4 ms·

I happen to know with several people that work in an inner-city ER, and they see a dozen or so fentanyl overdoses a day. What is called "fentanyl" on the stree

I happen to know with several people that work in an inner-city ER, and they see a dozen or so fentanyl overdoses a day. What is called "fentanyl" on the streets is not the same thing as the prescription drug fentanyl used in the ER. The ER Doctors are well aware of this and their protocols reflect this too. Beside a different composition of fentanyl itself, nearly everything that comes back in toxicology reports indicates it's nearly always laced with a lot of other things.

cyanydeez 3y ago
These cases are not about cops being exposed to drugs via intravenous or other inhalation. These are cops that have touched things they believe touched fentanyl and felt a reaction. These reactions are psychosomatic. There's no evidence of a dose/effect at this type of interaction.
- torstenvl 3y ago
  > There's no evidence of a dose/effect at this type of interaction. That's pretty self-evidently false, isn't it? I don't see how you could possibly say that, given the OP article. There's a pretty awful trend among certain people to claim that there is "no evidence" of something, when what they mean is that the evidence isn't strong enough to be convincing, or hasn't been corroborated by a peer-reviewed, double-blind, reproducible study. But saying that direct statements reflecting the observations of people experiencing the phenomenon are "no[t] evidence" is both intellectually dishonest and an awful waste of credibility.
- vba616 3y ago
  >These reactions are psychosomatic It's overly simplistic to treat the unreliability of witnesses as if it can only happen at one level of cognition, as implied by "psychosomatic". What people perceive and think when they are being lied to is both complex and fundamental to a lot of experiments. If someone reports their feelings, maybe they are interpreting what they do feel based on the false information they are given. It doesn't necessarily mean they do feel the same as if the actual phenomenon occurred. Suppose I was in an experiment testing acupuncture. And I am told that it should not hurt. And yet, it does hurt. That doesn't mean I necessarily report it as such. I might rationalize, not having experience with being stuck with a needle, that this is not painful - it's unpleasant, but it's something different. So I say "no, it doesn't hurt". But then, a month later, I experience a similar pain in a different context, and I say to myself "aha, this hurts the same way, and therefore that previous experience hurt". Importantly, in this scenario, I am correctly perceiving reality at all times even though I am an unreliable reporter. The pain didn't change. I just got confused about whether it was "named" pain and whether it was "socially" pain, and whether it fit into a standard "taxonomy" of pain. A thing that's been on HN a few times, Richard Feynman's comments on understanding rats used in experiments, comes to my mind and makes me think that scientifically minded people should respect humans for being at least as complex as lab rats. One doesn't have to be a scientist to be self-aware as a human being.
maxerickson 3y ago
Of the things they report it commonly being laced with, which ones are more potent than fentanyl?
- zamnos 3y ago
  Carfentanil, not to be confused with fentanyl, is a an opiod used by vets to bring down elephants and rhinoceroses. It's approximately 100 times more potent than fentanyl. https://www.dea.gov/press-releases/2016/09/22/dea-issues-carfentanil-warning-police-and-public#:~:text=The%20lethal%20dose%20range%20for,of%20administration%20and%20other%20factors https://www.dea.gov/press-releases/2016/09/22/dea-issues-car....
  - exabrial 3y ago
    Correct, and something like a pinhead is enough to kill a human. I don't know if it can be rapidly uptaken through skin though in any of the street forms.

cyanydeez 3y ago

These cases are not about cops being exposed to drugs via intravenous or other inhalation. These are cops that have touched things they believe touched fentanyl and felt a reaction. These reactions are psychosomatic. There's no evidence of a dose/effect at this type of interaction.

torstenvl 3y ago
> There's no evidence of a dose/effect at this type of interaction. That's pretty self-evidently false, isn't it? I don't see how you could possibly say that, given the OP article. There's a pretty awful trend among certain people to claim that there is "no evidence" of something, when what they mean is that the evidence isn't strong enough to be convincing, or hasn't been corroborated by a peer-reviewed, double-blind, reproducible study. But saying that direct statements reflecting the observations of people experiencing the phenomenon are "no[t] evidence" is both intellectually dishonest and an awful waste of credibility.
vba616 3y ago
>These reactions are psychosomatic It's overly simplistic to treat the unreliability of witnesses as if it can only happen at one level of cognition, as implied by "psychosomatic". What people perceive and think when they are being lied to is both complex and fundamental to a lot of experiments. If someone reports their feelings, maybe they are interpreting what they do feel based on the false information they are given. It doesn't necessarily mean they do feel the same as if the actual phenomenon occurred. Suppose I was in an experiment testing acupuncture. And I am told that it should not hurt. And yet, it does hurt. That doesn't mean I necessarily report it as such. I might rationalize, not having experience with being stuck with a needle, that this is not painful - it's unpleasant, but it's something different. So I say "no, it doesn't hurt". But then, a month later, I experience a similar pain in a different context, and I say to myself "aha, this hurts the same way, and therefore that previous experience hurt". Importantly, in this scenario, I am correctly perceiving reality at all times even though I am an unreliable reporter. The pain didn't change. I just got confused about whether it was "named" pain and whether it was "socially" pain, and whether it fit into a standard "taxonomy" of pain. A thing that's been on HN a few times, Richard Feynman's comments on understanding rats used in experiments, comes to my mind and makes me think that scientifically minded people should respect humans for being at least as complex as lab rats. One doesn't have to be a scientist to be self-aware as a human being.

maxerickson 3y ago

Of the things they report it commonly being laced with, which ones are more potent than fentanyl?

zamnos 3y ago
Carfentanil, not to be confused with fentanyl, is a an opiod used by vets to bring down elephants and rhinoceroses. It's approximately 100 times more potent than fentanyl. https://www.dea.gov/press-releases/2016/09/22/dea-issues-carfentanil-warning-police-and-public#:~:text=The%20lethal%20dose%20range%20for,of%20administration%20and%20other%20factors https://www.dea.gov/press-releases/2016/09/22/dea-issues-car....
- exabrial 3y ago
  Correct, and something like a pinhead is enough to kill a human. I don't know if it can be rapidly uptaken through skin though in any of the street forms.