the Fentanyl age - provenance, power and the politics of control

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version

Well-known member
My gut feeling is it's just the market following its own logic, maybe there's intelligence agency involvement somewhere in the chain, but I don't see an overarching plot, unless you're someone who views capitalism itself in terms of conspiracy.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
is fentanyl the stuff you can get over the counter or am i mixing it up with something else?
Absolutely not - it's at least a hundred times stronger than morphine. You might be thinking of codeine, which is weaker than morphine and can be bought OTC in most countries, although it's always mixed with another painkiller such as paracetamol so you can't just get high by boshing a whole packet (or at least, it would be a very bad idea, since dying of liver failure tends to harsh one's buzz).
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Apparently a big chunk of the Mexican cartels' business is synthetic stuff like meth and fentanyl because you can make it more or less anywhere and don't have to worry about growing anything or having the land or conditions to do so.
Another China connection is that China is - allegedly - the main supplier of the precursor chemicals that are used to make meth in the big labs in Mexico.
 

wild greens

Well-known member
I may be wrong but i thought initially it was mainly incorporated into weak street heroin etc as an adjuvant of sorts? Whereas now it seems to be the core ingredient in a lot of cases which is leading to massive spike in deaths

Read a bit about tranq recently as well where you've got this Xylazine added to the mix but don't know if this is real or a scaremongering situation?

Got to feel for all these people suckered into the life by doctors doing opiate prescriptions on kickbacks etc. Fucked up world
 

william_kent

Well-known member
I may be wrong but i thought initially it was mainly incorporated into weak street heroin etc as an adjuvant of sorts? Whereas now it seems to be the core ingredient in a lot of cases which is leading to massive spike in deaths

Read a bit about tranq recently as well where you've got this Xylazine added to the mix but don't know if this is real or a scaremongering situation?

Got to feel for all these people suckered into the life by doctors doing opiate prescriptions on kickbacks etc. Fucked up world

Reports from active drug users state that xylazine, the veterinary tranquilliser, has been increasing in the illicit drug supply in Philadelphia. To describe trends and characteristics of unintentional deaths from heroin and/or fentanyl overdose with xylazine detections occurring in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the Philadelphia Department of Public Health analysed data on deaths from unintentional heroin and/or fentanyl overdose from the Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s Office over a 10-year period (2010–2019). Xylazine went from being detected in less than 2% cases of fatal heroin and/or fentanyl overdose between 2010 and 2015 to 262 (31%) of the 858 fatal heroin and/or fentanyl overdose cases in 2019.

^ from 2021

it's got worse since then, apparently
 

WashYourHands

Cat Malogen
Fentanyl as a convergence point isn’t unusual - public health, legal frameworks and policing, homelessness, potency to price index, demographic biases, high rates of retention within any consumption group which in turn leads to higher rates of mortality

From afar, certain US and Canadian cities appear specifically maligned, with all of the above forming intersections of deeper societal inconsistencies. Europe, as always, plays catch up. Fentanyl’s mythical nod of all nods and risk factors draw plenty of views of skid row footage, so it’s gathered a rare, surreal, voyeuristic social store of value too. However, the fact this array of drug choices are all beyond stark - fentanyl, benzos, tranqs - while accelerating regional cases, brings in questions of supply

That a kilo of fentanyl means you’re sitting on a huge raise isn’t suspect. Yes, the internet helps and it’s not difficult to prep/cut. Wouldn’t overly question cartel involvement due to a ton of evidence, whereas the China narrative seems a bit too (how can I put this) easy. Fentanyl may have had a clinical presence for a few decades but its place in usage circles is now unchallenged and seems impossible to displace. How? Afghan derived heroin is still plentiful, yet try sourcing it. It’s tricky!

Do the Chinese have an interest in maintaining US drug supplies? Of course. Conversely, if I wanted to Control specific demographics, I’d want a top down overview on my supply chain and this is where the presence of domestic actors seems as relevant as any foreign influence. A virtual displacement of time honoured compounds like diamorphine isn’t a surprise, when the replacement is so strong. What has surprised is the acceleration and consolidation of such markets. Less than a decade old in real terms, strange or concerted? Alternatively, if I wanted to observe and note how a foreign intelligence network operated, I’d continue observing until I could map said network and then begin tracing the money

This is the UN profile of it’s SE Asia and Pacific rep who seems more concerned by China than actual fentanyl

 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Got to feel for all these people suckered into the life by doctors doing opiate prescriptions on kickbacks etc. Fucked up world
And also for people with chronic pain conditions who can't get effective pain relief because doctors are now so wary of prescribing strong painkillers.
 

WashYourHands

Cat Malogen
Try a hernia op gone wrong nightmare, certain days I’d willingly put a fentanyl patch right on the zone of contempt

GP’s here flip flop. It doesn’t take too much of a push to wear a GP mark down to get a chronic pain referral. The fixation on treatment pathways usually, at some juncture, includes opiates. A singular goal for some. There’s more of a bias towards over-prescribing benzos to women but rather than regale anecdotal evidence, even though American levels of script access are vastly different to here the wholesale switch to fentanyl is still profound and devastating

An illicit market is like a massive bicep - always flexing against any supply dents. Add an incoherent social security system, poor primary care for physical and mental health and sprinkle with appalling compounds. Any google search of record + seizure + drug name throws up link after link thick with madness and for our purposes a Newsom interjection


response

  • MORE THAN $1 BILLION INVESTED since the beginning of the Newsom Administration to address the opioid crisis, with CalHHS investing $450 Million in the current fiscal year.
  • 28,765 POUNDS SEIZED by law enforcement with support from the California National Guard in support of law enforcement during 2022, an estimated street value of more than $230 Million and saving potentially hundreds of millions of lives according to the DEA.
  • 594% INCREASE IN FENTANYL SEIZED by law enforcement with help from the California National Guard compared to 2021.
  • 166 NEW GUARD MEMBERS hired, trained, and embedded by California’s National Guard to support the Governor’s initiative to reduce deadly fentanyl in communities.

