Cocaine production reaches record levels as new trafficking hubs emerge | Hacker News Reader

Cocaine production reaches record levels as new trafficking hubs emerge

bbc.com

42 pointsgmays69 comments

Everyone I know who recreationally does cocaine is scared to continue because of the risk of fentanyl contamination.

Aren’t there testing kits available that you could use?

And what if you test the good part and there is a hotspot of carfentanyl in the line you shoot up your nose? You’re dead instantly. There is no safe way to take illicit drugs anymore.

I know literally hundreds of people who regularly or semi-regularly do illicit drugs, including myself. And if you read the testing instructions, you'll find that the best way is to mix and test the entire package of drugs, not just a sample. Though to be honest, few people I know test with any regularity.

Yeah, mixing everything and testing a sample of it still does not guarantee that you won't have a hot pocket of something mysterious and deadly, but did not get into the test sample no matter how well you think you're mixing it. This is why the FDA is so hard core when it comes to approving the production of drugs. They want to know about the entire process of production from top to bottom and routinely suspend a producer's license, removing product from shelves if there is any doubt as to the safety of their end product. When parts of milligrams can mean the difference between life and death, the risk isn't worth the reward, IMHO.

Insulfated cocaine has a unique problem in that it first needs to be diluted in water in order to properly test, then somehow dried back out into powder before it can be used.

It’s fairly cumbersome and removes a lot of the appeal of the drug. Most casual cocaine users want the experience to be just that, casual. Having to buy a bag of blow then go home and run a chemistry experiment on it is a much different vibe than taking quick bump from some nice new friend you made at the bar.

Most people I know who are casual users have just decided to stop instead of going through the hassle.

Are there confirmed cases of this happening?

I just looked it up and found this DEA report published in 2018 - https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2018-07/BUL-039-18.p...

> Forensic chemists discovered fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances including acetyl fentanyl, carfentanil, Furanylfentanyl, and p- fluoroisobutyryl fentanyl in over 180 cocaine exhibits.

That's really scary. It's been a long time since any of my friends did coke, not sure would have put them off, maybe it would.

Currently residing in Cincinnati, and I witnessed an off-duty officer resuscitate a college-aged kid while waiting for ambulances to arrive. His friends didn't even notice as he gradually slowed down and collapsed while they headed to their next destination.

Everyone I know washes and tests their stuff.

I think I'm on the wrong forum. Does anyone know where the 15 year veterans of HN have gone to so I can hang out there?

I’ve been around HN a long time. My cohort gave up the stuff bc of age related concerns and see the contamination as a sign we won’t be walking back that decision.

This falls within the guidelines of offtopic . Has been there since the days of old.

Did you miss the period when everyone was talking about micro-dosing LSD?

The rest of us use test kits from dance safe.

I can confirm. A friend of mine used to distribute test kits at raves. This was like around 2000, so this is not new.

You dilute in water, test, then dry back out into powder every bit of cocaine you use?

Do you not?

Curious: from an economic perspective why would anyone in the industry want to contaminate their product like that? Like it's a fundamentally different substance with a different effect. If you bought mixed drugs from your dealer, you'd probably not do business with them again and would warn people away from them.

> If you bought mixed drugs from your dealer, you'd probably not do business with them again and would warn people away from them.

Dead customers can't return anyway.

They don't do it intentionally for the most part, it's cross contamination or poorly handling and lab protocol by people with cargo cult training.

It looks like test strips for fentanyl are legal in 30 states. In the remaining 20 they are generally treated as drug paraphernalia. A number of states only allow fentanyl test strips, all other testing materials are drug paraphernalia.

All data as of August 2022.

[pdf] https://www.networkforphl.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Leg...

Like some other things the news pushes, drugs are always on the rise.

>While the report said the markets in Africa and Asia were "still limited

Maybe because they put you to death for importation in South East Asia.

