NOVANEWS
Heroin laced with cancer drug fentanyl is blamed for 22 deaths In Pennsylvania and the district attorney wants to charge the sellers with murder
By John Vibes
PENNSYLVANIA (INTELLIHUB) —Police and doctors in Pennsylvania believe at least 22 people are dead from overdosing on a mixture of heroin and the cancer painkiller fentanyl.
Fentanyl buccal is used to treat “breakthrough” cancer pain that is not controlled by other medicines. Fentanyl buccal is taken together with other non-fentanyl narcotic pain medicine that is used around the clock. This medication is not for treating pain that is not cancer-related, such as general headaches or back pain.
The Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office says, “If through the course of this investigation evidence is developed that any person or persons in our jurisdiction knowingly distributed this lethal heroin mixture, District Attorney [Stephen] Zappala will pursue a charge of drug delivery resulting in death.”
As I have explained countless times in the past, these types of dangerous knock-off drugs are a direct result of prohibition. If you have missed my previous drug war articles, I will summarize how prohibition makes drugs more dangerous.
In the black market one of the major drawbacks is that there is no accountability among the people selling the drug. Since anyone can get kidnapped and thrown in a cage for even dealing with the stuff, it really doesn’t make sense for people to be plastering their names and logos all over the drugs.
In this age of corporate mercantilism logos and branding may seem like a really tacky idea, but when looking at the black market we can see the value in such things. Someone who is selling a product with their name on it, is going to go through far greater lengths to ensure the quality of their product, as opposed to someone who would remain anonymous.
This anonymity creates an incentive for people to be dishonest with what they sell. This could lead to rip offs, or downright contamination of the drug with unwanted harmful substances. This is why there was bathtub gin that would make you go blind if your drank it during alcohol prohibition. This is also the reason why some of the harder street drugs today are cut with toxic chemicals that increase the chance of overdose ten fold. The fact that the drugs need to be smuggled also creates the incentive to make drugs more potent, and thus in some circumstances more dangerous.
The increased potency and decreased availability inevitably leads to a massive increase in cost. The increased cost is a whole other issue with its own unique side effects in regards to drug safety. When the price of the real drugs go up, people just start huffing paint thinner, smoking bath salts and cooking up crystal meth in their basements, which is then even many times more dangerous than the unbranded drugs on the black market.
