
Dark web dealers voluntarily ban deadly fentanyl - cribbles
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/dec/01/dark-web-dealers-voluntary-ban-deadly-fentanyl
======
janhle
I'm seeing a lot of nonsense in this thread and I'd just like to point out a
few things that seem to be commonly misunderstood and misrepresented by the
media:

\- Fentanyl is only more dangerous than heroin because it is not properly
prepared. This means the dilution is not homogeneous, and users unexpectedly
come across a stronger dose or batch.

\- If properly prepared, fentanyl is safer than heroin. Its therapeutic index
is 400 vs 70 for heroin (this measures the ratio between active dose and toxic
dose). Proper preparation means diluting it so that users can take a dose
similar to heroin for the same effects. With correctly diluted fentanyl, users
have a wider margin of error before an overdose. Dilution is never done as a
last step by the user, it's done in labs that prepare large amounts of the
drug.

\- For addicts, the ritual is the same for both drugs. The feeling is mostly
the same, but lasts a little shorter for fentanyl. The addiction potential
being higher for one or the other is disputable.

\- Once again, it having a lower active dose ("stronger") does not make it
inherently more dangerous. It just makes dilution more technical, and this is
where the problem comes from.

 _Edit: Of course, I am in no way defending recreational use of the drug. Like
all opioids, it 's very addictive and can easily lead to a self-destructive
habit. And with recreational users, overdoses will probably happen even with a
perfectly diluted batch._

~~~
refurb
Indeed. Fentanyl is used thousands of times per day in the medical setting
because it is a safe drug.

I do agree that the potency makes preparation difficult. Few dealers have the
equipment to either accurately weigh it out or dilute it such that the product
is homogenous. When you move up to even more potent opioids like carfentanyl
or sufentanyl, the risk is even higher. Who has the ability to accurately
weigh out 0.030 mg?

That said, dying of a “hot dose” of heroin is not exactly uncommon either.

Interestingly, opioids are toxic at high doses as they depress the breathing
response to blood CO2 levels. If someone overdosed and you breath for them
(CPR or ventilator), you can just wait for the effects to wear off and they’ll
be none the worse for wear. I’ve read case reports where a users friends
maintain CPR for an hour plus until they started breathing on their own.

~~~
thomasfedb
> Fentanyl is used thousands of times per day in the medical setting because
> it is a safe drug.

Fentanyl is not a safe drug. Period. It is a powerful and dangerous drug with
dangerous and potentially lethal side effects and classified as such. It's
also and incredibly useful drug, potentially of great benefit to people in
severe pain - benefit that must be balanced against the danger and risk.

In controlled settings (e.g. in a hospital bed with physiological monitoring)
many dangerous drugs can be used in a safe way, Fentanyl included. But that
doesn't make Fentanyl a safe drug, just a drug that can be used safely.

In the same way TNT and rockets can both be used safely - neither are sensibly
intrinsically safe.

> If someone overdosed and you breath for them (CPR or ventilator), you can
> just wait for the effects to wear off and they’ll be none the worse for
> wear.

I think this is too complacent. Aspiration is a real risk, they could choke,
pneumonia can be life threatening. If somebody has overdosed, get professional
medical care - management of the compromised airway is no DIY project.

~~~
code_duck
I think the point was it’s not any more dangerous than heroin and morphine,
and can be safe when properly administered in a medical setting.

~~~
Novashi
I have no idea why we're talking about it in a medical setting when this is
clearly meant to show how dangerous it is in the hands of the public. Fentanyl
is dangerous on the streets and safer in the hospital sheets, of course, but
that basically has no bearing on how it's used by addicts and cartels.

~~~
thomasfedb
Have you ever seen a HN thread that stayed strictly on topic?

------
yholio
> Vince O’Brien, one of the NCA’s leads on drugs, told the Observer that dark
> web marketplace operators appeared to have made a commercial decision,
> because selling a drug that could lead to fatalities was more likely to
> prompt attention from police.

Way to save face Vince, so the good old police still works to the benefit of
society, but in a convoluted fashion where the underworld avoids making the
public too angry and force the police to do it's job.

How about the idea that, like high explosives, nukes and child porn, the
people involved recolonize them as inherently immoral and refuse to partake?
Unlike, say, the ban on recreational drugs itself - which is the whole reason
poisons like fentanyl became available.

~~~
tim333
Dunno - I kind of buy the idea of the drug dealers being profit motivated and
dropping fentanyl because they think they'll get banged up. The police have
limited resources and so will go after the worst stuff like fentynal rather
than people smoking joints which they don't bother with at all these days in
the UK.

~~~
DanBC
> rather than people smoking joints which they don't bother with at all these
> days in the UK.

Police regularly arrest people with small amounts of cannabis, and the range
of options they have include criminal prosecution which still happens.

------
jwally
Why would an addict use heroin over fentanyl if they both produce the same
euphoric effects but fentanyl is cheaper / stronger?

I almost always hear about fentanyl in the context of "...the heroin was cut
with with fentanyl". I read that statement like "...the heroin was cut with
ultra-pure-super-heroin". Why wouldn't the addict cut out the "middle-man" and
just use fentanyl? Legitimately trying to understand.

