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Deadly Chinese Fentanyl Is Creating a New Era of Drug Kingpins

bloomberg.com

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Re: Deadly Chinese Fentanyl Is Creating a New Era of Drug Kingpins

#121

Post by adventured »

dqpb wrote: post #68

This is revenge for the "100 years of shame". China is at war with the West.

That doesn't make much sense. The US wasn't meaningfully involved in the 100 years of shame. Britain, France and Japan were the antagonists. The US, if anything, helped to end the abuse by treating China as a legitimate peer trading partner and helping to build them up into a world power.

The US helped China re the Empire of Japan and WW2.

The US helped China re the Soviets.

The US was responsible for China gaining access to the WTO, which rapidly transformed their economy.

The US helped China develop by pouring trillions of dollars in capital into their country and trading with them in a mutually beneficial manner.

No other dominant world power in the last ~500 years has ever treated China with that kind of respect. As recently as 1992, the US had an economy 15 times the size of China, and it didn't seek to conquer them or humiliate them.

Re: Deadly Chinese Fentanyl Is Creating a New Era of Drug Kingpins

#122

Post by 205guy »

dqpb wrote: post #68

This is revenge for the "100 years of shame". China is at war with the West.

There certainly are a lot of stories about China's perceived misdeeds in Bloomberg, and a lot of Bloomberg articles are reposted on HN lately. Enough to make me go hmmmm.

Re: Deadly Chinese Fentanyl Is Creating a New Era of Drug Kingpins

#123

Post by mabbo »

nacho2sweet wrote: post #115
mabbo wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the money also seeps back into our overheated real-estate market through casino money laundering That's actually not likely how they launder the money. Money laundering regulations in Canada say that large sums of money cashed out an casinos are reported to Fintrac[0], who datamine and analyze that stuff pretty extensively. My knowledge of their capabilities is over a decade old (internship way back), but even then…

Where you been dude. FINTRAC don't do shit. https://globalnews.ca/news/4149818/vancouver-cautionary-tale...

Well shit. Time to update our relations. O_O

Re: Deadly Chinese Fentanyl Is Creating a New Era of Drug Kingpins

#124

Post by adventured »

205guy wrote: post #122
dqpb wrote: post #68

This is revenge for the "100 years of shame". China is at war with the West.

There certainly are a lot of stories about China's perceived misdeeds in Bloomberg, and a lot of Bloomberg articles are reposted on HN lately. Enough to make me go hmmmm.

The scrutiny increases in a manner beyond direct proportion to the size of your influence on the world, economically and militarily.

The US is subject to endless bashing, scrutiny, paranoia, unfair reporting, you name it. If the US does a thing, it's evil or wrong policy; if Germany, Denmark, Canada or France do the same thing, it's perfectly acceptable (see: immigration or corporate tax rates or trade barriers). That has particularly been true for the last ~40 years, since it became the sole superpower.

Now consider, the US is a liberal Democracy, not dissimilar from Western Europe. How much worse should the scrutiny be for an illiberal Communist dictatorship, that has few human rights?

China scrutiny is going to be dramatically beyond what the US has endured, as they rise to have the largest economy and a comparable military to the US.

Re: Deadly Chinese Fentanyl Is Creating a New Era of Drug Kingpins

#125

Post by ShabbosGoy »

girvo wrote: post #110
JshWright wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a paramedic, it is absolutely a double-edged sword. It is a phenomenal tool for pain management. Used as intended it much better than other options (historically, morphine). It is not the least bit uncommon to have weeks that include administering fentanyl therapeutically for acute pain management, and administering Narcan to counteract the effect of Fentanyl taken "recreationally".

I find that interesting. Heroin and morphine both have a much nicer high than Fentanyl, taking IV recreationally — at least they did for me, back when I was an addict

I took Hydrocodone recreationally once, as I had some leftovers from my ribcage injury. Aside from enhanced dreams and occasional hypnogogia, I still didn’t really see the appeal. You can achieve the same euphoria with THC (IIRC, OPRM1 gene expression is altered upon consumption of THC).

OPRM1 is an interesting gene, though. Habitual use of morphine (and other substances like alcohol, OPRM1 expression is implicated in risk-taking behavior) would create reinforcement effects and increased gene expression of OPRM1. That would lead you down the dark path of addiction.