Having lived in Asia (low drug problems) and Latin America (drug-dominated hellhole) I much prefer the way drugs (and dealers) are dealt with in Asia than in Latam. The idea that waging war on drugs is a bad one sounds like a nut idea from out-of-touch people who have never been to a narco-state like Brazil, Mexico, or Colombia.

You can make a pretty compelling argument that those narco states developed because of the war on drugs

Potentially, yes. But that case would only be good against poor _execution_ of the war on drugs, not the _concept_ that drugs need to be dealt with as if we were in a war. Activists seem to oppose the concept, which is where I disagree.

Real drug war has never been tried!

I appreciate the humor! I'd also argue that Singapore does "war on drugs" pretty well.

Yeah good luck importing Singapore style culture to the US.

The concept is fundamentally flawed. Curtailing rights and imprisoning people for victmimless crimes is incompatible with anything approaching a free society. There are many approaches to dealing with the problems inherent with drugs, we just keep using the wrong over and over and at an extraordinary cost, in money, liberty and ruined lives.

Living in Seattle and seeing the fentanyl crisis first hand, I disagree with you that addicts aren’t victims.

Not to mention the citizens who are victimized by the crime needed to sustain that addiction.

Legalization of marijuana has gone fine, but there are drugs so powerful that adults lose all control and reason, and I can’t see ever legalizing something like that.

The people you see on the street are a tiny percentage of illegal drug users. I'd also consider the vast range of options between where we are now (people dying regularly from contaminated street drugs, spreading diseases, violence associated with black markets) and full-on, no limits legalization. Somewhere in between is a place where we can save lives, enhance liberty and still not have Ultra-Meth available at every corner store.

There would be a lot less problems if fentanyl was legally available for addicts

> but there are drugs so powerful that adults lose all control and reason,

You mean like alcohol?

Alcohol is the only drug I can't put down when I want to. I'll take a line of coke and never a glass of wine.

No one wants to use fent , it's the product of the war on drugs

https://youtu.be/V9xJ3abNdnI

It’s not like this is a new phenomena either. People need to go read up on the opium wars a bit.

We have data point after data point about the destructiveness of drugs on people - either it’s fentanyl or more “legal” opiates.

The idea of hardcore legalization is the ultimate outcome of capitalism without morality or awareness of consequences.

> The idea of hardcore legalization is the ultimate outcome of capitalism without morality or awareness of consequences.

Don't know if I buy this. In general, parties pushing for legalization fall more on the left side of the political spectrum. I can also appreciated that libertarians on the far-right think the same (shoehorn theory?) but on the right this is a fringe opinion, unlike in the left.

Go take a look at California and Colorado, at who is making money. Then look at who they have money too. These are the people driving legalization.

Its the exact same dynamic that is destroying liberal democracies world wide.

The war on drugs is the sole cause of drug-related violence. If you want to end violence related to the drug trade in free societies, the solution is to end the drug war, not mass executions.

Solidly false. Just a few days ago I was held from behind with a knife to my neck by a Colombian who was sure I had cocaine and was demanding I hand it over. After insisting I didn't, he threw us both to the ground and choked me out until I went limp. I was mentally aware of the sensation of him stealing all my shit (as a backpacker, everything I had was on me), but was too out of breath when I came back around to do anything about it.

Keep in mind cocaine goes for $6/g there, and that's gringo street price.

Degenerate coke fiends can't be rationalized into "poor byproducts of the war on drugs". They're gnarly, and I'm glad to be away from them. God bless the USCG.

The vast majority of documented violence related to drugs is from the black market drug trade. There will always be drug addicts and antisocial behavior. But the black market violence only exists because government refuse to end those black markets.

I mean yeah sure whatever but you've moved the goalposts into a tautology: "the war on drugs is the sole cause of drug-related violence" => "black markets and their constituents wouldn't exist if governments got rid of them".

