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How the fentanyl crisis' fourth wave has hit every corner of the US

bbc.com

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Re: How the fentanyl crisis' fourth wave has hit every corner of the US

#91

Post by survirtual »

Kalkaline wrote: post #78
survirtual wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a direct result of the drug war... Legalize all drugs, disempower doctors from being gatekeepers and allow anyone to get anything they want at any time, aside from age restrictions and things like antibiotics (which can contribute to making bacteria more robust and dangerous). Testable, trackable access to all drugs, without any stigma of illegality. This removes all incentive for adulterated substances, gives…

You have to fund rehabilitation for addiction if you're going to open those flood gates. I'm all about legalization, but we need to follow Portugal's lead on this as they saw a major drop in overall drug use.

You could easily fund rehabilitation with a fraction of the taxable proceeds from legal drug sales.

Re: How the fentanyl crisis' fourth wave has hit every corner of the US

#92

Post by rokkitmensch »

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #27
fabian2k wrote: post #22

Just to get an impression for the scale, the paper that is linked in the article shows that there were ~40000 deaths due to overdose in 2010 and a bit more than 100000 deaths in 2021. So this is not just fentanyl becoming a larger part of the portion of deaths, but a very significant increase in total deaths as well.

Minor nitpick: when you provide figures in the multiple thousands, it really improves readability if you use the thousand separator (40000 -> 40,000, and even more so 100000 -> 100,000). Thanks.

Can't get confused with the traditional notation either! Your options are to demarcate by -illion (40e3, 100e3) or by order of magnitude (4e4, 1e5).

Commas and periods perpetuate cultural ambiguity and waste characters.

Re: How the fentanyl crisis' fourth wave has hit every corner of the US

#93

Post by survirtual »

0dayz wrote: post #90
survirtual wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a direct result of the drug war... Legalize all drugs, disempower doctors from being gatekeepers and allow anyone to get anything they want at any time, aside from age restrictions and things like antibiotics (which can contribute to making bacteria more robust and dangerous). Testable, trackable access to all drugs, without any stigma of illegality. This removes all incentive for adulterated substances, gives…

I kind of agree, I agree 100% with transparency, it's something I think the UK does wonders with having drug testing sites where they don't confiscate the drug instead the user themselves can decide if they want to take whatever toxic waste is mixed in with MDMA for instance. I don't think legalizing it to the point where anyone can get it anywhere is the way to go, you have to rehabilitate not only users but the dru…

I agree with the idea of rehabilitating public perception, but I believe that happens naturally with legalization.

The issue is that every day there is friction to acquire unadulterated drugs, is another day some young human dies for causes unrelated to the negative impacts of the substance they are taking themselves.

It is easy to plan for the risk of something when you know what it is. How can they plan for risk of fentanyl laced MDMA? They are going to take the drug one way or another, so we can all start by making sure what they take is what they think it is. That will immediately begin saving lives and have drastic societal impacts.

By doing that, the reshaping of perceptions and use of these drugs happens naturally. People taking them can be open about what they are on, and can have support when they use. Conversations will happen naturally -- "did you know MDMA has significant benefits when taken quietly and contemplatively? Maybe try that sometime." These conversations rarely happen now because you have to establish trust and knowledge with people to make sure they won't be a danger to your safety and freedom.

With current mechanics, often times, people hide their use so well they look like advocates against use. How many police officers, for instance, are users of something? We don't have a clue. The users are absolute masters of hiding. But I promise you, they exist, and the numbers are higher than anyone would expect.

Re: How the fentanyl crisis' fourth wave has hit every corner of the US

#94

Post by filoeleven »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #55
Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making all drugs legal to use makes sense to me. Criminalizing users only makes things worse. But make it illegal to sell, transport, possess in large quantities etc.

How are drug users going to know what they are buying if they are illegal to sell? Dealers are putting fentanyl in cocaine nowadays. It wouldn’t surprise me if a large number of fentanyl overdoses were by people who had no idea they were taking fentanyl at all.

There are test kits available that can show you what you have, including tests for fentanyl. It requires a bunch of different reagent tests if you bought a Mystery Powder that you want to ID. But if you were after MDMA, for example, and bought what’s claimed to be MDMA, you can test it with a specific reagent to confirm whether it is that or not, then test it with a fentanyl test strip to show if it’s free of that contaminant.

Dance Safe sets up tents at big festivals to do this kind of testing as a harm reduction service. They (and others) are trying to normalize the step of testing what you have before using it, and I think that’s a wise choice especially with fentanyl in the mix. I’d expect that with decriminalized use of “white powder” drugs, you’d see these kits become more readily available from smoke shops, maybe even pharmacies, instead of being something you have to search for online.

