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How the fentanyl crisis' fourth wave has hit every corner of the US
- drug-freedom 3y agoFentanyl needs to be made legal and sold at grocery stores. In 2-for-1 packs, fentanly+narcan, at affordable prices. Even better, subsidized prices for poor people which can't afford it. That would solve the fentanyl problem, which is solely due to it being illegal and impure. More generally, all drugs need to be decriminalized and sold at affordable prices and pharma-grade quality.
- slaw 3y agoI think it is the opposite. People are looking for fentanyl free drugs.
- drug-freedom 3y agoI don't disagree. At your local grocery store you should have a drug aisle with cocaine, heroin, fentanyl, MDMA, mushrooms, all pharma-grade quality. So you would know exactly what you are getting.
- ffgjgf1 3y agoMaybe we could also have Futurama style euthanasia booths just outside the entrance?
- vuln 3y agoNot a booth per se but you sign a few papers and you can be suicided within 30 days in Canada.
- hypertele-Xii 3y agoMedical assistance in dying (MAID) The only difference to 'Medical assistance in addiction', is the former is much cheaper as the person won't need any help, ever.
- quonn 3y agoNot exactly. But generally making less harmful drugs legal would help - generally the more prohibition the stronger the drugs become.
- Eddy_Viscosity2 3y agoMaking all drugs legal to use makes sense to me. Criminalizing users only makes things worse. But make it illegal to sell, transport, possess in large quantities etc.
- amanaplanacanal 3y agoHow are drug users going to know what they are buying if they are illegal to sell? Dealers are putting fentanyl in cocaine nowadays. It wouldn’t surprise me if a large number of fentanyl overdoses were by people who had no idea they were taking fentanyl at all.
- Eddy_Viscosity2 3y agoDecriminalizing drug use is intended to solve a different problem - that being throwing people in jail for being addicts is bad in a number of ways and consequences. Making all drugs legal and available (with quality assurance) will (at least help) solve the problem you are talking about, but will at the same time create whole new problems that more and easier access to drugs will mean more people try and use them and then an increase in lives destroyed through addiction (and related consequences). My opinion is that would be worse.
- seanmcdirmid 3y agoDecriminalizing use basically decriminalizes selling as far as I can tell here in the northwest. Police and prosecutors can no longer threaten users with legal action to give up their dealers, and since buying is now low risk, dealing also becomes lower risk. I’ve seen people on the street looking for drugs and find them on my morning walks (they are pretty vocal when asking, and dealers aren’t shy about replying).
- rwmj 3y agoBetter to allow doctors to prescribe heroin maintenance. In fact this was tried in the UK back in the 1980s (and earlier) and is generally regarded as a success: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroin-assisted_treatment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroin-assisted_treatment
- roflc0ptic 3y agoI used to share a similar position until I realized: drugs are bad, actually, and there should be substantial friction in making them available to people. Disincentivizing drug consumption is a good thing. The war on drugs obviously leads to some absurdities - e.g. drug cartels, unnecessary incarceration - and I much prefer the Portuguese model. But making fentanyl in particular available in the grocery store would be bad; some substantial number of people would die who wouldn't have died otherwise. Some substantial number of people who would never have tried fentanyl would give it a try. Some sensible balance needs to be struck between a free society and preventing people from e.g. leaving live landmines in their parking lots. Doing things which inevitably kill people/mess up their lives without active violence is still bad, and should be heavily discouraged.
- bloppe 3y agoEven the Portuguese model has had mixed success at best
- devin 3y agoMy understanding is that the Portuguese model was going along pretty well until fentanyl came along.
- roflc0ptic 3y agoI shared this understanding. I'd be curious to hear where GP's understanding differs.
- danielbln 3y agoWhat led to your realization that "drugs are bad", and does that include all external consciousness altering substances? (caffeine, alcohol, nicotine, THC, and so on).
- nerdponx 3y agoCan't speak for somebody else's post, but addiction ruins lives, not only yours but also possibly the people around you, and leads people to other criminal behavior. It's perfectly legal to obtain and use alcohol for example, but alcoholism is an insidious evil disease.
