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Fentanyl, a stealth killer

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Re: Fentanyl, a stealth killer

#81

Post by gedy »

frandroid wrote: post #49
imaginenore wrote: post #38

It probably will sound cruel, but this is natural selection at work. We can't babysit adults. If someone wants to smoke or drink alcohol, we accept it, but when someone takes drugs, people start losing their minds, even though alcohol/cigarettes are worse than many recreational drugs. If someone wants to ruin their health, but experience something unusual, let them. The dangers are generally known.

Drug addiction is a mental health disease. We don't tell depressed people that this is just natural selection at work, "just shake it out". We get people treated with the right medication. A huge amount of drug addicts suffer from untreated psychological trauma, particularly childhood trauma. http://drgabormate.com/book/in-the-realm-of-hungry-ghosts/

Yes, maybe, but preceded by a lot of specific choices.

Re: Fentanyl, a stealth killer

#82

Post by slavik81 »

shams93 wrote: post #27
loverofcode wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is hard to get true data, when the only supposedly creditable source (CDC), mixes its data to include all prescription drugs including SSRI's and illicit fentanyl from china. Opioids can be used in VERY high doses as a person becomes more dependent. What is clear is that people are use to heroin and then take the higher dose without knowing and OD. This is the current trend. It is cheaper to get the Fent from Ch t…

You could take a look at the results in Portugal: https://mic.com/articles/110344/14-years-after-portugal-decr...

The statistics are interesting, but they kind of miss the GGP's point. Decriminalization is not legalization. If you just decriminalize, drug users still have to buy their drugs from sketchy black-market suppliers. That's very dangerous compared to buying from a legal, regulated industry. For example, alcohol is predictable and pure today but in the prohibition era, when all suppliers were criminals, it wasn't [1][2].

[1] http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,288... [2] http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_exa...

Re: Fentanyl, a stealth killer

#83

Post by dragonwriter »

gedy wrote: post #76
RankingMember wrote: post #36

This was a well-written story but I could've done without: A. The "MARIJUANA, THAT DEVIL WEED, STARTED HIS DESCENT INTO HELL" routine. and B. The "truth" anti-drug ad campaign-style video overlays

Frankly, virtually everyone I've known who ended up in drug 'hell' did start with pot; so while correlation does not equal causation, the belief or concern it's a gateway drug really should not be mocked. Questioning, debating, fine - but mocking people's concern, is frequently about friends and family who are in trouble.

> Frankly, virtually everyone I've known who ended up in drug 'hell' did start with pot

Funny, everyone I've known who ended up in drug "hell" started with either tobacco or alcohol. Which means just as much nothing as yours...

> so while correlation does not equal causation, the belief or concern it's a gateway drug really should not be mocked.

Anecdote ("virtually everyone I've known...") doesn't equal meaningful correlation in the general population, much less causation.

And "people who end up in drug hell are likely to have used X drug in the past" is the wrong correlation, anyway, to support "dangerous gateway drug" claims (even leaving aside the need to move from correlation to causation.) You really want "people who use X drug are likely to go on to end up in drug hell".

Re: Fentanyl, a stealth killer

#84

Post by ourmandave »

gallonofmilk wrote: post #26

I just want to say that that I lost one of my close friends Thom Simmons last April due to Fentanyl overdose. He was a young, voracious autodidact prodigy that was always way ahead of the curve especially with technology. I met him through the #django irc channel about 7 or 8 years ago when I was starting out with python and django and we developed a friendship that lasted until he overdosed on fentanyl and died in a…

Thank you for sharing his story and I'm sorry for your loss.

Re: Fentanyl, a stealth killer

#85

Post by MichaelGG »

downandout wrote: post #77
MichaelGG wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's not legitimate? Withdrawal is probably one of the worst physical experiences someone can go through. On top of that, do you know why she was on the medication in the first place? Would you have the same attitude if she was taking SSRIs for depression, couldn't afford them (or wasn't allowed to have them!), and stole them instead?

I don't know all of the details as to how she became addicted to them, but it certainly wasn't a financial issue. Her husband owned a chain of auto body shops and was by all accounts worth at least a few million dollars.

So the predicate "wasn't allowed" is even more accurate. She was prohibited, legally, to get properly labelled medication.

Again, would you have the same attitude if her options for depression were "steal SSRIs from a pharma company" or "buy from someone that gets unlabeled, unmonitored shit from China, resold by whoever?"

