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Saturday, December 15, 2018

Fentanyl Now the Leading Killer Drug in the US

Yaqui for Borderland Beat from: La Jornada
Janel Wentz and Tim Firestone hold up an image of their son, the former mayor of Mount Carbon, Washington; Brandon Wentz, who died from this drug. Fentanyl outweighs heroin as the most lethal drug in the US.

Washington: Fentanyl, a synthetic drug, has overtaken heroin as the deadliest drug in the United States, claiming more than 18,000 lives in 2016, federal health officials said Wednesday.

In 2016, the last year for which complete data are available, 29 percent of deaths from drug overdoses were related to fentanyl, said the report from the National Center for Health Statistics, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Diseases of the United States.

Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic narcotic that has been attributed the death of rock stars like Prince and Tom Petty. It works in the brain like morphine or heroin, but is 50 to 100 times more potent, and can easily lead to an overdose.

Excerpt from Rolling Stone:

After months of speculation, a medical examiner ruled that Tom Petty died of an accidental overdose, according to a statement from the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner. The Hall of Fame musician had taken several pain medications, including Fentanyl, oxycodone and generic Xanax. Other medications included generic Restoril (a sleep aid) and generic Celexa (which treats depression).

The coroner’s office listed Petty’s official cause of death as “multisystem organ failure due to be resuscitated cardiopulmonary arrest due to mixed drug toxicity,” noting the singer suffered from coronary artery atherosclerosis and emphysema.

Petty had been prescribed the drugs to treat emphysema, knee issues and a fractured hip, his family said in a statement accompanying the results. Petty’s coronary artery disease had been a persistent problem throughout his final tour.

“Despite this painful injury, he insisted on keeping his commitment to his fans and he toured for 53 dates with a fractured hip and, as he did, it worsened to a more serious injury,” Petty’s wife Dana and daughter Adria wrote in the statement. “On the day he died, he was informed his hip had graduated to a full-on break and it is our feeling that the pain was simply unbearable and was the cause for his overuse of medication.”

Petty was found unconscious and not breathing at his Malibu home on October 2nd, 2017. He was rushed to a hospital where he was placed on life support. Although he had a pulse, doctors found no brain activity when he arrived and the decision was made to pull life support. He died hours later.

Petty said he’d experimented with cocaine over the years (“[It] was never a good look,” he told Men’s Journal) and drinking (“I didn’t like the taste or the buzz,” he said). But it was in the late Nineties, when he was in his late 40s and two decades after he’d become a superstar, that he developed an addiction to heroin after a bitter divorce from his first wife. “Tried to go cold turkey, and that wouldn’t work,” he said in author Warren Zanes’ book Petty: The Biography. “It’s an ugly fucking thing.” He sought out treatment for his addiction and remarried in 2001.

The death rate from drug overdoses in the United States has tripled from 1999 to 2016, as the nation faces a persistent opioid epidemic.

49 comments:

  1. we talk about the death toll drugs have on my Mexican people all the time but there is an insane amount of people dying in the US as well. The drug war affects both sides of the border and we all pay with our blood. While the DEA hunts down el Mencho acting like that’s gonna solve the problem When the people realize that the drugs will never stop and we need legislation that helps those that are addicted nothing will change. DEA needs these criminals to stay in business they know if they get mencho somebody will take his place. Hint- Chapo —> chapitos

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    1. The GOV and DEA love drugs. It kills all the scum bags rather quickly, keeps jails full, provides money too the state/country,tempts poor people with easy quick money that gets them put into the system one day or the next and it gives LE a way to keep justifying the militarization of the police to control us all. Fentanyl is the gov dream, more dead addicts killed by dealers bigger punishment for the dealers causing deaths even though in reality they could not care less about some junky fuckup dying with a needle stuck in them.. The devil keeps smiling :)

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    2. I agree....Catching the Traffickers only causes power struggles, and more violence. That said, the guys like Mencho, and Chapo, 40, Mayo....yadda yadda....have to go down. They're all mass murdering, greedy, corrupt people, that the world needs to deal with harshly. I include the Sicarios, Halcones, cooks, drivers, pilots, dirty cops and politicians, and end users. IMO either legalize and tax, or completely eradicate the DTO's as a whole. No prison or arrests. Eradicate!

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    3. What a stupid way of thinking. I have NO SYMPATHY for DRUG USERS. FUCK THEM. If they are so stupid to do drugs then they don't deserve to live.

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    4. The biggest question I never read is "What about our societies that causes so many people to ingest powdered dreams?" Answer that one, and the drug problem begins to get resolved.

