5 ms·

Fentanyl is fueling a record number of youth drug deaths

34 points by wslh 2y ago

wslh 2y ago
https://archive.is/IS8fs https://archive.is/IS8fs
phone8675309 2y ago
When do we say "enough" to all of these death and just legalize opiates? Fentanyl's rise is 100% attributable to smuggling in drugs due to the War on Drugs. It allows the smugglers to move the maximum potency with the minimum risk and minimum quantity. Drug smuggling is a business, and as long as opiates remain illegal to posses without a prescription than this incentive will dominate. Legalizing opiates, providing safe and clean areas for people to use, and using those safe and clean areas to get people help to quit, help finding a place to live, help getting food to eat, and help reintegrating into society will go much, much further than continued prohibition.
- Clubber 2y ago
  I never heard of fentanyl until the government did their crackdown on pills in the 2010s. Regular doctors (not pill mills) were terrified of getting arrested for prescribing them legitimately. When the they started the crackdown, I predicted heroin use would start to spike again, and as we all know, heroin doesn't have the dosage written on the side of a bottle. We've been doing the same shit for 50+ years, and the results are always the same: more drug use of ever harder drugs, more deaths, more destitution, more prison, more homelessness. We should try something else, but when all you have is a hammer ...
  - bermuda4you 2y ago
    How do you explain the failed drug decriminalization in Oregon?
    - bsder 2y ago
      No funding ever materialized for the support and treatment programs that were supposed to be part and parcel of the decriminalization. You can't solely decriminalize drugs, throw everybody to the wolves and expect a good outcome.
      - bermuda4you 2y ago
        Oregon already has a large number of safe injection sites, support groups, rehabs, soup kitchens, etc. Like the failed homelessness industrial complex - it's never enough, we just need to spend a few more billions, and then just a few more.
    - jrflowers 2y ago
      What was your personal experience with decriminalization in Oregon?
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - bermuda4you 2y ago
        I have no personal experience with decriminalization in Oregon. What's your point?
        jrflowers 2y ago
        This is a good point. Firsthand experience and secondhand opinion are interchangeable so why would anyone ask a question like that
        bermuda4you 2y ago
        Totally agree with you - great point! HN is known as the hub for drug addicted homeless people from Portland, OR. I should probably find a different forum since I don't share this experience first hand.
- bermuda4you 2y ago
  Legalization of hard drugs doesn't work long term. If you provide all resources to people to enjoy opiates - they will have no incentive to quit. Why is this utopian view so persistent?
  - notfed 2y ago
    > you provide all resources to people to enjoy opiates - they will have no incentive to quit. So?
    - bermuda4you 2y ago
      Ah, the "progressive" argument. Let people rot to death, it's the compassionate way.
      - com2kid 2y ago
        It is also the libertarian argument: The government shouldn't tell people what to do with their own body. Then again, ideally the government would be hard at working making society nice enough to live in that people don't turn to opiates...
        bermuda4you 2y ago
        Letting people have full agency in their choices - sure. But not the big government part.
        mensetmanusman 2y ago
        The government is concerned with outsourcing manufacturing to make widgets cost less.
      - heavyset_go 2y ago
        There are millions of people on opioids like Suboxone, Tramadol, hydrocodone, etc that aren't "rotting to death". Opioids, in general, don't have many deleterious effects on the body the way that things like alcohol, cigarettes or amphetamines do.
- bsder 2y ago
  > When do we say "enough" to all of these death and just legalize opiates? That's not enough. You have to legalize everything with restrictions like cigarettes and alcohol. The problem is that fentanyl is so powerful that it contaminates everything. Consequently, you get people who bought drugs completely unrelated to fentanyl still overdosing from it (currently a problem in Austin, for example). You don't want random kids doing marijuana dying from fentanyl. The only way to avoid that it to clean up the manufacturing. And the only way to do that is to force it to be made in actual medical manufacturing facilities.
  - quickthrowman 2y ago
    > Consequently, you get people who bought drugs completely unrelated to fentanyl still overdosing from it (currently a problem in Austin, for example). > You don't want random kids doing marijuana dying from fentanyl. Nobody is dying from fentanyl laced marijuana. However, people are dying due to buying and eating pills that contain fentanyl when they think they’re buying xanax or oxycontin. None of the fentanyl is accidentally in these pills. The manufacturer knows about the fentanyl, but the customer might not be aware. People have died from doing cocaine that had allegedly unknown fentanyl in it, as this news story details the deaths of three people who claimed to have done cocaine with unknown fentanyl in it: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-09-05/three-dead-of-overdose-early-saturday-morning https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-09-05/three-de...
    - fragmede 2y ago
      The 4D chess game there is cartel B is undercutting cartel A. Cartel A gets wind of this and gets pissed. they get some of their guys to put fentanyl in their bricks, but instead of marketing it as coming from cartel A, they mark it with the cartel B stamp. voila, fentanyl-laced cocaine
    - bsder 2y ago
