Dylan Stoll | Health Editor
Featured Image: Fatal overdoses from fentanyl and carfentanyl are on the rise. | Courtesy of Pixabay
Since 1971, when drugs were deemed “public enemy number one” by US President Richard Nixon, a war of sorts has been fought: a war on the cultivation, production, and distribution of illegal narcotics across the globe. Almost five decades later, despite their best efforts, illegal drugs are still being cultivated, are still being produced, are still being distributed, but most importantly, they are still being used, because in the end, without the user, there is no need for the product. It’s as simple as supply and demand; over 31 million addicts across the globe are demanding their fix.
But what happens when that fix becomes as deadly as a bullet? Sure, illegal substances have, by and large, been associated with accidental overdoses and subsequent deaths, but that usually occurs in recreational or even habitual users who take too much of a potent drug. For example, a lethal dose of heroin, a semi-synthetic opioid, is 500 milligrams for non-users and 1,800 milligrams for an addict.
But there are two new players in town, and they’re playing for keeps. Fentanyl and carfentanyl, two synthetic opioids being produced en masse in China due to a lack of strict pharmaceutical regulations, have become the tip of the spear in the drug world’s most recent attack on the addicted. Like an unstoppable virus, fentanyl alone claimed the lives of approximately 10,000 Canadians in less than three years.
So what makes fentanyl and carfentanyl so deadly? The potency. Researchers who work with these opioids don’t refer to relevant amounts in milligrams as they refer to them in micrograms. To put things into perspective, a microgram is 1,000 times smaller than a milligram, and a milligram is 1,000 times smaller than a gram. That makes a microgram one million times smaller than a gram. The lethal dose of fentanyl is 2,000 micrograms or just two milligrams, an incredibly small amount as small as a few grains of sand. So imagine the dramatic difference when a lethal dose of heroin is 500 milligrams for a non-user and 1,800 milligrams for a regular user.
And if fentanyl were a demon, carfentanyl would be the devil himself. It is considered 100 times more potent than fentanyl, and thousands of times more potent than heroin. That is, to say the least, a significant difference.
So, these are the numbers we are dealing with. This is why drug users are dying by the thousands on a yearly basis. This is why “the war on drugs” has become less figurative, and more literal—the doses have literally become as lethal as a bullet.
You may be asking yourself, “But I don’t do fentanyl or carfentanyl, so why should I care?” Like some kind of killer volcanic ash that erupted from Mount Opioid, fentanyl and carfentanyl have rained down upon almost every illegal substance, deeming every dime bag bought a spin of the chamber. The modern drug user is playing Russian roulette with every hit, every line, and every shot. It doesn’t matter if you’re buying a half-quarter of weed or a half-gram of blow, you’re susceptible to the same dangers as any other user. You can die just as easily as they can.
So before you buy your next bag of dope off some street-corner hustler, or even that guy you’ve known since high school, remember what you’re getting into. The reaper waits patiently for the fool, and he doesn’t discriminate. He doesn’t care where you work, or where you live, who you are or what you’ve done. You could be making millions like Mac Miller, or stealing TVs and car radios to get that next hit; either way, you’ll be wondering in your final moments, was it worth it?
