The Fentanyl Crisis is finally solved....

[Gadianton]

Questions part two...

Given you asserted ..."in a secret operation, the government will create fentanyl of the highest quality and perfectly measured and offer increasingly better prices, and become the premiere supplier. ..." What will keep the cartel from getting a sample of the product and re-engineering it and the selling it on the street in their established networking enterprise?

Per Chaps report, heroin was distributed and injected with supervision for HAT to be most effective, would that be part of your plan or would they just inject it, take it in pill form, smoke it, inhalers, patches...etc, as a preference? How would that work?

The cartel has mom and pop shops making it in garages, it's not a matter of the recipe but industrial capabilities at a large scale, not to mention the lower transportation costs and business costs as we're local and still targeting them with LE. Our advantage is supreme.

Chaps report follows a more traditional free-market idea of making drugs legal. His could be the better plan. Since I'm dictator of my own country here, I'm going to try my own solution. Loosely, I have the Chinese war against opium in mind. I'm still criminalizing, I'm radically criminalizing, but recognizing market forces as a component of the plan.

Let's say it's marijuana. Full decriminalization makes perfect sense because it's on the same level as alcohol. Fentanyl may cross a line where we just got to get rid of it. If we simply made it legal full stop, that would also break the cartel. That would be the simplest path. That would mean private industry and entrepreneurs could make it and the cartel would be gone overnight. The part B may be a huge problem. I mean, imagine drug companies running YouTube adds promoting the most addictive stuff humans have ever created. You need to keep the "cartel" in perspective. The cartel isn't the alpha and omega of the problem. Society may not be able to self-regulate fentanyl use like it does marijuana and alcohol. I'm assuming that it can't.

My path differs from the more traditional idea of providing cleaner stuff for free and in controlled and safe environments in the following way. The way we think drug users and marginalized people of society ought to behave isn't the way they actually behave. If you've ever tried to help someone who is in a marginal life situation, I mean -- it ain't easy. I have no talent or patience for it. EA, had he not run off in fear, is the expert here. That feedback would be nice. I've been outsmarted by marginal people more than once trying to help (not that i've tried very many times). Offering drugs for free but through controlled outlets I worry will only capture the users who are more serious about recovery, or who may milk the system for a while before moving on. You can take a person who is on the verge of homelessness, give them a home, but as soon as you offend them in some way, they have no problem going right back to the street because they want life on their terms, no matter how much worse it may be.

And so the general idea here is avoid trying to outsmart them as much as possible. Capture the existing market as it is by being the low-cost producer.

[Chap]

[...]

Chaps report follows a more traditional free-market idea of making drugs legal. His could be the better plan. Since I'm dictator of my own country here, I'm going to try my own solution. Loosely, I have the Chinese war against opium in mind. I'm still criminalizing, I'm radically criminalizing, but recognizing market forces as a component of the plan.

[...]

Not what I meant to convey. My conclusion was that two policies had been tried:

(A) Heroin addiction is an illness. We must treat the addicts as people with an illness, which may involve us in supplying them with the amount of the drug that their illness demands, so that they can lead relatively normal lives of work and human relations as most of them wish to do, and are indeed able to do if their needs are met. We also try to help them to reduce their dependence on the drug, but until they can do that (which many do, when given proper support), we do what is needed to maintain them.

(B) Drugs are evil, and we must fight ruthlessly against them. The state must stop supplying heroin, and punish anybody who seeks to find an alternative source to meet the needs of their addiction, or who sells drugs to addicts who need them. We are in a WAR ON DRUGS!!!

The former policy worked rather well. The latter has been a pretty abject failure, with a huge rise in the number of addicts, and the creation of international criminal empires with immense wealth and power. History shows that did not need to happen. There is no quick fix to reverse this process, and any attempt to do so carries huge PR risks for any government that attempts it. But we need to try.

As to what to do now? The 'war on drugs'has had such far-reaching and destructive results that it is extremely hard to find a simple way back to what went before. I certainly don't think it would be a straightforward 'free-market approach of making drugs legal'.

And - Gadianton - if you demand that no policy may be applied if some of its measures are exploited or ignored by evil or perverse actors, you will have to reconcile yourself to doing nothing at all.

[Gadianton]

And - Gadianton - if you demand that no policy may be applied if some of its measures are exploited or ignored by evil or perverse actors, you will have to reconcile yourself to doing nothing at all.