~~~
joecool1029
From the addict's perspective, it's because it's better to use something
that's cheap and only might kill you, versus something that is only slightly
cheaper and probably will kill you due to difficulty in dosing.

The only reason fent exists on the black market is it's stupidly easy to
smuggle compared to heroin, a tiny thimbleful of it could be cut into
something like a thousand doses. This works out for dealer economics, it's not
to benefit the addict.

~~~
trhway
>This works out for dealer economics, it's not to benefit the addict.

there were some articles/research that the harsher the Prohibition enforcement
the more trafficking shifts into the higher potent stuff.

~~~
code_duck
Illegality also encroaches users to use drugs in a way that maximizes their
effect, such as injection, insufflation or smoking. Cocaine is, for instance,
active orally, but few people take it that way these days.

~~~
code_duck
I meant ‘encourages’.

------
solidsnack9000
_Suppliers, fearing police crackdown, decide opioid is too high-risk to trade_

No evidence is offered to support this byline -- no interviews with suppliers,
no surveys, no web forum transcripts.

~~~
cududa
Around the time of your comment China announced a massive crackdown on
fentynal production as a gesture of good will towards the US. I suspect that
has something to do with this

~~~
dglass
The US-China trade deal has 100% to do with this. It's too big of a
coincidence that just as China agrees to designate fentanyl as a controlled
substance, the dealers voluntarily (as a whole) decide it's too risky to
trade.

~~~
siruncledrew
It's a win-win for China beyond the trade war.

China gets:

1\. Positive sentiment from US.

2\. Crackdown on drug producers in China (which furthers the objective of
having strict control on drugs with steep penalties, and making examples out
of drugs dealers for CCTV).

3\. To hand a blow to Chinese Triads exporting drugs and laundering money
outside of China (e.g. bringing cash out of China):
[https://globalnews.ca/news/4149818/vancouver-cautionary-
tale...](https://globalnews.ca/news/4149818/vancouver-cautionary-tale-money-
laundering-drugs/)

4\. Tighter government oversight/control on the prescription pharmaceuticals
market.

------
LaikaF
I remember when this happened on Hansa because the dutch feds took it over.

~~~
YouKnowBetter
During their time as black market administrators, the Dutch police only banned
one product on Hansa: the highly dangerous opioid Fentanyl.

[https://www.wired.com/story/hansa-dutch-police-sting-
operati...](https://www.wired.com/story/hansa-dutch-police-sting-operation/)

------
cududa
The timing of this is interesting, particularly that minutes ago China
announced, as a gesture of good will towards the US, illegal fentanyl
production/ distribution would carry the highest punishment (death)

~~~
yesforwhat
> as a gesture of good will towards the US

"Let me remove this gun from your temple. Thank me, now."

------
agumonkey
When pirates react faster than government you should think.

------
mschuster91
Makes sense. Can't make money when customers are ending up dead. Selling pot
is one thing, can't die from an overdose, but if I were a drug dealer I'd
leave my paws off of heroin, fenta and friends.

~~~
michaelcampbell
It always confuses me when I hear of kids dying to OD'ing on this stuff; why
cut your product with _so much_ of something that would kill your customers?

~~~
imsofuture
It's accidental. The problem with fentanyl is that it's so ridiculously
strong.

So you're selling heroin and figure "hey, I'll cut it and make more money".
You add something inert and then add a tiny bit of a fentanyl and oops you
added too much, now it's poisonous for users to take a "normal" dose.

~~~
cronix
Just wait until Dsuvia hits the black market. Reportedly 10x stronger than
Fentanyl.
[https://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/u...](https://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm624968.htm)

~~~
refurb
Sufentanil is already available on the black market. It’s been seized in
Canada a few times.

It is ridiculously potent. We’re talking a normal dose of 10’s of micrograms.

However. I would argue diversion of Dsuvia will likely _reduce_ overdoses as
the quality control means you know exactly how much you’re taking.

------
EGreg
If people move to end-to-end encrypted communication, how would third parties
know what to ban? Wouldn’t any kind of information be possible - including
marketplaces?

~~~
bfuller
I assume because markets offer escrow and direct sales do not

------
qwerty456127
See! Whatever is actually deadly (even if it's not by its nature but because
of too people doing it wrong like in this particular case) people will stop it
themselves. People buy and sell psychedelics because these are, unlike strong
opioids, not deadly and there is little if any reason to ban them yet
governments all over the world do and insist it is more important than
education, violent crime prevention and everything (in many countries
possession of some doses of LSD is enough to put you in prison for much longer
than a murder).