- tgv 3y ago> all drugs need to be decriminalized and sold at affordable prices and pharma-grade quality. Sure, fuck the 20%-30% of the population who can't control their addiction and ruin the country in the process.
- vuln 3y agoMakes it a lot easier to increase the government dependency pool by 20-30%.
- 0dayz 3y agoFentanyl is one of the few drugs I can buy all the anti-drug propaganda on given the insane death rate compared to other drugs (I remember meth being advertised on tv as deadly)[1]. But it's the direct result of making alternatives harder to get and harder to produce. [1]https://nida.nih.gov/research-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-death-rates https://nida.nih.gov/research-topics/trends-statistics/overd...
- survirtual 3y agoIt is a direct result of the drug war... Legalize all drugs, disempower doctors from being gatekeepers and allow anyone to get anything they want at any time, aside from age restrictions and things like antibiotics (which can contribute to making bacteria more robust and dangerous). Testable, trackable access to all drugs, without any stigma of illegality. This removes all incentive for adulterated substances, gives access to drug users to therapy / rehab / services without risk of law enforcement, provides for new classes of business around safe use locations (bars for alcohol, new kinds if bars for you name it), taxable revenue streams (which would still be cheaper than black markets for consumers), reduced medical costs (if you know what you need, why spend $500 seeing a doctor? An AI is cheaper and more effective here anyway) -- oh, and it actually wins the drug war against cartels and gangsters. The list goes on, but sounds kind of dumb to me not to do this? Fentanyl would be a non-issue, along with a host of other issues. We would switch to new issues that live in the light, and we could actively work on them suddenly. Freedom solves most of our invented issues. Controlling the will of people introduces all sorts of insidious complications. I wonder why that is?
- Kalkaline 3y agoYou have to fund rehabilitation for addiction if you're going to open those flood gates. I'm all about legalization, but we need to follow Portugal's lead on this as they saw a major drop in overall drug use.
- survirtual 3y agoYou could easily fund rehabilitation with a fraction of the taxable proceeds from legal drug sales.
- tyingq 3y agoOne thing you can do is have some narcan (naloxone) on hand. It's available without a prescription at national brand pharmacies. Many insurance plans have a $0 copay for it, almost all would be under $20. Useful even if you don't know anyone in your life that would use fentanyl. There's any number of situations where it could happen.
- hypertele-Xii 3y agoNaloxone is a medication used to reverse or reduce the effects of opioids, like fentanyl.
- gymbeaux 3y agoNaloxone is the generic name for Narcan(TM)
- heavyset_go 3y agoSome states offer it for free at pharmacies, no insurance needed.
- 0xCAP 3y agoNon US person here, so feel free to call me out on BS. IMHO people who do fentanyl already have pretty serious mental and/or existential issues going on, like who tf would play russian roulette like that? Sounds more like a societal problem than a mere drug distribution regulation problem to me.
- gambiting 3y agoFrom what I understand - people who got addicted to legal opiates now can't access them and fentanyl is somewhat accessible and gives same effect with lower dose. So it's not necessarily your stereotypical junkies that are using it, it's normal people who were given opiates to deal with pain and now got addicted.
- beezlewax 3y agoSo all those oxy prescriptions weren't a good idea then?
- vuln 3y agoI don’t think you’ll find anyone to argue that they were.
- phtrivier 3y agoUnfortunately, my understanding is that some companies found a _lot_ of people to argue exactly that - if anything, to create plenty of value for the shareholder.
- vuln 3y agoAnd who are the shareholders at the end of the day? The same people taking the pills. Edit: I’m talking about the elderly and their 401ks / pensions and retirement all invested in these types of companies.
- simonsarris 3y ago
- minerva23 3y agoOn a micro level, I live in the US and I don't know anyone who takes fentanyl. "Every corner" is likely journalistic hyperbole.
