To revive Portland, officials seek to ban public drug use

Re:To revive Portland, officials seek to ban public drug use by adolph on Monday December 11, 2023 @09:28PM (#38608542)

My recollection is that in 2007 Mexico banned pseudoephedrine in order to remove feed stock from meth labs supplying the US.[0,1] As a result of this and other factors suppliers in Mexico found fentanyl, which bypassed growing cycles of agricultural drugs like pot and heroin. During the pandemic, Mexico grew additional trade ties with China which included fentanyl precursor chemicals.[2]

0. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-crime-pseudoephedr...

1. https://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/2005/06/th...

2. https://coffeeordie.com/china-mexican-cartel-alliance

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Re:To revive Portland, officials seek to ban public drug use by Scoundreller on Tuesday December 12, 2023 @02:25AM (#38610649)

Plenty of other precursors to use if you can't get pseudoephedrine at scale. Trying to control ultra-small scale producers doesn't accomplish much other than sweeten the cartels (and purity/yields, so I guess that's a positive).

Opioids being more dependence-inducing than stimulants would better explain a production shift.

Big legitimate trading volumes with China (and any other large producer of goods/inputs) make a customs-focussed effort at controlling supply basically impossible.

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