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Comment by caprese | Hacker News Reader

just because the dialogue is open right now, here is something about a different drug: I would like to see the government do something about fentanyl, people across all socioeconomic classes are dying and they wouldn't be if they knew what they were consuming.

"RIP everyone has their demons" really doesn't accurately describe that "someone laced their cocaine with fentanyl"

testing kits exist, but a regulated purchase would fix this

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My confusion stems from the fact that I don't know why people are lacing drugs with fentanyl. It's unclear to me because most of the stuff I see written about fentanyl talks about it like it's a poison that kills people -- why not add arsenic instead, which also kills people? As I understand it drug dealers rely on repeat business, and it seems like bad business to sell tainted goods.

It's a cheap, potent opioid which its users tend to enjoy. It is just hard to dose accurately because of the extreme potency. It's a race to the bottom: How cheap can we make the product without accidentally killing all the users?

They lace stuff with fentanyl because it is cheap and powerful opioid. Done correctly it adds to the potency of poorer quality drugs. Fentanyl is basically the MSG of hard drugs, except fentanyl can actually kill you.

I've read that some of these cases of other drugs laced with fentanyl are due to unintentional cross-contamination, due to people preparing cocaine for sale on the same table or scales that they previously prepared fentanyl on and didn't clean properly, for instance.

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