> The problem we have now is that 80% of heroin is laced with fentanyl (at least in Vancouver), and it's causing a huge overdose problem. Even cocaine and MDMA is now sometimes cut with fentanyl.
When you give criminals a monopoly on the supply of recreational drugs, it is predicable that quality will be a problem. Potencies will vary, purity will suffer.
The solution is legalization combined with more health measures.
> stronger penalties
How anyone can think that stronger penalties are going to solve the problem escapes me. We have the evidence of 75 years of unrelieved failure of a punitive approach. This is an example of "If something fails, do more of it - That Might Work!".
It most certainly does make sense to have stronger penalties for dealing drugs that have a high chance of killing people due to being laced with fentanyl. Otherwise it's like having the same penalty for a shoplifter as for an armed robber.
How does that work? The whole mess is because of this.
Fentanyl is 100x stronger per gram than heroin. Therefore you can import 100th the quantity and still make (in theory) make similar money on the street. It is exactly because you get a worse sentence for higher quantities that drug dealers have optimised to get the strongest per gram drug. You will get a lighter sentence for 1g of fent vs 100g of heroin, no doubt.
This is a cycle always seen in prohibition - there was a massive shift from beer and wine to spirits in the 1920s US when alcohol is prohibited.
Throwing harsher sentences will not help whatsoever and is likely to be counterproductive.
>It is exactly because you get a worse sentence for higher quantities that drug dealers have optimised to get the strongest per gram drug.
Yeah, that's why there is pressure to increase sentences for the fentanyl dealers. If you have tougher sentences for the more dangerous drugs, it makes people more likely to use the less dangerous ones.
You're probably right. However the other question is whether dealers should be help criminally liable for fentanyl-related deaths. In essence they are selling something that they know will likely kill some of their customers.
I mean it depends on how far up the chain you want go. Lets say from the source to the buyer, it goes through 5 people. Which put fentanyl in it? Chances are, anyone else in the chain didn't know. Of course the problem with that is you end up executing some guy who had no idea there was fentanyl in there while the guy who actually put it in there continues business as usual.
I mean I find it hard to believe dealers want their clients to die off, they want steady revenue stream just like every other business. If you want to save lives, the way the US does it obviously isn't working. I don't think it's their objective. It seems the main objective for the drug war in US is to give jobs to the FOP and give the government an easier job by eroding liberties, and to make headlines for politicians trying to get reelected.
Like they didn't know already, even before fentanyl. Dealers don't care for the long run, they want their cash today and screw anything else. A few fiends die, tough; someone else will come along soon enough. And if you're caught, 5 or 10 years is an immaterial difference: prison is just part of the lifestyle, doing two 5-yr or one 10-yr is the same.
> You will get a lighter sentence for 1g of fent vs 100g of heroin, no doubt.
Often, doses of drugs are converted into a marijuana equivalency weight. 1g of fentanyl might be considered the equivalent of 20lb of marijuana in criminal proceedings.
When you give criminals a monopoly on the supply of recreational drugs, it is predicable that quality will be a problem. Potencies will vary, purity will suffer.
The solution is legalization combined with more health measures.
> stronger penalties
How anyone can think that stronger penalties are going to solve the problem escapes me. We have the evidence of 75 years of unrelieved failure of a punitive approach. This is an example of "If something fails, do more of it - That Might Work!".