While I was generally aware that the drug fentanyl was dangerous and causing many deaths among users, it took one particular statistic for me to realize the great extent of the danger posed by it, that it kills nearly 200 people per day (which works out to about 73,000 annually) and is the leading cause of death for people under the age of 45.
Congress is debating a bill to try and deal with this problem but it has been stymied because it is running into the issue of congresspersons using one bill as leverage to get other bills passed, which can result in a stalemate where nothing gets done.
Colloquially referred to as the Fend Off Fentanyl Act, the measure proposes to implement sanctions and anti-money laundering strategies to curb the flow of the potent synthetic opioid, which generally comes into the US after being manufactured in Mexico using Chinese precursor chemicals.
…The Senate banking, housing and urban affairs committee voted to pass the Fend Off Fentanyl Act in June. But, as ABC News reported, US House member Patrick McHenry blocked it from inclusion in the National Defense Authorization Act as part of an unsuccessful effort by McHenry, a North Carolina Republican, to get his own cryptocurrency measure added to the NDAA.
While one can hope that this bill manages to reduce the impact of this drug by tackling the supply side, the widespread overuse of opioids such as these points to an even greater problem on the demand side, that so many people seem to have become addicted this drug, well beyond therapeutic needs. That could be much more difficult to deal with.
Which is largely, if I remember my recent history correctly, due to the Sacklers.
OT
Sorry, I am just putting this out here as a newsflash. Trumps past: Three sexual predators in the same photo.
“Trump’s Horrific Past is Back to Haunt Him”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=PT5vctbicd4
Mmmm. I did wait. And I do get the true topic.
Still. An indulgence, if I may:
“The threat of fentanyl” is the title, but the post is about the reality of fentanyl.
It’s somehow in an evil sweet spot: at first pill and sortakindalegal, accessible, and now known to be a money spinner, so another drug. Chinese whispers, too.
(Same old same old)
—
[OT+]
I just saw Netflix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fall_of_the_House_of_Usher_(miniseries)
Now, this is me, and I usually spend 23-30 mins checking what’s there and then giving up, now and then.
Around 60+% of my “watched” list is under 5 minutes, and 30% under 10.
So, anyway, I did watch it. Was happy until episode 6 of 8, where the conceit was revealed to be supernatural, yet I went through to the end.
Damn good effort and well executed, this being a rare encomium from me — someone quite familiar with Poe, who appreciated the modernising whilst staying sorta kinda true to the canon and finagling all the stories with which the episodes are titled.
My only prob is that, other than the Red Masque, the others play on the probability that one is mad and misconceiving, rather than subject to supernatural influences, yet the series relies on its narrative backbone being based on such.
Still. The cursed family is, um, the family that owned Oxycodone in real life. So, not exactly subtle.
(Recommended)
Yes, we clearly need to step up controls on the supply of fentanyl because controlling the supply side of drugs has worked so well over the past 50+ years…
@4
My understanding is that if you can control the supply side, it does work. Quaaludes were popular in the US in the 70s but you don’t hear much about them anymore because it was possible to control the supply. The problem is in trying to control something that you really don’t have control over. If the drug is something that can be grown or created in a garage lab with easily obtained precursors, then you don’t really have control at the front end, so that effort is doomed. All you can do is to try to intercept the drugs after they’ve been made versus preventing the manufacture in the first place.
It used to be that fentanyl test strips were considered ‘drug paraphenalia’ in California. They are not illegal by the United States law. Recent sources imply that this has been changed. In the past our state did fund some test strips at needle exchange programs at the same time it was also illegal to have the strips, go figure.
FWIW I wrote my state assemblyman and state senator asking that California do harm reduction by making fentanyl test strips more readily available and applying more funding to this. Because those emergency visits in which people die are costing us more even if any particular Californian may not care if anyone dies. Not everyone will use the strips if they have them but a lot *will*. IMO people are gonna do what they’re gonna do; perhaps they shouldn’t die for it.
seachange:
Well, yes. I can’t dispute you, but I can make a couple of observations about this claim:
First, people can only do what they can do, so they’re not gonna do what they can not do.
Second, “perhaps they shouldn’t die” is equivalent to writing “perhaps they should die”.