      https://spectrumlocalnews.com/tx/austin/news/2024/05/09/largest-fentanyl-spike-in-decade-puts-austin-on-high-alert https://spectrumlocalnews.com/tx/austin/news/2024/05/09/larg... > “The thing that makes this surge so different than others is most of these people weren’t trying to take opioids,” Stedman said. “They were trying to use multiple different substances — crack cocaine, methamphetamine, K2.” They're not putting it in marijuana intentionally, as I understand it. It's simply so hard to keep from contaminating it that it is practically impossible to avoid the contamination.
- yodsanklai 2y ago
  > Drug smuggling is a business, and as long as opiates remain illegal to posses without a prescription than this incentive will dominate. I don't really have an opinion on opiates legalization, but I'm not sure I follow your reasoning. It could be legal, but smugglers could still sell cheaper drug with higher potency. One may wonder why these people get addicted in the first place. It seems rather specific to the US.
  - sharadov 2y ago
    People seeking illegal drugs ( Fentanyl ) stems from the fact that the government went after pill mills and illegal prescriptions, so people started seeking these elsewhere. I would rather people do Heroin than fentanyl which is 10X worse and a small dose can kill. The problem is that regular pills from the street like oxycodone are being laced with fentanyl. Someone seeking a cheap high, but with the laced pill can end up on the deathbed. At this point, I would rather legalize opiates than people killing themselves with these tainted pills.
  - fragmede 2y ago
    having to manufacture something clandestinely costs more than manufacturing it with the full force of the industrial revolution. What dealer is going to compete with $5/gram of drugs that's actually pure and hasn't been stepped on?
  - harry8 2y ago
    The argument runs like this. Legal, regulated opiate availability implies a known quality, purity and therefore dosage. Any drug user who prefers heroin takes uncut heroin in the precise amount they choose. They would not choose to take cut fentanyl where they can be precise about nothing, including the knowledge that it is fentanyl not something else they might prefer. The secondary argument is the reduction in crime committed to finance addiction. Burglary, mugging, prostitution all are said to expect to decline. The tertiary argument is the reduction in corruption of law enforcement enabled by the sugar bags of cash in the illegal drug trade, a trade that just got undercut by the government to the point where it is out of business. In addition the additional police resource made available by the collapse of the illegal drug trade and reduction in "drug use financing" crime is very useful in reducing other crime and corruption. Whether you believe it or not is up to you. If you have strong views either way it would pay to research results from countries where it has been tried while noting it's a hugely emotive issue so your bullshit detector has to be well tuned. Also keeping in mind any good idea can be ruined in implementation through incompetence, inexperience or malice. Also people do get very excited about ideas they think are fantastic but turn out not to be. Good luck.
- mensetmanusman 2y ago
  We did. The pharma industry prescribed them and got millions addicted, then they took the drugs away, so people turned to Fentanyl.
- jmyeet 2y ago
  > It allows the smugglers to move the maximum potency with the minimum risk and minimum quantity. Mostly true but there's another factor: fentanyl is synthetic. There's no dealing with opium poppy crops, farmers, processing of crops (in places like Mexico and Afghanistan), transportation and as a result it's cheap. > Legalizing opiates ... I agree that the legalizing these drugs is better than prohibition but, by itself, is an insufficient solution. As an aside, the US loves criminalizing things. Building prisons is jobs. Prisoners are slave labor. Felons count for the census but can't vote. Often you'll have private prisons thrown in there too. These are an abimination but still represent only a small minority of prisoners. The Louisiana State Prison, known colloquially as "Angola", is basically a cotton plantation with slave labor. People need access to their basic needs like housing, food and water. A lot of drug addiction comes out of homelessness as people self-medicate. A bunch of heroin addicts were originally on an opiate prescription. The American medical system compared to other countries hands out opiates like candy. People need access to mental health care, have security and have hope and dignity in their lives. All of these things are substantially cheaper than our carceral state but there's no profit in it and nobody wants to live near "homeless" people. At the core of this is the American belief in the myth of meritocracy because the other side of that coin is that homelessness, drug addiction and other awful circumstances are viewed as deserved or at least a personal moral failure. As such, such people almost deserve those outcomes. So my point is that legalization just barely scratches the surface.
  - fragmede 2y ago
    War on Drugs I was a failure. Time to declare a War on Drugs II, fought with counseling, mental health resources, government assistance programs for food, housing, jobs, hope.
- lenkite 2y ago
  Isn't Pharmaceutical fentanyl already physician approvable ? Why would making an it a recreational drug reduce the number of deaths ? Or is your position that all drugs - including antibiotics should be freely available for recreational use without any physician advice ?
bpiche 2y ago
[flagged]
- alephnerd 2y ago
  What OP is referencing: [0] - https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF10890 https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF10890 [1] - https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy1779 https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy1779 [2] - https://www.brookings.edu/events/chinas-role-in-the-smuggling-of-synthetic-drugs-and-precursors/ https://www.brookings.edu/events/chinas-role-in-the-smugglin...
- Fauntleroy 2y ago
  While it doesn't encompass the entire issue, China's involvement in the fentanyl (and other US drug crises) should be mentioned more often. America needs to wake up and do something—anything—about this asymmetrical warfare attack.
  - fathyb 2y ago
