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by mediocrejoker 3252 days ago
There is currently an epidemic in Vancouver (among other cities) of overdose deaths from a drug called Fentanyl that is several orders of magnitude more potent than morphine. People want it because it is so potent, but the problem with extreme potency is that the difference between an imperceptible difference and a lethal dose is orders of magnitude smaller in terms of weight.

My guess is 'poison' was a slight hyperbole.

1 comments

Few people actually want fentanyl. Some enjoy the patches, but it doesn't have the same feel as heroin/morphine/etc., though they're close enough to all get you high. It's just super cheap and available, illegally. When the cost of the equivalent dose is a tenth or even a quarter, well that's a huge selling point.

As always with opiates, the real issue is improper manufacturing/labeling. Even IV users would be mostly fine if they had properly labelled IV ampoules.

While I think the just of what you are saying is correct, remember that the fentanyl crisis has been happening for an incredibly long time. These people know what they are buying, and many dealers openly sell fentanyl now. Not to mention that when you talk about the fentanyl crisis you are talking about a very specific subset of people.