Chinese crackdown on fentanyl could lead to worse drugs filling the vaccum
President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed that China would crack down on the production and exporting of fentanyl and the precursor chemicals used to make it, according to media reports.
But while Biden is painting the agreement as a win that will “save lives”, drug policy experts told VICE News they’re skeptical the measure will curb the overdose crisis—and it may make the drug supply worse.
Biden and Xi met Wednesday in San Francisco, where both leaders were in town for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. According to the New York Times, China will go after the exporting of illicit fentanyl into the U.S. and the manufacturing of precursor chemicals, which are being used to make fentanyl and smuggle it into the country from Mexico.
I mean clearly there’s systemic issues driving people to seek this stuff, just removing fenty without addressing those means they’ll just seek out other things. Realistically we should be legalizing the safer stuff (psychedelics, MDMA, etc) that isn’t as damaging or addicting and raising living standards to combat the harder stuff but in our current state where weed isn’t even legal federally and it’s all treated the same more or less addicts and ODs on hard drugs are going to be the outcome.
I agree with what yr saying but it all makes me think you've never tried, whether on purpose or not, fentanyl.
Fent...makes you absolutely retarded when yr on it, but when you are, you are transported to the warm busom of God til you snap out of it. You don't care about anything, hunger, cold, any trauma, any worries, any stressors. It all melts away for that short amount of time.
Besides the physical addiction sending a need as strong as thirst in the desert, that reprieve from pain is addicting all it's own. A good majority of people actively using and seeking out fent assume they'll die from it, and they're fine with that.
I've never been on the ban drugs train, I think the subjective exploration of consciousness and meta-reality are incredibly important for people, be that in personal mental health and growth, artistically and spiritually. At the same time, I think letting Shamans control the flow isn't a terrible idea, but if implemented should also come with an end date after society comes to terms with itself. I think terminal patients should be given as much DMT as they want for as long as they want it, it's like making practice runs at the other side. I think ibogaine should be widely available for resetting addictions back to null, but that should prob be a guided trip, same thing with ayehuasca.
But fent shouldn't be allowed outside a medical setting. The opioid receptor is devil in a red dress; dance with the devil, devil don't change, devil changes you.
In a kinder society we would prescribe meds that turn off pain receptors, like the ones developed from jellyfish and other neurotoxins, but that would prob be stipulated with forced, active restraint bed rest. We don't use those now because pain let's us know when we push too far, otherwise we'd just keep reinjuring ourselves. But fent gives that absence of pain too, and coupled with the i-cant-stress-how-extreme-cravings people will look at the work necessary to holistically end their pains and just say, nah man. At the cost of everything. Parents abandoning children. Cuz once their high, they don't care. So they just plan to stay forever high.
I'm all for banning fent.
It's the embodiment of my second favorite malaphor "build a man a fire and he's warm for a night, but set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life"
That may be true recreationally, but I had it in the ER when I had a kidney stone and all it did was take away the pain and make me drowsy.
The difference is need. Itll work the pain first, what's leftover will work towards the high
Good health/no pain= to the moon 🚀
Also, I'm happy it helped you. It can be fantastic in a clinical setting.
Yeah both my wife and I don't get much effect from opiates when we are prescribed them and don't get how folks can become addicted to them. I think different folks just react differently. I guess we are lucky to have the meh effect from them.
I was glad it took away the pain, but yeah, they don't do anything for me that would get me addicted to them. The constipation is the worst part.
Are you or your spouse redheads by chance? People with red hair have an inherent genetic tolerance.
I wonder if it's the higher percentage of Neanderthal DNA.
Smokers also require more pain meds, not just the opiates but the -caines as well.
I have strawberry blonde hair and smoke. Any pain meds and me is like, 'turn it all the way up Dentist' or 'yea, Vicodin does nothing. That bottle is like 2 doses.'
I landed me a debilitating repetitive injury from work, and besides taking a lateral move, I needed pain meds just to function. The pain would spread from my shoulder/back/arm up my neck into my brain. I'm talking rapid onset migraines where I'd go blind.
First time, I was driving.
Not fun.