Assuming you read what I wrote on page one that Markk quoted, then it should be clear I'm demanding some policy. As Paul Moud' Dib once said, "he who can destroy a thing controls a thing," but in my plan, he who controls a thing can destroy it. Once I can destroy it, then the demand segment kicks in. There most certainly will be help available for those who want it, even those who want to exploit it; everyone gets their chance. Those who don't, well, they're also going to quit, because I'm going to eventually destroy it.

[Markk]

Gad: The cartel has mom and pop shops making it in garages, it's not a matter of the recipe but industrial capabilities at a large scale, not to mention the lower transportation costs and business costs as we're local and still targeting them with LE. Our advantage is supreme.

Are you saying that today, the cartels are not producing massive amounts of fentanyl? I am not sure if you are up to speed on the amounts of the drug being produced and distributed in to our country. You said it was a matter of "recipe" you said that you would produce as follows "the government will create fentanyl of the highest quality and perfectly measured and offer increasingly better prices," ....you said nothing here about production, but quality. Am I wrong?

In regard to costs, how is it a lower business costs to pay government employees, salary and benefits, along with the scientists and pharma to secretly create this product, in I assume high tech labs, as opposed to the cartel producing exactly like they are now, with enough product to cause the epidemic that we are dealing with today? Are you really saying the US government can transport cheaper than paying a smuggler in a Cessna for 10% of the product, or a mule binging over the product for a few grand? How is that a supreme advantage?

Chaps report follows a more traditional free-market idea of making drugs legal. His could be the better plan. Since I'm dictator of my own country here, I'm going to try my own solution. Loosely, I have the Chinese war against opium in mind. I'm still criminalizing, I'm radically criminalizing, but recognizing market forces as a component of the plan.

Chaps is trying to sell something that is reporting a program in 1971 with a 1000 or so addicted folks of a different drug. Today there are hundreds or thousands addicts just in America, and over 1000 folks will die of overdoses in the next three or for days while you argue a study that has no real relevance.

In regard to market forces, see above.

Let's say it's marijuana. Full decriminalization makes perfect sense because it's on the same level as alcohol. Fentanyl may cross a line where we just got to get rid of it. If we simply made it legal full stop, that would also break the cartel. That would be the simplest path. That would mean private industry and entrepreneurs could make it and the cartel would be gone overnight. The part B may be a huge problem. I mean, imagine drug companies running YouTube adds promoting the most addictive stuff humans have ever created. You need to keep the "cartel" in perspective. The cartel isn't the alpha and omega of the problem. Society may not be able to self-regulate fentanyl use like it does marijuana and alcohol. I'm assuming that it can't.

LOL, so you would just make maybe the most lethal street drug in history legal, to break the cartel...noted. Even with no proof it would break the cartel. Keep in mind marijuana is legal in CA, yet cartel Marijuana is rampant. Why? Because it is cheaper. Which blows your above theory away. The Cartel can do it cheaper.

Gad...My path differs from the more traditional idea of providing cleaner stuff for free and in controlled and safe environments in the following way. The way we think drug users and marginalized people of society ought to behave isn't the way they actually behave. If you've ever tried to help someone who is in a marginal life situation, I mean -- it ain't easy. I have no talent or patience for it. EA, had he not run off in fear, is the expert here. That feedback would be nice. I've been outsmarted by marginal people more than once trying to help (not that i've tried very many times). Offering drugs for free but through controlled outlets I worry will only capture the users who are more serious about recovery, or who may milk the system for a while before moving on. You can take a person who is on the verge of homelessness, give them a home, but as soon as you offend them in some way, they have no problem going right back to the street because they want life on their terms, no matter how much worse it may be.

And so the general idea here is avoid trying to outsmart them as much as possible. Capture the existing market as it is by being the low-cost producer.

See my two threads of questions please.

[Gadianton]

Are you saying that today, the cartels are not producing massive amounts of fentanyl?

No I'm not saying that. It's a large network of small garage-scale producers. The quality control of that compared the the quality control of an American drug company can't be compared. We're talking about a synthetic drug, not street tacos. A small Mexican shop may very well make better street tacos than we can. Fentanyl is Fentanyl, there is no artistic license.

