'Fentanyl has changed the whole landscape': San Francisco faces worst drug epidemic ever

"It’s really remarkable because it runs the entire spectrum. This affects all walks of life, all folks. It’s hard to overstate how impactful it can be to anyone. It doesn’t seem to care about race or background or gender — or anything."

Colwell said on average about 10 to 15 people who've taken fentanyl are treated in the San Francisco General emergency room a day, sometimes more. And that's at just one hospital in the city.

"Our most immediate threat right now is the opioid epidemic and the trauma we are seeing. We are seeing increases I haven’t seen in my career around dependency and overdoses, mostly involving fentanyl. We always had problems with opioids, specifically heroin, but fentanyl has changed the whole landscape of drugs."

'Fentanyl has changed the whole landscape': San Francisco faces worst drug epidemic ever

hopefully the progressives are waking up to the fact that 'tolerance' of drug use is destructive, to users as well as neighbors.

wouldn't it be nice if our education system spent as much time and effort teaching avoidance of drugs as it does avoidance of racism etc.

I'm no expert but I understand that, while there's rehab, its very very difficult to break an addiction like that and many never do.

Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic opioid that's 50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine. Like all opioids, it's a respiratory depressant and can impact the user's ability to breathe.

so this newer stuff is way worse than the traditional heroin/coke/crack (which are quite bad enough).

input?

I have read several reports that fentanyl is primarily being made in China and comes into the states via the southern borders. Propaganda or the real deal I no longer have any contacts I can pump for information. When I hear of drugs I always think of natural selection... Yep rather cold hearted but you wanna play sooner or later you are going to pay.

I live in the north east and the fentanyl scourge is horrible here. I was a former user of these opiates and have been clean over 5 years now. I have friends that have had their lives absolutely destroyed by this stuff, and people that started using heroin (not any better) are now having their stuff mixed with fentanyl or straight up shooting fentanyl or analogs of them that are even more potent (I.e. sufentanyl sp?)

It is straight up killing people, period. Most of this stuff is made in China and Mexico and some central American and other Asian countries, even some in Canada and here. Now I have no doubt that some slips through and gets here in the US but the fact is, is that it is ALLOWED to come through because of government agency corruption and by the clowns in America selling it to fund black ops and black/clandestine projects.

It has to stop, it has to be exposed and those of us that know of this stuff should also try to wake people up and make them aware of these facts. I try to when I talk to some people. I have had a handful of friends die from this over the years and I'm thankful to God that I survived what I put myself through because I could have been one of the dead, as I was in a sense a walking dead when I was heavily using.

S+F OP for bringing this very important topic up.

originally posted by: 727Sky
I have read several reports that fentanyl is primarily being made in China and comes into the states via the southern borders. Propaganda or the real deal I no longer have any contacts I can pump for information. When I hear of drugs I always think of natural selection... Yep rather cold hearted but you wanna play sooner or later you are going to pay.

Yes, China produces fentanyl, but absolutely not in the way that you're implying.

China supplies legally manufactured chemicals of all different types to most of the world in much the same way that it supplies cheap SD cards and T-shirts. It's the manufacturing capital of human civilization.

A lot of the fentanyl that's causing problems these days is being imported using legal documents and is then being redirected to the illegal markets, there are also a lot of people who sell their prescriptions on to the illegal market. Not all of it is smuggling.

a reply to: ElGoobero

Fentanyl makes Heroin see like a hit from a bong.

Supply and demand may very well be the colour of the day and the war on drugs a complete and utter sham.

But once that stuff hits the streets in any sort of meaningful way it's game over.

You are as well selling up and moving somewhere Fentanyl is not the drug of choice.

They all drop like flies anyroad, you don't get to make mistakes with that beast you see.

let them wish upon their on journey upon their life and let them be

a reply to: AaarghZombies

That is wholly untrue. Garage chemists in China are responsible for AT LEAST the same amount (3500lb/yr) that is made and sold legally. That much has been known for 3-4 years. They used to be as bad with homemade alprazolam but that's been cracked down on by the Chinese government for whatever reason while fentanyl production seems to be almost promoted.

Also, anecdotally at least, fentanyl isn't prescribed to every full of s*** scumbag that fakes an unprovable injury then ends up on disability selling their meds. Fentanyl's primary use is cancer pain and is generally given in controlled release patch form. I am literally the ONLY person I know of that is prescribed oral fentanyl and trust me, it's either take it or wish I was dead. I'd maybe consider something like Elon Musk levels of money and assets for a tab but aside from that, piss off, I like being able to function when the pain is at it's worst.

Forgive me for being naïve, and I am when it comes to drug use, but I thought fentanyl was used as an anesthetic, not as a narcotic. So, how is it addictive?

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Junkies use anaesthetics like Heroin and Fentanyl to block out the pain that is there lives.

Pretty much Tomato-tomato.

Everything can be addictive Flyingclaydisk if you crave more of such, people, places, situations, cigarettes, alcohol, drugs..............Fentanyl ticks that last box, then again so do cigarettes and alcohol, but not in the say way as Fentanyl, thats for sure.

California needs to realize that the rules, taxes, and regulations that they vote for has real world consequences. Vote for expensive social services, then raise taxes to pay for them. Vote for extreme pollution requirements and you get $5.00 a gallon fuel.