I didn't know that could even happen. Regardless, I needed help to work, then without them Id withdraw and be unable to work. Right down the slippery slope I went. Got to a point where I just said no more, idc what happens, took 10days off work, sat at home with 30 boxes of donuts, various one step meals, 20 gallons of choc milk and otter pops. Told myself, and everyone else, i was sick. I refused to make any decisions besides what to eat that was in the building for the entire time as I considered my mind compromised and sus.
I am exceptionally willful tho and can compartmentalize like it's the ADHD Olympics. Results will vary. I do not recommended the experience. 0/10. Dengue fever in a foreign land where I speak 0.5% of the language was more pleasant.
What are your thoughts on maintenance therapy and medical detox, i.e. with Suboxone?
Honestly? It has a place of it's the last resort, if for whatever reason, a person's circumstances necessitate their constant presence and decision making ability.
Like, if there's no family the kids can go stay with, or if you're the last nuclear engineer/ER Dr./bar pilot within 1000 miles and you're already on call 24/7.
If you're presence/agency/rationality is more essential than your immediate health - and those examples could very well be - then, if you're able to compartmentalize esoteric you from physical you and cede control of the process to the prescribing doctor, ie, you just shut up, take the discomfort, ignore your brains opinion about anything that has to do with it and carry on, then methadone might be an option for you.
If you can in anyway manuever your life to avoid methadone, I 110% suggest you do that.
Withdrawal from methadone can last 6 months to a year. Withdrawal from opiates is a matter of weeks, not months. With ibogaine that's reduced to ~16hrs. Ibogaine is curiously illegal, and rated schedule 1 (no medical value, nothing to see here; look away) in America.
Sigh. Deep breaths. Here we go
It's crucial to know that even tho they are within the same family; Vicodin/Percocet withdrawal ≠ heroin withdrawal ≠ fentanyl withdrawal. The shit is exponential, I am not exaggerating.
One acre of poppies yields 1 kg of opium. It will take 100 acres of poppies to yield 1 kg of morphine. Expounding;
1acre poppies= 1kg Opium 100kg Opium=1kg Morphine 100kg Morphine= 1kg heroin 100kg heroin = 1kg fentanyl
Withdrawal symptoms/intensity are directly proportional. I know this, anecdotally. Your brain in withdrawal will pull out every trick, every rationality it can grasp to convince you to get more of w/e. "Immediate-needs you" is attacking "Overall you"...or COO v CEO, sous v exec chef, quartermaster v captain. You are caught in the middle of a war between your brain and your body. You, what you would call you, your consciousness, is emergent from both. You are not your brain. Your brain is not seperate from your body either, even tho the ego sells convincingly, they both need each other. Recovery requires setting the ego aside ( {DEEP BREATH, HOLD ON!} which it absolutely does not want to do, it will do ANYTHING before it even allows itself to be back burnered, on a fucking timer even. In it's original, unadulterated form it is insessently needy and unrelentingly demanding. A tick is less demanding and it's literally sucking your blood. This is why ego death is so transformative. It's not that you changed, cuz it didn't you are still you, obviously, it's that you can now exist outside parameters defined by the ego. It fucking feels like you're dying too, the ego sells convincingly, but then *pop, * you're thru. And you're still you. Just with less weight. And why was that so hard? WTF self? Life is fucking weird).
Phew...
I'd argue, bite the bullet and reap what youve sown and get it done with. Cold turkey is like an old neighborhood beat down while structured is a 364 day jail sentence with 5 years probation - but it doesn't require "esoteric you" to reconcile yourself. The main problem with that, to me, is no matter where you go, there you are. You can't run from yourself. Many have tried. I'm not aware of any that have survived the attempt unscathed.
Now we can chemically synthesize fent so the hundreds of millions of poppy acreage, known as Afghanistan, just lost a whole lot of its value. ...notice how our military isn't there anymore. Weird, huh?
Thanks for writing this up. This is the kind of comment I used to be on the lookout for on Reddit, so this is making Lemmy feel like it's going to be able to fill that old niche for me.
Excellent way with words!
Sorry if I wasn’t clear, I 100% get trying to reduce fentanyl my response was more a complaint that we seem to always do these half measures but yes trying to get fentanyl gone is a good thing. I’ve done many drugs but thankfully never fent.