The Fentanyl Crisis is finally solved....

[I Have Questions]

From what I gather here you just want to make drugs legal. If so, why not just have China produce it like they do lots of drugs we consume, to our specifications, then they can just distribute directly what ever dispensary's you guys have yet to come up with.

The best solution would be for the drug companies to invest in creating an alternative product that doesn’t results in death but which satisfies the needs of the people who are wanting to consume it. Are they working on a solution?

[Doctor Steuss]

Really? And all these addicts are just going to go to the hundreds, if not thousands of government dispensaries across the country, and get their fentanyl.

As opposed to them going to the thousands of street dealers, yes. Why wouldn't they?

And if they get enough they get free Narcan?

Never said it was free. But, if it was "free," it would obviously be cost averaged into the overall drug costs. That's usually how those things work.

I am just amazed at this kind of logic.

The logic that existing markets will choose to go towards the cheapest, safest, convenient and legal option over a more expensive dangerous and illegal option? I'm not sure what's so amazing about that logic. Seems to be capitalism 101.

You were taking care of your MIL, and making sure she got her drugs, I get that, I have also done the same for loved ones, giving my father morphine in his last days....who is taking care of these addicted folks, especially those hopelessly lost?

Perhaps your volunteer work with addicts differs from mine, but most have jobs, and families. Homeless addicts who steal and sell themselves for their addiction are definitely the most visible, but they are the minority.

How would it be effective? How would you even pull it off. I have two posts with a few questions, and I would respectively love to hear your opinions.

How would a country-wide disruption of cartel markets be effective at disrupting cartel markets? I'm not really sure how to map that out if it's not something that intuitively makes sense.

I believe Kensington PA, is a good example how just giving addicts free drugs won't help. Google it. This one is faith based and I get most here will not even give it a chance because it is, but aside from the faith part of it it shows a real picture of the issue of a free drug policy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWGwCbSUECw

Remind me again where I said anything about free drugs?

[This space reserved for the next windmill that needs jousting.]

Just to give what I believe is the best course. I think addiction recovery, particularly investing in pharmaceutical recovery and opioid pain management alternatives is one of the best ways to go about it. It may vary city-to-city, and state-to-state, but the vast majority of opioid addicts I've known and helped became addicted off of pain pills. Usually from a doctor, but occasionally from a friend that had some left-over pills from a surgery or something. Some people are just wired in a way that makes taking opioids extremely dangerous as far as addiction potential goes. I've taken opioids a lot of times in my life. For about two years, I was in pain management, getting a monthly script. Eventually, I hit a point in physical therapy and with NSAIDs where I didn't need the opioids. So... I stopped. It wasn't because I was addicted to opioids, or because they were disrupting my life. I just didn't want the continued expense of DEA mandated piss tests. Meanwhile, a friend's son was given about 10 pills of the same opioid I took for two years, and got hooked. Fast-track a few months later, and he was free-basing heroine.

Gad's method would work for what he said it was intended to do. Disrupt the cartels, and take away their source of funding and power. As far as overall harm reduction, it would likely also save lives here in the US. I don't think it's the best way though. Pharmaceutical research into opioid addiction mitigation drugs, and alternative pain management medications without abuse potential are much better options, in my view.

[Doctor Steuss]

So how is that reducing consumption? They just busted 100 million dollars worth of pot that was grown locally maybe an hour and a half form my home a few months ago.

It isn't reducing consumption. Where did you get the idea that it was? It reduced the amount that cartels were being able to sell to the US market.

Legalizing pot just increases usage, just as it would with Gad's plan.

And it helped reduce the Cartel's market... just like Gad's plan would.

You seem to keep losing the script.

Focus on what you are saying? More pot is being smoked, and more pot heads And.... More fentanyl users equals more addiction? And you still haven't shown me how the logistics will work here? How are you going to distribute the fentanyl?

Shall we use your theory here with guns; ghost guns?....lets just sell government made guns at government stores, of a better grade, at a cheaper price than the ghost gun market?

What would be bad about government made guns being sold in government stores?

This is just insanity Steuss.

