Why is tans becoming more popular now than say heroin. So many people doing tranquilizers. What happen to the 90s and 2000s the morphine and pain killers? Why so many people doing trans in Philly?
Why is fentanyl becoming so popular more so than morphine or heroin?
Why is meth so popular on the west coast and south west US compared to the east coast. Even in Canada meth is more popular in west than the east.
This is obviously a very complex question. You're going to get different answers from different people. To put it into the most simple terms:
Fentanyl is much more potent than Opioids like Morphine or Heroin. This makes it inherently easy to smuggle. You could fill a normal, letter-sized envelope with enough Fentanyl to power an entire drug operation for a few days. If it's a more potent drug like say, Carfentanil, who knows how many people they could feed and for how long, but the answer is SHIT TONS.
I don't know how much Heroin exactly you could fit in an envelope, maybe 100 grams before you arise definite suspicion? This is enough to deal with 50 regular junkies for one day at most. Just this one aspect is enough to make Fentanyl attractive to drug syndicates.
Fentanyl is an entirely synthetic drug. It can be produced very cheaply with precursor chemicals that are easy peasy to source in countries like China or any 3rd world country. Morphine/Heroin can be made synthetically, but not in a way that is cost-effective. The only way to get it in a cost-effective manner is by growing poppy, harvesting the latex and then refining that to Morphine before treatment with Acetic Anhydride to produce Heroin. You've got agriculture involved, multiple parties all needing a cut, smugglers needing to be successful and then to be paid etc. Fentanyl can just be made as a one-stop-shop in China then mailed through the civilian post to global markets.
Now if we're talking about the Fentanyl issue today, which includes the use of Fentanyl/Xylazine (Tranq), I have some theories.
Most people I've seen who use this shit tend to follow an easily predictable pattern. They will use, typically become unconscious/semi-conscious for 1-2 hours, become coherent at 2 hours and then be uncomfortably dope sick at the 4-5 hour mark, though people seem to already be jonesing as soon as they open their eyes.
Don't get me wrong, I did plenty of looking at my shoes when I was a Heroin user. I nodded out all the time. However, that was never the actual intention. I would often use, go to work, do the shopping and do fun things also while under the influence. I mean, I lived an entire "functional" life for years as a Heroin user, it couldn't have all just been nodding out.
My point here is that I don't feel most human beings would ever, ever in a million years choose a practice that left them either unconscious or seriously ill. There is just nothing good or redeemable about a life like that. You're either not living or you're feeling like shit. The rationalizations that I and others might make about Morphine/Heroin, however bullshit they may be, are not remotely applicable to the lifestyle lived by folks dependent on Fentanyl/Xylazine.
So how did all these people get roped into this hell? Like a good paintjob, I feel like the population went through a process of priming that made them easily susceptible to this.
The Opioid-prescribing Epidemic that started in the late 90's and came into its own in the 00's was most likely the ground zero for all of this. A lot of people who never would have used illegal drugs found themselves as addicts due to irresponsible prescribing. These patients were often "cut off" from their prescriptions whenever any inkling of trouble arose. Many of these people weren't familiar with the concept of dependence or withdrawal.
Now you have a huge population of dependent Opioid users, many of whom are being cut off abruptly and left without recourse or even advice.
Those same people who never would have used drugs are now dependent, withdrawing, extremely sick and willing to do anything to make it stop. They're willing to do things they never would have done, including using Heroin. Many of the first-wave of Heroin users in this specific epidemic were pain-management patients with not prior history of illicit drug usage.
Some time goes by. Now a lot of these people are living as full-time street junkies, just trying to get well and survive the day. A certain amount of drugs will be required each day to keep these people well. Someone comes around one day and tells you he can get you well for half the price. It's not like you can say no to that. You think that the price reduction will be a positive change in your life, allowing you to allocate the other money for legitimate needs. In the end, you end up with a higher tolerance after the first 3 days. Now you need the Fentanyl.
Most junkies will tell you that dope that puts people out or kills people is often sought out. People know it's potent so it's like an extremely crude version of an Amazon review when you hear that a certain bag has caused fatalities. I think this is where the Xylazine comes into play.
Xylazine is not an Opioid. It is an A2 agonist which makes it a close relative to Clonidine (Catapres). It is really not in the realm of what most people consider addictive/recreational. It is an antihypertensive and the reduction of blood pressure leads to feelings of relaxation. Higher dosages will produce greater degrees of sedation and overdosage can be deadly.
The main takeaway though is that Xylazine is not an addictive drug. It's not something that I feel anyone would seek out on its own. Just like how there's no underground market for Clonidine. I think the Xylazine was added, as it would make people more likely to "nod out" after doing the dope. This effect is often subjectively perceived as the drugs being more potent or "better", both by the user and those around the user. I think people fail to separate the two.
Fentanyl is actually a dealer's dream compared to Heroin. Yes, for the above-mentioned reasons, but also because it is significantly shorter acting that Heroin. I've never really been a Fentanyl user, I've only used Heroin/Morphine extensively, but I've definitely used Fentanyl a handful of times; I just mean, I have less personal experience with the dependence/withdrawal aspect of things. When I was using, it was 3x/day. If I had a stressful day, it might be 4 times and I could survive unscathed if I only did 2 shots a day.
Believe it or not, this 3x per day thing is part of what helped me keep my shit straight all those years. 3 meals a day, 3 shots a day. Just like breakfast, lunch and dinner were fully ingrained in my mind, these 3 shots were the same.
The people who use Fentanyl seem to be much more compulsive with their usage. They will use everything they have when they get it, wake up with nothing and repeat the process. They don't know how many times they'd gotten high that day or how much exactly they'd even used.
I hear more people describe their Fentanyl usage in terms like:
"I only use two bags a day"
all the way to
"I've used 40 bags already today"
It's all over the fucking place. When I was using Heroin, it really seemed to me that we were all in a similar ballpark with our usage. One person might use 1g/day and another might use 3g/day. It wasn't common to just run into a guy who did 10g/day. It also wasn't a "let's get as fucked up as possible" thing either. There was a limited amount of planning and responsibility involved like saving a little bit for the morning or splitting your score for the day into 3 ahead of time. It just seems that the lives of the Fentanyl users are much more chaotic and compulsive, though this is totally an opinion.
So yea, i don't think Fentanyl, especially Tranq, would've happened without the Opioid-dependent population already in place.