    Isn't opioid addiction the root cause? People dying of fentanyl are mostly opioid addicts who started with prescription meds [1] such as Oxycontin. Heroin is close to fent in lethality, and oxycodone is next in line [2]. [1] https://nida.nih.gov/publications/research-reports/prescription-opioids-heroin/prescription-opioid-use-risk-factor-heroin-use https://nida.nih.gov/publications/research-reports/prescript... [2] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr67/nvsr67_09-508.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr67/nvsr67_09-508.pdf - Figure 1.
    - alephnerd 2y ago
      Opioid addition is a major cause, yet Fentanyl is popular because the margins are INSANE while access to prescription opioids became much more restricted. In 2019, Indian companies were a major source of precursors as well [0], yet Indian authorities cracked down on this path [1]. Meanwhile, Chinese authorities turned a blind eye [0]. That said, China is semi-federal as well, and depending on which Province the companies are from, it might be difficult to crack down, especially given that Chinese organized crime has transnationalized in Myanmar and Cambodia [2] None of this can actually work at scale without financing and ease of operation, and the fact that authorities in multiple countries are turning a blind eye and sometimes actively using Organized Crime as a hybrid tool of power projection (eg. Triads in the Chinese diaspora, Punjabi Organized Crime in the Indo-Canadian Diaspora, the Russian and Caucuasian Vorys, etc) That's how you have a DoJ lead brothel crackdown in DC and Boston that was because they were being used as an attempted honeypot [3] [0] - https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2020-03/DEA_GOV_DIR-008-20%20Fentanyl%20Flow%20in%20the%20United%20States_0.pdf https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2020-03/DEA_GOV_DIR-... [1] - https://www.deccanherald.com/india/ncb-arrests-tamil-nadu-based-drug-dealer-in-drugs-trafficking-case-2929315 https://www.deccanherald.com/india/ncb-arrests-tamil-nadu-ba... [2] - Highly recommend Peng Wang's research at HKU (https://sociology.hku.hk/people/wang-peng https://sociology.hku.hk/people/wang-peng) [3] - https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/08/high-end-brothels-serviced-elected-officials-tech-and-pharma-execs-military-officials-and-more-feds.html https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/08/high-end-brothels-serviced-e...
dev1ycan 2y ago
Lol people still talking about Fent but then you have Tranq which is even worse, 5 years from now you'll have the streets filled with limbless people from tranq, horrifying
- skeaker 2y ago
  Probably fair to say that neither are any good.
  - endofreach 2y ago
    As someone who started doing drugs at a young age, i am happy that i am now too old for this.
    - dzhiurgis 2y ago
      Do you regret it or did you had fun? Personally I kinda miss it but also it was such a waste of time. Esp not miss unproductive hippy conversations around bonfire.
      - endofreach 2y ago
        I don't regret it. I just think how lucky i am, that i didn't lose myself completely. There were a few close calls though back then they didn't scare me. They were cool stories (in my and my friends minds back then). Today i think differently about that. My close calls were with very clean drugs. Seeing all these crazy new drugs & what they're mixed with, i believe these close calls would have been final ones for me. I think the experiences did a lot of damage to my young brain, but also, everyone is damaged one way or the other. But man, i got fun memories. Alongside sad & scary ones. The last 10 years i was so "focused" on creating something and spent most of time working on stuff (on the computer). Pulling 12-14 hour days or 1-2 days no sleep at all regularly... A lot of less real life memories. That is something i regret much more. Especially now that i am a father and turned 30. I still spend my working hours too focused on trying something big, now that i have already wasted my good years on the computer. This is actually something i regret. Because i feel now that i still didn't do much of significant work & always struggle financially, i am a loser. But i'd rather feel like a loser with less of a "wannabe change the world entrepreneur focused" past and more of a "man, was i really still such an idiot when i was 25" kind of past.
jink344 2y ago
Legalization is the easy part. Dealing with the consequences of legalization would take more effort.
duffpkg 2y ago
A significant issue with fentanyl related mortality is accidental consumption. Fentanyl is so potent and because of its relative ease of synthesis and a careless illegal drug supply chain, contamination is common. Not all but many of these deaths are a result of teens consuming a drug that they percieve as "safe" like marijuana or "adderall" or "oxy" etc but through careless handling by dealers or intentional misrepresentation, end up receiving a fatal dose of fentanyl. I think it is an important point as many comments reference decrimilization and other "fentanyl policy" items.
- acjacobson 2y ago
  I keep reading this, but I haven't been able to find much data on intentional vs. accidental consumption with the exception of people who thought they were taking heroin. Do you have any sources on how many deaths can be attributed to laced or misrepresented non-opiates (e.g. marijuana, adderall, mdma)?
  - duffpkg 2y ago
    I don't think this is someting that is well recorded. I mean the way these encounters are documented there isn't necessarily a box to tick that is "meant to take a different illegal drug but accidentally got fentanyl". I speak anecdotally from having been party to tens of thousands of acute care admits and a lot of public health operations. You see "a lot" of "I just smoked a joint" or "we thought we were getting LSD/X/oxy etc" in teenage fentanyl ODs that recover. Also having had exposure to the drug dealing side via public health interactions and community support groups, my visibility into it has told me these are not careful meticulous people as a whole.
DueDilligence 2y ago
[dead]