In regard to costs, how is it a lower business costs to pay government employees, salary and benefits, along with the scientists and pharma to secretly create this product, in I assume high tech labs, as opposed to the cartel producing exactly like they are now, with enough product to cause the epidemic that we are dealing with today? Are you really saying the US government can transport cheaper than paying a smuggler in a Cessna for 10% of the product, or a mule binging over the product for a few grand? How is that a supreme advantage?

First of all, production costs aren't that relevant to the US. The US isn't trying to make a profit, it's trying to break the cartel. Firms take losses all the time on products hoping to put the competition out of business. When I say "costs" I mean how much is charged to the customer. We can charge what we want or give away free. Note that most of what the cartel produces is wasted; it's a shotgun approach. 2 kg's of fentanyl can kill 1 million people. We can easily to ramp up our production to what we need.

As an aside: we're producing our fentanyl in a chemical plant in New Jersey. We ship that by truck to wherever on the east coast in cooperation with the FBI. We don't need to bring it over the border. As far as long supply chains go: shipping precursors to Mexico from China, cook in tiny shops spread out all over, gather all that up, transport by Cessna and mule to the border, then once it's in the states it still needs to be transported by truck to the east coast without being seized. How is that "cheap"?

Chaps is trying to sell something that is reporting a program in 1971 with a 1000 or so addicted folks of a different drug. Today there are hundreds or thousands addicts just in America, and over 1000 folks will die of overdoses in the next three or for days while you argue a study that has no real relevance.

That's not exactly what he's doing. He's talking about the effects of criminalization. This is an important part of the conversation. Chap noted that the toothpaste can't be put back into the tube.

LOL, so you would just make maybe the most lethal street drug in history legal, to break the cartel...noted. Even with no proof it would break the cartel. Keep in mind marijuana is legal in CA, yet cartel Marijuana is rampant. Why? Because it is cheaper. Which blows your above theory away. The Cartel can do it cheaper.

Markk, my plan specifically states repeatedly that I'm NOT going to legalize fentanyl. I mentioned legalization as an aside for comparison. Legalizing marijuana has significantly reduced the amount of marijuana smuggled in from Mexico. At least by half. There are two important factors to consider when speaking of legalization. 1) what does "legal" mean? 2) factors of production

1) marijuana is more legal than it used to be, it's no so legal that it's produced at our capacity to do so. I had a coworker who grew a few years ago, he went by the book as he understood it; his production was quite limited, and still got raided.

2) Factors of production: My very first post that I believe you quoted brought up Cocaine. Cocaine is derived from cocoa plants. If cocaine were legalized, for instance, the US wouldn't be a very big producer because the plants grow in South America. It would obviously be imported. Fentanyl, by contrast, is a synthetic substance. If we FULLY legalized it (which I'm not arguing we should do; read this twice), it would still come from Mexico, just not the cartel. It would eventually be produced by American companies with operations in Mexico taking advantage of cheap labor.

You have to also consider what is legal to produce in Mexico. We import beer from Mexico. It's not produced by the "cartel" because beer is legal to produce in Mexico. If marijuana were ever fully decriminalized in Mexico, we might still end up importing marijuana from Mexico, just not from the cartel, but legit producers.

[I Have Questions]

Why are Fentanyl deaths, and illicit Fentanyl imports being focussed on, rather than the higher death rate causes?

For instance, by far the largest cause of death in the USA is heart disease. Obesity and Smoking amongst men is a far a bigger danger to more men than Fentanyl. Junk Food and Cigarette products are not illegally imported, so the government's control over those things is 100%. If you removed smoking and obesity you would save exponentially more lives (especially when you add in the liver disease, and other respiratory causes of death that these things contribute to). Why isn't that being focussed on first? Why aren't people talking about the obesity crisis or the smoking crisis in the same way that there's clamour about a Fentanyl crisis?

Is this really about health? Or is this just Big Pharma trying to take back market share via the Politicians that they own?

But back to Fentanyl.

