Tainted Cocaine Kills More Than 20 People in Argentina
Health officials are still investigating what substance was cut into the cocaine, but said that early indications point to fentanyl.
It would appear that the cocaine has been cut with fentanyl or another potent, synthetic opioid. It would appear that the fentanyl trade & cocaine trade are getting closer together. Back in the 'good' old days, the only regular connection between heroin & cocaine was that bricks of heroin were concealed within larger bricks of cocaine because smugglers charged less to move C than to move H.
The US is repeatedly seeing cocaine users dying of fentanyl overdoses. In the last 12 months, drug deaths have increased by 28% killing over 100,000 people. It is now the most common cause of death amongst the young and the third largest cause of death overall (heart disease & cancer being the 2 most common causes).
Evidently someone has discovered that cocaine users simply use more cocaine if it is mixed with the cheap & potent opioid fentanyl. I presume that the effects are somewhat like the infamous 'speedball' or, more exactingly, the 'snowball'. No agency in any nation has ANY intelligence on this phenomenon. The fact is, deaths concluded to have been caused by cocaine may well have been due to cocaine cut with a number of potent opioids.
At least we have seen Argentina change it's approach in it's treatment of people dependent on drugs.
The US is sticking to it's 'War on Drugs'. Richard Nixon declared the beginning of that war in 1971. Since then over 1 million US citizens have died, the price of drugs has gone down while availability has gone up.
It would be good for Argentina to show the US how to end this unwinnable war.