Quote:
Originally Posted by niwell
FWIW the fentanyl crisis has made pretty big headlines in Canada. I wouldn't necessarily expect to see an article about overdoses in an American city in the news here.
Just search "cbc fentanyl" in google and you get a ton of hits.
|
Are you kidding? Some days it seems like there's almost nothing in the news but shocking anecdotes from the "opiate crisis".
And by the way, fentanyl is so 2016. In 2017 we have Carfentanil:
Quote:
U.S. Authorities Pressed China for Action on Deadly Opioid
By JON KAMP and ARIAN CAMPO-FLORES
Feb. 17, 2017 5:30 a.m. ET
China’s crackdown on an extremely potent synthetic narcotic came amid pressure from U.S. authorities and evidence linking it to hundreds of U.S. overdose deaths since it first emerged in Ohio in July.
The drug, carfentanil, has been connected to at least 700 fatalities in states including Ohio, Michigan and Florida, according to data compiled by The Wall Street Journal from county medical examiners and NMS Labs, a private laboratory outside Philadelphia that performs toxicology testing for counties around the U.S.
As of early November, the Drug Enforcement Administration had received notice of 411 drug seizures containing carfentanil from around the U.S. that were analyzed by federal, state and local labs. The agency has confirmed seizures of the drug in at least 10 states, mainly in the Midwest, Appalachia and the South . . . .
Carfentanil is particularly worrisome because of its extreme potency: It is up to 100 times more potent than fentanyl . . . .
|
https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-aut...oid-1487327406
Quote:
Originally Posted by Leo the Dog
Apparently, Vancouver kids killing themselves with drugs isn't newsworthy in America - nobody cares, just like nobody cares that over 900 people were murdered in 2016 on San Diego's doorstep in Tijuana.
|
Ah, I see--it isn't that Americans and their media aren't talking about the situation in America but that Americans aren't talking about the situation in Canada (or Canadians about the situation in America). Well, no because we are focused on our own problem and, presumably, Canadians on theirs. But it is interesting if the Canadian problem is centered on Vancouver which is a wealthy west coast city analagous to Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and San Diego which do not have these problems with Chinese-sourced semi-synthetic opiates so much. They have opiates, of course, just different ones--Mexican sourced heroin especially. In the US, according to the press anyway, the fentanyl (and now Carfentanil) problem is one of poorer whites in Appalachia, a group which is about as different from Vancouver kids as one can get in the developed world. 10 years ago I worked in an opiate treatment center and I do know that back then it would have been very unusual to encounter anyone in SF addicted to fentanyl. Such a person would probably have been in the medical profession with access to pharmaceutical fentanyl. Most of our clients used Mexican tar heroin.