34 points by wslh 2y ago

wslh 2y ago

https://archive.is/IS8fs https://archive.is/IS8fs

When do we say "enough" to all of these death and just legalize opiates? Fentanyl's rise is 100% attributable to smuggling in drugs due to the War on Drugs. It allows the smugglers to move the maximum potency with the minimum risk and minimum quantity. Drug smuggling is a business, and as long as opiates remain illegal to posses without a prescription than this incentive will dominate. Legalizing opiates, providing safe and clean areas for people to use, and using those safe and clean areas to get people help to quit, help finding a place to live, help getting food to eat, and help reintegrating into society will go much, much further than continued prohibition.

Clubber 2y ago
I never heard of fentanyl until the government did their crackdown on pills in the 2010s. Regular doctors (not pill mills) were terrified of getting arrested for prescribing them legitimately. When the they started the crackdown, I predicted heroin use would start to spike again, and as we all know, heroin doesn't have the dosage written on the side of a bottle. We've been doing the same shit for 50+ years, and the results are always the same: more drug use of ever harder drugs, more deaths, more destitution, more prison, more homelessness. We should try something else, but when all you have is a hammer ...
- bermuda4you 2y ago
  How do you explain the failed drug decriminalization in Oregon?
  - bsder 2y ago
    No funding ever materialized for the support and treatment programs that were supposed to be part and parcel of the decriminalization. You can't solely decriminalize drugs, throw everybody to the wolves and expect a good outcome.
    - bermuda4you 2y ago
      Oregon already has a large number of safe injection sites, support groups, rehabs, soup kitchens, etc. Like the failed homelessness industrial complex - it's never enough, we just need to spend a few more billions, and then just a few more.
  - jrflowers 2y ago
    What was your personal experience with decriminalization in Oregon?
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - bermuda4you 2y ago
      I have no personal experience with decriminalization in Oregon. What's your point?
      - jrflowers 2y ago
        This is a good point. Firsthand experience and secondhand opinion are interchangeable so why would anyone ask a question like that
        bermuda4you 2y ago
        Totally agree with you - great point! HN is known as the hub for drug addicted homeless people from Portland, OR. I should probably find a different forum since I don't share this experience first hand.
bermuda4you 2y ago
Legalization of hard drugs doesn't work long term. If you provide all resources to people to enjoy opiates - they will have no incentive to quit. Why is this utopian view so persistent?
- notfed 2y ago
  > you provide all resources to people to enjoy opiates - they will have no incentive to quit. So?
  - bermuda4you 2y ago
    Ah, the "progressive" argument. Let people rot to death, it's the compassionate way.
    - com2kid 2y ago
      It is also the libertarian argument: The government shouldn't tell people what to do with their own body. Then again, ideally the government would be hard at working making society nice enough to live in that people don't turn to opiates...
      - bermuda4you 2y ago
        Letting people have full agency in their choices - sure. But not the big government part.
      - mensetmanusman 2y ago
        The government is concerned with outsourcing manufacturing to make widgets cost less.
    - heavyset_go 2y ago
      There are millions of people on opioids like Suboxone, Tramadol, hydrocodone, etc that aren't "rotting to death". Opioids, in general, don't have many deleterious effects on the body the way that things like alcohol, cigarettes or amphetamines do.
bsder 2y ago
> When do we say "enough" to all of these death and just legalize opiates? That's not enough. You have to legalize everything with restrictions like cigarettes and alcohol. The problem is that fentanyl is so powerful that it contaminates everything. Consequently, you get people who bought drugs completely unrelated to fentanyl still overdosing from it (currently a problem in Austin, for example). You don't want random kids doing marijuana dying from fentanyl. The only way to avoid that it to clean up the manufacturing. And the only way to do that is to force it to be made in actual medical manufacturing facilities.
- quickthrowman 2y ago
  > Consequently, you get people who bought drugs completely unrelated to fentanyl still overdosing from it (currently a problem in Austin, for example). > You don't want random kids doing marijuana dying from fentanyl. Nobody is dying from fentanyl laced marijuana. However, people are dying due to buying and eating pills that contain fentanyl when they think they’re buying xanax or oxycontin. None of the fentanyl is accidentally in these pills. The manufacturer knows about the fentanyl, but the customer might not be aware. People have died from doing cocaine that had allegedly unknown fentanyl in it, as this news story details the deaths of three people who claimed to have done cocaine with unknown fentanyl in it: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-09-05/three-dead-of-overdose-early-saturday-morning https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-09-05/three-de...
  - fragmede 2y ago
    The 4D chess game there is cartel B is undercutting cartel A. Cartel A gets wind of this and gets pissed. they get some of their guys to put fentanyl in their bricks, but instead of marketing it as coming from cartel A, they mark it with the cartel B stamp. voila, fentanyl-laced cocaine
