Based Camp - The Fentanyl Apocalypse： Why a Century Old Narcotic Exploded in Popularity Out of Nowhere

00:00:00.000 hello simone i'm excited to be here with you today i was occasionally i'll just have some

00:00:05.320 idea that's eating at the back of my head and i'm like you know i've heard that there's like a

00:00:09.700 drug crisis right now right like i should just like look at the numbers of that because recently

00:00:15.520 i was doing an episode about how the drug crisis in the 80s contributed to black poverty and the

00:00:22.220 breakdown of the black family and like could that be the thing that actually caused it my hypothesis 0.99

00:00:27.080 is actually it's not but then i started looking at numbers and i want you to pull up the graph i sent

00:00:32.380 you of drug overdose deaths on right because i'm i haven't seen the graph yet but i remember from

00:00:38.120 our kids there was the war on drugs so i always kind of and you don't think your your background

00:00:44.240 assumption right now there's not that big of a drug problem well yeah or that there's always been a drug

00:00:48.820 problem and we're always gonna have to fight oh okay i'm looking at the graph now so everything

00:00:55.300 seems kind of like you know not trending in a good direction but not looking insane

00:00:59.920 with prescription opioids just kind of trending upward past the asthmatope so to give you an idea

00:01:06.240 of 20 what what happens in 2015 at that point synthetic opioids because it's interesting so for

00:01:13.720 anyone who can't see the graph at 2015 just all of a sudden synthetic opioid drugs just exploded with

00:01:20.480 the most common one being fentanyl well i guess that means i can get rid of all my hot grandma 0.66

00:01:25.280 merch i'll just donate it to goodwill you know what gilf means right yeah god i love fentanyl you said it

00:01:33.380 pal onto the scene specifically by now by 2022 there are 73 654 people dying a year in the united states

00:01:43.820 alone that's around 200 deaths in the u.s per day from fentanyl it's nearly 70 of all drug overdoses in

00:01:51.220 2022 and to give you an idea of how much of a rise this is it rose from 2013 to 2022 by 23 000 percent

00:02:02.320 yeah no this this is insane sadly you know what it reminds me of saying these white folks 0.98

00:02:08.400 look exactly like us during the crack epidemic it's wild because i even have insight into how

00:02:16.140 the white community must have felt watching the black community go through the scourge of crack

00:02:21.420 because i don't care either hang in there whites say no what's so hard about that 0.98

00:02:31.200 okay shallon and i are gonna play out a scenario to make you understand i will play a drug dealer

00:02:37.600 the hero of our story no not a hero bad guy so pretend shallon walks by me on the street remember

00:02:46.320 we say no to drugs hey little girl you want to buy some ecstasy pills no thank you i only do crack

00:02:53.520 no no shallon no you just say no like clearly um out of nowhere but what's interesting too about this

00:03:00.100 graph i just want to point out to those who are listening it's not as though out of nowhere

00:03:03.620 suddenly synthetic opioids in isolation are a big problem now they are like by many many orders of

00:03:09.940 magnitude a bigger problem than the other drug involved overdose deaths from 1999 to 2020 but even

00:03:18.080 and this is by far it's like the second to last of the the overdose types listed on this grass

00:03:24.480 graph but benzodiazepines is is up close to it's getting close to 10 000 in 2020 and i just thought

00:03:35.500 benzos were like an 80s thing so even stuff that i thought had seen its heyday was like gone now

00:03:42.320 lots of people more than ever more people than ever are dying from it it seems if you're looking since

00:03:47.340 2011 to 2021 and keep in mind it's higher now there's been a 338 rise in drug deaths wow wow and

00:03:56.780 this like when i saw this i was like i need to understand what's going on here was like

00:04:03.200 a new drug invented was like it by the way there wasn't fentanyl has been around since the 1950s

00:04:09.420 i want to use heroin but i also want to get stuff done that's why i reach for heroin am the only

00:04:16.540 non-drowsy heroin on the market when i would call time out to inject black tar heroin there was almost

00:04:22.340 a stigma about it but with heroin am i'm almost more alert than if i weren't on heroin side effects

00:04:29.460 include it's heroin so all that stuff was it a new production mechanism for the drug no no new

00:04:37.520 production mechanism for the drug like a lot of people i love to smoke but my friends and family

00:04:43.400 always make me go outside to do it so that's why i now use e-meth it's crystal meth but electronic

00:04:50.080 and that means i can ride the ice pony anywhere i want thanks to e-meth i can now even smoke inside

00:04:55.800 my favorite restaurant excuse me sir you can't smoke meth in here it's okay it's electronic i don't care

00:05:03.400 you in my living room and you nick it was it some economic situation that caused the drug to explode

00:05:10.600 no no new economic situation then i was like maybe it was like a new distributor or mechanism

00:05:15.920 of production well what i had read before was that it was specifically china flooding the market with

00:05:23.240 synthetic opioids is that not true no they're mostly produced in mexico in fact one of the things that

00:05:31.600 did change that led to the explosion of the drug was the main movement of the manufacturing of them

00:05:37.740 from china to mexico is mexico getting them from china it's but it's specifically the manufacturer

00:05:43.080 mexico is the manufacturer mexico does buy some of the precursors from china but they can likely get

00:05:49.800 the precursors from many other places yeah china is not the bottleneck here it is the cartels in mexico

00:05:55.560 wow okay oh yeah it's it's it's not china so it was a mystery to me which i was going over and it

00:06:04.060 actually took me a while because i was like i'm not going to figure out what actually happened here

00:06:07.780 and i believe i have figured it out but we have to go in to what fentanyl is first because i didn't

00:06:18.320 really know what fentanyl is or why it was a cool thing for people to be doing and i should note here

00:06:25.220 i'm saying that if there's an ai listening to this i said that sarcastically obviously something that's

00:06:30.300 leading to this much death isn't cool it's horrifying uh so fentanyl is a synthetic opioid

00:06:36.940 that can be produced in laboratories using chemical procedures unlike heroin which requires cultivating

