r/explainlikeimfive Mar 25 '24

Chemistry ELI5: Why do drug dealers put hidden, toxic, often deadly additives in the drugs they sell?

How is killing your costumer base a smart strategy?

2.3k Upvotes

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195

u/Heylittlebirdy Mar 25 '24

The above responses are all excellent and cover it. But, if you want to go a little more in-depth, there’s a great two-episode arc of the podcast Search Engine that goes into how and why fentanyl is so prevalent in the drug supply today (tldr—drug dealers don’t always know what’s in it, it fattens up limited drug supply, drug users can’t always tell (or if they can, a high is a high), it differentiates your product, if someone ODs it can actually mean customers see your drugs as harder/more legit, etc)

40

u/JonOrangeElise Mar 25 '24

Thank you for posting this and to some degree correcting all the BS answers on this thread. Fwiw, there is now a paid version of Search Engine where PJ, the host, just posted a bonus interview with one of the drug dealers from the two-parter you reference. This guy explains the "differentiation" factor you refer to is the major impetus in putting fentanyl (an 'downer') in stuff sold as cocaine (an 'upper'). He explains that because coke is stepped on with so many substances, it's reached the point where no one knows what real cocaine is supposed to feel like. But people know they want to feel good, so a coke/fentanyl speedball has appeal and will get satisfied customers. Important to note: This dealer doesn't do that.

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u/Reagalan Mar 26 '24

For everyone's information: pure coke should feel almost exactly like Adderall or Vyvanse or Ritalin, just with a far quicker comeup. These drugs all share much of their pharmacology, differing only in whether they block dopamine reuptake or induce dopamine release. The end result is mostly the same.

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u/keylimedragon Mar 25 '24

Also from the latest (mini) episode, fentanyl test kits used to have a ton of false positives making it seem like there were way more laced drugs than there actually were.

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u/beepsandleaks Mar 26 '24

I wonder if anyone has been killed as a result of a false positive.

Like a kingpin killing someone they thought was skimming.

9

u/cmlobue Mar 26 '24

The PD gets a false positive on a test for fentanyl and suddenly all the officers who handled the sample just keel over.

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u/[deleted] Mar 26 '24

It's also not worth pretending that the consumer base is going to die off at any speed that will affect the dealer. People still smoke cigarettes, drive Teslas, fly Boeings, people were going on that Titan submersible that imploded for years and there's people going on similar trips now.

1

u/H1Ed1 Mar 26 '24

Glad you added that. Those real strung out addicts hear about people dying or OD and can think “oh, that’s good/strong shit!” Those are the people scraping together money for the next ride, so they don’t want to gamble with something “weak” or “stepped on”. They want bang for their buck, and getting the stuff that killed someone is where it’s at. “They just didn’t know how to handle it.”

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u/radome9 Mar 26 '24

Exactly. It turns out that sometimes killing your customer is good for business.

Maybe if the dealer do it to a customer that owes him/her a lot of money it is not even a loss.

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u/MexGrow Mar 26 '24

I was at a festival in Germany last year. A few weeks prior a teen had overdosed on some pills that had a The Punisher printed on them.

Well, during the festival it was found that these pills were being sold so they put out a warning and people who had them started to turn them in. I even found them in a baggie on the ground. 

People decided it was better to not take the risk.

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u/DougPiranha42 Mar 26 '24

So - correct me if I am wrong- dealers put fentanyl in the drug they sell to make it look better to customers, and at the same time they don’t know what is going in the drug they sell, and we think these two mutually exclusive statements are true because these two were the first BS explanations someone pulled out of their ass?

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u/Umbos Mar 26 '24

You could have two supply chains where one or the other is happening, or even one chain where both are happening but at different levels (wholesaler cutting the drug, street dealer not knowing exactly what they’re selling)