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Comment by cowboysauce | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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.

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