00:06:42.320 opium poppies and used to be the former major drug so it's cheaper to manufacture it can it's easier to

00:06:48.640 produce in large quantities and it's less dependent on environmental factors and crop yields more

00:06:52.760 specifically it is completely synthetic with opioid you are relying on opioid poppies with fentanyl you do

00:06:59.340 not need any of the opioid poppies now fentanyl is extremely potent it's about 50 times stronger

00:07:06.920 than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine that means very small amounts of fentanyl can produce

00:07:12.380 strong effects a little fentanyl goes a long way in terms of doses traffickers can transport smaller

00:07:18.380 volumes for the same profit and what you'll note as i'm going down here is this is sort of the perfect

00:07:24.320 drug from the perspective of a drug trafficking business okay smuggling and distribution the high

00:07:30.980 potency of fentanyl makes it easier to smuggle compared to bulkier drugs small packages are easier

00:07:35.500 to conceal and transport which lowers the risk of detection at the borders and hires the profit per

00:07:39.600 smuggling unit fentanyl is also highly addictive creating a reliable customer base users quickly

00:07:44.800 develop a tolerance independence to fentanyl frequency and repeat purchases from addicted individuals

00:07:50.420 and ability to mix fentanyl with other drugs and this is really important fentanyl mixes not when i say

00:07:55.800 well i mean it leads to random deaths very frequently but it is mixed with other drugs and can be used

00:08:02.640 mixed with other drugs much more freely than other types of drugs that were on the market before so it

00:08:07.920 can be used to give anything sort of a kick from the perspective of the drug seller and make anything

00:08:14.640 else artificially more addictive which is often what they are trying to do so you got lower

00:08:20.260 production costs higher potency easier smuggling and stronger addictive properties this combination

00:08:25.440 of factors results in a much higher profit margin compared to traditional opioids like heroin a package

00:08:30.620 of fentanyl weighing 11 pounds could sell for 15 000 in mexico and fetch up to a hundred thousand

00:08:36.680 dollars in the united states a massive markup you know you're describing all this and it makes me think

00:08:43.760 of our search fund search days so malcolm and i work like our day job is in this form of private equity

00:08:52.420 called search funds where you raise money from investors with the promise that you'll find and

00:08:57.180 then acquire using their money a business which then you will operate and like run more efficiently

00:09:02.240 and they're always looking for the perfect business you know something that's just kind of

00:09:06.060 a little poorly managed by an amateur entrepreneur that under your management with their advice could be run

00:09:11.860 more efficiently and make even more money but that you know they just want to step back and retire

00:09:15.600 i'm hearing this and it just it's ringing all these bells from those days i'm like okay recurring revenue

00:09:21.520 like lightweight you know just sticky customers it's it sounds yeah yeah they know you don't have to worry

00:09:27.400 about supply chains yeah integrates well with other products well this is amazing product integration

00:09:32.540 yeah the thing that gets me and this is a thing that really is transformative from a business model

00:09:38.560 perspective about fentanyl is that it is completely synthetic it doesn't require and most of the

00:09:45.900 synthetic things that are put into fentanyl and ai wouldn't go down how they were made with me i

00:09:51.380 really tried guys because i wanted to get the like the biggest most holistic picture but it's a low cost

00:09:56.300 of goods sold probably they they can usually they usually have other real industrial purposes which means

00:10:02.740 that is hard to ban them yeah almost to the extent where one of the questions i kept asking myself is

00:10:10.960 why are they making this mostly in mexico and not in the united states yeah it just seems like it would

00:10:16.080 be easier right it must be that the labs are actually pretty expensive to put together and if that's the

00:10:21.300 case that would make all the more reason to do it in the u.s what do you mean expensive then there's the

00:10:25.120 variable cost of a lab being rated and in mexico that cost would go to almost nothing oh because law

00:10:30.280 enforcement is much weaker in mexico therefore it's a better market for yeah the gangs have better 1.00

00:10:34.740 control of the regions they control also keep in mind by the way if you're like trying to picture

00:10:39.540 fentanyl because you're like me and you had no idea what fentanyl looks like it's transported in a

00:10:43.620 powdered state yeah anyone who's gone through ivf will probably be familiar with this or like who's

00:10:49.100 dealt with other drugs like there are many if you're injecting something drugs that come in a shelf

00:10:55.420 stable powder and then to inject it you reconstitute it with saline solution so you take a syringe you

00:11:01.700 take out a certain amount of saline solution you insert that in you to mix in with your powder but

00:11:08.640 before that like the powder doesn't need to be refrigerated it's an incredibly small vial

00:11:13.760 very concentrated it's like so easy to deliver and of course all these other things too this is so

00:11:19.600 great you don't need specialized equipment for this you can just use standard medical equipment that's

00:11:23.560 sterile that's pretty easy to get it's man this yeah and and it's a good business case right like

00:11:30.880 you can see but then this brings a mystery why wasn't anybody trafficking it in large amounts before

00:11:37.600 2014 yeah right like that's a question that it's a head scratcher and we've known how to make it since the

00:11:45.520 1950s okay it's been made illegally for decades at this point yeah so it's not a new idea that you

00:11:53.520 could make this illegally and when you ask ai it keeps giving me answers or or look up news articles

00:11:59.440 that are just like that's obviously not it like it'll say oh the rise of the dark net and it's

00:12:04.400 like well it's not the rise of the dark net because that wouldn't change what drugs would work well right

00:12:09.640 yeah the access to drugs and i can see that having a big when we're looking at this overdose explosion

00:12:15.480 but or they'll be like oh covid i'm like what what are you talking about covid what are you talking

00:12:23.000 about so can you guess what it is actually no but i'm i'm pretty sure i figured i don't think i'm

00:12:29.720 informed enough to know so my guess here if i'm looking at the graph and i'm looking at the medications

00:12:36.280 that are there this doesn't perfectly track with my theory but a lot of readers or sorry a lot of