Re: How the fentanyl crisis' fourth wave has hit every corner of the US

#95

Post by JoBrad »

oneTbrain23 wrote: post #68

This is how foreign agents able to slowly destroy America. It is the people that make a country and not the land. Unalive the native and flood it with "specific" immigrants. Given how incompetent America congress is for the past 3 decades, we are seeing the beginning of fall of Rome unfolding in our lifetime. What a time to live in. Is like given a chance to see destruction of Spanish Armada or sack of Rome....defini…

I’m old enough to have heard this theory with a few different variations, now, and I can’t help but hear the racial dog whistle undertones, even if the person making the argument doesn’t intend that. I don’t think there is any logical progression of this theory that doesn’t end with horrible cruelty towards “them”. It’s not like we haven’t seen this play out multiple times in the US.

Re: How the fentanyl crisis' fourth wave has hit every corner of the US

#96

Post by landoftheice »

hotpotamus wrote: post #75
oneTbrain23 wrote: post #68

This is how foreign agents able to slowly destroy America. It is the people that make a country and not the land. Unalive the native and flood it with "specific" immigrants. Given how incompetent America congress is for the past 3 decades, we are seeing the beginning of fall of Rome unfolding in our lifetime. What a time to live in. Is like given a chance to see destruction of Spanish Armada or sack of Rome....defini…

What specific immigrants do you mean? Most of the immigrants I'm aware of work in kitchens and construction sites or the skilled ones in software or medicine. Most of the people I see calling for ever more power and wealth for the plutocrats who would sell the nation for scrap are natives who want a piece of that action.

[dead]

Re: How the fentanyl crisis' fourth wave has hit every corner of the US

#97

Post by Eddy_Viscosity2 »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #88
Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Decriminalizing drug use is intended to solve a different problem - that being throwing people in jail for being addicts is bad in a number of ways and consequences. Making all drugs legal and available (with quality assurance) will (at least help) solve the problem you are talking about, but will at the same time create whole new problems that more and easier access to drugs will mean more people try and use them an…

Decriminalizing use basically decriminalizes selling as far as I can tell here in the northwest. Police and prosecutors can no longer threaten users with legal action to give up their dealers, and since buying is now low risk, dealing also becomes lower risk. I’ve seen people on the street looking for drugs and find them on my morning walks (they are pretty vocal when asking, and dealers aren’t shy about replying).

It would be easy to put out fake buyers to find the sellers. Sounds like lazy policing.

Re: How the fentanyl crisis' fourth wave has hit every corner of the US

#98

Post by seanmcdirmid »

Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote: post #97
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Decriminalizing use basically decriminalizes selling as far as I can tell here in the northwest. Police and prosecutors can no longer threaten users with legal action to give up their dealers, and since buying is now low risk, dealing also becomes lower risk. I’ve seen people on the street looking for drugs and find them on my morning walks (they are pretty vocal when asking, and dealers aren’t shy about replying).

It would be easy to put out fake buyers to find the sellers. Sounds like lazy policing.

It is hard to find police that can convincingly do unhoused drug addict well enough.

Re: How the fentanyl crisis' fourth wave has hit every corner of the US

#99

Post by ffgjgf1 »

fatfingerd wrote: post #36
ffgjgf1 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably you start with other drugs and especially weaker opiates. E.g. painkillers in pill form might be relatively harmless (compared to Fentanyl of course) but are more expensive and harder to get especially after the crackdown on prescriptions. Fentanyl OTH seems to have a great cost/“value” ratio so when you’re already addicted and can’t afford anything else you don’t really have much of a choice. At that poin…

> Sweden has the highest number of deaths per capita In Europe? It looks like the US has almost 3X as many. The US' map of deaths looks dominated by economics, while the European one looks like it follows the latitude with seasonal depression.

> In Europe? It looks like the US has almost 3X as many.

Yeah, of course, US is on a completely different scale.

> while the European one looks like it follows the latitude with seasonal depression.

And/or drug policies. Sweden is significantly more prohibitionist than most countries in Europe. Generally discussion about drug use are also generally much less tolerated and the social stigma attached to it is bigger.

Re: How the fentanyl crisis' fourth wave has hit every corner of the US

#100

Post by Gud »

JoBrad wrote: post #95
oneTbrain23 wrote: post #68

This is how foreign agents able to slowly destroy America. It is the people that make a country and not the land. Unalive the native and flood it with "specific" immigrants. Given how incompetent America congress is for the past 3 decades, we are seeing the beginning of fall of Rome unfolding in our lifetime. What a time to live in. Is like given a chance to see destruction of Spanish Armada or sack of Rome....defini…

I’m old enough to have heard this theory with a few different variations, now, and I can’t help but hear the racial dog whistle undertones, even if the person making the argument doesn’t intend that. I don’t think there is any logical progression of this theory that doesn’t end with horrible cruelty towards “them”. It’s not like we haven’t seen this play out multiple times in the US.

Just out of curiosity, how old are you? These things don't exactly happen overnight.
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