Unless a drug is prescribed by a licensed medical professional and dispensed by a legitimate pharmacy, you can't know if it’s fake or legitimate. And without laboratory testing, there’s no way to know the amount of fentanyl in an individual pill or how much may have been added to another drug. This is especially dangerous because of fentanyl's potency.

https://www.dea.gov/resources/facts-about-fentanyl

The number of people dying from drug overdoses in the US has decreased, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in a new report.
Overall, overdose deaths declined by roughly 14% from June 2023 to June 2024.
It's an encouraging sign, experts say. Overdose deaths had been on a steady rise since the 1990s, with a jump during the pandemic, according to CDC data.
More than 108,000 people died from overdose deaths in the 12 months leading up to both June 2022 and 2023, but by this June that number had dropped to 97,000.
"While these data are cause for optimism, we must not lose sight of the fact that nearly 100,000 people are still estimated to be dying annually from drug overdose in the US," said Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, in a statement to CBS, the BBC's US partner.
Some of the states that saw the largest rates of decrease were North Carolina (-30%), Ohio (-24%) and Virginia (-23%).
The decline marks a notable change in overdose trends that have troubled the US for three decades, initially fuelled by prescription opioids and later by the rise of heroin and synthetic opioids like fentanyl.
Prescription opioids overdose deaths rose sharply from 3,442 in 1999 to 17,029 in 2017. Deaths declined afterwards but rose again in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic amid increasing social isolation.
Experts are unsure of what exactly is causing the current decline in overdose deaths but attribute some of it to a post-pandemic return to normalcy.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8ek5l04yy7o

So the "crisis" is in decline according to the CDC. Time to tackle unhealthy food, smoking, and guns?

[Markk]

Why are Fentanyl deaths, and illicit Fentanyl imports being focussed on, rather than the higher death rate causes?

For instance, by far the largest cause of death in the USA is heart disease. Obesity and Smoking amongst men is a far a bigger danger to more men than Fentanyl. Junk Food and Cigarette products are not illegally imported, so the government's control over those things is 100%. If you removed smoking and obesity you would save exponentially more lives (especially when you add in the liver disease, and other respiratory causes of death that these things contribute to). Why isn't that being focussed on first? Why aren't people talking about the obesity crisis or the smoking crisis in the same way that there's clamour about a Fentanyl crisis?

Is this really about health? Or is this just Big Pharma trying to take back market share via the Politicians that they own?

But back to Fentanyl.

Unless a drug is prescribed by a licensed medical professional and dispensed by a legitimate pharmacy, you can't know if it’s fake or legitimate. And without laboratory testing, there’s no way to know the amount of fentanyl in an individual pill or how much may have been added to another drug. This is especially dangerous because of fentanyl's potency.

https://www.dea.gov/resources/facts-about-fentanyl

The number of people dying from drug overdoses in the US has decreased, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in a new report.
Overall, overdose deaths declined by roughly 14% from June 2023 to June 2024.
It's an encouraging sign, experts say. Overdose deaths had been on a steady rise since the 1990s, with a jump during the pandemic, according to CDC data.
More than 108,000 people died from overdose deaths in the 12 months leading up to both June 2022 and 2023, but by this June that number had dropped to 97,000.
"While these data are cause for optimism, we must not lose sight of the fact that nearly 100,000 people are still estimated to be dying annually from drug overdose in the US," said Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, in a statement to CBS, the BBC's US partner.
Some of the states that saw the largest rates of decrease were North Carolina (-30%), Ohio (-24%) and Virginia (-23%).
The decline marks a notable change in overdose trends that have troubled the US for three decades, initially fuelled by prescription opioids and later by the rise of heroin and synthetic opioids like fentanyl.
Prescription opioids overdose deaths rose sharply from 3,442 in 1999 to 17,029 in 2017. Deaths declined afterwards but rose again in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic amid increasing social isolation.
Experts are unsure of what exactly is causing the current decline in overdose deaths but attribute some of it to a post-pandemic return to normalcy.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8ek5l04yy7o

So the "crisis" is in decline according to the CDC. Time to tackle unhealthy food, smoking, and guns?

Really? In your mind we shouldn't discuss the fentanyl epidemic, that is killing almost twice as many Americans a year than in the entire Vietnam war? Not to mention the impact to the system because of the epidemic is costing over a trillion dollars a year.

Are you saying our government can't multi task?

One reason why there is a decline is deaths is the government and street programs hands out naloxone, which does not cure addiction but reverse overdose.

If you haven't noticed, Trump via Bobby Kennedy, is addressing the health of America, even while the left was/is pushing back on his nomination. He will try to get chemicals in our food, that are banned in other countries, banned here, and he is getting pushback. So he is working on it.

