Hacker News Reader

Comment by dave_sullivan | Hacker News Reader

> Why should they be allowed to be in business at all when their product is so destructive?

I don't think it's that simple.

If you're going to start doing heroin--which you shouldn't--oxy is a much safer form than street level heroin where you have no idea what you're getting.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman ODed and died because he didn't know what he was getting. Heroin is actually pretty safe, but it destroys your soul and you never really "cure" the addiction. Even still, I'd rather have oxy out there than tar heroin from Mexican drug cartels. And I'd rather spend government resources on something else.

View on HN

There is nothing particular about heroin that puts one's soul at hazard compared to other opiates. I started my descent into opiate addiction with nice prescription drugs like oxycodone, but all to soon I found myself using heroin because it was cheaper, stronger, and more available.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman ODed and died because he didn't know what he was getting.

Is this true?

I've read what happens often is that when heroin addicts relapse they often don't account for the dropped tolerance while they were sober and they start back at the same levels as when they were using and because of that OD. I'm pretty sure I saw that this was what happened with Hoffman.

One reason for overdose is that dealers increase the potency of their product by cutting it with Fentanyl, and other synthetic opioids.

These opiates, while easy to produce in a lab, are active in very small amounts (at the microgram level.)

As a result, if a batch of heroin isn't fully mixed, you end up with "hot spots" in some doses, where the fentanyl content is high enough to kill you.

This is how one of the first young women I met at university died. We grew apart, and one day she stopped responding to my text messages. A few days later I found out via Facebook.

Sometimes a really pure batch appears, and the users' old dosage of impure/cut stuff is way too much. Quality control &consistent product isn't really high on importers' list of priorities.

> oxy is a much safer form than street level heroin where you have no idea what you're getting.

Just for clarity many people are getting oxycontin from the street, which leaves them open to counterfeit product. At $60 to $80 per 80 mg tablet there's considerable pressure to create counterfeits.

that's only because of misguided regulation and formula changes, you can't get a crushable 80mg oxycodone anymore through legit channels.

shockingly, changing the formula did nothing to quell the demand for abusable oxycontin formulations, leaving the market wide open to anyone willing to press their own chinese powder. chinese powder doesn't strictly mean oxycodone powder, either.

the counterfeits are often filled with cheaper, more easily acquired, more potent fentanyl analogues. fentanyl and it's analogues are active in microgram dosages. that's why heroin addicts are dropping like flies coast to coast, even heroin is being cut with the cheaper, exponentially more potent fentanyl.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com