I am not a lawyer. I do not know if this is common elsewhere in the US.
This should have been the law all along.
I remember back in 2012 a couple I knew through business who have been friends now for 26 years lost a son to oxy. The dealer had sold to two people who overdosed and died. Their son was the second death. The dealer never did any prison time. That is completely wrong.
Well the article specifically refers to fentanyl…opioids in general (as if they’re all the same) A good many of the dealers involved with oxycodone abuse/death in the young have in the past oftentimes been other youngsters. Maybe swiping a few of granny’s back pain pills and passing them around at parties. I believe you mentioned a death that you knew of involving a high school kid who died after taking just one (maybe) that he’d been given at a party.
Yes, the illicit use and the death is the result of a criminal act…but it’s not so easy to know where exactly to point the finger of blame when the dealer might well have been a best mate.
Have you seen Dope Sick ? I read the book and watched the Hulu series which came afterwards, thought they were both good.
It’s been a few years since I watched it, so don’t remember all of the details, but do remember having very angry feelings towards the wealthy Purdue Pharma corporate suite, the bought off government over-seers, the oxy salesmen,… bringing misery in a pill to people who at first had legitimate physical pain to cope with, but then sure as the sun rises in the east became addicted to the beefed up doses of oxy. Just disposable cannon fodder to the Corporation. And these were overwhelmingly white people, as the story was mostly told thru the lens of life in Appalachia, which doesn’t fit the narrative pushed by 1 side of America who think that it’s the brown-skinned illegals who are the drug addicts.
Glad to hear Newsom is upping the consequences for the people higher up in the food chain, but as usual in America, will take a wait and see, as white collar “elite” people seem to play by a different set of rules than the rest of us.
It is critical to raise children to be highly resistant to taking in
“foods” and “drinks” that great grandma would not have recognized as food
drugs and treatments not approved and checked by real physicians
ideas and information not well vetted and well founded in reality
Simultaneously, but differently, it is critical to model how to use and not abuse “recreational drugs” such as alcohol and perhaps marijuana, etc., and recreational practices such as high risk sports (rockclimbing, remote trekking, sexual cavorting…)
Each of those is a tall order. But it is doable, and far more important than most of the obsessions parents have and do in controlling and forming their kids. It is much easier to do this within a community of similarly committed adults with their children
david fb
(lotsa nieces and nephews and 2nd cousins and godchildren that are thriving, including many taken on “late”, but three godchildren I adopted late in their teens when already deeply at risk are dead, one murdered, one of treatment resistant sexually transmitted Hepatitis, and one of heroin overdose)
As is usually the case, it’s a bit more complicated than that. One of the things that the legitimate users of opioid pain meds experience that must be pretty addictive is being pain free and, although long term usage creates a tolerance/dependency that can require medical assistance to wean off it (if the cause of the pain is removed, say) a descent into addiction and all that goes with it isn’t inevitable.
OxyContin, when it hit the market, certainly looked like an answer to the problem of dependancy/tolerance and whatever else can make it necessary to increase dosage. Not so much that it was a “beefed up” formulation but rather than it was an extended release designed to even out the highs and lows of regular oxy with its relatively short half life. Granted, with hindsight it seems that the manufacturers and companies like McKinsey and Co who helped with the marketing were aware of the potential for abuse. But that abuse took the form of getting the drug illicitly and grinding it up and snorting, injecting, or shoving the stuff where the sun don’t shine in order to get a better high. As in, it was rarely accidental.
It was a graduation night party. The guy who supplied the oxy was something like age 23. He was a social retard. He had killed someone prior.
I said killed. There is no other way to see it. You do more time if a gun was stolen and a murder committed with it.
Yes, it is, but I think there should be a general law to supply a drug that kills someone without a medical license and face life in prison. Which drug is besides the point. You can get sued as a business owner for supplying aspirin to an employee if they ail from the aspirin.
As I mentioned upstream, it’s a bit more complicated than that.
The fact that fentanyl is the focus of the article, together with the artfully designed photo of the used syringe…and which, as a drug, does have medical uses … still doesn’t mean that all fentanyl used on the streets can be traced to a legit source. I suspect that a good many suppliers from the importers/manufacturers on down are mist definitely not legit and the fentanyl they’re supplying isn’t either.
You really can’t say the same with your story and many of the personal anecdotes around misuse of “prescription pain meds”…and, from my perspective, there’s far more accountability to be attached to the user in these cases. Especially if it’s a first time user (as it always seems to be in the stories) Had this young lad survived this alleged interaction with a single 5mg tablet of oxycodone, the chances of a descent into a life of addiction and a death on the streets from whatever the fentanyl was mixed with are lower than negligible.
This is why context and which particular drug is far more relevant to any discussion than is given credit for in tragic anecdotes and eyeball grabbing headlines and news articles. Especially to folk who use these meds for legitimate reasons.
I do not even know what you are talking about. KISS do not sell a pill that can kill to someone else on the street. Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.
Yes the law should list what is covered but selling a drug that causes a deadly overdose is nothing short of murder. I do not care if the user was to blame for his own death. The culture of shared street drugs is murder.