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Comment by chiefalchemist | Hacker News Reader

When drug kingpins + dealers kill off their customers, instead of addicting them to make as much money possible, then it feels like something more dark and ainister is at hand.

Given the history in the USA (i.e., black communities) perhaps American officials are just culling the herd?

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There doesn't need to be anything sinister about it. Fentanyl is cheap and potent. You can take cheap, low quality heroin, mix it with a little fentanyl and sell it for more profit as high quality heroin.

However, if it's not mixed perfectly, you end up with "hotspots" of fentanyl. If someone ends up with a hotspot they can easily overdose. The occasion overdose also attracts more users because it gives the impression of potent, high quality heroin.

Nothing sinister about a biz model that kills its customers? This is hardly the (illegal) drug industry's traditional approach. The deviation begs to ask: What's the point then?

Some will not aak. I believe it's a legit query.

The occasion overdose also attracts more users because it gives the impression of potent, high quality heroin.

Is that really the case? Do people think "Oh my god, that stuff almost killed me, must be good stuff -- give me some more!"

Yes. One of my best friends was an addict and died by Fentanyl OD. That is exactly how she thought.

It's because users of opiates can build up a really high tolerance. Like an order of magnitude more than would knock a non-user off his rocker will be barely enough to feel anything.

And heroin is really expensive. So imagine someone who is extremely frugal buying expired food. Only cranked up to 10.

Yes, and this is commonly documented and reported behavior from many first-person accounts of inner-city drug dealers.

That was the conspiracy with crack cocaine, most of these fentanyl victims appear to be Caucasian. There are record over dose numbers in the wealthy suburbs near where I live, Montgomery County

None the less, it's culling the herd. The historic ref was for those who would too quickly dismiss the possibility.

> When drug kingpins + dealers kill off their customers, instead of addicting them to make as much money possible, then it feels like something more dark and ainister is at hand.

Fentanyl is extremely potent and very hard to dilute.

One particular problem is that overdoses often occur in people who are relapsing. The addict dries out for a while so their tolerance drops. Then they get a hit at the same level as they remember with maybe a little bit of extra potency, and they drop dead.

Even a proper scale that's all of a sudden miscalibrated could cause an overdose.

-don't blame on malice what can be blamed on folly

True. But that still doesn't explain why the dealers' approach is to (literally) kill off their subscribers. That's a complete 180 from Successful Drug Dealer 101.

The people that manufacture are several levels away, so they aren't as affected as, say someone who sells it to the same 50 or so people every week/day or whatever.

The point of my post was to let you know how easy it would be to accidentally kill someone due to mismeasuring the dose. Calibrating a scale before and after measuring a dose then verifying with a second method is something dealers aren't used to doing.

The dealers' intended approach is likely not to kill off their customers. I'm willing to bet they simply don't realize what to look out for.

I think you underestimate the general intelligence and how biz savvy the average drug dealer is.

It’s how dealers drum up new business. When one customer ODs, other customers flock to the dealer whose product just proved its potency.

Yes. But hardly the traditional drug dealer biz model. They're the original subscription model.

I don't aee how growth by killing your customers is sustainable.

I would think they treat it like other businesses treat churn. As long as you have more new subscribers than cancelling subscribers, you're still growing.

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