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Fentanyl is fueling a record number of youth drug deaths

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Fentanyl is fueling a record number of youth drug deaths

#3
When do we say "enough" to all of these death and just legalize opiates?

Fentanyl's rise is 100% attributable to smuggling in drugs due to the War on Drugs. It allows the smugglers to move the maximum potency with the minimum risk and minimum quantity. Drug smuggling is a business, and as long as opiates remain illegal to posses without a prescription than this incentive will dominate.

Legalizing opiates, providing safe and clean areas for people to use, and using those safe and clean areas to get people help to quit, help finding a place to live, help getting food to eat, and help reintegrating into society will go much, much further than continued prohibition.

Re: Fentanyl is fueling a record number of youth drug deaths

#4

When do we say "enough" to all of these death and just legalize opiates? Fentanyl's rise is 100% attributable to smuggling in drugs due to the War on Drugs. It allows the smugglers to move the maximum potency with the minimum risk and minimum quantity. Drug smuggling is a business, and as long as opiates remain illegal to posses without a prescription than this incentive will dominate. Legalizing opiates, providing s…

I never heard of fentanyl until the government did their crackdown on pills in the 2010s. Regular doctors (not pill mills) were terrified of getting arrested for prescribing them legitimately. When the they started the crackdown, I predicted heroin use would start to spike again, and as we all know, heroin doesn't have the dosage written on the side of a bottle.

We've been doing the same shit for 50+ years, and the results are always the same: more drug use of ever harder drugs, more deaths, more destitution, more prison, more homelessness. We should try something else, but when all you have is a hammer ...

Re: Fentanyl is fueling a record number of youth drug deaths

#5

When do we say "enough" to all of these death and just legalize opiates? Fentanyl's rise is 100% attributable to smuggling in drugs due to the War on Drugs. It allows the smugglers to move the maximum potency with the minimum risk and minimum quantity. Drug smuggling is a business, and as long as opiates remain illegal to posses without a prescription than this incentive will dominate. Legalizing opiates, providing s…

Legalization of hard drugs doesn't work long term. If you provide all resources to people to enjoy opiates - they will have no incentive to quit. Why is this utopian view so persistent?

Re: Fentanyl is fueling a record number of youth drug deaths

#6
post #4

When do we say "enough" to all of these death and just legalize opiates? Fentanyl's rise is 100% attributable to smuggling in drugs due to the War on Drugs. It allows the smugglers to move the maximum potency with the minimum risk and minimum quantity. Drug smuggling is a business, and as long as opiates remain illegal to posses without a prescription than this incentive will dominate. Legalizing opiates, providing s…

I never heard of fentanyl until the government did their crackdown on pills in the 2010s. Regular doctors (not pill mills) were terrified of getting arrested for prescribing them legitimately. When the they started the crackdown, I predicted heroin use would start to spike again, and as we all know, heroin doesn't have the dosage written on the side of a bottle. We've been doing the same shit for 50+ years, and the r…

How do you explain the failed drug decriminalization in Oregon?

Re: Fentanyl is fueling a record number of youth drug deaths

#7

When do we say "enough" to all of these death and just legalize opiates? Fentanyl's rise is 100% attributable to smuggling in drugs due to the War on Drugs. It allows the smugglers to move the maximum potency with the minimum risk and minimum quantity. Drug smuggling is a business, and as long as opiates remain illegal to posses without a prescription than this incentive will dominate. Legalizing opiates, providing s…

Legalization of hard drugs doesn't work long term. If you provide all resources to people to enjoy opiates - they will have no incentive to quit. Why is this utopian view so persistent?

> you provide all resources to people to enjoy opiates - they will have no incentive to quit.

So?

Re: Fentanyl is fueling a record number of youth drug deaths

#8

When do we say "enough" to all of these death and just legalize opiates? Fentanyl's rise is 100% attributable to smuggling in drugs due to the War on Drugs. It allows the smugglers to move the maximum potency with the minimum risk and minimum quantity. Drug smuggling is a business, and as long as opiates remain illegal to posses without a prescription than this incentive will dominate. Legalizing opiates, providing s…

Legalization of hard drugs doesn't work long term. If you provide all resources to people to enjoy opiates - they will have no incentive to quit. Why is this utopian view so persistent?

The banning of hard drugs hasn't seemed to work long term either. Do you think they have incentives to quit now? It doesn't seem so to me. People want to do drugs. They're fun.

Re: Fentanyl is fueling a record number of youth drug deaths

#9

When do we say "enough" to all of these death and just legalize opiates? Fentanyl's rise is 100% attributable to smuggling in drugs due to the War on Drugs. It allows the smugglers to move the maximum potency with the minimum risk and minimum quantity. Drug smuggling is a business, and as long as opiates remain illegal to posses without a prescription than this incentive will dominate. Legalizing opiates, providing s…

> When do we say "enough" to all of these death and just legalize opiates?

That's not enough. You have to legalize everything with restrictions like cigarettes and alcohol.

The problem is that fentanyl is so powerful that it contaminates everything.

Consequently, you get people who bought drugs completely unrelated to fentanyl still overdosing from it (currently a problem in Austin, for example).

You don't want random kids doing marijuana dying from fentanyl. The only way to avoid that it to clean up the manufacturing. And the only way to do that is to force it to be made in actual medical manufacturing facilities.

Re: Fentanyl is fueling a record number of youth drug deaths

#10

When do we say "enough" to all of these death and just legalize opiates? Fentanyl's rise is 100% attributable to smuggling in drugs due to the War on Drugs. It allows the smugglers to move the maximum potency with the minimum risk and minimum quantity. Drug smuggling is a business, and as long as opiates remain illegal to posses without a prescription than this incentive will dominate. Legalizing opiates, providing s…

Legalization of hard drugs doesn't work long term. If you provide all resources to people to enjoy opiates - they will have no incentive to quit. Why is this utopian view so persistent?

This is a good point. Only prohibition works, which is why the number of opioid deaths have been going down since its inception. It is mystifying why anyone would question the efficacy of the current system
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