Just My Opinion...
I've been speaking on drug policy for 16 years or so and I keep telling people that overdoses are caused by blackmarket drugs, but nobody gets it.
According to the article in The Drug War Chronicle the annual number of drug overdose deaths is still more than 68,000. The majority of these are from various drug mixtures that include Fentanyl.
While working undercover in the 70's and 80's I saw quite a few people shoot up. If they had a know product whether pill or powder, they knew how much to use.
The problem came when a new batch or product came to town. If it was heroin was it 30% or did someone really score and is it 90%? If you have ever been around people who abuse drugs they think if one pill is good then 2 or 3 must be better.
Some of these guys didn't even know what they were taking. Billy told Donny he had some pills he was going to sell. Donny aked to see them, so Billy pulled out a few. Before Billy could say they were his sisters birth control pills he was going to sell to a high school kid, Donny ate 5 of them....
Like I said, some of these guys didn't even know what they were taking.
My point is many people who abuse drugs don't make good decisions. When testing the heroin someone would usually take the normal amount they use because they want to get high. If the tester lives or dies, the others have a starting point.
Eleven states and Washington, DC, have now legalized marijuana for recreational use for adults over 21, and 33 states have legalized medical marijuana.
People who sell black market marijuana usually don't mess with selling other types of drugs. But with marijuana becoming legal and DEA's new opioid epidemic forcing patient to the street as they're doses are cut or stopped all together black market sellers have switched to heroin or Fentanyl containing products.
The black market sellers of heroin usually don't have a problem with being a poly-drug dealer, so adding cocaine or meth to heroin isn't a big deal for them.
I told everyone several months back that Cocaine was going to be the next big Drug Epidemic I don't see the cartels adding meth but it makes good business sense.
Powered drug overdoses will level off or increase over the next two years and then slow, it will be education and not enforcement that lowers the overdose level.
