[Griever]

My youngest brother died of a Fentanyl overdose just nearly a year ago. We assume he thought it was heroin, but whatever was going around at that time managed to kill almost a hundred people in the same weekend. Truly a horrible, horrible drug.

I know it doesn't count for much right now, but I promise that things do get better in time. If you ever need to chat, feel free to message me anytime.

[lexhaynes]

One hundred people! That's an epidemic.

[Griever]

Sorry, I meant to write 100 people from the same city. Still obviously not an epidemic, but hopefully illustrates that a bad dose was going around.

[bbcbasic]

Or mass murder?

[Symbiote]

By politicians?

If heroine were legal 100 deaths would have been avoided that weekend.

[uola]

I would say it's slightly more complex than that.

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a46918/heroin-mexico-el...

[Symbiote]

It seems absolutely as straigtforward as I wrote. From that article:

"American drug and law-enforcement officials, concerned about the dramatic surge in overdose deaths from pharmaceutical opioids (165,000 from 1999 to 2014), cracked down on both legal and illegal distribution, opening the door for Mexican heroin, which sold for five to ten bucks a dose"

A trusted source of a heroine-like drug was removed, so the cartels increase production of heroine. But fentanyl is more profitable, and

"The cartels mix fentanyl with heroin because once an addict has shot that mix, they won't go back to "just heroin," since they can't get high on it anymore."

and we end up with a much more dangerous product.