Thread by @c0lettea

Fentanyl A New Paradigm

FACT: IF the vast majority of those lost to illicit fentanyl did EXACTLY what they did on the day they died prior to 2013. They would be alive today.

2) They would have gotten a REAL prescription pill or the exact drug they intended to consume and for the most part they would not have died that day.

3) What is Fentanyl?
It's a 100% synthetic narcotic, no plant materials at all. The main ingredient needed to make illicit fentanyl is a chemical called 4-ANPP. Fentanyl is 100 times more potent than morphine & 100 times more deadly than sodium cyanide, it only takes 2mg to kill.

4) The Old Drug Paradigm:
In the OLD drug paradigm people would get a drug, know what they were taking, use it awhile, get addicted and have 8-10 years to get clean or die. Deaths from drugs in the addiction community.

5) This remained true for more than 50 years drug related deaths remained STABLE and in a linear pattern without any major changes AT ALL, right up until 2013 when it changed completely.

6) So what changed?
Beginning in 2013 China began mass manufacturing illicit fentanyl for U.S. markets. Illicit Fentanyl Changed Everything.

nytimes.com/2019/10/16/mag…

7) The New Drug Paradigm:
In the NEW PARADIGM people do NOT know they are getting illicit fentanyl. There is a 1 in 20 chance they will DIE INSTANTLY. Deaths from illicit fentanyl are NOT limited to the addiction community and include ALL ages and segments of society,

8) from babies to adventurous 12 year olds just trying out a drug for the first time in their life all the way up to the grandparent who got a pill for their arthritis pain from a friend. This is the largest and most significant change, NON-addicted people started dying

7) Casual users, first time users and people self medicating who do NOT have an addiction problem, people who NEVER died before in the old paradigm for over 50 years are dying today.

8) WHO:
China is the main supplier of black market fentanyl and to this day continues to give gov't tax breaks to it's 160,000 unregulated chemical companies manufacturing it. Despite the fact that they they do not have any legitimate world market for it. brookings.edu/research/fenta…

9) Mexico's drug cartels are the greatest drug traffickers in the world and they are right next door. They saw a huge opportunity with illicit fentanyl which does NOT require the effort of maintaining poppy fields, harvesting nor laborers to produce.

10) It is not privy to any of the problems that a poppy field presents, it's also highly portable and easy to conceal.

11) HOW:
In 2019 under severe pressure from the Trump administration China banned the production of fentanyl. BUT THEY NEVER STOPPED. They brought over cartel members from Mexico, trained them in a one pot method to finish the product and began mass shipping 4-ANPP

12) directly to Mexico's drug cartels. Additionally only months after the agreement to ban fentanyl manufacturing a shipment of 25.7 tons of illicit fentanyl powder was intercepted by the Mexican Navy bound from China to the Sinaloa drug cartel.

13) Now a problem that was an ocean away moved right into our backyard and was put into the hands of the greatest expert drug traffickers in the entire world.

14) WHY:
It's been suggested that China's motivations are solidly rooted in their desire for world dominance and to take out their enemies, no matter what it takes.

15) For the cartels it's greed. They are on a mission to get as many people addicted to their new product as possible. That is why they began contaminating heroin, cocaine, meth and ecstasy with illicit fentanyl.

16) But that wasn't enough, those markets were not big enough to satisfy them and they wanted more so these brutal EXPERT drug traffickers then decided to attack the U.S. pill user market which is made of up of 50-100 million or more people.

17) The cartels began mass manufacturing fake pills which mimic trademarked products like Xanax, Percocet, Adderall, Vicodin, Oxycodone and flooded U.S. markets killing hundreds of thousands of our loved ones.

18) Our Problem:
We remain fixated on the idea that someone has to be addicted, or sick or somehow damaged and broken to use a drug and that is completely FALSE. Yes addiction exists and it's a terrible disorder, but we have to be HONEST about four things.

19) There does NOT have to be anything wrong with someone for them to try or use a drug and they do NOT always become addicted. That group is a very small segment of our population.
It's common and entirely normal for kids to experiment with drugs or pills in our youth population

20) WE ARE WAY TOO CAVALIER WITH PILLS. It's entirely NORMAL in our society for someone with medication to offer a pill to their friend they think is in need. It's also common for kids to share a Xanax they got for fun with their friend which if it were real would NOT kill them.

21) We did a wonderful job educating the public about addiction. Now that is coming back to haunt us as the public wrongly attributes this NEW PROBLEM ONLY to addiction or "those people" which has created a tidal wave which is hitting our unsuspecting population full force,

22) At highest risk are our young people under 30 who STILL do not know those previously benign party drugs or pills they've used in the past or want to try are now potentially lethal.

23) NOW that we have fake pills of pure fentanyl and contaminated NON-lethal drugs everywhere we MUST accept this new paradigm, it's not just a theory anymore, it's our new reality.