Fentanyl, heroin, pressies? I'm not getting the story

[ghostsinthemachine]

Prince takes prescription drugs that had fentanyl and dies. People all over, same thing. Now fentanyl is found in Heroin, which is not in pill form.

The story here:
Why there were 88 heroin ODs in 1 city in 5 days
http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/24/health/elephant-tranquilizer-carfentanil-heroin/index.html
So questions are:
Why are drug dealers knowingly killing their customers? Doesn't seem to be the best of business practices.
Who presses it into pills that look! like other pills, when there are fentanyl pills available? And why?
Assuming that fentanyl is available only as a processed pill, why would anyone go to all the trouble to powderize it, blend it then re press it with a weaker drug?
Fentanyl is stronger, too strong, why would anyone cut a less potent drug with a more potent drug?

Something is not adding up here.

[snooper2]

1. Watch this and it will answer all your questions and more...

VICE

Published on Jul 22, 2016
VICE presents an immersive and personal feature film about the fentanyl crisis in Canada told from the perspective of a community of drug users.

[saidsimplesimon]

8. Michael Jackson and Prince,

thanks for saving me from carpal tunnel.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

27. Well that sure makes Calgary look pretty bleak

[yesphan]

2. Perhaps

they're taking the patches (it does come in transdermal patch form), grinding them up and repressing them into pills.

[Crunchy Frog]

10. No. This Fentanyl is being made in clandestine labs in Mexico

and China.

[silverweb]

3. Someone trying to kill off addicts?

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]I can't think of any motive for this except an evil one. If the idea is to cut the heroin, they wouldn't use a stronger drug. They'd use some kind of cheap filler.

The only reason I can think of to create a deadly combination pill is to kill - and the plan has apparently been succeeding. Street dealers wouldn't shrink their customer base, so look for a motivated source higher up in the supply chain.

[Avalux]

6. China manufactures a power form of carfentanil...that's the drug cut with heroine.

See my post below - it's not fentanyl - much stronger and used to sedate large animals. NOT for human use.

[silverweb]

7. Understood.

Last edited Fri Aug 26, 2016, 07:04 PM - Edit history (1)

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]It's an analog of fentanyl. My point remains the same: What is the motivation for mixing heroin with such a potent, deadly substance?

The people making these combination pills must know what they're doing. If they don't, someone above them in the supply chain does. The question still is why?

[Avalux]

9. I'm wondering the same thing, it's sinister.

The people mixing this stuff up have to know it's going to kill people.

[silverweb]

21. Agreed.

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]So the question is, who would want to do such a thing? Someone who hates addicts? Someone who just hates people? Someone who's trying to contaminate the supply and thus spread fear? They have to know that real addicts lose all caution when they badly need a fix.

Who is doing this and why?

[AgadorSparticus]

40. I don't think the motive is to kill off drug addicts.

I think drug dealers wanted a super strong product that will bring that whole community running to them & only them. Kind of like in Breaking bad. They wanted the perfect blue. Well this drug cartel got creative with chemistry but they didn't realize it is so strong it will kill off their customers. And that is a fine line as some of these opioid addicts have opioid tolerances that are pretty incredible. These "cooks" just overshot it.

[silverweb]

41. That sounds very likely, but...

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]I have to confess I never watched "Breaking Bad," so I miss that reference.

You're right about tolerances, too, and I completely forgot about that. The dealers are still evil, greedy bastards.

[AgadorSparticus]

42. Oh my heavens, that is such a GREAT show! You have GOT to watch it.

If you don't have netflix, you can check it out from some libraries.

I honestly had ZERO interest in the subject. But my friend was so insistent, I really didn't have a choice. It took about 3 episodes for me to get totally hooked. The writing is just spectacular. You are really vested in these characters and done so well that you start rooting for all the wrong people. It is great. Anyways, I won't say anymore. I hope you watch it.

[silverweb]

43. My son has said the same thing about the writing.

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]I don't have Netflix, but my Amazon Prime has it for a small fee. I'll catch a few episodes when I get a chance to see what I've been missing.

If I get hooked, it's all your fault! LOL

[AgadorSparticus]

44. You can totally blame me. I'll take full credit, I promise. Lol.

Enjoy!

[silverweb]

45. Thanks.

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]I'm sure I will enjoy it and appreciate the recommendation - and my son may want to shake your hand for getting me to finally sit down long enough to watch it.

[silverweb]

46. By the way...

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]I do get the reference in your screen name. One of my favorite movies (and one of the best characters) of all time!

[AgadorSparticus]

50. I am so glad you got it! I used to wonder if people get why I chose it.

[silverweb]

52. It's definitely unique!

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]Has anyone ever asked you about it?

[MicaelS]

29. This type of thing was a subplot in

A novel I read some years ago. RW multimillionaire wants to kill off addicts so he creates a form of heroin that will be lethal after so many doses. Works for a while, but someone uncovers it, and the bad guy gets killed in the process. It was a techothriller, but it wasn't a Clancy. I think it was a Steven Coonts novel. Not to be confused with Dean Koontz.

