Hacker News Reader

Comment by joemazerino | Hacker News Reader

Its easier to get opioids than it is to buy weed in some States. I wonder why?

Because pharma is 70% of the ad spend on Television news and one of the top lobbying industries?

Sure but it isn’t the generics doing any ad spend. Unless there is some hip new opioid I’m not aware of (street fentanyl?) all the opioids are generic at this point. “Bob & Dave’s Pill Company” sure as heck isn’t pimping their generic hydrocodone on TV nor are they taking doctors out to golf.

Don't worry, they know how to fight that scenario. Drug companies have gotten really good at fighting/delaying/squashing generics.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2013/04/17/1776023...

> In 2010, Purdue Pharma LP replaced the original OxyContin with an abuse-resistant form, in an effort to reduce deaths and overdoses caused by the powerful pain medication, which was licensed in 1995.

> The new version of OxyContin includes an ingredient, a polymer, that makes it harder to crush and snort or inject to get a quick, heroin-like high. When the new version was introduced, Purdue pulled the original OxyContin off the market. The patent on the new version runs until 2025.

> On Tuesday, the FDA said that it won't approve generic versions of the original formulation of OxyContin, a long-acting narcotic pain medication, which went off patent that day.

How would you get opioids if you actually wanted to? Weed you can ask around on the street and eventually you'll find someone. Are you gonna break your arm to get a script? Doctors don't prescribe that so liberally anymore, they haven't for years. I don't think it's accurate that it's easier to get opiates than Marijuana, except in really certain cases like after you undergo a procedure

Because they're legal?

Wasn't that joemazerino's point?

Weed is a plant that can rot. This makes its transport more finicky, and more bulky.

Pills are much easier to transport, particularly fentanyl with its small dosing amount. And one of the most dangerous things is meth, since recently it’s now being developed from shelf-stable chemicals. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/11/the-new...

THC/CBD containing edibles, oils and capsules come to mind.

The problem is that in an illicit market, there isn‘t QA to make sure what you‘re getting is of consistent quality, which is why I don‘t like getting edibles in such places.

I mean, there are test kits, I just don‘t want to bother.

That's silly. Weed is exactly that, a WEED, it grows freaking everywhere why the need for transport?

Salad grows pretty much everywhere, but we still transport most of it from Mexico or California, with a pretty hefty set of infrastructure components from farms to hordes of pickers to refridgerated trains to grocery stores.

(It's also not a weed, really, just like it's not a pot.)

There are definitely economies of scale when it comes to farming and weed is no exception. That, and taking advantage of cheaper labor costs elsewhere (like Mexico)

That, and it may be easier to grow in a laxer jurisdiction and transport it to a stricter one, than just trying to grow it in a strict one.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com