Opioid Dealers Embrace the Dark Web to Send Deadly Drugs by Mail
Source: New York Times
JUNE 10, 2017
As the nations opioid crisis worsens, the authorities are confronting a resurgent, unruly player in the illicit trade of the deadly drugs, one that threatens to be even more formidable than the cartels.
The internet.
In a growing number of arrests and overdoses, law enforcement officials say, the drugs are being bought online. Internet sales have allowed powerful synthetic opioids such as fentanyl the fastest-growing cause of overdoses nationwide to reach living rooms in nearly every region of the country, as they arrive in small packages in the mail.
<snip>
Among the dead are two 13-year-olds, Grant Seaver and Ryan Ainsworth, who died last fall in the wealthy resort town of Park City, Utah, after taking a synthetic opioid known as U-47700 or Pinky. The boys had received the powder from another local teenager, who bought the drugs on the dark web using Bitcoin, according to the Park City police chief.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/10/business/dealbook/opioid-dark-web-drug-overdose.html?_r=0
Opioids (and crystal meth) are seriously bad problems in my town.
These drugs are destroying my city. I don't what the solution is to this problem.
And I've never been on the "dark" web. Too nervous to chance it - even out of curiosity.
sandensea
(21,624 posts)It's just as well that he, Cheney, and the rest of them were never held to account. There wouldn't be enough life sentences in the world to serve as fitting punishment for what they did.
Archae
(46,317 posts)To after the Civil War, when "patent medicines" were popular, such as laudanum (opium dissolved in alcohol) and "soothing syrup" for babies that had heroin in it.
Harry Anslinger and his racist anti-pot crusade, TV shows like "Dragnet" showing "Reefer Madness" -type anti-drugs shows, Nixon and their "War On Drugs," and so on.
sandensea
(21,624 posts)Which, besides funding the British Empire and banking behemoths like HSBC, inspired George Orwell.
But the modern-day heroin/opiate epidemic can be traced directly to Bush's Afghan War - which from the beginning was little more than a drug-running operation waged under cover of the "war on terror."
kristopher
(29,798 posts)That isn't true.
From the New England Journal of Medicine:
"The prescribing of strong opioids such as oxycodone has increased dramatically in the United States and Canada over the past two decades.1 From 1999 through 2015, more than 183,000 deaths from prescription opioids were reported in the United States,2 and millions of Americans are now addicted to opioids. The crisis arose in part because physicians were told that the risk of addiction was low when opioids were prescribed for chronic pain..."
Full:
The prescribing of strong opioids such as oxycodone has increased dramatically in the United States and Canada over the past two decades.1 From 1999 through 2015, more than 183,000 deaths from prescription opioids were reported in the United States,2 and millions of Americans are now addicted to opioids. The crisis arose in part because physicians were told that the risk of addiction was low when opioids were prescribed for chronic pain. A one-paragraph letter that was published in the Journal in 19803 was widely invoked in support of this claim, even though no evidence was provided by the correspondents (see Section 1 in the Supplementary Appendix, available with the full text of this letter at NEJM.org).
We performed a bibliometric analysis of this correspondence from its publication until March 30, 2017. For each citation, two reviewers independently evaluated the portrayal of the articles conclusions, using an adaptation of an established taxonomy of citation behavior4 along with other aspects of generalizability (Section 2 in the Supplementary Appendix). For context, we also ascertained the number of citations of other stand-alone letters that were published in nine contemporaneous issues of the Journal (in the index issue and in the four issues that preceded and followed it).
We identified 608 citations of the index publication and noted a sizable increase after the introduction of OxyContin (a long-acting formulation of oxycodone) in 1995 (Figure 1FIGURE 1
Number and Type of Citations of the 1980 Letter, According to Year.). Of the articles that included a reference to the 1980 letter, the authors of 439 (72.2%) cited it as evidence that addiction was rare in patients treated with opioids. Of the 608 articles, the authors of 491 articles (80.8%) did not note that the patients who were described in the letter were hospitalized at the time they received the prescription, whereas some authors grossly misrepresented the conclusions of the letter (Section 3 in the Supplementary Appendix). Of note, affirmational citations have become much less common in recent years. In contrast to the 1980 correspondence, 11 stand-alone letters that were published contemporaneously by the Journal were cited a median of 11 times.