Re: Deadly Chinese Fentanyl Is Creating a New Era of Drug Kingpins

#126

Post by JshWright »

girvo wrote: post #110
JshWright wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a paramedic, it is absolutely a double-edged sword. It is a phenomenal tool for pain management. Used as intended it much better than other options (historically, morphine). It is not the least bit uncommon to have weeks that include administering fentanyl therapeutically for acute pain management, and administering Narcan to counteract the effect of Fentanyl taken "recreationally".

I find that interesting. Heroin and morphine both have a much nicer high than Fentanyl, taking IV recreationally — at least they did for me, back when I was an addict

Using it for (other people's) pain management, I don't really care about how "nice" the high is (and I don't have any experience with it personally).

The main reason I like fentanyl is that it peaks much earlier than morphine. The most common reason I administer opioids is due to a musculoskeletal injury of some sort. Often those patients would experience a significant amount of pain while being moved and loaded into the ambulance. Fentanyl acts quickly enough that it's worth it to administer it before starting to move them. With morphine that's just a waste of time. Better to get them moved and then medicate them on the way to the hospital.

Re: Deadly Chinese Fentanyl Is Creating a New Era of Drug Kingpins

#127

Post by 205guy »

megaman22 wrote: post #14
wozniacki wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of the great old East Coast fortunes were built on opium smuggling. Very interesting indeed. Could you please list a few or point to a link that does?

Here's one: http://www.wbur.org/commonhealth/2017/07/31/opium-boston-his... Most notably the Delanos, as in FDR, and the Forbes, as in John Forbes Kerry.

That was enlightening. I didn't know the US merchants were so involved in the Chinese opium "trade." That is in quotes because China had banned the opium and these people were bribing Chinese officials and smuggling the drugs ashore. From the article: "they use boats manned by dozens of rowers to speed past inspectors, sneak up the coast, and deliver opium beyond the official port".

They were essentially the drug cartels of the 1800's. The article goes on to say how this drug money extracted from China was used to kick start the US's industrial revolution, and still funds universities and hospitals with grants from these fortunes. But I'm not sure I see any difference between the actions of those Americans then and the drug lords now.

Re: Deadly Chinese Fentanyl Is Creating a New Era of Drug Kingpins

#128

Post by cpncrunch »

thret wrote: post #96

"Chapman and Muhammad would later get prison sentences of nearly 17 and 120 years, respectively. In interviews, Muhammad, now 45, admitted to selling chemicals but said he did extensive research to remain within the law." - That's the real crime here! 17 years? 120 years? For receiving something in the mail legally, reselling it legally, and nothing else?

>For receiving something in the mail legally, reselling it legally, and nothing else?

I'm not sure why you would think that selling a schedule II controlled substance is "legal", just because the asshats selling it say they did "extensive research" on the law.

Re: Deadly Chinese Fentanyl Is Creating a New Era of Drug Kingpins

#129

Post by cat199 »

mabbo wrote: post #112
nacho2sweet wrote: post #49

Fentanyl is a huge problem in Vancouver, where we are usually ground zero for all new opiate trends. Besides killing over 1100 people a year in BC, the money also seeps back into our overheated real-estate market through casino money laundering. It is a crazy cycle. I have no idea why world governments and our own don't say and do more against China. Spineless.

> the money also seeps back into our overheated real-estate market through casino money laundering That's actually not likely how they launder the money. Money laundering regulations in Canada say that large sums of money cashed out an casinos are reported to Fintrac[0], who datamine and analyze that stuff pretty extensively. My knowledge of their capabilities is over a decade old (internship way back), but even then…

> large sums of money cashed out an casinos

cashed out?

that's not how you do it. it's about a corrupt casino funnelling the money in and pretending it is gambling earnings..

see also: the movie 'casino' (unsurprisingly)

Re: Deadly Chinese Fentanyl Is Creating a New Era of Drug Kingpins

#130

Post by qop »

nacho2sweet wrote: post #49

Fentanyl is a huge problem in Vancouver, where we are usually ground zero for all new opiate trends. Besides killing over 1100 people a year in BC, the money also seeps back into our overheated real-estate market through casino money laundering. It is a crazy cycle. I have no idea why world governments and our own don't say and do more against China. Spineless.

Could it be trillions in debts?

Could it be they are aligned with developing countries all over the world with belt and road?

Could it be that they have arguably the single most intelligent population in the world?

Could it be that though Americans (that includes you canadians, continent-shamers) find their lack of democracy disturbing, Chinese citizens have generally not complained about the past several millennium of rather tyrannical, centralized governance?

What a head scratcher... Why, it's almost like they're different people!

Edit: oh by the way, there's literally a billion of them

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