High numbers and money for enforcement and restricted within one state. Call and response. People here bought bs random benzos precisely because they were pressed to look like Xanax. Similar trends now exist with fentanyl, its scale and scope are genuinely horrific but you have to ask, as with all narcotics at scale, is there more going on? Why is the market always so utterly deluged? Surreal times, never seen anything like it
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
It really seems that Oxycontin was the thing that sort of opened the door to a whole world of problems. I read a really long article about it once and one thing I took from that and which I always remember is that the pills combined with the way they were used added up to an ideal situation for creating addiction cos the painkilling effect lasted (say) eight hours, but patients would be given a regime of taking it every ten or twelve hours. The inevitable result being that the patient would spend two or more hours in pain unable to think of anything but their next dose.

I can't remember properly why but there was some reason it was important for the effect to last twelve hours - presumably that would give them the edge over their competitor - and so doctors were effectively bribed to pretend that the pills did last that long and prescribe them as though they did.

And that was it, a whole generation of people who previously would have been put on a course of painkillers after an accident or surgery and then taken off it with minimum fuss were now being placed in a situation where the odds were highly in favour of them being drawn unwittingly into a terrible addiction.

And here we are.
 

sus

Well-known member
The reverse opium war angle having been covered I am forced to dig for fresh takes

Does fentanyl (ridiculously cheap, ridiculously potent) usher in the era when a civilization has, for the first time, the financial capacity for its entire population to get permahigh and never need to come down?

Should we publicly execute anyone selling or distributing fentanyl? A forced OD, puke and all that, on stage for a crowd might do it. If incentives are there, sellers would not only stop carrying but also start rigorously testing their own supply.

Should the US annex Mexico and eradicate cartel distribution/manufacture?
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Should we publicly execute anyone selling or distributing fentanyl? A forced OD, puke and all that, on stage for a crowd might do it. If incentives are there, sellers would not only stop carrying but also start rigorously testing their own supply.
But what if they die in obvious ecstasy with a huge smile on their face? It might turn into the best possible advert for it with people queueing up to die in the best possible way
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
The reverse opium war angle having been covered I am forced to dig for fresh takes

Does fentanyl (ridiculously cheap, ridiculously potent) usher in the era when a civilization has, for the first time, the financial capacity for its entire population to get permahigh and never need to come down?
No more so than the availability of cheap gin in 18th century Britain - the drink that was advertised with the slogan "Drunk for a penny, dead drunk for tuppence". Or, in all likelihood, vodka in modern Russia (or probably Russia at any point in its history).
 

catalog

Well-known member
seem to recall doing some sort of visual analysis of this for some school class

T01799_9.jpg
 

martin

----
For GIN is the deity, and INTEMPERANCE is the hand-maiden, of both sexes
and nearly all ages in that district of London.

What crimes, what follies have been perpetrated for Gin! A river of
alcohol rolls through the land, sweeping away health, honour, and
happiness with its remorseless tide. The creaking gibbet, and the prison
ward—the gloomy hulk, and the far-off penal isle—the debtors' gaol, and
the silent penitentiary—the tomb-like workhouse, and the loathsome
hospital—the galling chain, and the spirit-breaking tread-wheel—the
frightful mad-cell, and the public dissecting-room—the death-bed of
despair, and the grave of the suicide, are indebted for many, many
victims to thee, most potent GIN!

O GIN! the Genius of Accidents and the Bad Angel of Offences worship
thee! Thou art the Juggernaut beneath whose wheels millions throw
themselves in blind adoration.

The pawnbroker points to thee and says, "Whilst thy dominion lasts, I am
sure to thrive."

The medical man smiles as he marks thy progress, for he knows that thou
leadest a ghastly train,—apoplexy, palsy, dropsy, delirium tremens,
consumption, madness.

The undertaker chuckles when he remembers thine influence, for he says
within himself, "Thou art the Angel of Death."

And Satan rejoices in his kingdom, well-knowing how thickly it can be
populated by thee!

Yes—great is thy power, O Gin: a terrible instrument of evil art thou.
Thou sweepest over the world with the wing of the pestilence: thy breath
that of a plague:—like the poisonous garment of Dejanira on the burning
limbs of the Centaur, dost thou cling around thy victims.

And where the grave-yard is heaped up with mouldering bones—and where
disease and death prevail in all their most hideous shapes—and where
misery is most keenly felt, and poverty is most pinching—and where the
wails of hapless children ascend to heaven in vain appeal against the
cruelty of inhuman parents—and where crime is most diabolical,—there are
thy triumphs—there are thy victories!
 

sus

Well-known member
No more so than the availability of cheap gin in 18th century Britain - the drink that was advertised with the slogan "Drunk for a penny, dead drunk for tuppence". Or, in all likelihood, vodka in modern Russia (or probably Russia at any point in its history).
Yes but fentanyl feels a lot better than being drunk, which is pretty mid tier experience no? The only ones who really seem to get a kick outta being permadrunk are alcoholics and, well, they're alcoholics
 

catalog

Well-known member
you are missing the point - tea is saying it's all relative. today fentanyl, yesterday gin. he's saying it's a moral panic, the hand wringing is manufactured
 

WashYourHands

Cat Malogen
Yes humans love intoxicants but the pharmacology of gin and fentanyl are vastly different and their social domains are vastly different
 
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