder how many wall street traders still regularly do coke nowadays.

brobdingnagians 4y ago
We should look at why our society has such high levels of mental illness, stress, and dysfunction. Putting a bandaid on a gunshot wound or having self medication become standard isn't a real solution, the underlying problems persist. If it's something about modern lifestyles, philosophies, or social environments, then fixing those could lead to much better mental health outcomes. We can do studies on which groups have the best mental health outcomes and encourage those.
- BossingAround 4y ago
  What I'm saying is that to a certain level, humanity will always want to change their consciousness. This has nothing to do with suffering in the world. Of course, suffering then leads to people seeking out quick fixes. But you know what? If you're suffering from chronic pains, and medical experts can't help you (as has been the case for many people), taking some of these drugs (like THC) is highly preferable to not having anything.
  - felipemnoa 4y ago
    I wouldn't really call it changing consciousness but rather just escapism. A lot of people will do drugs because they are trying to escape their lives. Once addicted they are then trying to escape withdrawal.

quattrofan 4y ago

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bitcoin_anon 4y ago

This is what happens when criminals produce drugs. Drugs of abuse should be legally produced by professionals and made available to adults, e.g. tobacco, cannabis, alcohol.

dghughes 4y ago

>we spoke to Kali Sedgemore, a long-time harm-reduction expert in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside who also works with Vancouver Coastal Health I'm not shocked the article is from BC and even less that it was Downtown Eastside.. I think all Canadians know about the Downtown Eastside. Even here on the opposite coast I know its reputation. YouTube suggested a video just a few days ago to me of a Vancouver fire hall located in the Downtown Eastside. Most fire halls in Vancouver average 600 calls per month but Fire hall 2 they get 1,600 calls per month! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVnmEpbWmhc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVnmEpbWmhc

liketochill 4y ago
A side effect of having so many calls for drug users in distress is that those services aren’t available to immediately respond to other types of medical emergencies that are life threatening, such as a heart attack for example.