~~~
psychonot
Psychedelics (particularly tabs) are not as safe anymore because of increased
availability of cheap designer drugs that have similar effects to LSD, but are
much less safe. The NBOMEs and bromo dragonfly are two examples of such drugs
that have been implicated in accidental deaths. I was reminded of this
recently when an old acquaintance of mine who was a heroin addict died. I
assumed it must have been the usual H + fentanyl OD, but he actually had a
heart attack after taking some psychedelic tabs

~~~
qwerty456127
Nice point. Nevertheless there is much less sense in taking these if better
options are available (opiate addicts are usually forced to take whatever they
can find by their urge) and the information is well-available (e.g. the second
link on Google to bromo dragonfly leads to PsychonautWiki wich immediately
shows you an honest warning banner: "Bromo-DragonFLY is linked to an unusually
large number of hospitalizations and deaths", it also says "it produces
unusually long effects which reportedly can last up to several days" \- I
doubt many people are brave enough to go this deep, even and especially if I
were an opiate addict I wouldn't dare), people have all it takes to make up
their minds so the mere fact of availability is not a death sentence.

There indeed is, however, a problem of dishonest or ignorant dealers selling
really dangerous substances like that to ignorant or naïve people telling them
just that's acid or kind of but I believe this problem would be much less
widespread if people could get safe psychedelics legally or even if the black
market itself was allowed to develop healthier so dealers had to establish
reputation and care about the customers experience. Also, as far as I
understand, the major reason for this kind of drugs to be developed and
marketed is because classic psychedelics are too hard to produce for
underground labs so they have to consider cheaper and easier alternatives.

------
maa5444
damn

------
forkLding
A lot of fearmongering here, drug manufacturing & trafficking in small amounts
is punishable by death in China, if you are making narcotics in China, you
don't fear the Chinese govt or the Chinese army and you basically have nothing
to lose.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_drug_trade_in_China](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_drug_trade_in_China)

It's like saying you're gonna stop all the drug dealers in US to stop selling
drugs, its very hard for China to stop all narcotics.

Heres an official report by the US-China Economic & Security Review Commission
on Chinese Fentanyl Production:
[https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Research/USCC%20Sta...](https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Research/USCC%20Staff%20Report_Fentanyl-
China%E2%80%99s%20Deadly%20Export%20to%20the%20United%20States020117.pdf)

and I quote: "China is a global source of illicit fentanyl and other NPS
because the country’s vast chemical and pharmaceutical industries are weakly
regulated and poorly monitored...Chinese law enforcement and drug
investigators are unable to effectively regulate the high volume of drugs and
chemicals the country produces.In many cases, the chemicals used to produce
fentanyl and fentanyl-like products are illegally diverted from legitimate
pharmaceutical uses, with criminals taking advantage of inadequate enforcement
protocols to produce unregulated chemicals and NPS. Until 2014, a regulatory
loophole allowed Chinese chemical companies to operate in a gray area of
oversight, freeing them from inspection requirements and other certification
systems. That loophole was closed in 2014 when China’s State Administration of
Work Safety implemented new regulations on chemical production to improve
management of nonpharmaceutical businesses, including enforcing stricter
licensing requirements. Even under the new regulations, Chinese pharmaceutical
and chemical companies continue to divert chemicals from legitimate
pharmaceutical uses and adulterate legitimate pharmaceuticals during
production.This makes drug enforcement within China difficult, as many
manufacturers of fentanyl and other NPS are legitimate companies legally
producing chemicals. Although some of these chemical manufacturers knowingly
ship their products to the United States for illicit purposes, Chinese
chemical and pharmaceutical exporters continue to operate with little
oversight"

Do not get me wrong, I've seen the impact of Fentanyl and I want China to step
up on crushing its production.

~~~
stevenjohns
It's closer to outright jingoistic hatred than fearmongering. People have
managed to convince themselves that it's a Chinese government plot with
conspiracy theories being upvoted left and right.

It's actually a pretty good example of situations where the fringe right and
fringe left come together and hold hands.

~~~
refurb
The conspiracy theories are pretty ridiculous.

However, the fact that fentanyl wasn’t illegal in China until recently and
mail shipped from China is cheap, really opened up the flood gates until the
authorities cracked down.

------
solotronics
Fentanyl only exists on the dark web because of the Chinese labs pumping it
out. Wake up! The Chinese government policy is to look the other way if you
aren't selling the drugs inside China. They see this as just revenge for the
British selling opium in China. This is directly responsible for thousands of
deaths in the US. Execute the scum bringing this into our countries!

What can we do about this? Direct trade punishments for allowing this to
happen. Hit them the only place they care, in the bank account and this would
stop Quickly!