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    5. A lot of drug users got hooked by accident, yes. They had surgery and were given pain meds. Then the doctor's dropped them eventually, and they hit the wall. Still no sympathy ? They didnt even know what was waiting for them after the pills ran out. Wait until you wind up in the hospital with a heart bypass and think you won't need pain relief. And then you find out about withdrawls. Still no sympathy ?

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    6. 10:03. You sound very very angry. It sounds very personal with you. I understand maybe you lost a dear one to drugs but to now wish death on users is sick in the head. Do you feel the same way about cigarettes and alcohol consumers or is it just illegal drug users you want to stone. If you screw your face up every time you see a drug user,you need Therapy,and I'm sure you give them a screw face.

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  2. Agree! Read "Dreamland" by Sam Quinones. There are so many of us with blood on our hands.

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  3. Best Tom Petty song ever: You Got Lucky. It’s one of those meditative songs that gets you to think about everything and nothing in general all at once. Thanks for all the good times Tom. - Sol Prendido

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    1. Actually he was a really nice guy.I served him twice as a bartender in a Reseda,Calif. nightclub.Very polite and unassuming.The 1 I had an issue with and cutoff was Tommy Lee from Motley Crue.

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    2. That was a tragic loss....and I agree with you on his best song. Next best was Don't Come Around Here No More.....very dark song. Saludos Sol, and thanks for the translations, and the well timed one liners!

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    3. canadiana I’ve always admired that about you. You come with positive experiences. - Sol Prendido

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    4. Saludos Grande Rojo. It’s always refreshing to see your comments. You’ve helped me understand a lot of things I never would’ve considered before. Thanks bro. - Sol Prendido

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  4. It is going to get worse. There was an article on BB not too long ago in reference to Mexico becoming a pharmaceutical manufacturer of opioid pain medication. Educate yourself and your family, it's going to get much worse.

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    1. What do say to the people and families of victims where pharmaceutical companies have so much influence / money in Washington?
      Its through their hands that the opioid epidemic was created. FDA regulators do not enforce the sales and distribution of products being abused. Added with many doctors who prescribe for monetary reasons.
      Education is key as you stipulated here. However, with the education approach comes with a con. All those financial sectors who have relied on deaths, consumption and incarceration of such products.
      NPR recent reporting indicated that overdoses were now surpassing deaths of fatal crashes.
      Moreover, the costs for treating an addict was $200 week compared to $1300 weekly incarceration.
      Question is; Can the economic sectors survive without these imperfections? These departments (sectors) will impact the economy which so many people depend on!

      E42



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    2. Worse for who? Depending on which side you sit on the table?
      Mexico will have to do what necessary to combat the drug turf wars which have destroyed communities. Families kicked out of their lands due to threats and violence. I see this as a win for Mexico. Note: not all violence will cease but it will have a reduction of violence associated with the cultivation of the poppy for medical purposes.
      Mexico should not be held responsible for the idiots who have a consumption problem in America.
      The only solution for Americans is curtailing the drug trafficking by stricter security measures on all fronts of our borders. Which will not happen due to the sensitivity of goods / products to American consumers.


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    3. Its weird how know people are really concerned that drugs are killing people people been OD on heroin and other drugs for a very long time in the varrios and ghettos of USA for a long time but know how its not just in the hood white people are dying its a problem

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  5. Just legalize black tar heroin. Much safer and healthy.

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    1. Bring back opium dens while you're at it. Mexico tried this back in the day. It resulted with a high percent of the population slumped over nodding out. No sirve.

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  6. misleading do your research...fent that is killing is street fent mix in counterfeit pills and heroin... RX opiods is down 20 percent in scripts

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    1. If you are trying to kick an opioid addiction TAKE KRATOM it will HELP YOU GET OFF AND STAY OFF!!!!!! G.C.

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    2. Yes, chivis is right. This is how prince died, thinking he was taking a pain pill but it was fake and laced with fentanyl

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    3. I have heard from reliable sources that KRATOM is helpful for pain, but I , personally have no idea.

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    4. Also , I agree w Chivis about the street drugs being cut and/or manufactured and tainted w Fent. In Tom Petty's case it sounds like script, but he was not in very good health anyway. I am glad to hear he was a nice guy too. thanks

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    5. You're right Chivis, and even more dangerous is them adding fent to other drugs. Coke heads getting hooked on basically premade speedballs..Scary Stuff!!

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    6. GC and Yaqui,

      Kratom is great and something I try to use other then opiates. It's a shame they are trying to schedule it as a number 1.

