The question being what dose would SURELY kill a non-tolerant person, you have to count in the anomolies of people eating 100ug/hr patches (without tolerance) and not ODing, as well as the anomolies of people dying from a used 25ug/hr patch.
You incorrectly assumed the intent of the question. I acknowledge it was stated
ambiguously: "How much fentanyl would it take to kill a non tolerant 150pd user", although one can infer from the SECOND question that geetered is asking about himself, "Also is smokeing a full 2.5mg patch for an occasional user dangerous....
I use...". The phrasing of the original post in conjunction with the nature of this site as a HARM REDUCTION board, fully indicates that the intended phrasing of the question was
"What is the largest amount of fentanyl that I, a non-tolerant user, can smoke safely?". I see how easily one could mistake the question, and this is a lesson in why we should all strive to post non-ambiguous questions by re-reading what we have written.
Yes, the alternative interpretation of this question ("What is the highest amount of fentanyl that any non-tolerant user has ever survived?") is a VERY interesting topic for discussion, but having both discussions in the same thread is a RECIPE FOR DISASTER! Just imagine a person who interprets the original ambiguous question in the wrong manner, and puts what they have learned to practical application!!
do you have a toxicology report proving that your friend died purely from WEARING THE PATCH? i doubt it.
yes, they can be dangerous. i think that your particular situation is just that. if you have autopsy and toxicology reports, then i'm all for the truth...but, i would be SHOCKED if your friend died from wearing the patch alone
Naturalone, what are you seeking to accomplish with your reply? It seems that you wish to prove that the danger inherent in injesting 2.5 to 10mg of fentanyl at once is overstated (hyperbole). If this is the case, you are committing the fallacy of "burden of proof" by demanding that I prove the one statement I made which does NOT have absolute proof to disprove you. You have not yet shown sufficient proof for your viewpoint to make this demand.
Please read up on this fallacy to be able to identify it in the future:
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/burden-of-proof.html
if you don't have straight-up facts regarding cause of death, then it is opinion...just like everyone else has been injecting into this thread
You are mistaken as to the definition of the word "opinion". I do not need a toxicology report for my FACTS to not be considered OPINION. The word you are looking for is "facts without hard evidence", which is quite a different thing from an opinion. Of course, I agree that facts WITH hard evidence (like the 5 case reports of deaths from fentanyl I provided) are MUCH more credible than those without. The point on which we appear to differ is that I believe in the ABSENCE of any facts with hard evidence saying otherwise, a fact without hard evidence is worth listening to. And generally if its a matter of life and death, I'm going to go with the facts I have available to me, and then err on the side of caution. For example, if I have no clue whether or not drinking the brightly colored contents of mystery vial #1 are going to kill me or not, I will NOT drink the vial, even if some guy on the internet cannot PROVE to me that his friend died from doing so.
No, I'm not saying that nobody should use fentanyl patches just because somebody died once, that logic is just as flawed as its converse. Instead I'm saying, one must take ALL of the facts available, and weight them according to how much one personally trusts the source (based on how well one's own experience corroborates with what they've learned from that particular source, in less risky ventures), and proceed ONLY if there is enough information available to PROVE the safety is above the risk threshold one personally considers relevant for the benefits or rewards of that action.
The facts (interpret however you wish):
- I talked to this person the day before, and he said he had 1 75ug/h patch and no other drugs in his posession except for some 2ci (for a different occasion).
- He said he was planning on wearing it.
- He had often complained about how he was too poor to afford any of the opiates that his dealer back home (he died at his parents house in another state) sold, and how he had saved up for months just to afford the single patch.
- He had asked me for harm reduction advice on the subject a couple times, and I told him to wear the patch only during waking hours, to avoid sleeping with the patch on. I told him to have a sitter stay with him for the first DAY of usage until he took the patch off (as far as I know, this is the only advice he did not heed).
- I told him not to smoke it until after 3 or 4 days of wearing it by wearing gloves and using a toothpick to scrape matchhead size amounts onto foil.
- I had given him a 25mg tablet of naltrexone a week earlier.
- I had seen this person IM ketamine and meperidine on separate occasions. This person had sold me an actiq 1600 from his collection (which he said he really enjoyed). He introduced me to poppy tea, and had 50 pods in a box under his bed (and an empty identical box).
- He weighed 240lbs and was 6'4", and was a healthy athlete.
- He was a senior pharmacology major, and was very intelligent.
- He had demonstrated the ability to follow complex drug related advice in the past (he made sterile solutions of various steroids).
- A couple days later his ex-roommate told me that he had died alone in his bedroom at his parents house OF A FENTANYL OVERDOSE.
- The next week I found his obituary in the paper of his parent's hometown, no mention of cause of death.
i realize that there is emotion regarding this subject for you
Don't worry, I don't get very emotional about events which are in the past (there's nothing I can do about them), however I get VERY pissy when somebody does something which could lead to a death in the future.
Could 1mg orally potentially kill an opiate naive individual?
Based upon my somewhat extensive experience with fentanyl as an opiate experienced individual, albeit one with a low tolerance, and numerous online case reports of fentanyl deaths, I would say that
1mg sublingually COULD potentially kill an opiate naive individual. I would suggest that .5mg at once (via ANY route) is the upper limit of a "safe dose" for a user without an opioid tolerance. As I showed earlier, there are numerous documented deaths from as little as 2.5mg of oral fentanyl (which is only 25% bioavailable - source:
www.actiq.com).
See also the Opioid FAQ's section on fentanyl, which describes its medical dosage of 100-200mcg and its unique potential among opioids to cause respiratory spasm leading to respiratory arrest:
http://paranoia.lycaeum.org/opiates/FAQ-Opioid
i do believe that the potency of duragesics is exaggerated, especially by those who have little hands on experience with it. I have seen people down 100ug/hr patches with no tolerance and just get sick to their stomach, i have done it myself with no tolerance
I believe that the EUPHORIC POTENTIAL of fentanyl is exaggerated by those with little experience of it, however the potential lethality of it is NOT exaggerated.
I myself have personal experience with the patch, and I also agree with what is stated on
www.actiq.com, that fentanyl is only 25% bioavailable when taken orally. Thus it is a WASTE OF MONEY AND OPIOIDS to eat the patch. Sublingual usage will get you 3-4 times as high, but using ambiguous wording like "eat the patch" is likely to lead to the death of a greenlighter or one of the 80% of bluelight readers who DO NOT POST (lurkers).
Thank you negro for saying
"just because i said i have seen people do certain things or i have done certain things, it does not mean that i condone or suggest it." Just because somebody once took 10mg of fentanyl orally and vomited up some of it, and only absorbed 25% of what was left, does NOT MEAN ITS SAFE TO DO SO.