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Re:The Horrifying Epidemic of Teen-Age Fentanyl Deaths in a ... by Retric on Wednesday March 29, 2023 @09:51PM (#35366729)
It’s stayed low. France had 0.6 OD deaths per 100,000 people in 2020. The US had 27.9 OD deaths per 100,000 people.

In other words the US numbers are roughly 50x as bad.

Re:The Horrifying Epidemic of Teen-Age Fentanyl Deaths in a ... by tristor on Wednesday March 29, 2023 @10:17PM (#35366953)
France is not targeted by the 2nd largest economy in the world through an act of social warfare to knock them off the top rung so that their adversary (China) can take over. More than 90% of the fentanyl on the streets of the US originated in China.
Re:The Horrifying Epidemic of Teen-Age Fentanyl Deaths in a ... by anon291 on Wednesday March 29, 2023 @10:29PM (#35367096)
And I doubt border security is a partisan issue in France whereas one of the two parties seems hell bent on open borders here.
Re:The Horrifying Epidemic of Teen-Age Fentanyl Deaths in a ... by rnk on Thursday March 30, 2023 @01:16AM (#35368358)
I'm sure you are blaming democrats here. It's not true in practice. Dems don't want endless crime, they don't want open borders for fentanyl to come through. It's a lazy, incorrect statement.
Re:The Horrifying Epidemic of Teen-Age Fentanyl Deaths in a ... by anon291 on Thursday March 30, 2023 @03:56PM (#35378034)
I've spoken with many democrats (since I live in a democrat controlled city in a democrat controlled state, it's hard to avoid) and what they say they want and who they vote for are completely divergent.

I mean... If you vote to let violent criminals out of jail in the hopes violent crime will go down, something is missing up there. This has been my universal experience with democrat voters. It is what drove me away from the party. They'll trust 'experts' ridiculous advice over their own common sense. Most of them are extremely partisan, and will quickly label any independent candidate as a Republican, which is enough reason to not vote for them.

Either way, democrats have been in charge of cities for years in this country and it simply hasn't turned out well.

I often align with democrats on fiscal policy, but the voting bases inability to use common sense reasoning and their overuse of the cliche of everything being 'complicated' has driven me away

Re:The Horrifying Epidemic of Teen-Age Fentanyl Deaths in a ... by lmm on Thursday March 30, 2023 @01:19AM (#35368385)
Migration is absolutely a partisan issue in France.
Re:The Horrifying Epidemic of Teen-Age Fentanyl Deaths in a ... by seszett on Thursday March 30, 2023 @03:58AM (#35369484)
As part of the EU, France's borders are basically wide open (except for the relatively small or less important borders with the UK, Suriname, Brazil and more surprisingly the border with the Netherlands).

Border security is very much a partisan issue, with the far-right being very much opposed to freedom of movement.

Re:The Horrifying Epidemic of Teen-Age Fentanyl Deaths in a ... by qsi on Thursday March 30, 2023 @05:58AM (#35370310)
France has a border with the Netherlands? I guess if you count St. Maarten that's correct but that border is wide open. Is there another one I'm missing?
Re:The Horrifying Epidemic of Teen-Age Fentanyl Deaths in a ... by seszett on Thursday March 30, 2023 @08:14AM (#35371425)
I though it was not totally open since I've heard for a long time about some difficulty to get to some agreement on border control, but apparently it's only for the airports, so the border itself is open indeed.
Re:The Horrifying Epidemic of Teen-Age Fentanyl Deaths in a ... by concordDance on Thursday March 30, 2023 @03:20AM (#35369232)
Can I have a citation here? Can't find your 90% number with a quick Google.
Re:The Horrifying Epidemic of Teen-Age Fentanyl Deaths in a ... by lenkite on Thursday March 30, 2023 @04:35AM (#35369715)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fentanyl-seizures-rise-u-s-mexi...

Even with the CBS "slant" for migrant support, they do say this:

"According to the DEA, most of the fentanyl is smuggled over land across the U.S.-Mexico border. Smaller amounts are smuggled by air from China."

Re:The Horrifying Epidemic of Teen-Age Fentanyl Deaths in a ... by pantalaimon on Thursday March 30, 2023 @04:36AM (#35369718)
Are you seriously suggesting TikTok is responsible for fentanyl overdose?

(TikTok is also available in France btw)

Re:The Horrifying Epidemic of Teen-Age Fentanyl Deaths in a ... by refurb on Wednesday March 29, 2023 @10:37PM (#35367162)
France has an overland connection to the heroin trade. Most of the heroin in the US either flows from Europe or Asia.

