Tag Archives: fentanyl analogs

Jan 21 2018

Let’s Not Keep Meds From Chronic Pain Patients Because Dr. Nick Keeps Killing Celebrities.

Via wikimedia.

Opinion by Terry Gotham

This article goes out directly to the party people & Burners who think they can party like rockstar gods. While the measure of any varsity party person is the ability to handle multiple types of substances concurrently, that game has become intensely more dangerous in the last 5 years. In case you missed it, the coroner’s reports on Tom Petty & Dolores O’Riordan’s deaths came back. The lead singer of The Cranberries & one of the most distinctive voices of a generation is suspected of killing herself via fentanyl poisoning. And Tom Petty’s toxicology is so startling, I’ll just quote TMZ  (yes, it’s been corroborated elsewhere put the pitchforks down) directly:

Tom’s autopsy report shows the singer was on several pain meds, including Fentanyl patches, oxycodone (Oxycontin), temazepam (Restoril), alprazolam (Xanax), citalopram (Celexa), acetyl fentanyl and despropionyl fentanyl. The reason doctors prescribed the meds was because of a number of medical problems, including emphysema, knee problems and a fractured hip.
~Tom Petty Died From Massive Accidental Drug OD. TMZ.com 1.19.18

In the immortal words of Alex Shulgin, that is a “heroic” cocktail. For all my psychonauts and chem nerds out there, Kevin Shanks has an exceptional review of the chemicals here. For people out there that might not be too familiar with pharmacology, I’d like to explain why this combination of drugs is terrifying and a perfect example of the crisis currently afflicting all 50 states. While many have seen that pile of substances and flagged it as an “opiate overdose,” in a lot of toxicology reports, autopsies revealing multiple drugs are categorized in similarly incorrect ways. Some counties would flag it as a synthetic opiate overdose, while others only bucket many different types of opiates under the umbrella term “drug overdose.” Still others might even classify it as a benzo or Xanax overdose. While New York City differentiates between fentanyl and heroin in its reporting, this is not the norm. And that is a huge problem. Especially now that it’s easier than ever to be on half a dozen different drugs.

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Oct 9 2017

There Are No More Heroin Overdoses

Report by Terry Gotham

Enough people sent me the NY Times article about Fentanyl overtaking Heroin that I had to say something about it. If you’ve not seen it and the plurality of think pieces surrounding it, the only piece you need to read on it is by the person who runs The Dose Makes The Poison, Kevin Shanks. He’s been one of my go to sources on novel psychoactive substances for years now, and he, along with a handful of others have been yelling as loud as they possibly can. The point he raised almost a month ago is one I’ve not seen a single mainstream medical journal begin to grapple with in any kind of meaningful way.

As I’ve said for a while now, this ain’t your father’s heroin. At what point do we stop calling it heroin and refer to the standard “heroin” product on the street as fentanyl?
~Kevin Shanks (9/2/17)

While drug overdose deaths are up 22% from 2015 alone, fentanyl deaths doubled. That’s not including the fact that cases are severely under counted, given the volume of fentanyl analogs in circulation right now. I previously reported on the report coming out of Ohio with 24 analogs & active metabolites being identified. That, combined with the increased cost in testing for analog substances, we’ve arrived at a place where medical staff have no idea how many chemicals they’re not testing for. How many rural communities are testing for acrylfentanyl or butyrylfentanyl? How many rural communities are seeing analogs that we don’t even know about yet? Communities along the migratory arc that fentanyl takes from China into Western Canada or Mexico into border communities, that see these substances first, are they still getting the same analogs, or is there already something new? At this point, it’s likely the unknown unknowns are already on the ground and slowly being consumed for the first time.

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