I doubt that the government will do much about tobacco, lobbyists will make sure of that, and we are in the tobacco and alcohol business in regard to taxed products.

Guns, that will always be a first amendment right issue and used as a political talking point with both using it for base support talking points. Take away drugs, gangs, and alcohol, gun violence will be cut, I am sure those numbers are available. Stopping the drug flow will help stop gang violence.

The democrats have held the Whitehouse for 12 of the past 16 years IHQs'....what did they do for you on those issues?

I am sure the forum here has plenty of bandwidth for you to discuss those issues, along with this issue which by your post here seems to you to be an inconvenient truth.

[Markk]

Are you saying that today, the cartels are not producing massive amounts of fentanyl?

No I'm not saying that. It's a large network of small garage-scale producers. The quality control of that compared the the quality control of an American drug company can't be compared. We're talking about a synthetic drug, not street tacos. A small Mexican shop may very well make better street tacos than we can. Fentanyl is Fentanyl, there is no artistic license.

That is just silly Gad. The cartels are sadly doing a very good job, with Chinese precursors to Mexico.

Gad: First of all, production costs aren't that relevant to the US. The US isn't trying to make a profit, it's trying to break the cartel. Firms take losses all the time on products hoping to put the competition out of business. When I say "costs" I mean how much is charged to the customer. We can charge what we want or give away free. Note that most of what the cartel produces is wasted; it's a shotgun approach. 2 kg's of fentanyl can kill 1 million people. We can easily to ramp up our production to what we need.

So your plan is that the gov. will take a hit, and basically just undercut the cartel, even to the point we give it away free. In your plan will you just drop it out of helicopters, have dispensaries, how will you distribute your product and keep it from innocents and from gangs/cartel to re-distribute? Keep in mind we are talking about 100's of thousands of users all over he country. How would you manage all this?

As an aside: we're producing our fentanyl in a chemical plant in New Jersey. We ship that by truck to wherever on the east coast in cooperation with the FBI. We don't need to bring it over the border. As far as long supply chains go: shipping precursors to Mexico from China, cook in tiny shops spread out all over, gather all that up, transport by Cessna and mule to the border, then once it's in the states it still needs to be transported by truck to the east coast without being seized. How is that "cheap"?

A car or truck with fentanyl say a million dollars in it can drive from LA to NY for what 300 - 500 dollars, lets say 10,000 dollars, how is that expensive? Also much of the drug comes into Florida and the gulf states directly.

Plus we probably get our pharmaceutical precursors from China anyways, from what I have read, which is another issue all together.

That's not exactly what he's doing. He's talking about the effects of criminalization. This is an important part of the conversation. Chap noted that the toothpaste can't be put back into the tube.

Chap is not dealing with reality, as you aren't, that we have a huge epidemic and crisis. You deny it is a crisis. We are not talking about criminalization, at least of the addict, but stopping the cartel flow of fentanyl that affecting hundreds or thousands of Americans addicted to it, not 1000 addicts in 1971 England.

I have asked a lot of fair question in two other posts that you have not addressed in regard to your plan, that deal directly with Chap's point. I hope you go back and address those issues and them we can discuss other concerns to your plan.

I'll address the rest of this post later after work. It is important.

[Gadianton]

Okay, Markk, while I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to present my plan to the administration, we need to slow down. Only a couple of points at a time.

That is just silly Gad. The cartels are sadly doing a very good job, with Chinese precursors to Mexico.

They are doing a great job because they make enough money to cover the otherwise absurd costs of running production that only gets a quarter or so of its product to the consumer. Organized crime doesn't work because the criminals are so brilliant and efficient, it works because the bans on the product leave them with no competition. They can sell the product for way too much money. The shipment from China is a tiny leg of the journey.

So your plan is that the gov. will take a hit, and basically just undercut the cartel, even to the point we give it away free.

Absolutely. That's the entire point of part A. If we could give it away for free immediately --- which I don't think we can at first but we will eventually -- then the cartel can't make enough money to sustain its operation. Taking the market over by supplying a better product for much cheaper naturally solves the barriers of "how do you get it to everybody." No helicopters needed.

[I Have Questions]

The democrats have held the Whitehouse for 12 of the past 16 years IHQs'....what did they do for you on those issues?

Nothing, I’m not American. However, they did give the world 12 Trump-free years, and we should all be eternally grateful for that.