The main thing about P2P meth is that there's so much of it (2021) • Hacker News Board

Re: The main thing about P2P meth is that there's so much of it (2021)

#51

Post by cryzinger » Sat, May 16, 2026, 2:50 AM UTC

idiotsecant wrote: post #42

hash872 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The government should just regulate it, control purity and production and let people access small amounts for recreation/performance Famously, the US spent about 15-20 years attempting this with opioids. They were widely available to people via a pseudo-medical process, or via secondhand dealing. Opioids were/are manufactured by regulated, publicly traded companies with inspectors who controlled purity and productio…

Your opioid comparison is wildly apples to oranges. They were marketed and sold to consumers as safe, much more effective, and dramatically less addictive than it actually was. An industrial addiction machine ignored regulatory safeguards, built a 'pay for play' rewards structure to incentivize prescriptions, and a zillion other cartoonishly evil things . There is a world of difference between something like that and…

I think another under-discussed factor in the opioid crisis is that opioids are cheap, but (American) healthcare to treat underlying pain is not. You might not be able to afford six weeks of physical therapy, surgery, etc., but you can probably afford $11.23 a month for a generic prescription.

Re: The main thing about P2P meth is that there's so much of it (2021)

#52

Post by dang » Sat, May 16, 2026, 2:50 AM UTC

Discussed at the time:

The main thing about Phenylacetone meth is that there's so much of it - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29027284 - Oct 2021 (359 comments)

Re: The main thing about P2P meth is that there's so much of it (2021)

#53

Post by trhway » Sat, May 16, 2026, 2:55 AM UTC

KarlKode wrote: post #37

whimsicalism wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? Prohibition historically showed the exact opposite. I suspect higher purity & potency of street drugs has much more to do with more sophisticated operators operating outside of the US than strict prohibition. Same with fentanyl.

I believe OP wanted to make the point that one of the most important things for people profiting from the illegal sale of drugs (meth or heroin/opiates) is to minimize the amount that has to be trafficked (1kg of 10% meth vs 100g of pure meth or 1kg of heroin vs 10g of fentanyl). I believe this explanation is too simplistic...

yes, the "Iron law of prohibition" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_prohibition

"the harder the enforcement, the harder the drugs."

Re: The main thing about P2P meth is that there's so much of it (2021)

#54

Post by keepamovin » Sat, May 16, 2026, 2:57 AM UTC

Aurornis wrote: post #31

keepamovin wrote: post #10

The ephedrine (or pseudoephedrine) synthesis is a one step using phosphorus/iodine reduction directly to methamphetamine. It’s simple and clean in that only an acid base extraction is required, and only one set of NP solvents. All these others syntheses with multiple steps up the chances of weird toxic solvents or contaminants creeping in. I think it’s a contaminant issue that’s exacerbated by the drug use. The gover…

> The government should just regulate it, control purity and production and let people access small amounts for recreation/performance. The phrase “small amount” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in this statement. The government does regulate and control amphetamine and methamphetamine (Desoxyn) as prescription drugs. The former is not all that hard to access. For a while it was as easy as signing up for a service thr…

No, policy wise I appreciate you getting into the nuance, but I feel like you take the argument to polar extremes (with an attitude of confident, final certainty), when the expected outcome is across the middle. This smells more like ideology than practicality.

> These discussions always end up …

Before your comment i wouldn’t say anyone is lacking curiosity here. Tho your comment about fixing into a stereotype, seems the example of itself. I think it’s better to listen and discuss than assume the futures settle into a mischaracterization that you’ve already decided. That doesn’t seem very useful - except for ideology…

On the toxicity side, do you have any studies to cite? I wasn’t aware of toxicity, but it’s plausible.

Big picture tho, I’m not an expert in drug policy. It just sounds like a logical way to reduce harm overall. Reduce harm overall - worth repeating; on average, create a better society.

The conceivable parties who would lose out are: government funded agencies charged with fighting drug crime because their caseload and budgets would probably decrease; and on the other side the cartels and dealers. Although what seems to happen with the latter is once something is legalized, the supply chains morph into legitimate businesses somehow.

I still think it would work. I’m not convinced by what you said. Thank you tho

Re: The main thing about P2P meth is that there's so much of it (2021)

#55

Post by bananamogul » Sat, May 16, 2026, 2:57 AM UTC

hash872 wrote: post #34

keepamovin wrote: post #10

The ephedrine (or pseudoephedrine) synthesis is a one step using phosphorus/iodine reduction directly to methamphetamine. It’s simple and clean in that only an acid base extraction is required, and only one set of NP solvents. All these others syntheses with multiple steps up the chances of weird toxic solvents or contaminants creeping in. I think it’s a contaminant issue that’s exacerbated by the drug use. The gover…

>The government should just regulate it, control purity and production and let people access small amounts for recreation/performance Famously, the US spent about 15-20 years attempting this with opioids. They were widely available to people via a pseudo-medical process, or via secondhand dealing. Opioids were/are manufactured by regulated, publicly traded companies with inspectors who controlled purity and productio…

Are you referring to the massive opiate abuse crisis that followed World War One?