~~~
morpheuskafka
China (to be clear, we are talking about the PRC/Jinping regime, not the
Chinese people) is a menace to freedom and stability in the free world. They
steal our IP, infiltrate our companies, and place their population in
concentration camps in the world's largest police state--meanwhile, our
companies like Google and Microsoft continue to work hand in hand with the CCP
regime to develop products customized to suit regime needs and rules.

The map in this article should scare anyone who cares about a Soviet-style
dictatorship taking over nearly every continent:
[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/18/world/asia/wo...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/18/world/asia/world-
built-by-china.html)

~~~
DyslexicAtheist
America (to be clear, we are talking about the US Trump/Bush/Clinton/Obama
regime, not the American people) is a menace to freedom and stability in the
whole world. They steal our oil, infiltrate our companies, and place children
in cages, and their minority and poor population incarcerated. Suspects are
held without being charged indefinitely at black prison sites and tortured.
They are the world's largest police state--meanwhile, our companies continue
to work hand in hand with the US/Trump regime to develop products customized
to suit regime needs and rules.

~~~
dang
You can't do this kind of flamewar on HN, and we ban accounts that won't stop,
so please stop.

Your account seems to have taken a heavy turn into using HN for political
battle. That's not ok, and we ban accounts that do it. Please review
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
and use the site as intended.

The rest of the world may be radicalizing and polarizing, but HN's mandate
hasn't changed and isn't going to, therefore we have to ban accounts that are
destructive of it. First among those are the accounts seeking to use HN as a
battlefield, which (if allowed to) would turn this place into scorched earth.

~~~
DyslexicAtheist
alright Daniel. No problem. My point was to mirror the comment from OP and
make him/her see how ridiculous and one-sided it sounds. But I agree it isn't
constructive and I do understand your points. I'll promise to stop all
comments that might be considered offensive or political (off-topic)
regardless of how I might feel about it. And I'm sincerely sorry if I've hurt
or upset anyone.

I have witnessed the killing and burning of bodies from 120 Tamils in Sri
Lanka, which went unreported in Western media. I have witnessed a guy stabbing
another guy in the neck within a _parang_ (coconut knife) as my first
experience when globe-trotting (I just turned 19) during a religious dispute
in Banda Aceh. I have seen dead bodies of Burmese fishermen while teaching an
Open Water Scuba class in Thailand (they are used as slaves by the Thai and
then thrown overboard). All this happened a long time ago but it has shaped me
in a way that made me more angry. I'm not an academic and I'm not a native
English speaker but nor am I an arm-chair philosopher. I do still suffer from
PTSD of my experiences, but it's no excuse to make political comments here
probably.

Again this isn't an excuse for myself, but I hope it gives context on why I
feel more strongly and said the things I did. I'm happy to continue lurking
and promise to cut political motivated arguments out in future.

~~~
dang
Sorry I didn't see this earlier. I am touched by your description of your
experiences and glad that you felt able and willing to share them here, given
how difficult they were. Issues of moderation don't exist on that level—the
only thing that matters is contact. But I'm grateful for your receptivity to
what I posted, even though it's trivial by comparison.

------
csense
If dealers pull drugs that cause deaths, could we make progress in the War on
Drugs by having government agents sneak poison into the illegal drug supply?

The idea here is that dealers would stop selling drug after drug as the death
toll mounts. If they chose to keep selling, the deaths would presumably make
the drugs easier to trace.

I'm not sure if it would be legal or ethical for the government to do this.
But they did it to alcohol during Prohibition.

~~~
_Nat_
In general, you can write off pretty much any idea that involves poisoning
children as unethical. That death tolls from the [opioid
crisis]([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opioid_epidemic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opioid_epidemic))
have been rising is a problem that people've been trying to mitigate, not
further.

It is a bit strange to consider that we still do poison alcohol to prevent,
say, people from drinking mouthwash
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denatured_alcohol](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denatured_alcohol)):

> Denatured alcohol, also called methylated spirit (in Australia, New Zealand,
> South Africa and the United Kingdom) or denatured rectified spirit, is
> ethanol that has additives to make it poisonous, bad-tasting, foul-smelling,
> or nauseating to discourage recreational consumption.

Unfortunately, despite a widespread cultural understanding that it's dangerous
to consume denatured alcohols like mouthwash, some folks still do
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrogate_alcohol](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrogate_alcohol)):

> Surrogate alcohol is a term for any substance containing ethanol that is
> intentionally consumed by humans but is not meant for human consumption.
> [...] Most people turn to these as a last resort either out of desperation,
> being underaged or being unable to afford consumable alcoholic beverages
> (with homeless alcoholics) or due to lack of access to drinking ethanol (for
> example with prison inmates and individuals in psychiatric wards).