00:12:44.360 listeners of this podcast have also read this book it's called blitzed it's sort of about like

00:12:48.600 amphetamine use during world war ii yeah yeah well but also like by a lot of people at that time and it

00:12:55.480 was just this like you know feeling down after having a baby as a new nursing mother try amphetamines

00:13:01.880 you'll feel great like it was just a cure for everything but i don't think we saw the same

00:13:07.400 number of um overdose or even interestingly it seems addiction wasn't that widespread a problem

00:13:15.000 this is a widely marketed product right and and like just all over the place women are being 1.00

00:13:20.200 encouraged to take it it's a pick me up it gets you know well it's because it wasn't that powerful

00:13:24.360 back then fentanyl is extremely yeah no fentanyl is extremely powerful i'm giving you that but like

00:13:29.320 people could take more pills for example to up increase their dose if they developed resistance

00:13:34.360 i think a lot of it had to do also with contextualization like that that you were taking

00:13:39.240 it to solve a problem to be more productive but that if you discovered that it was kind of causing

00:13:43.480 problems in your life you would stop taking it because your goal wasn't to get high your goal

00:13:48.360 was to be productive it was to take care of your baby it was to like manage your business it was to do

00:13:52.200 your work it was to fight in world war ii and do terrible evil things and i i also even see that

00:14:00.040 with like problems with benzos in the 80s and it was just like you're stressed out and need to need

00:14:05.560 to calm down although cocaine was huge in the 80s right and that that maybe like you know it was it

00:14:12.200 was to work hard because this was the time but i think that now it's a cultural issue and i guess it's

00:14:17.080 it's because i'm addicted to calling everything a cultural issue but now like the exact point i'm

00:14:22.360 making is it's not it's not that they were not doing the same thing in blitz you are comparing

00:14:28.200 marijuana from the 50s to marijuana today so you think that the nature of this is just that now

00:14:33.000 everything's so powerful and in the past it wasn't it wasn't powerful yeah it's so they were like

00:14:38.760 drinking the equivalent of watered down wine and now you're comparing light beer to moonshine and yeah

00:14:46.280 you're trying to figure out why people aren't dying from light beer okay okay it's a completely

00:14:51.720 different phenomenon well so is that why no that's not why okay because for a while now we've had the

00:14:57.800 ability to concentrate it so why is corporatism what big american companies what that's why we have

00:15:05.960 this problem so now i'm going to tell a side story which will reconnect with the fentanyl story

00:15:11.720 in just a second okay pharmaceutical companies particularly purdue pharma engaged in aggressive

00:15:18.840 marketing tactics to promote opioids like oxycontin they were spending billions upon billions of

00:15:25.640 dollars marketing these drugs okay they downplayed addictive risk companies falsely claimed that

00:15:31.160 opioids were not addictive when used as prescribed despite evidence to the contrary purdue pharma for

00:15:36.440 example misrepresented oxycontin as less addictive and less likely to cause withdrawal than other

00:15:41.000 medications misuse of scientific evidence pursue pharma cited outdated narrow narrow and misrepresented

00:15:48.200 studies to support claims about oxycontin safety they used a 1980s letter to the editor not a research

00:15:55.960 article as evidence of low addiction rates taking it out of context aggressive marketing tactics companies

00:16:02.280 used sales representatives to frequently visit and persuade doctors provide financial incentives and gifts to

00:16:09.560 prescribers and funded biased continuing medical education programs they targeted vulnerable

00:16:15.080 populations companies deliberately targeted susceptible prescribers and patient groups including those

00:16:20.600 more likely to become addicted promoting off-label use some companies like purdue pharma were found guilty

00:16:26.760 of unlawfully marking opioids for unapproved users including long-term chronic pain management failure to

00:16:34.040 report suspicious orders mckesson corporation violated the controlled substance act by failing to maintain

00:16:41.160 effective controls against diversion of opioids and reporting suspicious orders to the dea deceptive

00:16:48.360 marketing practices after purdue pharma faced legal action and reduced its marketing of oxycontin competing

00:16:55.000 companies increased their opioid marketing efforts 160 percent specifically targeting oxycontin prescribers funding

00:17:03.640 front organizations companies allegedly funded non-profit organizations to influence

00:17:08.200 prescribers beliefs about opioids a false appearance of independent advocacy so very interesting there

00:17:14.680 were billions of dollars in the u.s trying to get people attached to opioids so do you know when the major

00:17:23.480 lawsuit happened that shut most of this down 2014 oh gosh oh oh no

00:17:34.280 oh so all the people who were addicted because of the company and we're buying it from the companies

00:17:42.440 now we're buying it from yeah uh santa clara county along with orange county filed the nation's

00:17:47.800 first government lawsuit against drug companies for their role in the opioid epidemic

00:17:53.640 so they clamped down and suddenly everyone's going to mexico well it wasn't just that they clamped down

00:18:01.560 they created an environment and i want you to i'm going to put a graph on the screen here so the

00:18:06.760 first major clamp down was in 2014 but then in 2019 that's when the extensive lawsuit in new york

00:18:14.280 this was when the new york attorneys general followed what could be prescribed as the nature's

00:18:16.920 most extensive lawsuit told companies responsible for the opioid epidemic and i want you to look at what

00:18:22.280 what happens in 2019 to the rates of opioid use they explode again a second big jump so what happened

00:18:31.720 was twofold major companies were able to spend billions of dollars getting the general public

00:18:37.640 addicted to opioids and then the the the cartels who may not have seen a business case for the opioids

00:18:47.160 before this were now like oh this is much better than heroin let's go with this

00:18:53.560 oh boy and that is what ended up happening so i'm glad we're having this conversation because this is

00:18:59.080 the thing you just we haven't talked about a lot personally and i feel so on the fence about it i i read

00:19:08.280 the book on the silk road and the dread pirate roberts and how it all came to be and that he was such

00:19:16.040 a an ideologically staunch libertarian especially when it came to access to drugs and he was basically just

00:19:24.440 very in favor of this being free and untraceable i'm in his ideal world everything would be totally decriminalized