- vuln 3y agoBrown heroin doesn’t exist anymore. It’s all fent, they’re even cutting coke with fent which makes absolutely no sense to me. It started with oxys until the gov cracked down then everyone went to brown heroin until fent arrived. Report of Fentanyl in coke circa 2018. https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2018-07/BUL-039-18.pdf https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2018-07/BUL-039-18.p... https://www.npr.org/2021/07/05/1013203805/party-drugs-are-being-increasingly-laced-with-fentanyl https://www.npr.org/2021/07/05/1013203805/party-drugs-are-be...
- 15457345234 3y ago> makes absolutely no sense It makes a lot of sense if you assume they're trying to kill everyone
- hotpotamus 3y agoI assume drug dealers like recurring revenue as much as a SaaS company does and it's hard to get recurring revenue from a dead person.
- gus_massa 3y agoLast year here in Argentina we had a cocaine lot cut with carfentanil. IIRC the big drug dealers detected that something was wrong and decided to throw it away. But they had an internal miscommunication (or steal) and the drug was sell anyway. The result was 24 death and like 100 hospitalizations (and probably more unreported cases). Even the Security Minister of our biggest province said on TV something like: paraphrasing> If you bought cocaine yesterday, please discard it. It may be the bad one. One of the reports during the problem: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/03/argentina-tainted-cocaine-deaths-officials https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/03/argentina-tain... One report one year later: https://batimes.com.ar/news/argentina/one-year-without-answers-to-the-24-deaths-from-laced-cocaine-in-argentina.phtml https://batimes.com.ar/news/argentina/one-year-without-answe...
- fabian2k 3y agoJust to get an impression for the scale, the paper that is linked in the article shows that there were ~40000 deaths due to overdose in 2010 and a bit more than 100000 deaths in 2021. So this is not just fentanyl becoming a larger part of the portion of deaths, but a very significant increase in total deaths as well.
- simonebrunozzi 3y agoMinor nitpick: when you provide figures in the multiple thousands, it really improves readability if you use the thousand separator (40000 -> 40,000, and even more so 100000 -> 100,000). Thanks.
- rawgabbit 3y agoTo be fair in many parts of the world 40000 and 100000 is written like this 40.000 and 100.000. So it may confuse non Americans.
- stvltvs 3y agoI've seen a trend of using spaces (40 000) for this reason.
- lr1970 3y agoLet's use Python unambiguous notation with underscores 100_000 or 40_000.
- fabian2k 3y agoYes, I don't really use thousands separators because I use both number systems regularly and the ambiguity annoys me. It's not a practical issue in this case I think as almost everyone would assume US numbers here. But they feel weird to me somehow. I have used spaces at times as a thousands separator, but that might be even more confusing.
- tzs 3y agoSpaces is actually an international standard, as part of SI, for scientific writing. If a numerical value has more than 4 digits on either side of the decimal marker, make groups of three using a thin fixed space. For the decimal marker "." and "," are both acceptable. Use whichever is appropriate for your country or for where you readers are or whatever. Unicode U+2009 (thin space) or U+202F (narrow no-break space) are good for this, but unfortunately neither of them are among the Unicode that works on HN. HN converts them on input to a normal space. E.g., 12 345 (space), 12 345 (U+2009), and 12 345 (U+202F) are all the same on HN. That wasn't always the case. I'm not sure when they started filtering these out on input, but 6 years ago I posted a comment where I pasted in some text demonstrating various Unicode spaces [1], and that works so the change was sometime in the last 6 years. Note: it only works for me in Chrome. In Firefox and Safari the browser changes them all to normal space. I don't know if that is just something peculiar to my Firefox and Safari installations or if Chrome just does Unicode better than they do. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16194485 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16194485
- withinboredom 3y agoI had to get a colonoscopy and be awake for the whole thing. They gave me fentanyl (my first and only time ever experiencing this drug) for the procedure. I have very fond memories of the entire experience, which is extremely disconcerting considering what was going on at the time. This drug probably shouldn’t exist imho.
- Waterluvian 3y agoIt feels like somewhere along the way we declared discomfort and pain to be an invalid human state that should not exist and therefore must be dutifully banished at whatever cost. Maybe it’s okay if a colonoscopy sucks.