  - bsder 2y ago
    https://spectrumlocalnews.com/tx/austin/news/2024/05/09/largest-fentanyl-spike-in-decade-puts-austin-on-high-alert https://spectrumlocalnews.com/tx/austin/news/2024/05/09/larg... > “The thing that makes this surge so different than others is most of these people weren’t trying to take opioids,” Stedman said. “They were trying to use multiple different substances — crack cocaine, methamphetamine, K2.” They're not putting it in marijuana intentionally, as I understand it. It's simply so hard to keep from contaminating it that it is practically impossible to avoid the contamination.
yodsanklai 2y ago
> Drug smuggling is a business, and as long as opiates remain illegal to posses without a prescription than this incentive will dominate. I don't really have an opinion on opiates legalization, but I'm not sure I follow your reasoning. It could be legal, but smugglers could still sell cheaper drug with higher potency. One may wonder why these people get addicted in the first place. It seems rather specific to the US.
- sharadov 2y ago
  People seeking illegal drugs ( Fentanyl ) stems from the fact that the government went after pill mills and illegal prescriptions, so people started seeking these elsewhere. I would rather people do Heroin than fentanyl which is 10X worse and a small dose can kill. The problem is that regular pills from the street like oxycodone are being laced with fentanyl. Someone seeking a cheap high, but with the laced pill can end up on the deathbed. At this point, I would rather legalize opiates than people killing themselves with these tainted pills.
- fragmede 2y ago
  having to manufacture something clandestinely costs more than manufacturing it with the full force of the industrial revolution. What dealer is going to compete with $5/gram of drugs that's actually pure and hasn't been stepped on?
- harry8 2y ago
  The argument runs like this. Legal, regulated opiate availability implies a known quality, purity and therefore dosage. Any drug user who prefers heroin takes uncut heroin in the precise amount they choose. They would not choose to take cut fentanyl where they can be precise about nothing, including the knowledge that it is fentanyl not something else they might prefer. The secondary argument is the reduction in crime committed to finance addiction. Burglary, mugging, prostitution all are said to expect to decline. The tertiary argument is the reduction in corruption of law enforcement enabled by the sugar bags of cash in the illegal drug trade, a trade that just got undercut by the government to the point where it is out of business. In addition the additional police resource made available by the collapse of the illegal drug trade and reduction in "drug use financing" crime is very useful in reducing other crime and corruption. Whether you believe it or not is up to you. If you have strong views either way it would pay to research results from countries where it has been tried while noting it's a hugely emotive issue so your bullshit detector has to be well tuned. Also keeping in mind any good idea can be ruined in implementation through incompetence, inexperience or malice. Also people do get very excited about ideas they think are fantastic but turn out not to be. Good luck.
mensetmanusman 2y ago
We did. The pharma industry prescribed them and got millions addicted, then they took the drugs away, so people turned to Fentanyl.
jmyeet 2y ago
> It allows the smugglers to move the maximum potency with the minimum risk and minimum quantity. Mostly true but there's another factor: fentanyl is synthetic. There's no dealing with opium poppy crops, farmers, processing of crops (in places like Mexico and Afghanistan), transportation and as a result it's cheap. > Legalizing opiates ... I agree that the legalizing these drugs is better than prohibition but, by itself, is an insufficient solution. As an aside, the US loves criminalizing things. Building prisons is jobs. Prisoners are slave labor. Felons count for the census but can't vote. Often you'll have private prisons thrown in there too. These are an abimination but still represent only a small minority of prisoners. The Louisiana State Prison, known colloquially as "Angola", is basically a cotton plantation with slave labor. People need access to their basic needs like housing, food and water. A lot of drug addiction comes out of homelessness as people self-medicate. A bunch of heroin addicts were originally on an opiate prescription. The American medical system compared to other countries hands out opiates like candy. People need access to mental health care, have security and have hope and dignity in their lives. All of these things are substantially cheaper than our carceral state but there's no profit in it and nobody wants to live near "homeless" people. At the core of this is the American belief in the myth of meritocracy because the other side of that coin is that homelessness, drug addiction and other awful circumstances are viewed as deserved or at least a personal moral failure. As such, such people almost deserve those outcomes. So my point is that legalization just barely scratches the surface.
- fragmede 2y ago
  War on Drugs I was a failure. Time to declare a War on Drugs II, fought with counseling, mental health resources, government assistance programs for food, housing, jobs, hope.
lenkite 2y ago
Isn't Pharmaceutical fentanyl already physician approvable ? Why would making an it a recreational drug reduce the number of deaths ? Or is your position that all drugs - including antibiotics should be freely available for recreational use without any physician advice ?

