But even that is old news at this point. For all I know things have changed again. Every time the US tries to get rid of a drug it just gets replaced by something worse. If they'd just let the heroin in, maybe we wouldn't have so much xylazine, fentanyl and incredibly potent benzo analogues.
It's almost as if a clear pattern had emerged and yet governments either haven't cottened on and/or it's not politically expedient to admit the fact.
I admit I was amazed to discover that IC-26 is seeminly being sold in Dutch Smart Shops and nobody seems to have noted any harms.
I should explain that When Eislib discovered that an ethylsulfonyl moiety acted as a bioisostere of the ethylketone in bemidone, that same substitution was made in every other opioid with an ethylketone so in fact it's just a less potent homologe of methadone.
The vendors make no bones about what it is and maybe because of that most people make the informed choice NOT to use it. I strongly suspect that very few people would buy oral methadone for a buzz. But even at €4/pill, it must surely offer a much cheaper alternative to things like H but only in dependent H users?
The Dutch are very pragmatic about drugs and I suspect that they are watching closely but the sad thing is that it only takes one idiot to neck a dozen pills for the media to invent hypotheticals in which this potent opioid could kill us allll!
I'm sure it's inevitable that a few people are harmed but it would surprise me if overdoses don't go down and the number of people seeking support from HR agensices doesn't go down because now opioid users have a legal way to substituted and potentially reduce.
It dose seem at least some Chinese manufacturers have noted that at some point almost all of those who use unprescribed opioids want to stop but since the logic 'well, it's their own fault' prevails, nobody stops to ask 'but what is that attitude costing ME'. The Swiss did their sums and quickly realized that when crime, neglect, illness and fatalies were all factored it, it turned out that just giving users the stuff worked out to be cheaper.
I always point out that in bulk methadone only costs about $400/Kg, it the legal controls around it that make up 95% of the cost. So ironically, just letting users buy this stuff is the very cheapest option.
I remain to be convinced that we know enough about it to be certain of it's safety, it seems like a good idea. I noted that the tablets are large and black and have a break-line. So some amount of thought has gone into designing pills that are anathama to injection.