I think you may be getting too emotional, which is certainly understandable with a topic like this that is affecting a lot of people in pretty horrific ways. Try to approach it like an economist (i.e. basically a sociopath).

If the goal is to stop the cartels, securing the border will do nothing. They will do what they already primarily do, and use US citizens, and will probably just start using more boats and things like that. Unless you think American citizens should be subject to strip and cavity searches when coming into the US. The only sure-fire way is to disrupt their market share. Gad's plan would effectively do that, and I provided a real-world example of another cartel staple that is no longer a North American cash cow for them. I would hope that my plan (while taking much longer, and requiring a lot more financial investment) would also work.

If the goal is the stop fentanyl addiction. Securing the border, again, will do nothing. Gad's plan obviously also wouldn't work, and would probably exacerbate the addiction problem.

Either way, if you're looking to disrupt the cartels, or curtail opioid addiction, "securing" the border will do nothing of measurable worth for that goal. Gad's method would disrupt the cartels while also being a revenue generator, GDP booster, and job creator... but at a hefty society cost. My method would be a potentially substantial cost, but possibly pay dividends with things like workforce productivity and reduced law enforcement costs in the long run, but overall would likely cost more financially than it would produce. I guess the question then becomes, is it the human side, or the monetary side that needs to be prioritized in addressing it.

[Gadianton]

Gad's method would disrupt the cartels while also being a revenue generator, GDP booster, and job creator... but at a hefty society cost.

Minor correction here. I'm not looking to generate revenue, I'm trying to overtake the operation as-is but with a new supplier. 1) to keep the users mostly the same and overall choices the same as they would have been anyway without intervention. A new user would be one who would have started up with the old regime, not one who wouldn't have gone to the streets but is curious now that they can get it from the pharmacy. 2) to have all users more or less identified. Minimize loose ends. 3) avoid pushing anything further underground. No other source once I start phase 2. When that starts it's free in terms of dollars.

Could fentanyl really work decriminalized when there are so many cases like your friend who are addicted after the first hit? That's where I think there may be a line to be drawn.

A huge issue we have on the demand side is increasing inequality (Trump has the pedal to the metal here), A.I. taking over jobs, rampant homelessness, and so the coming generations may very well have so little hope that the temptation to opt out of life and get into drugs will be more powerful than ever.

[Markk]

From what I gather here you just want to make drugs legal. If so, why not just have China produce it like they do lots of drugs we consume, to our specifications, then they can just distribute directly what ever dispensary's you guys have yet to come up with.

The best solution would be for the drug companies to invest in creating an alternative product that doesn’t results in death but which satisfies the needs of the people who are wanting to consume it. Are they working on a solution?

So you disagree with Gad, and your solution as President would be to just create something that basically makes one a zombie, but does not kill them. No, I am not aware of anyone working on that. Noted.

[Markk]

CFR on the quarter of cartel fentanyl gets to the consumer?

I asked deepseek a bunch of probing questions to estimate it; the different components of loss -- (the biggest being seizures even though you guys don't think anything was seized under Biden) -- but its from data a couple of years old. Might be some effort to get really accurate new data here.

Let me know when you find that data. I can't. I was told by a front line officer, we do not even scratch the surface of what is getting across. I never said that anything was seized under Biden.

Markk: You can fentanyl for as little 50 cents a pill....One reason it is a epidemic is that because it is so cheap.

Gad: Which is the very low end and cartel fentanyl is getting debased; other chemicals mixed in lowering potency. So the price is falling. My Fentanyl will be the real deal. Mine will be stronger but less fatal overall because there will be no guesswork about potency; no variation from batch to batch or pill to pill.

LOL, okay and I guess you will taking into account age and body weight of the person. The method, oral, needle, smoked, other, and of course you would make sure these level headed folks would read the instructions and not take say, take a double dose?

Also like with most drugs some one who is a "beginner" has a higher risk of overdose with less, while a seasoned addicted person can take more.