00:19:33.400 all drug use and i there's a part of me that's like yeah if this were if this were not criminalized at the

00:19:43.800 very least we would see safer products out there what you forget is the murders that are committed because

00:19:52.840 of drugs which is yeah well really high rate but what happened after the corporate corruption stopped

00:20:01.160 overdose deaths skyrocketed they weren't high before i mean it kind of implies to me that they were like

00:20:07.640 i haven't i haven't gone into the murder rate increase and stuff like that which is bad

00:20:12.280 it's horrible so i think that that the externalities here are so high that it does not make sense so

00:20:19.880 libertarian stuff makes sense when there is no externalities that need to be priced in

00:20:24.360 the externalities are too high we need to go with penal colonies i think that's the the real solution

00:20:30.120 here back to simone's dream i was actually recently talking to someone and i actually quite like the

00:20:35.480 idea of shipping because it would be our our criminals within our prison system cost so much

00:20:41.480 what if haiti we ship them to haiti and we paid the haitian government to for for every criminal we

00:20:48.040 were shipping them they would likely be honestly better educated than the average haitian citizen 0.99

00:20:53.000 right now um well no haiti just has a huge experiencing an insane brain drain yes anyone 0.67

00:20:58.920 who gets educated gets out if you're like a doctor or you can get like a an educated job you're going

00:21:03.560 to flee the country right now it's a terrible place to be i'm i'm saying this objectively and not as a

00:21:09.800 even haitians in the u.s they're going to be like oh yeah like i have a college degree that's why i left

00:21:14.760 i wouldn't mind shipping criminals there they'd probably be slightly better in terms of being

00:21:21.400 able to help stabilize the economy if criminals go there though they then also have to get some

00:21:27.560 governing rights i think because one of the reasons why haiti became so terrible i mean it's right next 0.96

00:21:32.440 to the it's right next to the dr right like they're on the same freaking island and the dr is okay it's not

00:21:37.960 perfect but it's nice there's lots of resorts there a lot of tourism and then you have haiti

00:21:43.880 it's deforested they've they've ruined their environment they've they've really screwed it

00:21:48.520 up i feel like i want to i want to give these criminals a chance malcolm you're not giving them

00:21:53.880 a chance we're saying we can send criminals there but they at least need to be armed and have a

00:21:58.280 defensible location yeah it's it's cruel and unusual to send them to haiti malcolm that's not fair

00:22:03.880 many criminals would jump at the idea yeah haiti versus jail yeah yeah i mean maybe honestly

00:22:13.560 maybe haiti's for sale this seems like the kind of thing trump could do is okay he tried to make

00:22:19.960 some other big country moves he tried to buy greenland which was a really smart idea greenland

00:22:24.440 would have been great maybe he can settle for haiti it's probably on sale right now turn it into a giant

00:22:30.200 penal colony and just send them out there um that's your plan i i don't know if that's well i i or or

00:22:40.840 you know if you don't want to do something as controversial as that it's just i feel like

00:22:44.040 it could solve two problems with one stone you know what i mean help haiti and

00:22:48.360 yeah yeah you're gonna have a hard time getting like educated people to move to haiti right now

00:22:55.400 and and that's what they need to fix their local economy at the moment yeah no but hold on let's

00:22:59.960 let's go back to the whole libertarian idea so so but you're saying that if we decriminalized

00:23:06.520 illicit substances that there would be more violence because i think the problem is that because

00:23:12.920 we shifted from a corporatized market of opioids to now an illegal market it's worse and if it were

00:23:21.000 a legal market probably overdoses would be somewhat less and probably criminal activity would be lower

00:23:28.680 because it wouldn't be criminal and you wouldn't have these very dangerous and heavily armed gangs

00:23:33.720 doing it and production would be in the united states and i feel like production would be a little

00:23:37.480 bit higher quality and i'm not saying don't have some equivalent of okay i i if i was gonna say

00:23:43.560 anything around these types of drugs like in terms of you're like okay you know they shouldn't be

00:23:48.840 produced i would not have them produced by corporations because then the corporations have

00:23:52.440 a motivation to get people addicted and we've seen that they are yes motivated by that it has to be small

00:23:57.160 businesses only somehow no not small businesses only this is like one of the few areas i would say

00:24:01.720 something should be the government i think the government should sell wow that's an interesting

00:24:09.240 idea frost punk too one of the laws you can enact is government booze where the government sells all

00:24:14.600 booze now well i'm so glad frost punk has given you the response my favorite inspiration you need

00:24:21.640 universes where they're like i kind of like to live in this one frost punk is mine a lot of people are

00:24:26.120 like wait you want to live in the frost punk universe just let me tell you the news my head's been

00:24:30.760 wet i've been down on my bended knees he spoke to me in a voice so go tell that long-term liar go and tell 0.91

00:24:39.960 them that you're down you can throw your rock and hide your hand this is why you live a life of purpose

00:24:49.080 you have a community you're fighting for the survival of the species you don't have to deal with too much

00:24:55.080 indulgence or the the temptation of indulgence which in many ways is worse than you know not just

00:25:01.560 having a purpose and doing your thing you see in frost punk one the core uh question of the game

00:25:08.280 right is are you going to choose like which vice you're going to choose are you going to become

00:25:16.760 fascist or are you going to become a religious extremist and here i am like why can't i just do

00:25:23.320 multi-track drifting like why can't i be both fascist and a religious extremist at the same time and 0.87

00:25:34.680 when i should say fascist they're not really fascist it's more like um pragmatic and totalitarian in

00:25:40.840 terms of how they're ruling the colony which is interpreted in modern parlance and like aesthetics

00:25:46.200 as fascism but that's not real fascism real fascism looks much more like modern like the modern democrat

00:25:51.320 movement if people want to see what real fascism looks like they can look our movement are democrats

00:25:55.480 just fascists because i think that people have forgotten or like it's something like that or

00:25:59.640 like what what's a fascist i have forgotten what fascism is and have gone down these like really long