You should also consider that your idea of the "vast majority of documented violence related to drugs" is probably very far from the real set of violence related to drugs, in no small part because as you admit: it happens in black markets, where documentation is notoriously unreliable.

And, FWIW, my case is in all likelihood present in 0 "documentations". I was able to talk to the police briefly after, but it was treated as a robbery (and completely disregarded).

Narco-states (and the ensuing migrant crisis), the US carceral state, fentanyl overdoses, organized crime, gang violence and many other second-order effects are consequences of drug prohibition, not consequences of the fact that we are too lax with drugs.

As a Colombian, you have no idea of what you are writing about.

Would you mind sharing your perspective?

Exactly. Never imagined I'd read such 'gringo' statement on here.

> Never imagined I'd read such 'gringo' statement on here.

On a Silicon Valley VC site?

What exactly is that that you take exception with? Classifying Colombia as a narco-state? Just because the cartels were (mostly) destroyed it doesn't mean narcotraficantes don't have incredible influence on the Colombian state. The Gulf Clan is a very powerful organization.

Y no, no soy colombiano pero mi familia si lo es. Soy de otro narco-state.

Not just that, societal acceptance of drugs is very low in Asia. Even if a country will not put you to death for importing drugs, people will reject you from the society if you use them. That can be a strong deterrent to people even trying them.

With one exception of the Philippines. Duterte did take a hard stance, but the population in general is pretty accepting --at least much more than in any other eastern Asian nation and maybe that acceptance results in the high incidence of use.

The drug war didn't give us anything but more dangerous drugs.

It also gave us more dangerous police. Consider how much less armed the police would need to be if they weren’t facing off with an armed paramilitary funded by $600B/yr in drug sales? Policing would be about enforcing mundane stuff, because against the drug trade there really isn’t much money in organized crime.

You're missing the "more dangerous criminals" step

Somehow criminals are never mentioned in these arguments.

I would love to see this assertion distilled further.

It's never been more clear than it is now thanks to Fentanyl. How often do people have accidental overdoses because their beer was contaminated? Or their Adderall? Never happens, virtually inconceivable. But the majority of overdoses from illegal drugs are due to either inaccurate dosage or unknown contaminants, problems that essentially cease to exist for legal drugs.

Agree in parts but behind this argument there is an assumption that legal drugs would cause the market for illegal drugs to collapse entirely. Has not happened with alcohol (between 14 and 23% of alcohol sold in the US is illegal).

Adderall (fake or legit) is heavily sold illegally and their lacing with Fentanyl is a massive problem already.

I think it's imperative we prevent people from dying even if our solution is imperfect. Legal sources of currently illegal drugs would save lives full stop.

I think pharmaceutical contamination happens. As does over the counter products, especially under-regulated stuff like vitamins and supplements.

It's just that fentanyl risk is more dramatic than those contaminants. Maybe one is "increase your risk of cancer over a couple of decades" or even "does not have intended effect" and the other is "stop your heart soon after consumption".

If we are not talking about new analogs created to bypass legislation most drugs are also produced as pharmaceuticals. And those are pure enough and dosage is controlled well enough. How often do we hear that some batch is withdrawn from market?

I'm surprised Africa doesn't already have South American and SEA style drug production and farming. I guess the lack of infrastructure and the existing competition, and all of the other problems in Africa limited it. Having constant security vacuums is probably not good for manufacturers. Stuff like FARC kept their jungle growing regions stable.

One of the favorite conspiracy theories of mine is that Fentanyl is a secret government project designed to scare the shit out of drug users so they stop using due to the fear of contamination.

I think it's China's revenge for Opium wars.

What would the short-term benefit of this be for the government?

raise untraceable funds for black projects by selling fentanyl

Reducing consumption of drugs in general due to mass spreading of fear of instant death from laced coke could be one.

Also there's money in selling Fentanyl.

Reducing consumption of drugs

Why would a government nefarious enough to poison citizens care about this?

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