      Phelpso

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    7. That G.C. Ain’t me... no caps please.... blood clot in my arm in an artery and took Fentanyl for pain for seventeen days after surgery... after being discharged hurricane hit and could not get meds from any pharmacy... withdrawals and it was awful... quit without having a choice.... and I dont ever wanna take that crap again... kratom ??? That stuff you buy in a corner store may help but not sure there is much medical research to prove it... probably bcuz there is no money in it for pharmaceutical companies....

      GC

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    8. Passion Flower is way better than Kratom to get off the opiates. Cheap too, $7.00 per hundred. Try one or two capsules.

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  7. Fentanyl could be the thing that drives the U.S. to invade borderlands in Mexico. It was described recently as a potential weapon of mass destruction given that only a few pounds is capable of killing millions. Of course it comes from China as well by way of Canada. Some dealers in the states won't even push it anymore due to it's destructive power. Is it worth a war? Better believe that U.S. citizens have a limit on this.

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    1. China's silent war on America. Flood the country with cheap and deadly fent. Just like in 'Nam with other drugs during the War.

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    2. Has tobacco companies been bombarded yet?
      Yet millions die from cigarette related illnesses each year and no response other than taxation.

      The US will only engage if vested interests are at stake or an eye for potential interests.



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    3. Yeah. Unfortunately, America made China a powerhouse with the Free Trade agreement. A deadly foe to just say forget you. China has the means and muscle to invest/infringe its world dominance.
      All thanks to American capitalism. Rather, greed for those American top executives.
      So in the end we screwed ourselves by creating this economic monster.

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    4. I agree with this comment 100%. Nothing is done in China without Govt knowledge. All of this stuff is made in Chinese labs, As part of the trade tariff negotiations, the US is asking them to stop distributing this drug. They know it cost us Billions of dollars every year and eventually breaks down our system...

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    5. It comes from China as part of its strategic gambit to undermine our so-called democracy.

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    6. Yes sir, the silent wars.

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    7. 559 yes tobacco has been sued... attorney general Mike Moore won a case Against them several years back.... let’s sue the drug cartels!!,. Good luck... they still make cigarettes and they still make opium... and I assume Mikey Moore is a rich man...

      GC

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  8. Sure is everybody is cutting their come with this shit a lot of tweekers and crack heads overdosing out here everyday I’m out in the field everyday and neighbor hood crack heads that I never thought would die off drugs and overdosing and they been on shit most of there life

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    1. @12:08 WTF did u just say..

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    2. lolllll wuttttttt 😄

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  9. Chivis and anon @ 11:31 , I think you are both right. Pharmaceutical grade fentanyl and clandestine lab fentanyl can be radically different in "quality" and in their respective niches in a society. In , essence, the same ways that pharm grade heroin is different from black tar heroin.

    Generally the medical grade addictive drugs are better controlled for legitimate purposes whereas the "street" variants are not. The populations of users may overlap , but generally they are different with "patients" on one side and "junkies" on the other.

    It is a muddled situation, to be sure. What makes me uncomfortable about Mexico is that their pharm grade (medical purposes) production of fentanyl will find its way into the illicit black market and, thereby, become an added new source of this very addictive "killer" opioid.
    Mexico-Watcher

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    1. Nice input Mexico Watcher.

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    2. Just wait for pain killer only formulations from the narcos! Wow

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  10. didn’t they find some Fentanyl in Mac Miller too? my girlfriends uncle would buy cocaine for personal use from his childhood friend who was his dealer, ended up dying over the summer cause it was cut with fentanyl smh

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  11. @2:42 ya afaik mac milled got some presses- the fent in coke and meth makes no fuckin sense i dont care what cartel knowledge/bs you can spew out your mouth- deaths are bad for business- and most junkies dont want fent when they have the choice between good h or fent from the landfill

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  12. @2:40 pm! Yes! Always saw the Econ benefits but the way you articulated it= spot on! While I’m here: many thanks to:Chivas,Yaqui, Mica, Otis Sicario 006 and his team of elite special forces of gente baba! All who make this site go! Muchas Gracias desde Pgh, PA USA

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  13. Fentanyl is hardly the number 1 killer drug in the U.S. That distinction is still held by good old alcohol, which kills more than five times as many people as Fentanyl, annually. Funny how we don't consider that a crisis!

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  14. The dealers are cutting everything with fent or other opiates now, watch out meth or coke heads you are in for much worse now.

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  15. Cause and effect: Mariguana becoming legal in most states in the U.S. making cartels loose tons of money is what us causing them to flood the U.S. market with a much cheaper drug.
    Make Fetanyl legal and the cartels will flood the market with another new drug which weak minded Americans cannot help but inhale.

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