With a steady supply of heroin, there is no demand for synthetics like fentanyl, and dealers dont need to sell fake heroin - they can sell the real thing.

Re:The Horrifying Epidemic of Teen-Age Fentanyl Deaths in a ... by nradov on Thursday March 30, 2023 @12:38AM (#35368042)
Fentanyl is much cheaper than heroin, and produces a stronger high. Dealers would still be pushing fentanyl even with a ready supply of heroin.
Re:The Horrifying Epidemic of Teen-Age Fentanyl Deaths in a ... by refurb on Thursday March 30, 2023 @01:23AM (#35368407)
But they arent in Europe, which has a plentiful synthetic drug pipeline.

So the question is why?

I argue it’s because heroin is so plentiful there is no need and if you try and sell fentanyl people will stop buying from you.

Re:The Horrifying Epidemic of Teen-Age Fentanyl Deaths in a ... by herbst on Thursday March 30, 2023 @02:15AM (#35368746)
I would argue it's also the users. PCP never got big, gashits are not very popular in most of Europe, GHB never got that big either.

Essentially unsafe drugs aren't popular. Available but not mainstream.

Here in Switzerland they get clean heroin from the state, not surprised fentanyl is still a niche phenomenon.

Re:The Horrifying Epidemic of Teen-Age Fentanyl Deaths in a ... by refurb on Thursday March 30, 2023 @04:48AM (#35369815)
How can it be the users when you cant tell what drug is in that tablet of knock-off “Xanax” you bought?
Re:The Horrifying Epidemic of Teen-Age Fentanyl Deaths in a ... by herbst on Thursday March 30, 2023 @04:55AM (#35369863)
Why are they buying knock-off Xanax from a unreputable source in the first place?

Darknet works like Amazon, but unlike Amazon reviews are usually real. Bad actors get blamed.

If they do, and there is a known risk, why did nobody in the distribution chain use a $15 test kit to verify the quality? Someone must have bought a few hundred pills at once to redistribute them, $15 and 5 minutes wouldn't matter.

Or general save drug use. You have a pill you haven't tried yet. No way to check properly. So you only take a bit and see if it turns out as expected.

This fentanyl thing is new and wasn't a thing when I popped pills. However there have always been dangerous pills. We've checked them, online, at labs, in person and small doses. If they were shit we throw them.

I believe the main difference is culture. We were aware of the dangers, we had mobile labs at parties and flyers about the current bad pills.

(Other than that Xanax and prescription drugs are nowhere as popular in Europe than they appear in the US)

Re:The Horrifying Epidemic of Teen-Age Fentanyl Deaths in a ... by notch898a on Thursday March 30, 2023 @07:03PM (#35380073)
Fentanyl is one of many possibles, and the test strips themselves may be bunk. The odds a 13 year old without a car is dropping off their pills at the gas chromatography machine in their STEM magnet school in the morning is pretty much nill.

Also worth noting in my state possessing kits design for testing for illegal drugs is a felony. [note: not legal advice]. No one reputable is going to risk a felony to sell drug testing kits for shitty margins.

https://www.azleg.gov/viewDocument/?docName=http://www.azleg...

Re:The Horrifying Epidemic of Teen-Age Fentanyl Deaths in a ... by herbst on Friday March 31, 2023 @02:19AM (#35383346)
See that's exactly my point. If these kits aren't even legal there simply is no drug safety culture to even build on.
Re:The Horrifying Epidemic of Teen-Age Fentanyl Deaths in a ... by vistu on Thursday March 30, 2023 @06:14AM (#35370427)
Because, in the Netherlands you can get your 'illegal' drugs tested anonymously for safety for free (or a really small fee like 2,5 euro in high traffic places like Amsterdam).
Re:The Horrifying Epidemic of Teen-Age Fentanyl Deaths in a ... by refurb on Thursday March 30, 2023 @09:07AM (#35372070)
You can do it in the US as well. You can buy fentanyl test strips easily.

https://dancesafe.org/drug-checking/

That said, how many users actually test every single drug they purchase? Especially if they are addicted and using multiple times per day?

Re:The Horrifying Epidemic of Teen-Age Fentanyl Deaths in a ... by google234123 on Wednesday March 29, 2023 @10:05PM (#35366850)
Just to be clear, france doesn't have mexico on its boarder. The illegal drug trade in France is ~3b, in the US it is ~150 billion