Re: The main thing about P2P meth is that there's so much of it (2021)

#56

Post by zephen » Sat, May 16, 2026, 2:58 AM UTC

cybercatgurrl wrote: post #45

zephen wrote: post #29

The article was doing so well until the conclusion. > Does this rule out the idea of contaminants? No. Even if it’s 97% pure d-meth, there could be something very nasty lurking in that last 3%. But I don’t see the need for such an explanation. We know there are many more heavy users, so there’s no need to go beyond the idea that quantity has a quality all its own. It's fine if the author finds it an uninteresting pro…

rectify it how? the only thing society is really good at with regards to drugs is prohibition. you can’t impose regulations on an unregulated market

> the only thing society is really good at with regards to drugs is prohibition.

Really? Seems to me that, in general, we suck at it.

Re: The main thing about P2P meth is that there's so much of it (2021)

#57

Post by keepamovin » Sat, May 16, 2026, 3:00 AM UTC

whimsicalism wrote: post #26

keepamovin wrote: post #10

The ephedrine (or pseudoephedrine) synthesis is a one step using phosphorus/iodine reduction directly to methamphetamine. It’s simple and clean in that only an acid base extraction is required, and only one set of NP solvents. All these others syntheses with multiple steps up the chances of weird toxic solvents or contaminants creeping in. I think it’s a contaminant issue that’s exacerbated by the drug use. The gover…

> I think it’s a contaminant issue that’s exacerbated by the drug use. I think the various pieces of evidence presented in the article basically all point against this. Is there a reason you think the evidence in the article is flawed?

I don’t take the article as authoritative. It’s argument against contamination is not strong. It doesn’t present any real evidence for it. You can elaborate if you like

Re: The main thing about P2P meth is that there's so much of it (2021)

#58

Post by hash872 » Sat, May 16, 2026, 3:01 AM UTC

cyberax wrote: post #50

hash872 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The government should just regulate it, control purity and production and let people access small amounts for recreation/performance Famously, the US spent about 15-20 years attempting this with opioids. They were widely available to people via a pseudo-medical process, or via secondhand dealing. Opioids were/are manufactured by regulated, publicly traded companies with inspectors who controlled purity and productio…

> A shattering drug addiction crisis that at its height killed more people annually than the entire Vietnam War. Except that you're wrong. The war-on-drugs kept drugs under control. It did not _eliminate_ them, but they also were not available on every street corner. Once we stopped the war-on-drugs, the abuse rates skyrocketed. Not just opiods, but also meth. You can see it on the graphs in this article, the general…

I think we're agreeing with each other?

Re: The main thing about P2P meth is that there's so much of it (2021)

#59

Post by hash872 » Sat, May 16, 2026, 3:04 AM UTC

idiotsecant wrote: post #42

hash872 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The government should just regulate it, control purity and production and let people access small amounts for recreation/performance Famously, the US spent about 15-20 years attempting this with opioids. They were widely available to people via a pseudo-medical process, or via secondhand dealing. Opioids were/are manufactured by regulated, publicly traded companies with inspectors who controlled purity and productio…

Your opioid comparison is wildly apples to oranges. They were marketed and sold to consumers as safe, much more effective, and dramatically less addictive than it actually was. An industrial addiction machine ignored regulatory safeguards, built a 'pay for play' rewards structure to incentivize prescriptions, and a zillion other cartoonishly evil things . There is a world of difference between something like that and…

>Those are exactly the people you want to have access to it

Yes but that's different from 'every random person can buy some meth at 7-11 or the government store' though. I'm fine with a controlled program for registered, hardcore addicts- the 2% who do 50% of the drugs or what have you.

>The problem was not in fact opioids. It was the profit structure behind the distribution network. Remove that and the bulk of the problems go away too

I mean, states & countries that have completely state-run liquor stores still have alcoholism and serious alcohol problems though? If 'removing the profit structure' worked magically, more countries would do it. AFAIK rates of alcoholism aren't even different between state-run and private sector models

Re: The main thing about P2P meth is that there's so much of it (2021)

#60

Post by keepamovin » Sat, May 16, 2026, 3:05 AM UTC

cryzinger wrote: post #51

idiotsecant wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your opioid comparison is wildly apples to oranges. They were marketed and sold to consumers as safe, much more effective, and dramatically less addictive than it actually was. An industrial addiction machine ignored regulatory safeguards, built a 'pay for play' rewards structure to incentivize prescriptions, and a zillion other cartoonishly evil things . There is a world of difference between something like that and…

I think another under-discussed factor in the opioid crisis is that opioids are cheap, but (American) healthcare to treat underlying pain is not. You might not be able to afford six weeks of physical therapy, surgery, etc., but you can probably afford $11.23 a month for a generic prescription.

My view of a lot of the opioid crisis stuff aside from physical pain is psychological trauma - people self medicating as an alternative to doing the work.

That’s why I think the psychoactive legislation that’s introduced recently about psychedelics is so important because those things can rapidly accelerate processing and healing psychological trauma.

My view, is if this was done 20 - 30 years ago there wouldn’t be such a large demand for opiates. I take it further and say that probably some in the drug companies understand this already and were lobbying against the introduction of more curative psychedelic treatments so that they could sell subscriptions to painkillers.