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Comment by sergiomattei | Hacker News Reader

The government also can't compete on potency. We'd be dispensing safe drugs, but the street dealers always win: they're always going to have stronger, riskier stuff. Addicts want the stronger stuff.

An example is the supply arms race with research chemicals/designer drugs (RC). Every month, a new RC hits the streets with greater potency and skirting any previously-established regulations. The drug dealers will always be winning the potency race because they're on the bleeding edge, using the latest formulas and cutting it with experimental/unsafe/word-of-mouth additives.

The only way to win is making them free. And even then, the potency race continues. It's a ginormous value edge that the dealers have, and sadly, it preys on the most vulnerable sufferers.

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Potency only means that you need a smaller quantity of a substance to attain the same effect. It has nothing to do with the maximum attainable effect. Users don't care about potency. If anything, users care about speed of crossing the blood-brain barrier, which causes the pleasurable "rush" of rapidly increasing effects. The major drugs like heroin and methamphetamine are already pretty optimal in this regard. On the other hand, drug suppliers care about potency because they can transport more doses in the same weight. The only people who care about RCs are people trying to skirt the law, and drug nerds. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potency_(pharmacology)

> Potency only means that you need a smaller quantity of a substance to attain the same effect.

Semantics, misused a term there.

> The major drugs like heroin and methamphetamine are already pretty optimal in this regard.

In a world where this was true, cutting drugs with fentanyl wouldn’t be a thing. It’s not just a cost optimization, it’s also because it gets you the best high on the block.

> The only people who care about RCs are people trying to skirt the law, and drug nerds.

“Spice”, as one example, has destroyed many communities. Legal highs and designer drugs are everywhere as of the past decade. “Bath salts” (cathinones), synthetic cannabinoids, etc.

Not exactly designer, but the isomerization process to extract delta-8 from hemp is a novel technique that’s being done underground by labs everywhere and distributed widely across America. We have no idea what’s in this stuff, even testing labs usually report XX% of unknown substances, reaction residues and cannabinoids in samples.

Research chemicals are everywhere. This arms race has touched millions.

These are real problems that affect real people.

You have it backwards. The only reason for novel compounds is their lack of regulation or that their potency makes smuggling easier. It's definitely not a demand-side thing.

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