Deadly Chinese Fentanyl Is Creating a New Era of Drug Kingpins • Hacker News Board

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

#141

Post by madengr » Thu, May 24, 2018, 1:15 AM UTC

smallnamespace wrote: post #58

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.

This is the downside of having global economic integration (buy anything from anywhere for the cost of USPS shipping) without political integration. It's the same type of problem as Greek debtors vs. German creditors except in a different context. Fentanyl analogues are not a problem in China, hence the relative slowness in cracking down on them. The supplier is in China, but the buyer is the West. Why does moral cul…

“Fentanyl analogues are not a problem in China, hence the relative slowness in cracking down on them.”

Probably because it’s the death sentence.

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

#142

Post by yorwba » Thu, May 24, 2018, 1:17 AM UTC

titanomachy wrote: post #140

> Because Yan used Gmail, operated by U.S.-based Google, [DEA agent] Gibbons and his team could persuade a judge to let them monitor his communications in real time. So not only did Google share all of Yan's emails with the US government, they did it silently. Presumably that was a condition of the court order. I don't necessarily consider Google at fault for complying, but it's disturbing to me that a foreign govern…

I doubt that any country has privacy laws that protect against surveillance authorized by a court. The best you could hope for is a court system that doesn't simply approve every request without pushback.

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

#143

Post by qop » Thu, May 24, 2018, 1:19 AM UTC

MajorSauce wrote: post #133

qop wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Canadians, continent-shamers? Please elaborate.

Twas tongue in cheek. No harm intended, I love my estranged moose cousins

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

#144

Post by madengr » Thu, May 24, 2018, 1:20 AM UTC

e40 wrote: post #101

beat wrote: post #83

Not to comment on the politics, but... I had fentanyl during a medical procedure a while back, and I can totally see why it's so addictive. It was wonderful . Both pain and anxiety were totally wiped out, and and the comedown was clean and fast, with no ill effects at all. It's the most pleasant drug I've ever experienced. As long as this kind of high exists, people are going to take it.

I had nausea for 2 days following a procedure where I had it. Compared to the same procedure a few years before with Demerol, which I cleared from my system in a few hours, fentanyl was horrid.

I woke up from surgery feeling great. I don’t know what anesthesia they used, but it was fucking awesome. Contrast that to 40 years ago when I woke up vomiting.

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

#145

Post by dredmorbius » Thu, May 24, 2018, 1:21 AM UTC

smallnamespace wrote: post #58

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.

This is the downside of having global economic integration (buy anything from anywhere for the cost of USPS shipping) without political integration. It's the same type of problem as Greek debtors vs. German creditors except in a different context. Fentanyl analogues are not a problem in China, hence the relative slowness in cracking down on them. The supplier is in China, but the buyer is the West. Why does moral cul…

#GreshamsLaw

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

#146

Post by toomanybeersies » Thu, May 24, 2018, 1:31 AM UTC

Koshkin wrote: post #104

smallnamespace wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the downside of having global economic integration (buy anything from anywhere for the cost of USPS shipping) without political integration. It's the same type of problem as Greek debtors vs. German creditors except in a different context. Fentanyl analogues are not a problem in China, hence the relative slowness in cracking down on them. The supplier is in China, but the buyer is the West. Why does moral cul…

Well, who was to blame for the 19th century Opium Wars? The Chinese?

I'm not sure what you're angling at with this weird historical whataboutism.

Are you saying that it's acceptable for Chinese companies and gangs to manufacture opiates and ship them off to the USA because Britain and the USA went to war with China 150 years ago to enforce the opium trade?

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

#147

Post by toomanybeersies » Thu, May 24, 2018, 1:41 AM UTC

rhizome wrote: post #47

gowld wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not quite right. Legislators certainly can keep up; all they need to do pass a broad ban on chemicals with the undesired empirical properties.

You can't legislate a state of mind, and people have different reactions to different substances, so I'm a little confused as to what form this "broad ban" would take.

Well here's one: http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2013/0053/latest/D...

The Psychoactive Substances Act 2013 was introduced in NZ after its failed experiment with legalising synthetic highs. I don't necessarily agree with the act, but it basically is a "broad ban" of new recreational drugs.

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

#148

Post by cc439 » Thu, May 24, 2018, 2:11 AM UTC

civilian wrote: post #72

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.

Hey, here's a crazy thought. Why don't we end the drug war? Then people can easily get safe drugs with accurate dosages. The deaths, money laundering. They're not symptoms of drug dealers, they're symptoms of the drug war. We should clean it up, but it's naive to think that we should just "fight the drug war harder".

The Opioid/Opiate epidemic is the direct result of highly available, high quality, legal opioids. For the majority of places (i.e. anywhere that isn't a a top 10 city or former, now desitute, trade capital with a port like Baltimore) currently in the grasp of this crisis, it all began with the introduction of pharma-industry darlings like oxycontin and other branded opioids.

Not only were opioids massively overprescribed for otherwise legitimate purposes, once hooked, anyone could walk into one of several "Pain Clinics" located within a few miles of any population center and get a scrip for a pharma quality fix covered almost entirely by their insurance. Even without insurance, the scrip for a 3 month supply of Lortab I received after an emergency appendectomy was just $100 back in 2009 (thanks to manifacturer rebates!). That's a week's fix for any burgeoning pill junkie willing to do cold water extraction (to remove the acetaminophen) and all for a relative pittance.

Allowing mass quantities of high quality opioids onto the market is what caused this issue in the first place. Removing even more barriers to access isn't going to make things any better. In fact, it's guaranteed to make things worse based on the results so far.

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

#149

Post by cc439 » Thu, May 24, 2018, 2:21 AM UTC

freeflight wrote: post #53

vis52 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. From what I could tell that's almost exactly what's happening in Europe as well. One difference though is that it takes even longer since each member state bans these individually. From what I saw there are RC variants of many drugs I've never heard of but I saw RC-LSD, RC synthetic cannabis, RC-ecstasy, angel dust...

It is very much a European thing, not as popular in the US due to easier access to cannabis and it was synthetic Cannabis (Spice) that started the whole craze a couple of years ago, followed by "bath salts" which then extended to the whole RC line of drugs. Tbh the government reactions to this, banning specific substances cannabinoids in particular, have made this situation just that much worse. This stuff booming li…

>Instead, they continue prohibition practices even further, forcing manufacturers to use other (much more dangerous) substances

The inherent danger in iterative research chemicals is a lesson I had to learn firsthand. I had tried the initial formulations for "spice" a few times and found it to be a pleasant analogue to marijuana. I decided to pick some up several years later, and well, the effects were closer to that of a hardcore disassociative than anything resembling THC. Don't fuck around with products you can't be 100% confident in.

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

#150

Post by girvo » Thu, May 24, 2018, 3:11 AM UTC

JshWright wrote: post #126

girvo wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I wasn’t suggesting you were :) was more discussing a tangential point. In Australia, if they are conscious they typically get them to use methoxyflurane (the “green whistle”). It’s quite nice, and very effective!