Re: Fentanyl, a stealth killer

#86

Post by gedy »

dragonwriter wrote: post #83
gedy wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly, virtually everyone I've known who ended up in drug 'hell' did start with pot; so while correlation does not equal causation, the belief or concern it's a gateway drug really should not be mocked. Questioning, debating, fine - but mocking people's concern, is frequently about friends and family who are in trouble.

> Frankly, virtually everyone I've known who ended up in drug 'hell' did start with pot Funny, everyone I've known who ended up in drug "hell" started with either tobacco or alcohol. Which means just as much nothing as yours... > so while correlation does not equal causation, the belief or concern it's a gateway drug really should not be mocked. Anecdote ("virtually everyone I've known...") doesn't equal meaningful c…

Fair enough, but as I mentioned, I'm addressing your moralizing tone about it, not your belief.

Re: Fentanyl, a stealth killer

#87

Post by dragonwriter »

gedy wrote: post #86
dragonwriter wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Frankly, virtually everyone I've known who ended up in drug 'hell' did start with pot Funny, everyone I've known who ended up in drug "hell" started with either tobacco or alcohol. Which means just as much nothing as yours... > so while correlation does not equal causation, the belief or concern it's a gateway drug really should not be mocked. Anecdote ("virtually everyone I've known...") doesn't equal meaningful c…

Fair enough, but as I mentioned, I'm addressing your moralizing tone about it, not your belief.

> I'm addressing your moralizing tone about it, not your belief.

My response to your post was my first post in this thread, so I don't think you are addressing my anything.

Re: Fentanyl, a stealth killer

#88

Post by MichaelGG »

sremani wrote: post #78
MichaelGG wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue here was not caused by the actual substance. It was caused to due to terrible social and legal attitudes that encourage mislabeled medicines to be sold. If anything else in our society was mislabeled by a factor of 50, there'd be outrage over the vendor, regulators, etc. But with drugs, it's always "user error". Opiates are extremely well tolerated, with basically no upper bound on use. They are incredibly…

As much as I want to agree with you, the story of the two dudes losing their jobs and constantly being broke says otherwise. I know there are lot of functioning addicts, and I have seen them in life. But the two guys in the article are anything but functioning. Their education suffered, their job prospects suffered.

The issue of being broke is directly related to having to buy off a black market. Opiates are stupidly cheap - for a naive user, they are cheaper than Tylenol.

A lot of the problem almost certainly stems from this broke/steal/intervention/etc. cycle. Do legally sanctioned opiate users suffer from a high rate of financial and employment issues?

Re: Fentanyl, a stealth killer

#89

Post by soundwave106 »

notyourloops wrote: post #59
openasocket wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you referring to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12212241 ? (if not, disregard this) It read to me like the user just said that fentanyl isn't that much cheaper than making heroin, and showed his work. They aren't actually advocating or advising for anything.

Starting material, precursors, cost analysis, and a darknet market for sales. You can say they're not advocating or advising for anything, but they just did to anyone who could be interested, from start to completed product to where to sell it.

That really isn't a worry in my opinion.

Generally speaking, when a drug exists in prescription form, you don't see too many people rushing out to make it. (Methamphetamine's probably one of the few exceptions because it can relatively easily be (badly) made by "home chemists".) Instead, the focus becomes more on obtaining diverted prescription drugs via illicit channels ("doctor shopping", shady pharmacies, pharmacy theft, etc.). See: oxycodone, vicodin, etc.

Beyond that, most of these compounds are patented or have been at one point, and there's certainly plenty of patents on fentanyl. Patents pretty much contain much of the information you need to make the compound, easy enough to look this information up. This is not very "top secret" information. Actually the poster provided hardly the information needed to actually make the compound in comparison to what you can Google.

Finally, for those wishing to pursue this for some reason, said poster did not describe what to do when "the law" shows up at your door to inquire just what in the heck you are doing ordering acetic anhydride (it is, er, a U.S. DEA List II compound after all) or other watched chemicals. :) If someone's going to get into the illicit drug manufacturing business, they're going to need far more than a Hacker News post to do such.

Re: Fentanyl, a stealth killer

#90

Post by random_rr »

MichaelGG wrote: post #85
downandout wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know all of the details as to how she became addicted to them, but it certainly wasn't a financial issue. Her husband owned a chain of auto body shops and was by all accounts worth at least a few million dollars.

So the predicate "wasn't allowed" is even more accurate. She was prohibited, legally, to get properly labelled medication. Again, would you have the same attitude if her options for depression were "steal SSRIs from a pharma company" or "buy from someone that gets unlabeled, unmonitored shit from China, resold by whoever?"

There are better times to argue for legalization. You're trying too hard to make a point of this. Junkies sometimes do shitty stuff.
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