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Comment by docbrown | Hacker News Reader

Drugs are still getting stronger and deadlier and much cheaper. This is obvious when you look at the a spike in Fentanyl use compared to other narcotics. While the amount needed to get high is lower, the potency is much higher. In addition to this, these packages are getting stepped on—where dealers cut it with another substance—a hundred times over before it ends up in someone’s veins with anything and everything.

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The most important part to note is that fentanyl analogs are being used along with other inert substance to increase the mass and potency at street level. The problem with this is people easily underestimate the potency and use too much on top of the issue of varying amounts of fentanyl used to cut increasing risk.

>The problem with this is people easily underestimate the potency and use too much on top of the issue of varying amounts of fentanyl used to cut increasing risk.

this is especially dangerous amongst users who are relapsing and initially using their old dose amounts when starting again and their bodies aren’t able to handle it

unfortunately, that's a risk with an untampered supply as well. things are made EVEN WORSE with the fentanyl problem

one of the problems with Fentanyl is how our hands are tied when it comes to inbound shipments. Rogue laboratories in China are a pill-mill for these synthetic drugs.

>Over the last decade, federal officials say, the Zheng group mailed and shipped fentanyl and similar illicit chemicals to customers in more than 25 countries and 35 U.S. states. U.S. officials say the syndicate’s success, laid bare in a recent federal indictment[1], partly helps explain America’s skyrocketing death toll from drug overdoses. [2]

[1]https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/two-chinese-nationals-charged... [2]http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-china-fentanyl-201...

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