Fentanyl: The Drug Deadlier than Heroin
 

Why Fentanyl Is So Much More Deadly Than Heroin

When prescription opioids started getting too difficult or too expensive to procure, people addicted to them started turning to heroin–a shift that’s created an “epidemic” of heroin use in whole new groups of people. Now, a new opioid is rising in use and overdose: Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, is 50-100 times more potent than morphine, according to a recent statement on fentanyl by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and 25-50 times more potent than heroin. And its presence seems to be rising sharply, which means that, given its potency, deaths from the drug are also rising.

In 2014, 18,000 people died of opioids, and another 8,000 from heroin. It’s not clear how many people are dying from fentanyl overdoses each day now, but the numbers are climbing sharply in pockets across the U.S. and Canada. Fentanyl is often, without the buyer’s knowledge, mixed with heroin or cocaine, because it’s cheaper than either of them, and much stronger. Here’s what we know about why fentanyl is so powerful, in the body and as a new presence in society.

What does fentanyl do in the brain?

There’s no difference in the way in which fentanyl works on the brain from any of the other opioids–it crosses the blood-brain barrier, just like they all do, and binds with the brain’s μ-opioid receptors. From here, it creates analgesia and euphoria.

“What makes it more or less euphoric than other opioids is how quickly it binds” says Lewis Nelson, MD, medical toxicologist and emergency physician at NYU’s School of Medicine. “If I give you morphine intravenously, it circulates in the blood, then it crosses blood-brain barrier and binds the opioid receptors. But it takes a little while. Heroin crosses much more rapidly–so it’s really euphoric. And fentanyl is very rapid, and therefore very euphoric.”

And fentanyl’s potency is much greater than the other opioids’–that is, it takes much, much less of the drug to have the same effect. So it’s also lethal at much lower doses than even heroin. Micrograms of fentanyl are effective, rather than milligrams of the other opioids:

This difference in fentanyl’s potency is critical–it takes very little to have the same effect as other opioids. The reason so many are dying is because the dose is relatively uncontrolled with street fentanyl, and small excesses can lead to overdose. There’s nothing inherently more dangerous about fentanyl than other opioids except the way it is dosed and sold. This should not suggest that the other opioids are not dangerous; they all are.

The physical effects

Aside from producing an intense high quickly, Fentanyl also produces a number of other effects–nausea, vomiting, analgesia, sedation and respiratory depression among them, according to drugabuse.gov. And like other opioids, it causes death via respiratory arrest (one’s breathing slows to a stop), rather than cardiac arrest.

“The only thing killing you is respiratory depression,” says Nelson. “If I took a few times the therapeutic dose of an opioid, my breathing would slow, and I might die in several hours–it’s a slow spiral toward death. If you took 10 times the dose, you’d likely die, and if you took 100 times, you’d die immediately.” Fentanyl is just a more rapid version of the same kind of death, from respiratory depression.

Where it comes from and where it’s going

Fentanyl was once largely extracted from pharmaceuticals–the fentanyl patch, for instance, used to have a reservoir of the drug that was plainly visible, so one could simply suck the liquid out with a syringe. But now the patches have the drug embedded in a mesh, so are more difficult to extract. So fentanyl for street sale often seems to be made in China and imported to the U.S. through Mexico. And because it’s synthesized, rather than plant-derived, it’s worth the effort.

“From the dealer’s perspective, heroin is still hard to make,” says Nelson. “You have to grow it, extract it, convert it, transport into the country. Fentanyl is so much easier. And because it’s 50x more potent than heroin, the volumes are much easier to transport–you can put it in a car instead of truck, or a plane instead of a boat.”

And use of the drug, and of course overdoses, are rising in pockets around the country. Northern California just reported a spike in fentanyl-related deaths–and 48 overdoses and 12 deaths since late March 2016 alone. In Philadelphia, there was a 300% rise in fentanyl deaths from 2013 to 2014. Young people are trying the drug, just like with heroin, but so are middle-aged people, either wittingly or unwittingly. The problem is that not everyone is going out to buy it intentionally–many are in the market for something else, but getting the drug cut with fentanyl. Or worse, only fentanyl.

“In Sacramento, it’s not fentanyl being sold as heroin even, but it’s being pressed into pill and sold as Norco [a combination of hydrocodone and acetaminophen],” says Nelson. “If counterfeit pills are out there, it is a real problem given the large number of people who ingest rather than inject opioids.” Again, in some of these cases, there’s only fentanyl present, and none of the drug that’s being marketed.

Long-term use of fentanyl is probably somewhat rarer than heroin or other opioids, just by virtue of the fact that it’s so potent that the margin of error is quite small. “A milligram of a drug is a the size of a pinhead. A microgram is thousand times less than that,” says Nelson. “Fentanyl is always mixed into something else. So you’re putting a lot of trust in your dealer. If you make a batch with just a little more, then you see overdose increases in spots in city.” So there are a lot of ways in which the use of fentanyl can go wrong.

Fentanyl will likely grow much more widespread before it peters out. And the fix probably lies not on the street or drug labs, but in exam rooms in doctor’s offices. Changing our prescribing practices would prevent many more addictions than any other avenue, says Nelson. “We are turning out opioid addicts pretty quickly in this country. De novo use is always going to be around–kids are curious and they try something–and the DEA can’t really do anything about that. It’s a Sisyphean task. But stopping the other addicts that form–those who get addicted through prescribing practices–happens by improving the way we practice medicine.”