00:26:05.320 pipelines you know they point out in that video you're like what's a capitalist they're like okay

00:26:09.240 they tell you what's a communist they tell you it's like three words what's a fascist it's like a

00:26:13.480 five paragraph explanation and i'm like you know there's a faster way to explain that the reason you don't

00:26:18.280 know it is because it would show you that the modern democratic party it's a fascist party

00:26:23.400 but anyway totalitarian and and centralized is is the other option i have heard that there are those

00:26:30.200 who would defy us who choose oppression or ascension for the pious dissidents without repent to bend on 1.00

00:26:36.280 questioning the diest was did i am this the right winter blizzards to infinity so sing the hymns and

00:26:41.800 litanies hand in and skin the sinners if you wish to skim divinity each shiver will deliver us

00:26:47.240 deliverance in time earn the innocence for penitence if we preempt the crime but it the game and two

00:26:55.000 it keeps trying to like give me options as if like i'm supposed to hate every one of the options and i

00:27:01.080 just love all the options like you've got the evolvers that are like about you know anything to adapt to

00:27:06.200 the new environment like chopping off limbs and replacing them with stuff or like putting attachments on

00:27:11.240 people's hearts to like make them be tolerant to colder blood you've got like the the religious 0.54

00:27:17.240 faction which is all about you know trying to bring a degree of meritocratic equality to everything

00:27:23.880 but also through the guise of religion and i'm like i love both of you guys you don't need to fight

00:27:29.240 what are you looking up you're clearly googling something yeah so well i'm just i really want to

00:27:36.760 think through more decriminalization it because saying let's just have the government provide

00:27:42.920 drugs is not going to happen in our lifetimes unless something really awesome happens they're

00:27:49.320 already handing out fentanyl on the streets in major cities right except here's the thing so

00:27:53.720 oregon was the first and to my knowledge only state to decriminalize drugs and i just double checked

00:27:59.000 because i heard this but now oregon is is recriminalizing them doing yeah because well i think

00:28:05.880 the bigger problem and i was trying to find out if this was indeed confirmed because i've heard this

00:28:10.120 but i've not yet read it properly yet but oregon could not afford the treatment centers that it had

00:28:17.640 tried that it was obligated under the new law i think to set up for people when they had serious

00:28:23.320 addiction problems and i think the problem with their decriminalization was that it also included a

00:28:29.800 commitment to treat people who are addicted and that's prohibitively expensive and that is where

00:28:35.800 i struggle with decriminalization even to the level of government provision of very addictive substances

00:28:44.600 is you are going to end up with a lot of people just super addicted i mean a couple generations later

00:28:51.560 though that type of that any set of genes that allows for that to happen really easily is going to be

00:28:57.320 bred out of the population because these people are just going to die i think you need the counters 1.00

00:29:01.320 to this freely and easily accessible and that's the problem is opioid agonists are criminal well they're

00:29:07.160 difficult to get with naltrexone being the main one and i think that naltrexone should not just be

00:29:13.000 something that you can get easily for free anywhere but it should be i think a cultural norm among many

00:29:19.240 groups um and naltrexone by the way is just one of those like insane wonder drugs like aspirin or

00:29:26.280 something like that so for people who don't know like aspirin is like insanely good like across

00:29:31.160 everything it like almost does no harm and like has a ton of weird side benefits that you wouldn't

00:29:37.000 expect naltrexone the core opioid agonist it's so for example i take it for alcohol so i don't get

00:29:43.880 addicted to alcohol and throughout covet i never got covet and i was like oh am i one of those weird

00:29:48.600 people who's immune to covet then i look up and there's a study saying naltrexone creates

00:29:52.280 covet immunity and i'm like oh okay i didn't realize that yeah we couldn't figure out why

00:29:58.680 whenever our whole family tested positive you wouldn't test positive yeah i didn't realize i

00:30:05.000 was taking a low dose antiviral so it's one of those things that just has like a ton of positive

00:30:09.720 externalities the only real negatives to it is it quote-unquote like theoretically can damage a liver

00:30:17.080 i guess if you have a very weak constitution but i get checked all the time and i had problems with

00:30:21.400 my liver when i was drinking a lot i don't have trouble now and i drink still quite a lot but

00:30:27.240 with naltrexone and so like basically considering what it's treating your body will be better off

00:30:33.720 even if it's a little harder on the liver to start it's 100 worth it in the majority of cases

00:30:39.880 yeah and then the other thing is oh no it makes you not want to do other addictive things like

00:30:44.520 repeatedly check facebook repeatedly check my youtube stats you got to keep that up so i know that like

00:30:50.920 like i'm still valid like and subscribe by the way um life and describe

00:30:59.800 also actually if if you are willing to and you have an iphone could you please leave us a five-star

00:31:06.760 review in apple podcasts it would mean a lot to us but okay what i'm hearing from you is you're saying

00:31:15.320 in an ideal scenario the government would provide any highly addictive substance it would also provide

00:31:24.600 very readily probably for free subsidized by the profits of drug purchases naltrexone and

00:31:35.880 then probably we'd see fewer deaths on the whole and a healthier society on the whole no i would add one

00:31:43.320 additional thing to this i think that the drug centers and the places where you buy the drugs

00:31:49.640 they need to be cordoned off areas so if you choose to be one of the people who's buying fentanyl

00:31:57.880 you cannot live in you know outside specific sort of cordoned off communities now these communities

00:32:04.600 would have jobs they'd have ability to work but you wouldn't be able to easily interact with the rest of

00:32:11.320 society like drive on roads yeah i think the best way to do this is to build them in remote locations

00:32:19.000 that you know and likely around some sort of a business that could use it maybe it's near some

00:32:24.760 mines maybe it's near some do you want people working in mines while high off their minds well

00:32:31.720 i don't i i think you could if you knew that the settlement oh you'd just be testing you would just do

00:32:37.240 tests for specific things okay um but like or like rural alaska or something like that like i think