By the way, the fact that it's so relatively cheap to make and ship compared to other drugs is why all these big drug busts you boast about don't matter when translated into the amount consumed. Steuss was asking you about that -- how much are your busts reducing actual use? When 2kgs can kill 1 million people, you can just make more kgs -- double, tripple, five times what you need. why not?

My point is that so much is getting over here, that it is a epidemic and crisis. I stated elsewhere that basically the busts now are the cost of doing business for the cartel.

It's not immediately free. It may even be more expensive if competing against a debased product. How does McDonalds get all those hamburgers to the millions of people it serves everyday? How could a new hamburger shop shoot up and mysteriously start selling hamburgers to McDonalds' customers? A variety of methods would be employed with advisement from my partners at the FBI. New dealers can enter the ring. As you point out from your relative, foot soldiers can be bribed. I'm sure LE at all levels has some good knowledge about supply chains, they just can't do much about it. Just think, China had 40 million addicts within the 19th century. Nowhere near our technology, yet, the CCP solved the crisis in 3 years.

HUH? you said at first you would undercut the cartel and if necessary give it away? You are changing that?

I understand you do not understand addiction or "street life," but Gad, these folks we are talking about are literally "spun," they have no real hope in their hearts, they have burned most every bridge they have, and most, the very most will never be a productive citizen.

Your post here is just scattered nonsense.

tiered user "programs". 'A' tier is basically the Steuss and Chap method. 'B" and lower involve FEMA camps.

Any time a producer of a product takes a loss to undersell their competition to drive them out of business, once they have the monopoly, the next step is to raise prices. Only, in my case, the price isn't raised in terms of dollars. The price is lowered to zero for everyone, if it hasn't been already.
But if you're coherent enough to have a conversation and get up and walk, then you and your stuff moves to a designated area. If you want your next hit.

Well...honest question, do you really believe this? I am not sure how to even answer such non-sense. The word picture here is a bunch of walking dead zombies heading to a truck of free fentanyl with FBI agents throwing it out free to them. Is this place for the walking addicted an open air market setting, a place where they are just free to do drugs at their own will?

[Markk]

Really? And all these addicts are just going to go to the hundreds, if not thousands of government dispensaries across the country, and get their fentanyl.

As opposed to them going to the thousands of street dealers, yes. Why wouldn't they?

Well for one that puts our government in to the fentanyl business. You are good with the bureaucracy it would create? Would this IYO, reduce addiction or enlarge it?

Never said it was free. But, if it was "free," it would obviously be cost averaged into the overall drug costs. That's usually how those things work

Gad did, and you are championing his plan....unless I am missing something here. I am still unclear how you would make all this work....but I am all ears.

The logic that existing markets will choose to go towards the cheapest, safest, convenient and legal option over a more expensive dangerous and illegal option? I'm not sure what's so amazing about that logic. Seems to be capitalism 101.

These are addicted folks. Addicts don't care about safety, or weather a pill is 50cents or free, they are addicted to poison. I am just not sure what world you guys live in.

Perhaps your volunteer work with addicts differs from mine, but most have jobs, and families. Homeless addicts who steal and sell themselves for their addiction are definitely the most visible, but they are the minority.

It is different. My volunteer work is different. I see it is a progressive epidemic. It starts in the family, then lost jobs, broken families, then the streets. And the families I have experience with, even up close and personally, are in my opinion the more tragic part of this....being forced into tough love and choices, and Steuss you know what I mean by that, if you are volunteering. Without a stron family support or church, it is even tougher. If you think giving low cost or free opioids to an addicted family members helps the family stay together....we are miles apart in our experience. It is heart breaking to see children in homes with a addicted parent eating cereal with a fork.

How would a country-wide disruption of cartel markets be effective at disrupting cartel markets? I'm not really sure how to map that out if it's not something that intuitively makes sense.

Lost me. please clarify...thanks

Stuess: Remind me again where I said anything about free drugs?

[This space reserved for the next windmill that needs jousting.]

