Posted on 08/07/2022 6:10:26 AM PDT by Libloather
One of the deadliest street drugs, illicit fentanyl, has transitioned from a hidden killer that people often hope to avoid to one that many drug users now seek out on its own.
The shift to intentional use of fentanyl underscores a worrying trend in the country's ongoing opioid epidemic, experts say: That a growing number of people have become so tolerant to opioids like heroin, that they're turning to the synthetic compound, which is up to 50 times stronger.
Until recently, intentional use of fentanyl was mostly limited to the West Coast, but in the past few years, addiction specialists have seen an uptick in use of the drug across the country.
"Two years ago, I would have thought this was crazy," said Dr. Akhil Anand, a psychiatrist at the Cleveland Clinic who specializes in addiction. Now, Anand said, he's seeing a lot more people in Ohio seeking out illicit fentanyl as their drug of choice.
In medical settings, fentanyl is used to treat patients in severe pain, such as people just out of surgery. Fentanyl skin patches are sometimes prescribed for severe pain for use at home.
But fentanyl first made its way into the illicit drug supply about 10 years ago, particularly in areas east of the Mississippi River. The white powder looked just like heroin, but was much cheaper. Drug dealers started mixing the two drugs as a way to stretch their heroin supply. Fentanyl also started showing up in non-opioid drugs, such as cocaine and fake versions of prescription pills.
The shadowy addition of fentanyl to the illegal drug supply sent deadly overdoses skyrocketing among users who were unaware they were using such a strong drug. By 2021, fentanyl was involved in the vast majority of overdose deaths, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
Fentanyl drives spike in teen overdose deaths, even as drug use falls to new low
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/teen-overdose-deaths-spiked-low-drug-use-rcna23103
I do not understand the attraction of a knock out drug.
Life is too precious.
So why is drug use growing? The type of drug is a shiny thing to distract us.
Thoughts?
What we are about to witness is its use as a devastating suicide drug. It’s going to get much worse. I think 20% of people would rather not exist. Part of the mind virus of mental illness society now has.
The euphoric effect of opioids are used as an emotional crutch. Once hooked on the effect it spirals out of control. Heroin addicts are now so used to having fentanyl mixed into their junk they can’t get high on regular heroin so they actually seek fentanyl out. Some pushers put fentanyl in large doses intentionally hoping for an overdose so “the street” thinks that dealer has the “best” stuff.
People were getting prescription pain meds cheaply and got addicted to them. Those meds also have the same euphoric effect. Whether they were in legitimate pain or otherwise, the crackdown on doctors and pharmacies pushed a lot of people to the streets. Illegal pills are expensive. Illegal heroin and fentanyl is cheap in comparison.
That crap can kill ya. Easily.
They know it and could care less
Now there is a horse tranquilizer in circulation. Now the medical people don’t know what the person is OD-ing on. They can use Narcan, but it doesn’t work with this new drug.
Mostly, young, MILITARY age people are being targeted. Think about that, military age. China knows what they’re doing. We now have a shortage in the volunteer armed forces, and with the young dying, we have a bigger problem in the future.
Kill us with Covid and other diseases, and now with drugs. The future does not belong to the U.S., and the people in Washington and in the states, are helping our enemies.
Here’s an idea: anybody caught selling illicit drugs, especially fentanyl, gets a minimum 10 years in prison. Anybody delivering the drug, like the cartels, gets lifetime prison sentences.
This is why the commie far left RATS are able to destroy this country. America has become the land of the ignorant.
Thoughts?
It's probably due to it's potency. The problem comes when it is used to cut other drugs and causes over doses.
So why is drug use growing? The type of drug is a shiny thing to distract us.
Thoughts?
It’s probably due to it’s potency. The problem comes when it is used to cut other drugs and causes over doses.
People do drugs, drink, perversion to kill the pain of living. They have no purpose.
Is there a cure for this? yes, but people don’t like it.
Everyone will exist forever but only some will live forever.
No one cared when drugs and alcoholism ran rampant on the reservations with the Native peoples, no one cared when it did it in the inner cities, and now no one really cares that it is happening in our rural areas.
Carfentanil- for veterinary use. Much stronger than even fentanyl.
CC
Yes, and it killed George Floyd, not a knee on the neck.
China is flooding the country with fentanyl and the Biden administration is helping to distribute it thru the criminal activities of illegal aliens.
It’s a symptom of hopelessness and despondency.
The opposite is true.
America is being destroyed by their "ideology."
No where is it more obvious than in America's drug crisis. This is the true public health emergency--not the corona virus, the monkey pox, or the other fabricated crises devised to advance the nefarious agenda of the cabal which seeks to destroy the USA.
The open borders, the indulgence of the addicts and drug pushers, and especially the lack of intellectual and moral clarity dominating "leftist" thinking have plunged America into a health crisis as devastating as any plague in history, and those responsible are stupid--or evil--enough to claim some sort of moral high-ground.
Nothing could be further from the truth, but they are willfully blind. Contempt for truth is their most fundamental evil.
Their "ideology," especially considering the behavior and results thereof, is as evil as any ideology that has ever existed in the world. This is not hyperbole; it includes the Nazis, slavery, communism, the Inquisition, Pol Pot's madness--anything--but these people are too intoxicated by their "vision"--which is, in fact, their self-deception--to realize how overwhelmed they actually are by evil.
I had an emergency appendectomy on Friday and had my first fentanyl in my IV right after in recovery. Wow does that stuff work quickly! Like morphine. I can see why the junkies smoke it in those little foils….very sad times with fentanyl in the US. The leading cause of death now for adults to age 50 I think.
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