- gymbeaux 3y agoI can’t tell if this is satire but suffering for the sake of suffering seems senseless
- withinboredom 3y agoYou shouldn’t look forward to someone you slicing you up, though I do agree with you, to an extent. Like, I don’t want to needlessly suffer, but I also don’t want to think it is “fun” either.
- thelastparadise 3y ago> Maybe it’s okay if a colonoscopy sucks. Eh... no thanks.
- ackbar03 3y agoCould it be the colonoscopy rather than the drug
- withinboredom 3y agoUh no. I think I would be rather fascinated to see a red light moving around my belly if I were sober, but not to the point that I actually was fascinated. Seeing my intestines all twisted up on the monitor should have freaked me out, but I thought it was very pretty looking and asked for a picture to take home and put on my wall. My emotions don’t match up to the facts and my reactions were borderline cringe-worthy. The fact that I can remember it in detail is part of what makes it even more disconcerting. So, no, if I were sober, I don’t think I would have fond memories of the experience.
- 6nf 3y agoIs this happening in other countries?
- Waterluvian 3y agoIt’s been a problem in Canada. Not sure if the same magnitude.
- acd 3y agoPlease have more vacation weeks so that people are less stressed. Remake the financial system so that people cannot take on more debt a cause for stress. Make a progressive tax system for people and large cooperations so that people spend time in local communities and buy local.
- flybrand 3y agoMy wife has pre-cancerous moles and every few years some need to be removed. This year it was done - and they told her to take Advil for 6 inch long incisions on her back. In the past? Pain pills like Oxicotin - which they are now afraid to prescribe. So she’s dealt w 2 weeks of agony as she heals. American medicine is cruel.
- thelastparadise 3y agoDoctors aren't always right. You know you can push back?
- sdiupIGPWEfh 3y agoThe unfortunate reality is that if you push back, you may get "drug seeking behavior" added to your records, making it even less likely to receive sufficient pain relief in the future, even for unrelated situations.
- ginko 3y ago>American medicine is cruel. I'm pretty sure if I asked any Norwegian doctor for opioids after a mole removal I'd be laughed out of the office.
- voisin 3y agoIt sounds like Op’s wife is having more than a mole being frozen off. He references a 6” incision.
- ginko 3y agoI think Op meant six 1" incisions(hence the plural), but I could be mistaken.
- xtracto 3y agoRight on. My wife had some tremendous neck pain for days when we lived I Germany. Something that here in Mexico would have been treated by ibuprofen , until it receded. The German doctor basically redered her to a masseur (sp?) Prescribing massages until the pain subsided. After some days, it did. The culture of "quick fix" for everything that we have adopted in some western countries is biting us back. That's why you have so many unhealthy people (like overweight or even diabetic people who dont want to do any kind of effort so prefer to be filled with pills)
- oneTbrain23 3y agoThis is how foreign agents able to slowly destroy America. It is the people that make a country and not the land. Unalive the native and flood it with "specific" immigrants. Given how incompetent America congress is for the past 3 decades, we are seeing the beginning of fall of Rome unfolding in our lifetime. What a time to live in. Is like given a chance to see destruction of Spanish Armada or sack of Rome....defining moment in history of any fall of great superpower.
- hotpotamus 3y agoWhat specific immigrants do you mean? Most of the immigrants I'm aware of work in kitchens and construction sites or the skilled ones in software or medicine. Most of the people I see calling for ever more power and wealth for the plutocrats who would sell the nation for scrap are natives who want a piece of that action.
- landoftheice 3y ago[dead]
- JoBrad 3y agoI’m old enough to have heard this theory with a few different variations, now, and I can’t help but hear the racial dog whistle undertones, even if the person making the argument doesn’t intend that. I don’t think there is any logical progression of this theory that doesn’t end with horrible cruelty towards “them”. It’s not like we haven’t seen this play out multiple times in the US.
- Gud 3y agoJust out of curiosity, how old are you? These things don't exactly happen overnight.