Curious: from an economic perspective why would anyone in the industry want to contaminate their product like that? Like it's a fundamentally different substance with a different effect. If you bought mixed drugs from your dealer, you'd probably not do business with them again and would warn people away from them.
It looks like test strips for fentanyl are legal in 30 states. In the remaining 20 they are generally treated as drug paraphernalia. A number of states only allow fentanyl test strips, all other testing materials are drug paraphernalia.
> Forensic chemists discovered fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances including acetyl fentanyl, carfentanil, Furanylfentanyl, and p- fluoroisobutyryl fentanyl in over 180 cocaine exhibits.
Currently residing in Cincinnati, and I witnessed an off-duty officer resuscitate a college-aged kid while waiting for ambulances to arrive. His friends didn't even notice as he gradually slowed down and collapsed while they headed to their next destination.
Insulfated cocaine has a unique problem in that it first needs to be diluted in water in order to properly test, then somehow dried back out into powder before it can be used.
It’s fairly cumbersome and removes a lot of the appeal of the drug. Most casual cocaine users want the experience to be just that, casual. Having to buy a bag of blow then go home and run a chemistry experiment on it is a much different vibe than taking quick bump from some nice new friend you made at the bar.
Most people I know who are casual users have just decided to stop instead of going through the hassle.
And what if you test the good part and there is a hotspot of carfentanyl in the line you shoot up your nose? You’re dead instantly. There is no safe way to take illicit drugs anymore.
I know literally hundreds of people who regularly or semi-regularly do illicit drugs, including myself. And if you read the testing instructions, you'll find that the best way is to mix and test the entire package of drugs, not just a sample. Though to be honest, few people I know test with any regularity.
Yeah, mixing everything and testing a sample of it still does not guarantee that you won't have a hot pocket of something mysterious and deadly, but did not get into the test sample no matter how well you think you're mixing it. This is why the FDA is so hard core when it comes to approving the production of drugs. They want to know about the entire process of production from top to bottom and routinely suspend a producer's license, removing product from shelves if there is any doubt as to the safety of their end product. When parts of milligrams can mean the difference between life and death, the risk isn't worth the reward, IMHO.
I’ve been around HN a long time. My cohort gave up the stuff bc of age related concerns and see the contamination as a sign we won’t be walking back that decision.
Not just that, societal acceptance of drugs is very low in Asia. Even if a country will not put you to death for importing drugs, people will reject you from the society if you use them. That can be a strong deterrent to people even trying them.
With one exception of the Philippines. Duterte did take a hard stance, but the population in general is pretty accepting --at least much more than in any other eastern Asian nation and maybe that acceptance results in the high incidence of use.
Having lived in Asia (low drug problems) and Latin America (drug-dominated hellhole) I much prefer the way drugs (and dealers) are dealt with in Asia than in Latam. The idea that waging war on drugs is a bad one sounds like a nut idea from out-of-touch people who have never been to a narco-state like Brazil, Mexico, or Colombia.
Potentially, yes. But that case would only be good against poor _execution_ of the war on drugs, not the _concept_ that drugs need to be dealt with as if we were in a war. Activists seem to oppose the concept, which is where I disagree.
The concept is fundamentally flawed. Curtailing rights and imprisoning people for victmimless crimes is incompatible with anything approaching a free society. There are many approaches to dealing with the problems inherent with drugs, we just keep using the wrong over and over and at an extraordinary cost, in money, liberty and ruined lives.
Living in Seattle and seeing the fentanyl crisis first hand, I disagree with you that addicts aren’t victims.
Not to mention the citizens who are victimized by the crime needed to sustain that addiction.
Legalization of marijuana has gone fine, but there are drugs so powerful that adults lose all control and reason, and I can’t see ever legalizing something like that.
The people you see on the street are a tiny percentage of illegal drug users. I'd also consider the vast range of options between where we are now (people dying regularly from contaminated street drugs, spreading diseases, violence associated with black markets) and full-on, no limits legalization. Somewhere in between is a place where we can save lives, enhance liberty and still not have Ultra-Meth available at every corner store.
