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Fentanyl vaccine tested in rats

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Re: Fentanyl vaccine tested in rats

#241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't do this, it's very tiring to discuss like this. He's obviously talking about illegal fentanyl use.

I agree, it is very tiring when people suggest that medicine was invented and manufactured by the Chinese so that specifically Americans would abuse it. "Grey zone warfare". This is a wild conspiracy theory. It's on par with the Chinese conspiracy theory that COVID was an American bioweapon.

It's not a conspiracy. China makes fentanyl, ships some to Mexican cartels, and actually helps the cartels launder their money through Chinese bank accounts. No US jurisdiction there.

Re: Fentanyl vaccine tested in rats

#242
post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- The black market is always cheaper. - Even in a legal market how many people are always buying their own? - If everything is legal then it's even easier for people to spike drinks and the like. - Purdue Pharma marketing issue writ large. - Patients pressuring their doctors to prescribe, or alternatively feeling pressured by their doctors to use a particular drug. - If it's legal it's easier to purposefully or accid…

> - The black market is always cheaper. anecdata: I'm in canada, which has legalized marijuana recently. The black market is cheaper, but all but the most die-hard stoners I know like to buy government weed, because the product is consistent and you know what you're getting. > - Even in a legal market how many people are always buying their own? Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but in a legal market even if I don't buy so…

Die-hards make up the most volume for recreational substances. Alcoholics by far consume the majority of alcohol sales, for instance.

Re: Fentanyl vaccine tested in rats

#243

The real issue here that people don't seem to want to face is the WHY. Why do so many people want to check out of life completely by abusing medicine? If we don't address that nothing is going to stop the drug abuse let alone the relapse and overdose. I'm not talking about "more 12 step" here but more of a Frommian psychoanalytic approach. You are broken because society is broken. You have the ability to change yours…

They’re adding Fentanyl to everything now. I have Burning Man-adjacent friends who take ecstasy once a year at festivals, and they’re terrified of getting a tainted dose. This affects many more people than just those addicted to opiates.

That's very confusing to me. Criminal drug dealers of course want to lower their costs and maximize repeat business, even if that hurts their customers. But people consume different drugs for different reasons, and I don't see the economic benefit in giving them something orthogonal or opposite to what they're actually looking for, when it would be cheaper and safer to just dilute with some inactive filler material.

Re: Fentanyl vaccine tested in rats

#244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that the palliative care of a cancer patient is slightly different than a broken leg. Only one of these lead to the opioid crises.

I don't know about that. The immediate post-trauma care of something like a broken leg would reasonably involve strong narcotics. You're not going to be sent home with a batch of it, but may get some on your way to surgery.

> You're not going to be sent home with a batch of it,

You might, that's the issue. Maybe doctors are more hesitant to prescribe such pills now, but for instance they tried to prescribe Vicodin (iirc) to me after I had my wisdom teeth removed (which required general anesthesia to my chagrin.) I refused and took the max recommended dose of over the counter acetaminophen for a few days instead. I was in pain but it was tolerable, the pills they tried to push on me were totally unnecessary.

That sort of post-op pain is only temporary, but a pill addiction could last the rest of your short life.

Re: Fentanyl vaccine tested in rats

#245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

can you elaborate?

“ Illegal drugs increase crime, partly because some users turn to crime to pay for their habits and partly because some users are stimulated by certain drugs to act more violently. Legalization, however, will not affect addiction and its effects on the propensity to violence. Instead of legalizing drugs, better treatment, education, and research are needed to curb dependency on drugs and the adverse health and social…

"Illegal drugs increase crime, partly because some users turn to crime to pay for their habits "

If all drugs would be illegal, then they would be mostly so cheap that this argument falls apart very quickly. Drugs are only expensive because they are illegal. Poppy and coca are not hard to grow and neither is hemp. And the chemical drugs are way more cheap to produce. So very high quality stuff would remain expensive, the same way a fine wine is expensive, but just to get drunk is cheap (even with taxes).

"and partly because some users are stimulated by certain drugs to act more violently."

And yes, that is true, but one of the most famous and widespread drug that makes people aggressive is already legal - alcohol.

"Legalization, however, will not affect addiction"

And this is up for debate, for some it will be easier to get help, because the stigma and criminalisation is gone, but yes, some might start it, because it becomes avaiable. And I did not look in the recent numbers, but back then when I did - in the netherlands for example, drug use decreased, after marijuhana was legalised. It is quite complex - some people are afraid of anything illegal, some are appealed by it, mainly teenagers who are in most danger of becoming addicts/developing brain damage.

