2021 will be a record year for drug overdose deaths in the United States. More than 100,000 people died, a record high. The proliferation of man-made chemicals has contributed to the recent overdose crisis as they are cut into drugs, especially fentanyl.
These compound drugs are stronger, deadlier, and more addictive than crack, cocaine, meth, and other street drugs. They bring instant intense pleasure to users and take them by surprise.
Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid or pain reliever designed to be used during surgery. However, its chemical structure makes it very easy to modify and illicitly mix with other chemicals to create various fentanyl-based compounds that have various side effects but are very potent and deadly.
If you’re taking pure fentanyl on a regular basis, you’ll feel like you’re getting high — and that high won’t last long. “It has no legs,” quotes Keisha, an “ethical” drug dealer in the sideline documentary Benzo Dope and Tranq: The Next Wave of the Overdose Crisis.
You don’t even remember getting high when you take these new concoctions, and you either wake up hours late or overdose. With these chemically enhanced fentanyl variants available on the over-the-counter market, buying the drug and getting a quick fix has become a gamble. And because they have such dire effects, the decision to trade only uncut drugs or pure fentanyl is considered an “ethical” choice.
The most popular and deadly of these new compounds is benzodruplate, or a mixture of fentanyl and benzodiazepines, a class of drugs used as sedatives and slow the brain’s responses. It offers a very high risk of overdose and seizures. Naloxone is a drug used to reverse the effects of fentanyl overdose, it does not affect the benzodoppler, it is safer to take pure fentanyl. Benzodope is difficult to regulate or track and follow. They’re usually homemade, using ingredients you can find in your kitchen or pantry.
Another increasingly popular drug, Tranq, or fentanyl, mixed with xylazine, a horse sedative not approved for use in humans, has been linked to nearly 30% of overdose deaths in 2021.
Xylazine prolongs the high or euphoric effects of fentanyl. But it can wreak havoc on your central nervous system, causing amnesia and dropping your heart rate and blood pressure to dangerously low levels. It can also cause wounds that don’t heal, causing fingers and other body parts where you apply the medicine to fall off.
An even more worrisome reason is that you can easily buy many of the ingredients you need to create your stash of synthetic drugs from specially designed online stores, and it’s just a Google search away. These synthetic drugs are becoming more common now and will continue to be so for years to come, due to the U.S. ban on pure fentanyl imports from China. There are also few rehabilitation programs for addicts, making it more difficult to help them quit.
We can only hope that one day the growing trend of synthetic drugs will soon end and everyone will get the help they need to quit smoking and stay clean.
