If you want to stop the flow of hyperpotent opioids like fentanyl and nitazenes, legalise opium and heroin. As drugs, the only advantage of these compounds is that their potency makes them easier and cheaper to smuggle. I've asked a lot of opioid addicts about this and not one of them has described an all-things-equal preference for these drugs. I'm sure some people do exist, but they're likely a very small minority. Most people don't even know what they're using, they just take whatever's available to get a fix.
This is a completely artificial problem, created by the war on drugs. Just like the waves of PMMA deaths in europe caused by safrole seizures. Western nations have no one to blame for this but themselves.
This rings true with my experiences. The people who I've known to become addicted usually started with something prescribed and then graduated to heroin. When heroin became harder to find, smuggle in, or too expensive, fentanyl happily stepped up to meet demand.
Addicts literally carry around fent testing kits so they can _avoid_ this synthetic opioid.
> Addicts literally carry around fent testing kits so they can _avoid_ this synthetic opioid.
Choosy addicts choose...is something I never thought I'd read. I'd suggest they weren't addicting right if they are choosy. When you can find your fix of choice, you just fix with what's available.
If your comment were accurate, fent sales would plummet and the problem would fix itself. This is clearly not the case.
None of what you've described is how any of this works in the real world.
There's an entire world of behaviour from a seller's perspective for every drug and an entire set of behaviour from a user's perspective. They match closely to how 'legal' alcohol production and consumption works. Biggest profits are from the biggest addicts of alcohol and their suppliers are all on the stock exchange for everyone to see. Beer almost never kills anyone, same with the production from large reputable companies. but if you find a great deal of homemade hard liqour make sure you test for ethanol and methanol. Thats simply how addicts die no matter the product they are using.
'some white powder' could literally be anything and everything. Idiots could cut it up wrong and what previously got you high just fine might potentially be a lethal dose right in front of you in the form of a powdery white line with no way to tell. Theres the mostly harmless chemicals used to reduce dose to cut the dealer more profit but could still not be mixed properly so new users wouldn't be able to notice. Then theres the nitazenes and other stuff that most tests only detect 'presence of' but not the dose so you would still have to throw everything out even though it might be mixed and dosed properly. And then theres the less addicted group who doesn't even bother with anything ever and only wants the pure stuff in large single batches in order to test fully and properly. Those people never get screwed over because thats what they pay for.
That's true to an extent. But we can also reduce the incidence of opioid addiction by prescribing them only for really severe pain, and in smaller quantities. This is already happening. Back in 2007 an oral surgeon gave me a prescription (which I never filled) after a minor procedure but today that probably wouldn't happen.
We did legalise opium by way of oxycontin and I'm not sure that helped reduce the scope of the problem. Arguably a lot more people got hooked on opium than ever before because something legalized has less stigma attached and is more easily accessible. Society has waffled repeatedly on the legality of opium and the effects of opium are a bit different than less destructive narcotics where legalization makes more sense.
> Arguably a lot more people got hooked on opium than ever before because something legalized has less stigma attached
Growing up in the 70s and 80s, I know that by the 80s heroin had a bad stigma attached to it even by other drug users, and it was rarely seen in the circles I knew. Coke, pot and meth did not have that at the time.
OxyContin was de-facto legalized. You could go to certain doctors, complain of pain, and walk out with a prescription. Just like you could do with medical marijuana in California. Legalization made the problem much worse because it increased demand markedly.
There is already some compelling anecdata that warrants studying.
Rat park is one, and the doctor who prescribed heroin in the 60s is another.
The jist of it was that addicts stopped abusing when there was something better to live for. In the absence of community, opportunity, and hope, abuse abounded.
The reality of some people's experiences though is that while euphoric in the beginning, long term use leads to an unpleasurable mental haze. The lack of clarity becomes its own hell.
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The potential solution is likely unpopular and likely difficult to implement. Investing into communities that promote community along with incentives for economically depressed areas to be rebuilt, IMO would likely reduce opioid abuse.
But that's not nearly as popular as the moral displacement schadenfreude the people get by being able to point the finger at the drug abusers.
