This would be a terrific time to introduce authentic Drug Abuse Education into the schools again. It's bound to be an uphill climb, though, based on the reflex antipathy of teenagers to any pronouncements on the topic by Official Authority, brought on by decades of wolf-crying over the evils of marijuana. Few of the youngsters even appear to be familiar with the phenomenon of Potentiation, for that matter. Potentiation got more discussion in the pre-DARE era of the 1970s. It's a simple enough concept to grasp. But to begin with, someone has to at least know that there is such a thing. https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/potentiation
After that, they have to realize that combining any two central nervous system depressants increases the potency in a way that multiplies it, not merely adding to it, and that the most common potentiating substance is alcohol.
That used to be the single most important thing to learn, as far as education about drug effects.
Now that we're in the street fentanyl era, where less--often much less--than one milligram of a manufactured synthetic opioid can be a lethal dose, the most important thing to know is how easily it is to contaminate practically any street drug with lethal doses of various chemicals, some of which elude ready identification by laboratory analysis.
If the illicit drugs trade wasn't riding on the momentum of its rep--over half a century of Forbidden Fruit Outlaw Cool, an aura enshrined by prohibition and criminalization--I think it would most likely be easier for young people to stare the bare facts in the face, that after decades of fake wolf-crying, the wolves got here. The retail street market has finally descended to the era of literal Chemical Russian Roulette.
This would be a terrific time to introduce authentic Drug Abuse Education into the schools again. It's bound to be an uphill climb, though, based on the reflex antipathy of teenagers to any pronouncements on the topic by Official Authority, brought on by decades of wolf-crying over the evils of marijuana. Few of the youngsters even appear to be familiar with the phenomenon of Potentiation, for that matter. Potentiation got more discussion in the pre-DARE era of the 1970s. It's a simple enough concept to grasp. But to begin with, someone has to at least know that there is such a thing. https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/potentiation
After that, they have to realize that combining any two central nervous system depressants increases the potency in a way that multiplies it, not merely adding to it, and that the most common potentiating substance is alcohol.
That used to be the single most important thing to learn, as far as education about drug effects.
Now that we're in the street fentanyl era, where less--often much less--than one milligram of a manufactured synthetic opioid can be a lethal dose, the most important thing to know is how easily it is to contaminate practically any street drug with lethal doses of various chemicals, some of which elude ready identification by laboratory analysis.
If the illicit drugs trade wasn't riding on the momentum of its rep--over half a century of Forbidden Fruit Outlaw Cool, an aura enshrined by prohibition and criminalization--I think it would most likely be easier for young people to stare the bare facts in the face, that after decades of fake wolf-crying, the wolves got here. The retail street market has finally descended to the era of literal Chemical Russian Roulette.