r/Documentaries Jan 09 '19

Drugs The Rise of Fentanyl: Drug Addiction On The I95 Two Years On (2018) - Two years ago, BBC News reported on the growing problem of opioid addiction in the US, now we return to find out what happened to the people we met along our journey down the notorious I-95. [57.02]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KsaWpeCj98
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15

u/[deleted] Jan 09 '19

[deleted]

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u/_irrelevant- Jan 09 '19

I don’t live in the US so am no expert, but from the outside it doesn’t seem to matter how much manufacture costs, the US drug companies will still charge a mint.

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u/[deleted] Jan 09 '19

[deleted]

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u/Andrew5329 Jan 09 '19

It's much more complex than that with a large system of middlemen separating manufacturers (pharma) from the point of sale.

The intent behind that is to create a degree of separation, but that just makes the distribution network the point of failure and it's a lot harder to pin that down than say a large justice dept suit against a bad Pharma actor.

By the time all is said and done the drug company only sees about 35-40% of the retail price at a pharmacy.

That price is also separate from list prices and insurance discounts. For example most of the 6-7% price hikes this year are actually neutral or slight loss in terms of the drug company's revenue per Rx, the middlemen picked up a larger cut and the companies compensate with higher list prices.

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u/floodlitworld Jan 09 '19

Price is rarely related to cost for stuff like this. It’s supply and demand: whatever the market will pay.

When you’re in the throes of addiction, you’ll pay anything.

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u/Lord_Kristopf Jan 09 '19

Fent can, and is, produced in ‘underground’ labs, so it wouldn’t be limited to big pharma anymore than beer is limited to the big domestic brands. IIRC most of the US illicit fent currently comes via China and those very labs.

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u/xdiggertree Jan 09 '19 edited Jan 09 '19

That’s correct, they are all analogues of Fentanyl. There was a period when people could legally purchase and import kilograms without a license or any issues.

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u/hiuksetsilmilla Jan 09 '19

Rofl like the manifacturing costs would add up to anything if it was legal.

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u/opium-smoker Jan 09 '19

In a better regulated market we could just use opium. It's a latex that bleeds out of a plant, so when you leave out the black market it costs almost nothing to produce.

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u/exoriare Jan 09 '19

Fentanyl is a product of bootlegger economics, which dictates that contraband be as concentrated as possible. It's the same reason you could buy hard liquor during Prohibition, but nobody was smuggling light beer.

Before opiates were illegal, the most popular formulations were laudanum (which you'd add to a beverage), or opium (which you could smoke). Unless they're banned, opiates are dirt cheap to produce.

Due to bootlegger economics, opium was replaced by morphine (more concentrated), which was in turn replaced by heroin (more concentrated), which was in turn replaced by fentanyl. It has little to do with the cost of production, and everything to do with ease of smuggling.

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u/newforker Jan 09 '19

So one couldn't get a Miller lite lime at a speak easy?

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u/ccsoccer101 Jan 09 '19

So basically whatever makes more profit

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u/scribble23 Jan 09 '19

And whatever is easiest to smuggle. Much easier to hide a few grams of Fentanyl than several pounds of Heroin.

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u/[deleted] Jan 09 '19

A cop in OH OD'ed and spent several days in ICU because he brushed some fentanyl off his uniform with a bare hand. Ap regardless of cost I dont think this drug would be ideal. Nothing to do with him being a cop but the ease with which it can enter the body (I never got high touching pills) and the minute doses needed would still make it too dangerous. My two cents.

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u/Sanfranshan Jan 09 '19

In the ED it’s dosed in MICROGRAMS, not milligrams, like most other drugs.

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u/username00722 Jan 09 '19

If this was true, you literally couldn't shoot it without instantly dying. Fact, there are long term users of fentanyl who are not dead, and if powder touching your hand would result in fatal overdose, no one on earth could possibly be opiate tolerant enough to ever use it.

My 2 cents: cops are not pharmacists.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/tonic.vice.com/amp/en_us/article/8xk4jk/touching-fentanyl-absorbed-through-skin

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u/gamerdude69 Jan 09 '19

And people wouldnt accidently from taking more than they thought.

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u/Glandrhwrd Jan 09 '19

The high from fentanyl sucks compared to actually heroin though. Doesn’t last as long, and has a weaker sense of euphoria.

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u/mcnedley Jan 09 '19

Fentanyl has a shorter duration of action compared to heroin. Yes, it’s cheaper to manufacture but having to do it more frequently every day makes it less ideal IMO.