Doesn't the same logic apply if you're a legitimate provider?

Sort of, but the calculus changes. In a regulated market, costs are likely to be dominated by the cost of the product, cost of service, regulations and taxes - shipping a truckload of product legally isn't going to come close to that. But with illegal drugs, cost of transport is one of the biggest contributors to cost, and so taking steps to minimize that is worthwhile.

For instance, cocaine costs ~2k/kg in backcountry Columbia, but ~20k/kg in US cities [0] (at least at the time the article was researched). And when your transport costs dominate that much, almost every way to reduce volume and weight is justified.

0: https://www.businessinsider.com/from-colombia-to-new-york-ci...

You’d rather have a truck load of legal goods than a briefcase full of illegal goods. Illegality is a big cost.

Not if the equivalent value was the same. The briefcase is easier and less conspicuous to transport.

Transporting a truck of legal goods across a whole continent and multiple countries is much cheaper and easier than a briefcase of illegal drugs.

The total cost of risk-free (i.e. fully insured) delivery of a truckful of goods is trivial compared to even quite cheap products; while that briefcase would pretty much have to double in value after that long trip to make the transport profitable.

That briefcase will increase in value ten fold over the journey. So my point stands, easier to transport the briefcase and the returns are better. The risk is higher but that is why the returns are higher.

Probably? Hospitals use fentanyl all the time and I’d imagine they have no problem with dosing. It’s probably pretty great to have enough pain killers on hand for an entire hospital and not needing 100x the space (or whatever the scale is)

Funny how you say that.

Fentanyl solution for injection that hospitals get is a lot less potent than the hydromorphone solutions for injection that they can stock.

(50mcg/mL vs 10, 20, 50 or 100mg/mL).

As for the actual dosing... fentanyl is a lot more forgiving than morphine or hydromorphone, as measured by therapeutic index.

This is very true! Fentanyl tends to cause less respiratory depression at higher doses than opioids like morphine.

The ODs are mainly because people don’t know what they are buying.

I believe fentanyl can be provided in a relatively safe form if it was legal.

No because of the increased risk of death means you might get a worse reputation if people OD.

It works so well with guns.

But guns in America are not regulated. In most countries guns are legal just heavily regulated.

A completely black market for guns would lead to things that could blow up in your hand or explode at any time, the same as unregulated drugs

Guns are pretty heavily regulated in the US though? Many kinds you can't buy at all, and those you can require background checks. (A lot of people seem to think that there are fewer restrictions on guns than there actually are, and that's before you bring individual states into the equation)

It's just everywhere else is even more outrageously restricted, which makes the US look liberal in comparison...

But to call guns unregulated in the states is to say that cars (among many other things) are completely unregulated too.

Guns are most certainly regulated in the US and quite heavily.

You can’t make a gun to sell without an ATF license. All guns must have serials numbers and customers pre-screened.

And that’s just federal law. Many states have even greater regulations.

Drugs are a thing which destroys the user. Guns destroy everybody else.

Following up Finch's reply, which said: "a large majority of gun deaths are suicides."

Specifically, in the US, 60% are suicides.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/08/16/what-the-da...

Well, to be fair, and we're on course to veer right off topic -- a large majority of gun deaths are suicides.

As a gun owner you’re far more likely to commit suicide than murder.

Nobody accidentally discharges drugs into the adjoining house.

You must not have experience with drugs abusers then, they destroy families and communities.

Not sure why you’re being downvoted.

Because it's double-wrong. Suicides have been already raised. The other side is: drug addiction destroys families as well.

But that’s true with alcohol as well.

Yes. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.