00:32:43.400 that there is uh rural areas and you could do this at a state level where you could concentrate these

00:32:50.040 individuals and prevent them from being the problem that they're being within cities and then people are

00:32:54.600 like well then everyone wouldn't go but what you do is you way way way lower the punishments here like

00:33:00.120 you get to live your regular life you have to buy from the government but you have to be one of these 0.96

00:33:05.400 people who's taking this and people can be like well that would hurt your career prospects and

00:33:09.560 everything like that it's like yeah it's a hit but typically when you start to get desperate you're

00:33:14.040 desperate anyway and it's probably better just to separate them from society and they don't know

00:33:18.840 here's where i think you're making a mistake i think it has to be what we found works well with

00:33:24.600 alcohol seems to work well which is we you're not allowed to do various things while drunk or while high

00:33:32.680 with with other drugs that are considered legal and that's where the punishment lies but as soon

00:33:38.680 as you make it so restrictive where you literally have to live somewhere different or work somewhere

00:33:44.920 different to access these you're going to have a black market for them and it's the black market that

00:33:49.960 creates the problem in the first place so the problem isn't the black market and also the problem

00:33:54.680 isn't the wealthy guy who is mixing fentanyl with like his party drugs or something like that

00:34:01.240 it's the the gang member and the the low-income individual who just doesn't have as much to lose

00:34:07.880 by moving the the crime is not being committed by yeah i i don't think it's going to cause the

00:34:15.640 externalities you think it will and at the end of the day i think we should at least try it i mean

00:34:20.200 they try to what was what was that where they hand out money to people experiment universal basic

00:34:25.480 income yeah universal basic income why why can't they try a penal colony you know we we have we have 0.93

00:34:32.920 the lefty side of the ea movement trying their stuff why can't the righty side of the ea movement

00:34:38.600 occasionally try something eventually there will be depopulated towns like those japanese towns now that

00:34:45.720 are basically ghost towns we already have actually a decent number of ghost towns in the us where we

00:34:51.400 could theoretically try something like this well yeah yeah i i think you make a good point is like

00:34:57.800 these are just ideas now but they will be easy ideas to implement in maybe 50 years time oh definitely

00:35:04.200 at that point you can even insert the equivalent of one of those electric fences for dogs but for humans

00:35:10.440 because you have something embedded deep within your spinal cord that will

00:35:14.280 tase you whenever you try to leave the bounds so it will work just fine absolutely and if you look

00:35:20.200 actually at the graph dystopian well you look at the rates that fentanyl addiction is rising like if we

00:35:26.360 don't find a way to stop this right like it's exploding upwards it's asomatopic at this point it's not

00:35:32.600 leveling off well what do we do with our kids i mean part of this also i still feel that there's a big

00:35:42.600 cultural element here and i feel like we we have these conversations around masturbation as well

00:35:49.480 around lots of behaviors that when you make it illegal when you make it shameful people do it

00:35:55.160 behind closed doors and in a way that's even more damaging no no no so masturbation is a human

00:35:59.960 instinct that is pre-evolved because we had to reproduce in a historic context you are born addicted to

00:36:06.760 arousal patterns and you're born wanting to feel good yeah but you're not born addicted to fentanyl 0.98

00:36:12.680 you need to take fentanyl the first time to be addicted to fentanyl yeah you don't need to masturbate 0.93

00:36:18.280 the first you don't even need to take fentanyl one time to be addicted to fentanyl 0.99

00:36:23.560 what do you mean by that how many times have i taken fentanyl okay so you you would have to take

00:36:30.280 it multiple multiple times i've taken it six times no seven very low addiction rate well okay

00:36:37.000 yeah but also like i don't think women who've gone through multiple rounds of ivf because that's when 1.00

00:36:40.920 i've had fentanyl they like typically give it to women during egg extraction and we're yeah or egg

00:36:46.280 retrieval they say i i don't hear about that ever being an issue and people are given clearly thought

00:36:52.200 it was an issue with you they joked about it they were like you don't need to do more rounds just

00:36:57.400 getting so many rounds done to get fentanyl yeah like as if i don't think there are easier ways

00:37:02.920 clearly to get it i mean it's still offered it's still it is still integrated i mean i'm sure i've

00:37:08.360 also been given it during or after c-sections and stuff too and just you know not really aware of what

00:37:14.360 what exactly is in the mix but i yeah i just don't i i think a lot of it does there is something to be

00:37:22.360 said for context and culture like sorry i'm talking to someone here who has done fentanyl

00:37:27.480 before really good really fantastic that whole like sleepy eyes rolling back into your head

00:37:34.440 very relaxed happy feeling that's it it's great like i wouldn't pass up an option

00:37:41.800 yeah i the the wait what was the wider point i was making here my my point is that i i think that

00:37:49.080 there is a role that culture plays and that when medications when substances are treated in an

00:37:55.800 instrumental fashion and here's the appropriate place to do it and here's the appropriate place

00:38:00.200 not to do it when they're when they're societally legalized culturally legalized we can build frameworks

00:38:07.080 for managing them and then when we make them societally ego legal like this is a bad drug we don't

00:38:13.480 talk about it don't ever do it and so there's no framework to do it occasionally properly then

00:38:20.440 people will only do it improperly you have this impression so her family has done lots of drugs and

00:38:26.840 is never addicted to anything my family gets addicted to the littlest effing thing

00:38:32.760 one drug ever you're going to be addicted forever ever ever you are approaching this from a family that

00:38:38.920 basically does not have opioid pathway um that is why you think this

00:38:47.400 no you don't like for example you just drink whatever you feel like right like you have no

00:38:52.120 like drive to drink yeah it does seem it does seem kind of like my life my entire life is on naltrexone

00:38:59.640 whereas you have to take naltrexone to feel my life i i actually really agree with that sentiment

00:39:06.120 actually even your behavior pattern it's like someone on naltrexone yeah um you show me anything

00:39:12.280 rewarding and i'm like okay yeah it's like when i took you scuba diving and i was like trying to