It would take a lot of people working together to shift how we use opioids in this country. It’s possible, but it won’t happen overnight. “Constituencies on both sides are lining up. But it’s hard, because there are so many players,” says Nelson. “Doctors are involved, patient advocacy groups are involved. Pharma is involved, the government is involved. The problem is incredibly complicated.”

there's an even deadlier one that has been found in labs here, W-18, which is used to make fake fentanyl/heroin

https://www.vice.com/en_ca/read/ever...-than-fentanyl

haha I got offered it by my close friend. shit is killer

:inoutugh:

PJSalt

Chinese government to work with Canada on stopping flow of fentanyl
https://i.cbc.ca/1.3864830.147994161...l-a-person.jpg

RCMP ain't stopping shit. The extreme potency of fentanyl makes it really easy to transport. It's not hard to make, and it'll keep coming. Dumping money into enforcement and emergency services to deal with this is a losing battle. It's really time to look at legalization of hard drugs to regulate it, and provide rehabilitation to those that need it.

^ Why would you regulate it? Look at alcohol for example, legal and regulated yet people still abuse it drink and drive.

Laws need to be harder on criminals. Hell, if you're caught selling this, punishment is death. It'll make people think twice before touching this product.

Yeah, that policy is sure working for; China, Mexico, or any other country that has a "war on drugs".

Maybe because regulation, and eventually legalization to rehabilitation is the way to reduce it's negative impact. In my opinion.

Cases:
Prohibition America.
90s Netherlands issue with heroin.

Just had friend pass away recently and attended funernal this morning, Fentanyl related.

Right, because Capital Punishment has proven to be sooooo effective at stopping crimes in countries that have it.

US States with Capital Punishment are completely murder, rape & drug free right?

Lost a friend over this as well.

It's crazy how it's seeped into rec user market and it's pretty much in everything regardless of if you knew the supplier or not. It's all fun and games and you think you're well connected and it's just another night of partying and then all of a sudden, it's not.

And that's just among rec users. It's a full-blown epidemic at the street level (junkies) and the rates of people OD'ing is unreal.

WTB: Fentanyl

:pokerface:

Here's some follow-up to the last article:
People are living in a dreamworld if they think some talk with China is going to do anything, at all, to slow the flow of synthetic drugs.

Locking people up is just dealing with the symptoms of the problem. How much money is spent on combating this? Officers aren't cheap, and neither are medical services. Then, if you lock people up, there's costs in incarcerating them. Also, there are other costs like theft and property damage from addicts trying to get their hands on something to sell or trade. It would be interesting to see the bill for all this, and weigh it against options like legalization.

Damn!,what kind of power are the Gangs of China in if they can mass produce a drug like Fentanyl without anybody being caught on the large scale?,Goverments give an easy to pass to optain the chemicals and mixing agents?

Shit they could catch a celebrities kid smoking marijuana,But lets stay way from Fentanyl producers....the Same Drug K2 or Spice thats just as addictive and deadly is produced there also and put in a fancy packaging.

Going to try this at Contact this year. See what's all the hype for.

https://news.vice.com/article/ungass...weed-to-heroin

You can read about Portugal and their success to decriminalization. While drugs is still illegal and traffickers still jailed. Users that are caught using are sent into rehab instead of jail and all together has seen a decline in usage over the years since.

Someone school me. Is fetanyl coming in as an impurity laced in heroine? If so, damn, don't drug dealers even have some sort of 'code' that you don't do this ... I mean from a purely economic point of view, you're killing your long term customers for heaven's sakes.

Or, is it coming in as fetanyl and people are still using it intentionally knowing how deadly it is?

Second one, people are buying fentanyl because they want fentanyl.

If anything, fentanyl has probably pushed a lot of would-be heroin dealers to being fentanyl dealers - the same types that would have been selling oxy's a couple years ago.

Shit's cray, why can't people just stick to coke jeez.

From what I saw on CBC, the Fentanyl is legally produced in China. It's a legit medical drug with legit medical uses. What doesn't make its way to the western medical system somehow ends up in the hands of drug dealers to be diluted and sold as fake heroin.

I guess not being trained chemists, they don't know how much to dilute it?

the bi-products to make Fentynal are not regulated in china as they are in Canada, therefor 3rd party producers can create Fentynal and ship it outside of China

Fentynal and Heroin are both Opiates, they arent passed off for one another, you're just getting an opiate either way, the strength is what is different.

this. the reason for all the deaths.

A good friend got hooked on fake oxy 80's which we later found out was fentanyl. If you swallow a whole pill like a normal oxy it will kill you. You can only rail a part of it - at least that's how he was doin it. This shit took a guy that was healthy and on top of his game and turned him into a complete junky over the course of 1-2 years. Be very careful with drugs these days. High potency is the exact reason its being sold (lower cost + high drug effect = very dangerous for the consumer).

I don't have any Fentanyl but I do have some totally pure MMA.

Trust me.

Berz out.

Fentanyl is its own drug.
You need less of it to get the same effect as or more of than what's out there now. What that means is, you can dilute your product (less cost to you) and increase the high. This does 2 things. Puts money in your pocket and makes people higher (happier). Fentanyl is also MUCH more addictive than other substances. So not only are the people getting higher, for cheaper and the occasional users are now becoming addicts.
The fact that is so potent is where the problem is. When you put it in a pill form you can NEVER assure that your mixture is completely mixed evenly. Mixing powders is impossible to spread it evenly. You are going to have some pills that have barely any and your gonna have some that will kill you.

Stay safe out there. Honestly at this point I'm glad this wasn't around during my rave days. I wouldn't even think of doing drugs these days.

Berz out.

yea your typical weekend warrior who bucks a couple rails in a bar bathroom is absolutely insane to keep on keeping on at the moment...