bpiche 2y ago

[flagged]

alephnerd 2y ago
What OP is referencing: [0] - https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF10890 https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF10890 [1] - https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy1779 https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy1779 [2] - https://www.brookings.edu/events/chinas-role-in-the-smuggling-of-synthetic-drugs-and-precursors/ https://www.brookings.edu/events/chinas-role-in-the-smugglin...
Fauntleroy 2y ago
While it doesn't encompass the entire issue, China's involvement in the fentanyl (and other US drug crises) should be mentioned more often. America needs to wake up and do something—anything—about this asymmetrical warfare attack.
- fathyb 2y ago
  Isn't opioid addiction the root cause? People dying of fentanyl are mostly opioid addicts who started with prescription meds [1] such as Oxycontin. Heroin is close to fent in lethality, and oxycodone is next in line [2]. [1] https://nida.nih.gov/publications/research-reports/prescription-opioids-heroin/prescription-opioid-use-risk-factor-heroin-use https://nida.nih.gov/publications/research-reports/prescript... [2] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr67/nvsr67_09-508.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr67/nvsr67_09-508.pdf - Figure 1.
  - alephnerd 2y ago
    Opioid addition is a major cause, yet Fentanyl is popular because the margins are INSANE while access to prescription opioids became much more restricted. In 2019, Indian companies were a major source of precursors as well [0], yet Indian authorities cracked down on this path [1]. Meanwhile, Chinese authorities turned a blind eye [0]. That said, China is semi-federal as well, and depending on which Province the companies are from, it might be difficult to crack down, especially given that Chinese organized crime has transnationalized in Myanmar and Cambodia [2] None of this can actually work at scale without financing and ease of operation, and the fact that authorities in multiple countries are turning a blind eye and sometimes actively using Organized Crime as a hybrid tool of power projection (eg. Triads in the Chinese diaspora, Punjabi Organized Crime in the Indo-Canadian Diaspora, the Russian and Caucuasian Vorys, etc) That's how you have a DoJ lead brothel crackdown in DC and Boston that was because they were being used as an attempted honeypot [3] [0] - https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2020-03/DEA_GOV_DIR-008-20%20Fentanyl%20Flow%20in%20the%20United%20States_0.pdf https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2020-03/DEA_GOV_DIR-... [1] - https://www.deccanherald.com/india/ncb-arrests-tamil-nadu-based-drug-dealer-in-drugs-trafficking-case-2929315 https://www.deccanherald.com/india/ncb-arrests-tamil-nadu-ba... [2] - Highly recommend Peng Wang's research at HKU (https://sociology.hku.hk/people/wang-peng https://sociology.hku.hk/people/wang-peng) [3] - https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/08/high-end-brothels-serviced-elected-officials-tech-and-pharma-execs-military-officials-and-more-feds.html https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/08/high-end-brothels-serviced-e...