In conclusion, we found that a five-sentence letter published in the Journal in 1980 was heavily and uncritically cited as evidence that addiction was rare with long-term opioid therapy. We believe that this citation pattern contributed to the North American opioid crisis by helping to shape a narrative that allayed prescribers concerns about the risk of addiction associated with long-term opioid therapy. In 2007, the manufacturer of OxyContin and three senior executives pleaded guilty to federal criminal charges that they misled regulators, doctors, and patients about the risk of addiction associated with the drug.5 Our findings highlight the potential consequences of inaccurate citation and underscore the need for diligence when citing previously published studies.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/122852221
sandensea
(21,624 posts)We've known since Hippocrates' days at least that opiates are by definition highly addictive.
Reminds me of the Japanese Empire practice of financing their World War II expenses by deliberately addicting millions of Chinese. Any drug industry figure who, in 2017, pretends to not have realized the dangers is doing nothing short of admitting they're in on it up to their eyeballs.
onit2day
(1,201 posts)So many people in pain could get no relief until pain meds were made of better quality. Finally some relief. 183,000 out of millions is not a huge number. Sometimes we choose facts to justify previously drawn conclusions rather than the other way around. Opioids are necessary pain relivers.
NickB79
(19,233 posts)FYI, that's the same number of people murdered with firearms annually, and you just stated in a post below that we have a gun epidemic.
PSPS
(13,590 posts)Mosby
(16,299 posts)Old school Liberals like me (nanny staters, authoritarians) want to limit peoples behavior but I keep hearing here and at other progressive sites that people should be able to do what they want with their bodies, including killing themselves with drugs.
Protip, as someone who has done a lot of drugs I wouldn't waste my time with opiates, try PCP, its pretty amazing.
Stryst
(714 posts)But it's a thin fringe.
Most of us in the progressive pro-legalization camp are striving for responsible legal access. No one is saying that six year olds should get access to everclear or heroin, but there are extreme voices out there. Personally, I think that the P.T.B. in the Democrat party support or ignore a lot of flat out ridiculous drug laws because the private prison business supports their campaign.
But that's the beauty of democracy; when it works, we all get to put our opinion forward and work out a compromise that does the most good for the most people.
Akoto
(4,266 posts)I made a lengthy post about that just recently, so I won't get that much into my personal situation. Needless to say, pain management was the court of last resort for my incurable syndrome. If they had not used the proper medications to take some of the edge off of the pain, I know I would not be here today, if you take my meaning.
It's no surprise to me that people purchasing fentanyl illegally are dying of overdoses. It remains, if I am not mistaken, the most powerful opiate medication on the planet. Very easy to overdose. In fact, I think you have to be eased *up* to fentanyl using other pain medications when under proper pain management care.
Mosby
(16,299 posts)Fentanyl is dosed in micrograms!
DK504
(3,847 posts)running loose on the streets. I'm still waiting for the FBI, the DEA, the ATF, the alphabet soup to start arresting doctors in droves for all the bullshit prescriptions they write daily for those that have NO need.
Will these idiots in the government take away medication for those that can not live without help, while the true drug dealers drive off in their pretty SUV's to their McMansions and pay no taxes. Until this happens all the crap talk is just that CRAP.
It's really simple... those that are addicted get NO help because assholes like McConnell that keeps getting elected by the fucking morons that all need to be in rehab don't get help.... then there's the flat our refusal to tax anyone in the tax brackets that can help the most. Of course that is wayyyyyy to much for us to demand, 'cause we keep voting these soulless bastards that keep making sure we swirl down the drain faster, year after year after year.
I know people that are in so much pain they will kill themselves if they are not allowed to get their medication. This isn't a matter of they OD because they've taken too much, this is about them being in so pain they can not think, sleep, eat, function. So the junkies keep dying, the drug makers are getting sued for making painkillers and the doctors are walking away scott free.
Any one see anything fucked up about this structure of insanity?
onit2day
(1,201 posts)Will you knock it off with this crap. Responsible people with pain will always need pain meds. They are not "evil" or "deadly" and these same kids mentioned here would have been hacking paint or doing other things but it's no opioid "crisis". That is pure propaganda. There is however a gun epidemic 100Xs more severe at producing dead people. We have Rehab clinics, drug monitoring and drug awareness available. Legalize all drugs and treat addiction as a disease not a criminal activity like some other countries have done with amazingly positive results. Please don't act like theres's an opioid hiding in every bush tying to jump down a kids throat like the opioid boogeyman.
inanna
(3,547 posts)I posted a news article from the New York Times.
I never said there was an opioid boogeyman hiding in every bush.
Don't put words in my mouth.
Thank you.
Sgent
(5,857 posts)it was talking about synthetic opioids made in illegal labs in China that are mailed to the US.