Fentanyl is the latest in a series of scary drugs. It’s 50 times as strong as heroin, a little goes a long way, highly addictive, cheap to make and easy to smuggle. A lethal dose is tiny. Quantities found on the big island could knock out half of North America. It can be added to almost every other recreational drug, or even non-drug, to deliberately addict the customer. Even though its narcotic affect may the opposite of the user’s objective. Dealers add it to guarantee a repeat customer for their product.
There is a credibility problem. We have been told a similar story about every psychoactive substance from heroin to caffeine. It’s hard to know what to believe. I asked some cops what drug scares them, the answer I got was methamphetamine, aka crystal, aka ice and maybe another dozen slang names. Tweakers, meth heads, are unpredictable and nearly unstoppable. Desperate tweakers will resort rat poison. We have learned the scare stories about marijuana were false, and the stories about cocaine are highly suspect. Well, it’s a war on drugs and the first casualty in war is the truth.
Many drug users are passive, although sometimes dangerous when they attempt to drive. They may commit crimes to finance their habit. Over 100 years of drug war have demonstrated the futility of prohibition. We have to try a different strategy. Alcohol prohibition was such a dismal failure that the government actually admitted failure. How often does that happen? They did not learn from experience though. In 1937 they tried a different tactic with cannabis, that they renamed marijuana, outrageous taxation. We know how well that worked out. Each new drug, and it looks like there is a new one every week or so, brings the same outcry, prohibit and prosecute. They have yet been successful with even one. Some go out of fashion for a while, or get replaced by a more enticing one.
There is one strategy that has worked, regulation. Many drug users have a preference for one drug, or even one brand of the drug. Some alcohol users insist on a brand and won’t even consider another, at the other end are those who will try anything to get high, from scotch to brake fluid. The indiscriminate users may be a lost cause, they don’t care about side effects and will sniff anything from gasoline to spray paint. Perfect is the enemy of good. The challenge is to do the greatest good for the greatest number.
There is only one way to limit the fentanyl crisis: take away the profit. The stuff is so concentrated that smuggling it is undetectable. Beer and whisky have been smuggled, by the barrel, since before the revolutionary war. Other drugs have been smuggled in every conceivable container, from tanker to human mule’s intestines.
If recreational drugs were legally available in a tightly supervised format like alcohol, users could satisfy their desires in relative safely. One proposal is for all recreational drugs to be available fentanyl free (or just fentanyl) through legal heavily regulated channels much like alcohol. Clear accurate labeling and standardized packaging, (possibly individual blister packs) would make overdosing rare. Legal drugs must be priced too low enough for their illegal competition to be unprofitable. Tax income interest attract government, but even if the legal drugs were sold at below cost, the savings in law enforcement and incarceration could more than offset the cost.
Unfortunately, there would still be a problem. Human brains are not mature until the individual is about 25. The medical advice is don’t use drugs until you are 25. Anyone who has associated with teenagers, or been one, knows the futility of that advice. Some states used to allow 18 year olds to buy 3.2 “near beer” so they could learn how to drink responsibly before moving on to full power at 21. Maybe there needs to be a rational amoralistic discussion of how to achieve the least harm. Neither incarceration or prohibition seem to work there could be a graduated legality.
If teenagers are rigidly prohibited from indulgence, they probably will find a way. Bored teenagers need something to keep them busy and out of trouble.
Ken Obenski is a forensic engineer, now safety and freedom advocate in South Kona. He writes a biweekly column for West Hawaii Today. Send feedback to obenskik@gmail.com