Just to give what I believe is the best course. I think addiction recovery, particularly investing in pharmaceutical recovery and opioid pain management alternatives is one of the best ways to go about it. It may vary city-to-city, and state-to-state, but the vast majority of opioid addicts I've known and helped became addicted off of pain pills. Usually from a doctor, but occasionally from a friend that had some left-over pills from a surgery or something. Some people are just wired in a way that makes taking opioids extremely dangerous as far as addiction potential goes. I've taken opioids a lot of times in my life. For about two years, I was in pain management, getting a monthly script. Eventually, I hit a point in physical therapy and with NSAIDs where I didn't need the opioids. So... I stopped. It wasn't because I was addicted to opioids, or because they were disrupting my life. I just didn't want the continued expense of DEA mandated piss tests. Meanwhile, a friend's son was given about 10 pills of the same opioid I took for two years, and got hooked. Fast-track a few months later, and he was free-basing heroine.

You didn't Gad did, and again you are defending his plan. I have a addictive personality, and I had a bulging disk in my neck and was on Vicodin for about 3 months, I started to like it way too much and told the Doc to stop, and I opted for a fusion, which lucky worked. So I get it.

But, my question was about a free open market, which you and Gad are proposing.

Gad's method would work for what he said it was intended to do. Disrupt the cartels, and take away their source of funding and power. As far as overall harm reduction, it would likely also save lives here in the US. I don't think it's the best way though. Pharmaceutical research into opioid addiction mitigation drugs, and alternative pain management medications without abuse potential are much better options, in my view.

I disagree, his plan would only increase addiction, create a huge bureaucracy, and not even effectively get off the ground.

[Markk]

Markk wrote:
So how is that reducing consumption? They just busted 100 million dollars worth of pot that was grown locally maybe an hour and a half form my home a few months ago.


Stuess: It isn't reducing consumption. Where did you get the idea that it was? It reduced the amount that cartels were being able to sell to the US market.

Stuess, the premises of the conversation is to eventually stop consumption, or the epidemic. Providing easy legal access of pot, neither stopped illegal cultivation, smuggling, and in the end consumption which is again the end goal with fentanyl and other drugs that are killing Americans. Gad's plan was to get control of the market, then work on ways to stop the addiction. He wrote in the OP...." Once the old suppliers are out of business, we have options."

And it helped reduce the Cartel's market... just like Gad's plan would.

You seem to keep losing the script.

No I believe you are. Going aggressively after the cartel as Trump is going to do, is to ultimately stop the crisis we are in. Gad's plan is to stop the cartel with a far different plan. The end goal of stopping the epidemic will not slow addiction and OD deaths, by adding easy access to to better drugs, but just make it worse.

I have asked him a lot of questions he is back logged on about his plan, that hopefully he will address, and I have more questions in my que, such as what happen when the government does create this perfect for of fentanyl, and the cartel introduces a new better drug, like maybe a Carfentanil cocktail. Or Xylazine mixtures.

What would be bad about government made guns being sold in government stores?

In regard to my example, giving criminals and gang members easier access to better guns won't stop gun violence, it will make it worse, just like giving addicts access to better free drugs with no attempt to stop it.

If the goal is to stop the cartels,

The goal is to stop addiction and deaths. Part of that is how we stop supply, which is the cartel.

securing the border will do nothing. They will do what they already primarily do, and use US citizens, and will probably just start using more boats

Steuss: and things like that. Unless you think American citizens should be subject to strip and cavity searches when coming into the US. The only sure-fire way is to disrupt their market share. Gad's plan would effectively do that, and I provided a real-world example of another cartel staple that is no longer a North American cash cow for them. I would hope that my plan (while taking much longer, and requiring a lot more financial investment) would also work.

Sure it will do something, like making them use other routes like your wrote. And it is happening. Gad plan, what ever that is in whole, is not real world, Lol, it is on a Mormon discussion forum, with a hypothetical dictator, with many unanswered questions, like how are you going to stop kids from getting addicted....and how it would get off of paper into the real world.

If the goal is the stop fentanyl addiction. Securing the border, again, will do nothing. Gad's plan obviously also wouldn't work, and would probably exacerbate the addiction problem.

I disagree with the former, it will do something, and agree Gads plan won't work, it is insane in my opinion.

