Long story but it does eventually connect to the topic of fentanyl in Australia.
In my old apartment building I had a neighbour I affectionately dubbed 'crazy girl' because, well... She was crazy. She had this whole thing where my first interaction with her I was giving her a beanbag I didn't want anymore and she asked for it so i sorted out a time. Eventually she wasn't getting in contact so I told her if she didn't pick it up that evening I would bin it. She told me 'can I pick it up at 9 after I finish at the crazy horse?'
So the crazy horse is a strip club. I didn't ask where she worked, I asked when she would be able to pick it up. She decided that she would tell the relatively attractive older male in her apartment block that she works at a strip club, I guess in some kind of effort to impress me.
Girl, I've been fucked for men for bags of heroin and meth. Working in a strip club would be heaven compared to that.
I was like 'cool don't give a shit, pick it up or lose it '
Fast forward and me and her aren't on speaking terms because she had a huge argument with her pimp and screamed down the building. I told her she can't do that in such close living quarters. She used her mental health as an excuse (and she somehow had every single diagnosis under the sun, and almost bragged about it too) and said because she's in disability it's unfair to hold her to a higher standard. On disability and working over the allowable hours to retain her payments for cash in hand, right.
Every month or so there was another disaster. Once she needed someone to get into her flat because she had 'ducttaped herself to her bed' and other times she would be up all night yelling.
The last incident, someone made a noise complaint about her playing loud music at 3am. She ran up and down the whole 3 story building banging on everyone's doors and swearing at them for calling the cops before writing a Facebook post in our local community group saying she was psychotic and mentally ill and 'she deserved to live there in peace as well. Listening to music is part of my therapy.'
I'd had enough of it. I told her if she wanted to listen to loud music at 3am she could buy a pair of nice headphones like everyone else did then listen to her hearts content. I also pointed out that she was not the only person in the apartment building who had mental health issues, I did, but I never made them anyone else's problem like she did (at one stage she wanted her therapist to print out a guide on how to de-escalate her so that neighbours could be trained in how to do that and I'm like wtf I'm not your social worker, this is not my job). Before she could get out her standard 'im a sex worker on the DSP' I ripped out the 'im mentally ill, autistic, on the NDIS and applying for the DSP and likely going to get it. I have also done sex work. Just because you have a disablity that does not give you the right to make other people's lives hell. I have the right to live here in comfort without your outbursts triggering my mental health. You are not the only person with mental health who wants to live here in peace.'
She moved out shortly after that, only to then request housing due to being potentially made homeless soon after moving. I didn't know what happened. A couple of months after that someone else in my community group posted about a clearly substance affected person trying to force his way into her house in the apartment next to mine. Crazy girl wrote a comment on the thread saying that there are 'drug gangs' on the road behind our apartment block which links up to the rest of the city. Apparently, Fentanyl has 'hit (insert name of street). Stay safe everyone. I had to move out because it's just too close to home.'
I called her out for scaring people for no reason. Said that DASSA (drug and alcohol services south Australia) have not mentioned any fentanyl, nor have any of the needle exchanges, the police haven't made a statement, and it hasn't been mentioned in the news (which you'd think it would be given the scale of what it's done in America). I made the point that as an opiate addict I've been trying to sniff out access to reliable heroin for around a decade, which I've been rather unsuccessful at. The cops in Adelaide have got heroin on lock. It gets here, they get busted. I said I would have definitely sniffed out fentanyl on my back doorstep.
She was like 'i guess you didn't. I saw it, I was offered some to buy'
So I went 'look, you can barely even buy Fentanyl to ship to Australia off the dark web because it'll get stopped at customs. Where the hell do you think they're sneaking all this fentanyl into the country? Yes, some gets diverted and some arguably gets stolen from other people but there is ZERO large scale importation of fentanyl in this country and no evidence for widespread distribution. I'm sorry, it just isn't happening. And also, there are no 'drug gangs' on (insert street). There is a lot of public housing, and drug users, and there are a couple of meth dealers houses which I know because I found them within a month of relapsing last year, but there are certainly no drug gangs. And you most definitely cannot 'cold cop' drugs on the street in Australia like you can in the US. You need a number, a connection with a dealer, and a relationship with them. None of what you said was true.'
She didn't respond to that.
So yeah. There is practically no fentanyl here. If there is, it's contamination and nothing more.