Seriously, it feels like society has drifted too far away from the idea of small, local communities. So much of modern life separates people either physically or technologically. Though I would like to blame modern marketing and consumerism, I think these problems have been brewing for centuries.
From a sociological perspective, I do see the benefits of small conservative communities that effectively serve as a guarding or protective mechanism, shielding the more vulnerable from potentially destructive influences.
That's very true. The drug issue is a very complex problem, and I was only addressing a very narrow aspect of it, namely the root cause for the proliferation of hyperpotent opioids in black/grey markets.
The legal side of it is just that; one side. It's important, yes, but just legalising opium won't automagically solve the opioid crisis on its own. We also need to address societal causes of opioid addiction. At least in the US, overprescription from doctors corrupted by big pharma(especially purdue), is one major contributing factor that's been thoroughly exposed in recent years. Obviously the role of money in medicine needs to be changed.
The deeper issue though is that more people are becoming vulnerable to developing addiction. Speaking as an addict myself, one of the root causes of addiction at an individual level can be untreated mentall illness. Drugs can often provide a temporary reprieve from mental illness, and unfortunately is often more easily available than good treatment options. In many western countries, funding for mental health treatment programs has been reduced. This is contributing to a rise in unmanaged mental health issues.
I think spending a ton more on mental health, especially in youth, is essential to reducing the prevalence of addiction.
Other issues include poverty, unemployment, housing. The thread through all of this is that more people lead miserable lives, and that makes drugs more tempting.
But let me circle back to the legalisation issue and why it's so important. The main health risks with opioids are overdose in the short term, infections(hepatitis, HIV, endocarditis) from dirty needles and organ damage from dirty drugs in the longer term. Legalisation can address all of these things. Any addict will tell you the main reason overdoses are so common is there's no consistency to the potency of their drugs. Even when it was still heroin, the constant battle with LE meant the purity would fluctuate wildly. Add to that synergistic adulterants, and now these hyperpotent drugs, and you get addicts dying like flies. Legalising the drugs would allow regulating them and providing consistent dosages, eliminating harmful adulterants, and mandating that doses be sold alongside clean user equipment. This would greatly limit the health impact of these drugs on its users. It's obvious that recovering from addiction would be a lot easier if your body hadn't been destroyed by it before you even enter a treatment programme.
In addition, remember what I said about funding for mental health declining? How much money is spent futilely fighting the war on drugs? I haven't done the tedious task of adding up federal, state and police budgets for the US, but the budget for the DEA alone is in the billions, so it's safe to assume once you do the math it'll be in the tens of billions for LE alone. And that's without accounting for the courts, prisons, and all the money being funneled away from the legitimate economy by criminal gangs. This is money that should be spent elsewhere. On mental health and addiction treatment, housing, social programmes. But instead it's essentially being piled up and lit on fire.
So at least for me, that's why I keep saying "let them take drugs".
If I were to become a drug addict, I would also choose opium and heroin. I do see interviews on YouTube with folks who seek out fentanyl. But as other commenters mention, this may be a minority, and likely more so if safe and pure opium and heroin were accessible.
Dumbest thing I’ve heard. You’d have large swathes of the population (at least 15%) addicted to them within the year. Any country where it’s freely available ends up having a large number of addicts (20th century China, modern day Afghanistan and Pakistan etc.)
This argument is too dismissive for me to bother spending time on it except to say this: try to think about other factors than just availability, because it's not the only thing that matters.
Here's an exercise for you to do just that. Alcohol is legal and extremely available in the west. It has an even stronger addiction potential than opioids do. And the majority of people in the west drink at varying rates. But the rate of addiction is generally under 5%(in the west). Why do you think that is?
> It has an even stronger addiction potential than opioids do. And the majority of people in the west drink at varying rates. But the rate of addiction is generally under 5%(in the west). Why do you think that is?
I conclude that... alcohol doesn't actually have an even stronger addiction potential than opioids do?
This is a completely artificial problem, created by the war on drugs. Just like the waves of PMMA deaths in europe caused by safrole seizures. Western nations have no one to blame for this but themselves.