Either way, if you're looking to disrupt the cartels, or curtail opioid addiction, "securing" the border will do nothing of measurable worth for that goal. Gad's method would disrupt the cartels while also being a revenue generator, GDP booster, and job creator... but at a hefty society cost. My method would be a potentially substantial cost, but possibly pay dividends with things like workforce productivity and reduced law enforcement costs in the long run, but overall would likely cost more financially than it would produce. I guess the question then becomes, is it the human side, or the monetary side that needs to be prioritized in addressing it.

How is it working in cities like Seattle, Kensington, Denver, LA, and Portland? How have these similar approaches worked.

[Gadianton]

Let me know when you find that data. I can't. I was told by a front line officer, we do not even scratch the surface of what is getting across. I never said that anything was seized under Biden.

You tried? If you tried and couldn't find anything, I will go back and see what I can dig up. Your front line officer knows what he sees at the front lines, it's a valid data point, but I wouldn't exaggerate it. After all, how would he know how much is getting through if he doesn't know what's there in the first place?

I guess you will taking into account age and body weight of the person

Nope. They are simply buying from a better supplier. It would be like putting up a hamburger shop that sells better burgers for cheaper. If somebody wants to buy 10 burgers and eat them that day then we sell them. At this point, there is no user guidance. Just a new brand hitting the market that's better than the old.

My point is that so much is getting over here, that it is a epidemic and crisis.

And my point is that when 2 kg can kill 1 million people, it doesn't take a lot of kgs to keep a crises going. They can keep making more to cover greater losses. You still haven't tried to find data on actual use. You seem to think that if 1,000 pounds was seized, that equates to users going without.

HUH? you said at first you would undercut the cartel and if necessary give it away? You are changing that?

No. In phase 1, we are underselling the cartel. I can't say exactly by how much until we try it. It may involve giving a bunch away for free. It may be 10% cheaper, it may be 10% more expensive, considering the product is superior. Likely depends on the area. we are acting as if we want to take over for long-term profitability.

Is this place for the walking addicted an open air market setting, a place where they are just free to do drugs at their own will?

There are tiered programs. I said the 'A' tier will be more like Steuss's plan for the most high functioning. Unlike the walking dead, zombies aren't created when they die, only when they bite. The point is to have all users contained so that we're done with new people becoming users. Present users can't spread it others. "B" camps will be higher functioning users who are homeless and difficult, and don't want to put effort into following rules. "F" camps will be people barely alive and laying around unable to move. Initially, yes, it will be open air free drugs, do what you want. The point is to keep them there as voluntarily as possible, because they won't get it anywhere else. But slowly, they dry out, whether they want to or not. To put it starkly: either get clean or die. Because eventually it all disappears.

[Doctor Steuss]

Well for one that puts our government in to the fentanyl business. You are good with the bureaucracy it would create? Would this IYO, reduce addiction or enlarge it?

It would almost certainly enlarge it, unless there were harm reduction and addiction resources that coincided with it. Conceivably these efforts would basically pay for themselves, but it seems like robbing Peter to pay Paul sunk cost dilly.

Gad did, and you are championing his plan....unless I am missing something here. I am still unclear how you would make all this work....but I am all ears.

Good gravy dude, I am not “championing his plan.” I was explaining why it would work for his stated objective, and one of the ways it could be implemented based on existing examples with scheduled substances sold through government regulated outlets. As I said immediately before weighing in on his plan, I don’t agree with it. It was literally the very first words of my very first sentence:

I don't agree with Gad's proposal

Kind of a weird thing to say when "championing" something, don't you think?

Second Gad literally said:

the government will create fentanyl of the highest quality and perfectly measured and offer increasingly better prices

I don't think “increasingly better prices” is synonymous with “free,” and I think most people would (hopefully) agree. If he said it was free after this (and before my post), then I missed it, but I was following from the base proposal of the thread, and your comment about how the distribution would work.

I don't know if there's a full moon, if my brain and keyboard just aren't connecting in a way that makes for effective communication, or something else is going on, but I'm going to bow out.