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Comment by fallingsquirrel | Hacker News Reader

If you provide all resources to people to enjoy alcohol, why would anyone quit? Would you argue we should go back to prohibition?

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You can safely have a few drinks (or more) and feel normal the next day and go to work. You can't do that with fentanyl.

Fentanyl only exists because it's cheap and easy to make. Anyone with a choice would always take something like oxycodone, and there are a ton of occasional recreational oxy users in the world.

Tar heroin cheaper to make probably. If it were legalized we wouldn't be optimizing for ease of smuggling which is largely dictated by potency instead of manufacturing costs.

> there are a ton of occasional recreational oxy users in the world.

Today, virtually all of the ‘oxycontin’ that is used recreationally is actually fentanyl and binders that looks like an oxycontin. Unless it’s in a prescription bottle (and even then,) it’s almost certainly fentanyl.

> In 2023, DEA seized more than 80 million fentanyl-laced fake pills and nearly 12,000 pounds of fentanyl powder. The 2023 seizures are equivalent to more than 381 million lethal doses of fentanyl. [0]

If they seized 80 million, just imagine how many weren’t seized.

[0]https://www.dea.gov/onepill#:~:text=In%202023%2C%20DEA%20sei....

No body wants to do fentanyl though. People want to safely do Cocaine or MDMA without dying from fentanyl.

people hooked on fentanyl want to do fentanyl

yes you can. they put it in patches and prescribe them at the hospital. people go to work on those. dead addicts can't go to work the next day, but you don't hear about the ones who haven't died yet unless you know them very well personally.

Well, I think you've just proven my point, that it has to be done in a carefully controlled manner. But that isn't what addicts are looking for.

You're revealing your bias by calling one group "addicts" but not calling the other "alcoholics". Both drugs are possible to use responsibly, and both drugs are possible to OD on.

Nobody is looking to overdose, ask any opiate user and they'd rather be taking pills than random shit from dealers. The issue is that pressed pills are now fentanyl, too, and those who want to dose responsibly end up overdosing anyway.

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