Opiates and Opioids

I beg to differ. Opioids are different. A total menace to society. Particularly Fentanyl.

I wonder how many people recognize the irony of China exporting opioids to the West given the West’s imposition of opiates on China.

Western Imperial powers imported tons, yes tons, of opium into China. When the Chinese asked them to stop, opium being illegal in China, imperial powers used military force to impose opium importation.

By 1858 annual imports had risen to 70,000 chests (4,480 long tons (4,550 t)), approximately equivalent to global production of opium for the decade surrounding the year 2000.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_opium_in_China

Read that again,

By 1858 annual imports had risen to 70,000 chests (4,480 long tons (4,550 t)), approximately equivalent to global production of opium for the decade surrounding the year 2000.

In one year in the 1800s, imperial powers were pushing into China as much opium as was produced worldwide in 10 years in this century.

I’m no fan of fentanyl. On day on my morning walk I had the situation of saving a person’s life after fentanyl poisoning. It is not a surprise where I live to hear of everyday people carrying a freely dispensed naloxone kit for saving lives.

Thousands of people have been killed by fentanyl poisoning in my Canadian province where it is recognized as a health emergency.

The public face of the emergency in the early years was medical health officer Dr. Perry Kendall.

“Prohibition and criminalization and stigma have not made life better for many people. They have not stopped people using drugs, they've just made the drugs a whole lot more dangerous,'' he said.

“I think until we can either come up with a mechanism of changing people's characters on a huge scale so they're not interested in using mind-altering substances — and I obviously don't think we're going to be able to do that — or else we create a regulated supply that is safer."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/overdose-statistics-anniversary-1.6810030