dev1ycan 2y ago

Lol people still talking about Fent but then you have Tranq which is even worse, 5 years from now you'll have the streets filled with limbless people from tranq, horrifying

skeaker 2y ago
Probably fair to say that neither are any good.
- endofreach 2y ago
  As someone who started doing drugs at a young age, i am happy that i am now too old for this.
  - dzhiurgis 2y ago
    Do you regret it or did you had fun? Personally I kinda miss it but also it was such a waste of time. Esp not miss unproductive hippy conversations around bonfire.
    - endofreach 2y ago
      I don't regret it. I just think how lucky i am, that i didn't lose myself completely. There were a few close calls though back then they didn't scare me. They were cool stories (in my and my friends minds back then). Today i think differently about that. My close calls were with very clean drugs. Seeing all these crazy new drugs & what they're mixed with, i believe these close calls would have been final ones for me. I think the experiences did a lot of damage to my young brain, but also, everyone is damaged one way or the other. But man, i got fun memories. Alongside sad & scary ones. The last 10 years i was so "focused" on creating something and spent most of time working on stuff (on the computer). Pulling 12-14 hour days or 1-2 days no sleep at all regularly... A lot of less real life memories. That is something i regret much more. Especially now that i am a father and turned 30. I still spend my working hours too focused on trying something big, now that i have already wasted my good years on the computer. This is actually something i regret. Because i feel now that i still didn't do much of significant work & always struggle financially, i am a loser. But i'd rather feel like a loser with less of a "wannabe change the world entrepreneur focused" past and more of a "man, was i really still such an idiot when i was 25" kind of past.

jink344 2y ago

Legalization is the easy part. Dealing with the consequences of legalization would take more effort.

duffpkg 2y ago

A significant issue with fentanyl related mortality is accidental consumption. Fentanyl is so potent and because of its relative ease of synthesis and a careless illegal drug supply chain, contamination is common. Not all but many of these deaths are a result of teens consuming a drug that they percieve as "safe" like marijuana or "adderall" or "oxy" etc but through careless handling by dealers or intentional misrepresentation, end up receiving a fatal dose of fentanyl. I think it is an important point as many comments reference decrimilization and other "fentanyl policy" items.

acjacobson 2y ago
I keep reading this, but I haven't been able to find much data on intentional vs. accidental consumption with the exception of people who thought they were taking heroin. Do you have any sources on how many deaths can be attributed to laced or misrepresented non-opiates (e.g. marijuana, adderall, mdma)?
- duffpkg 2y ago
  I don't think this is someting that is well recorded. I mean the way these encounters are documented there isn't necessarily a box to tick that is "meant to take a different illegal drug but accidentally got fentanyl". I speak anecdotally from having been party to tens of thousands of acute care admits and a lot of public health operations. You see "a lot" of "I just smoked a joint" or "we thought we were getting LSD/X/oxy etc" in teenage fentanyl ODs that recover. Also having had exposure to the drug dealing side via public health interactions and community support groups, my visibility into it has told me these are not careful meticulous people as a whole.

DueDilligence 2y ago

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