"better treatment, education, and research are needed to curb dependency on drugs and the adverse health and social effects of drug use."

But this is true. And better, than jail people who simply need help.

Re: Fentanyl vaccine tested in rats

#246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the crazy thing about this whole issue. Some people can use drugs that are extremely harmful responsibly. It's a once-in-a-while excursion away from ordinary life. There's nothing wrong with having a scary drug, like heroin, a few times a year...except that for some people it leads to their entire life unraveling. This idea that we're all the same and because drugs are physically addictive (i.e., sustained us…

I appreciate the selflessness and pragmatism. Many responsible users are much more dismissive of prohibition.

It seems selfless but not pragmatic. Prohibition doesn't seem to make the opiate problem smaller, it just makes it more dangerous for users, the public, and the people selling it.

Re: Fentanyl vaccine tested in rats

#247

The real issue here that people don't seem to want to face is the WHY. Why do so many people want to check out of life completely by abusing medicine? If we don't address that nothing is going to stop the drug abuse let alone the relapse and overdose. I'm not talking about "more 12 step" here but more of a Frommian psychoanalytic approach. You are broken because society is broken. You have the ability to change yours…

A good metaphor for addiction is speeding. You're driving down and empty highway, you want to get where you're going faster. You're not going to actively look down at your speedometer. You know you're probably breaking the prescribed limit a bit, but who cares. The when you finally are faced with looking at the speedometer, say when you get to windy section or a speed trap, you look down and you're going 25mph over the limit and you have no idea how you ended up going so fast, but by that time, you're brakes are squealing or worse.

Re: Fentanyl vaccine tested in rats

#248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm homeless and living in the Tenderloin in San Francisco. People here want you to - Be in a gang (or a prostitute, thief, ex-con and so forth) - Be on drugs (or in rehab for drugs) - Have a mental illness (so you can go to therapy) - Be disabled - Find religion There isn't a position for "I ran out of money and my family wouldn't support me, and at some point finding web development work became too hard as the tech…

You've explained this much more clearly than I've seen done before. Maybe because I hear my voice in yours. Skip the web dev and be a writer. Surely other HNers can hire patientplatypus for this?

If you check the comment history it is unlikely that anyone here wants to listen to what this person has to say, let alone provide them with work. I have skimmed through a few of the comments and IMO there is nothing in there that warrents the downvotes / dead comments, which appear to not even get replies (tut tut HN, breaking your own "rules" again)

I do wish this person well however, I hope luck smiles down on them soon.

This comment will go the way of the dodo soon enough .!.. :-)

Re: Fentanyl vaccine tested in rats

#249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an inaccurate understanding of the drug economy. The drug cartels that supply the street dealers are multi billion dollar businesses rivaling the size of the big pharma corporations. And the DEA absolutely is not "usually stopping" them. They disrupt low and mid level arms of their operations with some regularity, but it does little to stem the rivers of money flowing towards the groups controlling the illici…

Didn't we kind of already try this out some with opiates? Didn't big pharma already push opiates and cause millions of people to become addicted and cause an untold number of deaths and didn't that contribute to the current situation that we are in now with opiate addiction? I don't see how legalizing it completely where anyone who wants it without a prescription could possibly turn into anything but an absolute mess…

Not exactly, hence the rise of fentanyl. Prior to the rise of fentanyl, new addicts often went from prescription pills like oxycodone to heroin as their lives unraveled because prescription drugs are expensive and hard to get. Some enterprising drug dealers started enhancing their cut heroin with fentanyl which can be imported from China and is extremely dense compared to other opiates, which matters because smuggling is most of the cost. Downward pressure on the prices changed the ratio until you were left with pure fentanyl, so in effect prescription pills were not available enough and drug dealers were able to capture the market with more dangerous but cheaper product.

Re: Fentanyl vaccine tested in rats

#250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't do this, it's very tiring to discuss like this. He's obviously talking about illegal fentanyl use.

I agree, it is very tiring when people suggest that medicine was invented and manufactured by the Chinese so that specifically Americans would abuse it. "Grey zone warfare". This is a wild conspiracy theory. It's on par with the Chinese conspiracy theory that COVID was an American bioweapon.

"was invented and manufactured by the Chinese so that specifically Americans would abuse it."

Nobody has suggested this. Who invented it and for what original purpose is irrelevant.

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