These "critics" are unbelievable backwards and harmful.
Fent test strips are incredibly important, but the sooner we can legalize all drugs the sooner people can stop dying from bad batches.
Imagine that you're with a friend or loved one who is overdosing, when you might not be that far yourself from overdosing, and choosing whether to let them die there and cover up all evidence that you were in the room, or spend 10 years in prison if you take them to the hospital and they still die. The worse off they look, the less sensible it is to call for help. It's a sick society.
> Two friends share drugs. One overdoses and dies. The other survives. Is that murder? Amid the deadliest drug crisis in history, America is often answering "yes" to that question. Prosecutors are increasingly treating overdose deaths as homicides, locking up drug dealers who sell fentanyl to people living with addiction — people who are often addicted themselves. Some see justice and accountability in convictions under so-called "death resulting" laws. Some see a new and widening front in America's failed War on Drugs. In Death Resulting, we hone in on one of these homicide cases and meet a young man facing a 20-year mandatory minimum sentence in federal prison for his friend's death. Along the way we examine the forces that shape that case — from a cycle of generational trauma and addiction to the racist origins and current impacts of these prosecutions. So... an accident — or a homicide? Our answer could shape how we address the deadliest overdose crisis in American history
People that look up to someone are always like "Noooo, my role model wouldn't be doing cocaine to begin with, how dare you suggest that!" and unless you know how common that actually is, you don't see how the rest unfolds. People wanted to believe that this married woman, whose husband was out of town that weekend, was out with her girlfriend and they were both roofied at a party and a predatory man took them to their house and did all these heinous things. Most of that narrative disintegrated over time but there are still issues that the public doesn't understand and justice system don't really reveal. Especially around what you said about the host.
It's more clear that they went to the afterparty to do cocaine (which even w/o fentanyl is often not coke, hence the toxicology reports), it was tainted by the supplier leading to another fentanyl overdose, the hosts panicked. The hosts concocted that ghost car hospital plan, eventually got caught, various women with varying degrees of scorn over their whole life come out of the woodwork solidifying people's disdain, and off to prison they go!
The hosts though had exact the choice you mentioned... they waited 12 hours on this issue with their overdosed popular guests. But they also had to weigh the issue of snitching on their drug dealer! Potentially even worse than taking the full force of being a social pariah and prison time!
All of this occurring because we can't have an honest discussion about what commonly occurs! Because people don't have test strips on the ready, or don't have Narcan and don't know how to use it even if they know to suggest it. Because we don't address drug supply by fixing the supply chain.
There may indeed be no "safe" recreational use, but there's certainly relatively safer use and relatively more dangerous use of opiates. And not knowing exactly how pure and how much of what you're taking makes it decidedly less safe.
One relatively safer option is to only dispense less than what would be a fatal dose for the person's tolerance, and dispense regularly. This is often how opioid maintenance programs are run. In countries like Germany, Canada, the UK, Netherlands, Switzerland, etc. they prescribe opioids to severe opioid addicts so they can get high more safely and avoid withdrawal and stabilize. These programs generally drastically reduce the rate of overdose, use of other street drugs, and improve functioning and life expectancy. A lot of participants once given an effective regular daily supply, end up slowly weaning themselves off voluntarily (over 30% after 2 years in the initial German program).
The wild west going on with fentanyl is certainly worse, but I don't think legalizing what is likely the most addictive drug on the planet would improve things. Even if you cut down on contamination and improper doses, just the sheer increase in users would cause a ton of deaths.
This is just naiv. You can already see the effects of the marijuana industry speeding up adoption and innovation.
But it would certainly be interesting to see what happens in a world with big heroine and cocaine industry.