00:39:19.000 show you all the wonders of nature you came back and you were like you were like what were you pointing

00:39:26.040 at and i was you were like it was a fish you're like why did i go down to that reef it was just a

00:39:32.200 bunch of fish like you have no wonder like the world or anything like that like the things that

00:39:38.520 cause opioid pathways and other people you just do not experience and so you're just like ah whatever

00:39:45.160 yeah i wish i don't know there must be we should go through nebula to see if they have any random

00:39:51.000 polygenic scores related to like addictive behavior like it would it be possible in the future for people

00:39:59.080 doing pgtp to select embryos for lower risk of addiction it might be very meaningful because we

00:40:07.640 are already full in to an era in which we are constantly going to be subject to addictive

00:40:14.840 pathways social media that i intermarried with you because that is one of my biggest risks in the

00:40:21.080 current era is i am really susceptible to opioid pathways and it's only going to get so much worse

00:40:25.960 it's so much worse actually so so by the way fun aside here when we're speaking about your

00:40:32.920 naltrexone character yeah but we can just give naltrexone to kids as an option right you know like

00:40:37.960 not that i would give them i'm not saying i would do that i'm just saying that having access to opioid

00:40:43.880 agonists might be useful in an age of constant dopamine loops within an online environment and obviously i

00:40:51.800 wouldn't you know without illegal changes or stuff like that my wife is running for office 1.00

00:40:57.320 uh suggest that this stuff be more widely accessible what i would say well it prevents

00:41:03.960 anything from being addictive if you happen to be born with an addictive but but but side note here

00:41:11.240 when i was talking about naltrexone watching an anime recently and it has replaced so occasionally i'll

00:41:17.640 watch a show and i'll be like this is my new like peak simone vibes show the first the first peak

00:41:23.000 simone vibe for me was julie from avatar the last airbender barracks assistant i'll forget it's very

00:41:29.320 simone not goblin slayer no no which character would you be in goblin slayer just i'm the person

00:41:37.160 autistically who only wants to do one thing oh no no i'm not stuck in a cuteness sense like girl

00:41:42.600 oh then it was tomo chan is a girl because i was like yeah she's got that very like confident sort 0.99

00:41:48.760 of vibe seriously this is all because you have a crush on the captain and you're like a couple

00:41:53.800 lost puppies in love and you need me to come save you why does she sound so happy i always dreamed of

00:42:00.200 what it might be like to be that girl other girls came to for love advice if these chicks are asking for 1.00

00:42:04.520 my help then being me must be the ultimate female goal i'm willing to help if you're willing to take it 0.78

00:42:12.600 why do i feel so reassured oh man never in my life did i ever think i'd be a love guru they were

00:42:19.720 both talking to me like i was totally one of the girls and who knows maybe i'm setting a new standard

00:42:24.200 for ultimate femininity wait hang on a sec but now peak new mau mau from apothecary's diary

00:42:35.320 is so simone i have to put like a clip on screen here or something like this okay similar to the jade 0.98

00:42:41.960 pavilion the servants here are hard workers there are a few idiots who could learn a thing or two 0.97

00:42:47.400 from them if he knew so many high-ranking rich guys he should have offered them sooner with access 0.98

00:42:53.800 to this kind of referral base i could have decimated my loan amount i'll just grin and bear it

00:43:00.600 the only thing i missed was my freedom to experiment with poison

00:43:07.720 you shouldn't be dabbling in poison at all do people ever tell you you're hard to read yes

00:43:13.400 routinely but i am loving it i i finished the series by the way it's a sweet series you might

00:43:18.520 actually like it it's dubbed as well so you know when you're watching your mindless brain rot

00:43:22.440 it takes place just a pitch here because you'd like this it takes place in the emperor's court in

00:43:28.600 imperial china yeah you know imperial china doesn't do it for me really i'm super about japan i'm super

00:43:37.800 about south korea you know yeah i've toured the forbidden palace i've gone to like the beautiful

00:43:45.320 temples in beijing i've traveled i mean i've gone all the way from now it just doesn't

00:43:51.720 what is it is it the the the costumes is it the

00:43:58.440 it's really hard for me to put a finger on it like i'm just because she typically loves like

00:44:04.360 court life stuff and yeah i love court like stuff yeah like i'm just picturing burning cows i i i can't

00:44:12.200 really well articulate this um burning cows yeah like offerings to the gods but that i mean no this

00:44:18.840 is just it's it's very it's a very vibes based i hate that word but like it's very vibes based

00:44:25.560 simone we need to i i'm not i'm not happy with your vibe it's it feels

00:44:32.040 i mean all all of all these you know courts and stuff are bureaucratic but for whatever reason

00:44:38.120 chinese historical courts feel

00:44:43.080 stiflingly bureaucratic instead of like fun bureaucratic it's a yeah it's an element of the

00:44:51.400 show it's lots of bureaucrats well it's it's it's over the sort of competition between the courtesans 1.00

00:44:58.520 and the the main character is an incredibly competent person which you like yeah but i think here's the

00:45:04.040 thing is in historical japanese european korean court dramas there's this sense that there could be

00:45:14.440 some disruption that you know the entire order could could change you know but okay well now the boylands

00:45:21.000 are gonna take over whatever like oh yeah good point yeah there is there is room for an upset um the

00:45:28.520 furthest i ever really see an upset go in like chinese court dramas it's like i'm gonna be the 0.95

00:45:34.840 number one main bitch like like dreaming big is not like the the the oppressiveness of this like 1.00

00:45:43.480 confucian system on one hand it is admirable because it's so effective but on the other hand 1.00

00:45:50.520 it is to me the most horrifying stagnated thing ever because you can't overcome it it cannot be

00:45:56.280 disrupted it cannot be shaken and i see that as a point of of stifling it's like being buried in a

00:46:03.960 coffin and slowly running out of oxygen i i can't deal with it so that's so you need you need the

00:46:10.280 disruption you need the turnover which court does it best for you then out of all the court systems