Narco-states (and the ensuing migrant crisis), the US carceral state, fentanyl overdoses, organized crime, gang violence and many other second-order effects are consequences of drug prohibition, not consequences of the fact that we are too lax with drugs.
The war on drugs is the sole cause of drug-related violence. If you want to end violence related to the drug trade in free societies, the solution is to end the drug war, not mass executions.
Solidly false. Just a few days ago I was held from behind with a knife to my neck by a Colombian who was sure I had cocaine and was demanding I hand it over. After insisting I didn't, he threw us both to the ground and choked me out until I went limp. I was mentally aware of the sensation of him stealing all my shit (as a backpacker, everything I had was on me), but was too out of breath when I came back around to do anything about it.
Keep in mind cocaine goes for $6/g there, and that's gringo street price.
Degenerate coke fiends can't be rationalized into "poor byproducts of the war on drugs". They're gnarly, and I'm glad to be away from them. God bless the USCG.
The vast majority of documented violence related to drugs is from the black market drug trade. There will always be drug addicts and antisocial behavior. But the black market violence only exists because government refuse to end those black markets.
I mean yeah sure whatever but you've moved the goalposts into a tautology: "the war on drugs is the sole cause of drug-related violence" => "black markets and their constituents wouldn't exist if governments got rid of them".
You should also consider that your idea of the "vast majority of documented violence related to drugs" is probably very far from the real set of violence related to drugs, in no small part because as you admit: it happens in black markets, where documentation is notoriously unreliable.
And, FWIW, my case is in all likelihood present in 0 "documentations". I was able to talk to the police briefly after, but it was treated as a robbery (and completely disregarded).
What exactly is that that you take exception with? Classifying Colombia as a narco-state? Just because the cartels were (mostly) destroyed it doesn't mean narcotraficantes don't have incredible influence on the Colombian state. The Gulf Clan is a very powerful organization.
Y no, no soy colombiano pero mi familia si lo es. Soy de otro narco-state.
> The idea of hardcore legalization is the ultimate outcome of capitalism without morality or awareness of consequences.
Don't know if I buy this. In general, parties pushing for legalization fall more on the left side of the political spectrum. I can also appreciated that libertarians on the far-right think the same (shoehorn theory?) but on the right this is a fringe opinion, unlike in the left.
It also gave us more dangerous police. Consider how much less armed the police would need to be if they weren’t facing off with an armed paramilitary funded by $600B/yr in drug sales? Policing would be about enforcing mundane stuff, because against the drug trade there really isn’t much money in organized crime.
It's never been more clear than it is now thanks to Fentanyl. How often do people have accidental overdoses because their beer was contaminated? Or their Adderall? Never happens, virtually inconceivable. But the majority of overdoses from illegal drugs are due to either inaccurate dosage or unknown contaminants, problems that essentially cease to exist for legal drugs.
If we are not talking about new analogs created to bypass legislation most drugs are also produced as pharmaceuticals. And those are pure enough and dosage is controlled well enough. How often do we hear that some batch is withdrawn from market?
I think pharmaceutical contamination happens. As does over the counter products, especially under-regulated stuff like vitamins and supplements.
It's just that fentanyl risk is more dramatic than those contaminants. Maybe one is "increase your risk of cancer over a couple of decades" or even "does not have intended effect" and the other is "stop your heart soon after consumption".
Agree in parts but behind this argument there is an assumption that legal drugs would cause the market for illegal drugs to collapse entirely. Has not happened with alcohol (between 14 and 23% of alcohol sold in the US is illegal).
Adderall (fake or legit) is heavily sold illegally and their lacing with Fentanyl is a massive problem already.
I think it's imperative we prevent people from dying even if our solution is imperfect. Legal sources of currently illegal drugs would save lives full stop.
I'm surprised Africa doesn't already have South American and SEA style drug production and farming. I guess the lack of infrastructure and the existing competition, and all of the other problems in Africa limited it. Having constant security vacuums is probably not good for manufacturers. Stuff like FARC kept their jungle growing regions stable.
One of the favorite conspiracy theories of mine is that Fentanyl is a secret government project designed to scare the shit out of drug users so they stop using due to the fear of contamination.