[silverweb]

35. Interesting!

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]Life imitating art?

[MicaelS]

37. Could be. n/t

[Calculating]

36. Because it's cheaper

Fentanyl is much cheaper than heroin, and it's also more potent. It's a win-win for dealers to cut heroin with it.

[silverweb]

39. Not so much win for their customers, though.

[ghostsinthemachine]

24. my original question. why?

[silverweb]

25. IMHO, that's THE key question.

[Thor_MN]

47. Maybe the idea isn't to cut heroin, but to beef it up.

Not diluting, but concentrating. If you can get your users into withdrawal in hours as opposed to days, they are going to be buying more. And if fentanyl is cheap, it's perfect for getting users to buy more laced heroin.

[gvstn]

4. I think they are using a cheap generic form of Fentanyl

Produced in a foreign country. Fentanyl is 100 times stronger than heroin (or maybe morphine). Probably pretty easy to make a dosing mistake with that type of potency.

[relayerbob]

26. Exactly

They buy it cheap, mix it with sugar and a little (if any) real material and can sell it for giving a similar high for a small percentage of the real thing.

[Avalux]

5. I think we're talking about two different things fentanyl vs. carfentanil.

From what I've read, the fentanyl pills Prince took were in a prescription bottle labeled hydrocodone. Either the drug company, the pharmacist, someone else, or Prince, put them in the wrong bottle.

The heroine overdoses are from heroine mixed with a drug used to sedate elephants, carfentanil (an analog of fentanyl), that is NOT available for human use because it's 10k more times potent than morphine - it's designed to sedate extremely large animals, not humans. It's dangerous to even touch it because it can be absorbed through the skin.

http://www.wcpo.com/news/crime/hamilton-co-officials-heroin-mixed-elephant-tranquilizers-causing-spike-in-medical-emergencies

https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/carfentanil

China manufactures a powder form of carfentanil.

[LeftyMom]

19. People have been getting counterfeit pain pills from dealers made with fentanyl

rather than the marked drug.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-norco-fentanyl-overdose-deaths-rise-to-14-problem-spreads-to-bay-area-20160426-story.html

Note: Prince had been in the Bay Area in March, this story is dated in April. It's quite likely he (or somebody in his entourage) picked up the pills in the Bay Area.

[MADem]

32. This is just what I have heard, as well. nt

[Crunchy Frog]

11. Many of the victims are pain patients who have been cut off

From their medications during the current opioid hysteria. Some are desperate enough to try to buy pain pills off the street and are getting these deadly counterfeits instead.

[Warren DeMontague]

15. Exactly. "getting tough on painkiller abuse" invariably means pain patients suffer

but the important thing, as always, is that no one be "allowed" to catch an unauthorized buzz.

[madokie]

12. I'd say there is a whole lot more to this story than just what we know

when reagan walked into the whitehouse all of a sudden you could get any drugs anyone wanted on about any street corner. History has shown us what the deal was with that. The powers to be, cia, etc are behind this I'd bet my last penny on that


it has nothing to do with trying to save lives either

[backscatter712]

13. Drug rings cut corners.

When you get a prescription painkiller, say Oxycontin, there are laws, and regulation from the FDA, guaranteeing that what you get is a known quantity. A precisely measured dose of oxycodone and acetaminophen, with some inert fillers, made into a pill.

When you go to your friendly neighborhood drug dealer for some of that black tar, you get something that might be heroin, or might be fentanyl, depending on what's cheaper for the drug ring, cut with who knows what, delivered in highly variable doses.

Why fentanyl? It's super potent - a tiny bit of fentanyl can replace a larger quantity of oxycodone or heroin or whatever other opiods they're using, and probably can be had on the black market from the same places they get oxy. Get the measurements wrong, and the users stop breathing though...

The drug rings aren't deliberately trying to kill their customers, they're just being cheap. And on the street, if one addict ODs and dies, well, that always happens, there will be more addicts.

[Warren DeMontague]

14. Indeed, which is why some kooky folks actually think harm reduction is a better approach even for

things like heroin addiction.*

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-04-20/a-controversial-response-to-heroin-epidemic-supervised-injections


* kooky folks is intended sardonically, of course.

[backscatter712]

16. If that's kooky, call me a kook.

Injection clinics have been tried in Canada and in Switzerland. These are places where you can literally go and get free heroin, and have a safe place where you can lie down, get injected with a medically known dose, get your opiod high, and have a bed to lay on and medical staff to keep an eye on you.

Know what happens to people that patronize these places? Maybe they start out as addicts, but by being able to come here, instead of the "friendly" neighborhood drug dealer, and also without fear of arrest, they're able to clean up, be more functional, get a job, live productively, and get treatment to kick the habit.

Injection clinics work. And they put the black market drug rings out of business.

[Warren DeMontague]

22. I agree 100%

prohibition and turning addicts into criminals sure as shit doesn't work.