The liberals in San Francisco push for open borders and decriminalisation of so called victimless crime, now the can see where that kind of thing has gotten them. People living on the streets and sh!ting on the sidewalks. Have a nice day in utopia.

a reply to: ElGoobero

Fentanyl is a game changer for a number of reasons.

The fact that such a tiny amount can get the job done, makes it a huge profit maker.

The addiction level is extremely high, making it even more profitable.

It is also of great concern because it can be deadly. Not just for the person using it, but it can be deadly for those that just casually come in contact with it.

Fentanyl that comes in contact with the mucus membrane, or with open wounds, can enter the bloodstream. Even a small amount of Fentanyl can have deleterious effects. This is a large concern for police officers, entering an area where drugs are being used or made.

Education does not seem to be very effective in decreasing the number of people that choose drugs. They don't do drugs because they don't know what they do, or what could happen.

Most alcoholics and drugs addicts will tell you, "they don't care". The whole reason why so many them do drugs in the first place. They don't want to care.

a reply to: ElGoobero

Our little city of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario went from middle -class working city, to a crime infested #hole in less than 10 years because of that crap.

They made a documentary about our city called "SteelTown Down".

It's happening all over, I used to think we'd never see it here.

Just more New Normal...

originally posted by: Magnivea
a reply to: AaarghZombies

That is wholly untrue. Garage chemists in China are responsible for AT LEAST the same amount (3500lb/yr) that is made and sold legally. That much has been known for 3-4 years. They used to be as bad with homemade alprazolam but that's been cracked down on by the Chinese government for whatever reason while fentanyl production seems to be almost promoted.

Also, anecdotally at least, fentanyl isn't prescribed to every full of s*** scumbag that fakes an unprovable injury then ends up on disability selling their meds. Fentanyl's primary use is cancer pain and is generally given in controlled release patch form. I am literally the ONLY person I know of that is prescribed oral fentanyl and trust me, it's either take it or wish I was dead. I'd maybe consider something like Elon Musk levels of money and assets for a tab but aside from that, piss off, I like being able to function when the pain is at it's worst.

Exactly right.

It can be ordered off the dark web easily.

That's how the dealers in my city get it.

There have also been a number of busts here with "underground" fentanyl from China.

originally posted by: Flyingclaydisk
Forgive me for being naïve, and I am when it comes to drug use, but I thought fentanyl was used as an anesthetic, not as a narcotic. So, how is it addictive?

It's a synthetic opiate.

You are also correct, it will knock you out as well. Or cause you to "nod off", as they call it.

originally posted by: musicismagic
let them wish upon their on journey upon their life and let them be

Not entirely sure what you mean but I'm interpreting it as it's a person's choice and to let them be. I agree with this. I lost my first husband to heroin, the second to fentanyl and many other friends to all sorts of drugs.

Nothing will stop this except treatment of the underlying mental illnesses that lead to these choices and change to a society less dog eat dog, production oriented, running on a treadmill cliches, corporate government mentality where we are only cogs in a machine. All the people I know who died did not fit in. Some had mental illness/disorders, others very smart but knew the system was rigged, etc. All felt hopeless. We are living in painful difficult times where drugs offer relief.

I did my share too when young only to find out at 50 that I have severe ADHD and learning disorders that led to such risky behavior. We had more people die here in 2020 from overdoses than covid and nobody cares. The correlation is crystal clear to me... society won't spend money in a preventative manner to assess children yet they bend over backwards on something akin to a nasty flu. My guess is the addicts, homeless, marginalized can see through the sham too.

Heroin, etc. are just bad.

Fentanyl is a suicide.

a reply to: AaarghZombies

Interesting isn't it.

Clever Chaos takes the ribbon 👀

a reply to: ElGoobero

I"m in favor of a drug intensive education in Kindergarden. Give those 5 year olds a solid week of videos showing the effects of drugs on peoples lives and health. Push it hard. Add into that some of these commercial type videos of people who have to talk through a hole in their throats and some with their jaws deformed from smoking ciggies . Pound it in hard so that those images stand out in their brains instead of a hand full of dancing powder puffs singing ''don't do drugs don't do drugs''.
Scare the bejezzus out of em.

That said El, blaming the ''progressives'' I think is a bit short of the mark. Where are the conservative bills in congress over the last say, 20 years that would address the severity of our drug problem. I don't see it as a partisan problem.

originally posted by: Flyingclaydisk
Forgive me for being naïve, and I am when it comes to drug use, but I thought fentanyl was used as an anesthetic, not as a narcotic. So, how is it addictive?

Anything close to opiod has the potential to addict. There are both chemical dependencies and psychological dependencies too. Something that isn't chemically addictive can still create a powerful psychological addiction that functions almost identically.

My hypothesis on the success of 12-step programs is that those who succeed almost always transfer the psychological need to something else, say faith, which is a component of many 12-step programs. But really, former addicts can transfer that psychological component to lots of things so long as whatever it is is powerful enough to hold their fascination over drugs.

originally posted by: Magnivea
a reply to: AaarghZombies

That is wholly untrue. Garage chemists in China are responsible for AT LEAST the same amount (3500lb/yr) that is made and sold legally. That much has been known for 3-4 years. They used to be as bad with homemade alprazolam but that's been cracked down on by the Chinese government for whatever reason while fentanyl production seems to be almost promoted.

Source, please.

On the other hand, it's not Chinese dealing it on the streets.