# 139 New York Times article from September 2017, speaks for itself.
The First Count of Fentanyl Deaths in 2016: Up 540% in Three Years
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/09/02/upshot/fentanyl-drug-overdose-deaths.html
posted by dryjordan @ December 16, 2017
3 Comments
3 Comments:
Awful. When will we start seeing the beginning of the end with this?
Diana Lin, a solid answer to a very valid question is nearly impossible due to the complex nature of the various interests involved. Many of my posts do not reflect my perspective of a former Narcotics officer who also lost a sibling to substance abuse. Just examining the substance Fentanyl raises conflict as some believe that most production and distribution is lawful and by prescription. Others believe that most is illicit; being either stolen/sold prescriptions as well as illicit lab produced in China, Mexico and the US with no controls and sold to individuals by dealers. Add to this the aggressive advocates for pain and the volume increases against Doctors who are trying to reduce dosages/quantities and against Government for a perception that it is attempting to lower the deaths by raising the pain and one begins to see/hear that there are many voices and the single issue regarding one substance can be illustrated as a pie-chart with hundreds of slivers/slices-each one an interest and some opposed to others and all believing that their cause is righteous.
The scourge of alcoholism, destroying lives and families, led an earlier generation to pass Prohibition. That led to greater lawlessness and society's response was to make licit a substance which has a known lethal dosage (LD), a Central Nervous System (CNS) Depressant. The reader can consider whether the 21st Amendment, to address your question "When will we start seeing the beginning of the end with this?," was the end to anything? It did end bootlegging and bathtub gin made from wood alcohol, however, the conveyor-belt involving alcohol sees new abusers lawfully enter the turnstile each time they come of age and, of course, they have no sense of whether they will become abusers, risking OD. So the answer to your question may be found in how you see "demon rum" and the Country's making a substance illegal followed by making it legal, with some controls. I am not saying that anyone is proposing making Fentanyl "legal" for all, however, the articles I have posted have tracked the US/Canadian increased volume of available Fentanyl and correlated the increase to OD deaths. So the beginning may only commence when the availability of the substance and its analogs are reduced.
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