[OilemFirchen]

17. According to the SO, who works in a trauma unit,

often it's because customers "know too much" about their dealer or are in debt and unable to pay.

The local P.D. is beginning to treats some of these ODs as homicides.

[LeftyMom]

18. Fentanyl can be synthesized cheaply. Apparently a lot comes from China.

Heroin is derived from poppies grown in a warzone.

Why one would use stronger fentanyl to stretch a supply of heroin is hardly difficult to figure out. And you could use a very small amount of it to fake a lot of pills of weaker drugs that people abuse and will pay for.

[Nevernose]

20. Overdoses increase sales

Did y'all not know that? If one addict overdoses, that must mean the shit is good, right? So let's all go to that guy. Or so is the thinking.

H dealers actually cut their product not just to increase amount, but because stronger than usual amounts kill people, and not all drug dealers are completely fucked up insane (often selling to afford their own habit).

In this case, I'm guessing someone was trying to add fentanyl and simply added too much.

[NightWatcher]

23. There is no quality control in black markets

[Warpy]

28. Fentanyl is ridiculously powerful

so some dealers are cutting it down and selling it as heroin. That's mostly what's killing people. Other dealers are cutting it down and pressing it into pills and peddling it as oxycodone. That's killing people, too.

Fentanyl is on the street the same way oxycodone and other prescription pills are through crooked pill mills and sometimes diversion at the manufacturing level.It's just trickier to dry and mix properly and dealers don't seem to realize how much more powerful it is.

[Person 2713]

30. $ + $ adds up to Whatever is cheaper to fill the scale

[circe801]

31. this might explain at least some of it...

fentanyl is a short-acting opioid and in many cases, is cheaper (an possibly easier) for manufacturers to obtain, therefore its use as an additive in heroin. due to its short action, its addition to heroin will make users need more than if it were just heroin. there are times when some type of crisis situation, like a large bust, that 'dries up' the supply of heroin. there are myriad possible reasons why this is being done, but i can tell you from experience that a hardcore heroin user is NOT going to OD due to fentanyl in their supply.
fentanyl, pharmaceutically, is prescribed to patients who have been on opiate/opioid medications longterm for 'breakthrough pain'. ergo, a heroin abuser who has even a decent tolerance will not see any ill effects.
several years ago, when big pharma changed the makeup of oxycontin pills to make them virtually impossible to break down for insufflation (or injection), i predicted a huge increase in the number of pill users that would turn to heroin as an easier to use (and much cheaper) alternative. this prediction, unfortunately, came true in a worse way than i could have imagined--and it is these users, as well as others relatively new to the heroin scene--who i believe make up the majority of these fentanyl-laced-heroin overdoses. in addition, if most of the fentanyl being sold/mixed with heroin is not pharmaceutical grade, it most certainly, like any other street drug, besides being impure to begin with, is 'cut' with even more crap to maximize profits, which increases its danger.
just my two cents...

[Ruby the Liberal]

33. Interesting observations.

Thanks & welcome to DU.

[ghostsinthemachine]

38. Thank you

Not certain response.

[mucifer]

34. Fentanyl is important for hospice patients who can't take oral pain meds

and it is sometimes a better option than IV pain meds. For doctors that know how to order it, it can be given safely at VERY high doses. But, the doses have to be increased at a rate that is ordered by a knowledgeable MD. I have seen people start at a 12 mcg patch and eventually at 400 mcg and with that dose the person is not overly sedated. A person who is addicted to narcotics might just start at a very high dose. A hospice patient wouldn't and it makes all the difference. It can take months to titrate up to a high dose.

Cancer growing rapidly inside someone's body is very painful.

They have to do something to regulate fentanyl in many people to control the people overdosing. But, I hope it will still remain available for hospice patients.

[ghostsinthemachine]

48. back to my original question, WHY?

To all thanks for the responses, but they mostly don't really answer the question.

Why cut heroin with any other drug? They have always cut it with something but never another drug until now.. (AND WHY NOW, AND WHY A DRUG THAT HAS SOME COST ASSOCIATED, INSTEAD OF THE USUAL NO COST CUTS USED SINCE TIME BEGAN?)

In the case of the pills, if they are mislabeled how did that happen? Pharmacy? If they are cut with another drug like Fentanyl, then that means a very long and hard process to first powderize the drug, combine them then press them.

I take opiods and am very nervous about what I am taking. How do I be sure?

[LeftyMom]

49. They're counterfeit pills sold by street dealers.

As long as you're getting your pills from an actual pharmacy you're fine. Get a little home safe for them because people steal that stuff.

[JonLP24]

53. On Vice

There was a dealer in Detroit said that others used fetanyl because if there was an overdose it would be like an advertisement you have "good shit", so a overdose would increase sales.

I'm not sure many users on the street are familiar with fetanyl, one thing you got to understand is heroin for a user becomes weaker and weaker so they will simply use to stop from getting sick so an overdose in someone's mind might have them think there is a purer heroin on the market.