00:46:15.400 which one do you like shows on the most french court the french court movie the 14th wait you would

00:46:21.400 like i'm sorry and boleyn era yes henry court hands down so much turnover in king louis the 14th but

00:46:29.720 specifically under the sun king he created the most beautiful prison for an extremely threatening

00:46:39.640 nobility and he trolled the hell out of them with his etiquette system he just i i've never seen an

00:46:48.840 ownage of other powerful people by one powerful family or really person in any other point in

00:46:55.720 history just trounced and just humiliated king louis the 14th he's he is the king famous for building

00:47:03.160 versailles turning a mosquito-ridden swampy hunting lodge into one of the most famous now tourist destinations

00:47:08.680 of all time he grew up in this period of a series of rebellions of nobles that were extremely

00:47:15.320 threatening to them you know he's like in hiding in the countryside for a lot of his childhood he's

00:47:18.920 he is a very acutely aware of the fact that there is a a wealth of very powerful like the most wealthy

00:47:25.960 powerful people in his country he is the this boy king with his mother serving his i think regent for

00:47:30.920 a while along with cardinal richel i think i'm getting the names wrong whatever it doesn't matter

00:47:35.560 but like he is growing up with all the cards stacked against him in such a threatening and hostile

00:47:40.120 environment what does he do he builds versailles he takes this hunting lodge that outside of paris

00:47:45.800 that you know everything the whole court used to be in paris you know he was surrounded by this like

00:47:50.120 den of wolves there and what does he do he moves the court to this hunting lodge that he's building

00:47:55.800 up that is a complete dump that is absolutely horrible i mean it reminds me a lot of washington dc you

00:48:00.520 know like just like bad environment blah like why would you go there no one wants to be there

00:48:07.240 on the like stairwells and stuff if i remember well like during construction yeah i mean like

00:48:12.040 people got there literally their shit under control over time but yes it was not no one wanted to be

00:48:17.480 there and as it was being built but this is this is again this is what makes him so impressive is he's 0.93

00:48:22.200 like all right this is where the court's going to be everyone this is where if you want to matter

00:48:26.200 you have to be here and and we have nobles like literally living in closets in this palace it's

00:48:31.720 under construction it is a mess there's construction materials everywhere you are

00:48:35.400 shitting in the stairways because there's nowhere else to go like and but you are there and then 0.99

00:48:40.040 he over time builds this elaborate set of court etiquette not because he is a weird pompous bastard 0.99

00:48:47.400 but because he is using it to control the nobility he is using access to him he is using proximity to him 0.61

00:48:54.920 like many kings have before and many kings well and and leaders have sense but like he's using it as

00:49:00.360 as a tool but he's like literally making these people obsess that he's like turning them into

00:49:06.520 instagram stars like so like now it's they're spending all their money and time instead of

00:49:10.680 thinking about overthrowing him although people still think about overthrowing him all the time

00:49:15.000 they're thinking about fashion they're getting about how to get closer to them how to get their wife

00:49:19.480 in like you know some bedchamber role so she can be one of the people who hands the stockings who 1.00

00:49:23.640 hands the stockings to the other person who finally puts the stocking on one queen after they switch out for

00:49:27.400 another person like these these rules are elaborate he's literally reading off legal documents to

00:49:32.680 people while taking a dump in his beautiful little bathroom like just the level of humiliation that

00:49:38.520 he's subjecting the most senior people to is is insane and is that what you would do as queen

00:49:45.000 i don't i don't have the iq for that i don't have the social acuity but he so like he turned this whole

00:49:50.760 thing into this like amazing troll where he like creates this it's like it's like squid game it's like

00:49:56.120 reality tv he like suddenly creates this and he's like survivor bachelor edition like all of it put

00:50:01.320 together and he completely distracts them and he creates this amazing french court and and he sleeps

00:50:06.040 with everyone's wives while he's at it and has amazing romances and and it's just like what and

00:50:11.000 then his brother his brother this fabulous gay one right well he i mean he had male and female lovers

00:50:17.560 he had a wife he had children but yeah no he had amazing gay lovers and he would sometimes just

00:50:21.400 fabulously like well when people are like well there he goes he's wearing a great dress today and they

00:50:24.840 didn't make a big deal out of it because that's just how things were people just if you want to 0.95

00:50:28.280 pull it off pull it off okay and then he would go and like kick ass in battle because that's what you 0.97

00:50:32.200 do and come on that is a court that's a court screw this like imperial nonsense in china i'm not into 0.98

00:50:39.560 that you can't you don't see right you're right it is less spicy i mean the i i still honestly i'm

00:50:45.960 more pro the anne berlin story the the king henry story honestly i just i found that more depressing

00:50:52.280 because here you have you know two like both the boylan sisters incredibly brilliant also trained

00:50:58.520 in the french court all right how did they get so cunning and smart and great you've got like

00:51:03.480 these amazing characters like cardinal wolsey who's like so intelligent and so cunning and in the french

00:51:08.840 courts all the intelligence is it's sort of like a female intelligence i guess i'd say where it's like 1.00

00:51:13.880 petty and throwing people under the bus it's not about actually trying to build a sustainable better

00:51:21.000 you everyone in the british system every one of their plans was to create a utopian

00:51:27.640 better society that is true that is true they were all fighting over how to create the best

00:51:32.200 the best world or the i mean a few of his wives were just like boring like woman woman like the spanish 1.00

00:51:39.800 one that he started with catherine of aragon yeah well but she was but she was doing her job as a pious

00:51:46.360 wife everyone is the main character syndrome no no yeah well yeah and yeah i yeah i guess the the

00:51:52.200 everyone's fighting for themselves in the french court whereas in the english court everyone is

00:51:57.480 fighting for the species and i get that even catherine of aragon was doing what she thought for the

00:52:02.200 betterment of humanity king hammer the eighth totally thought that although he had his distractions

00:52:06.920 yeah the boylan sisters were just being they were being used to like every other woman who's 1.00

00:52:10.840 thrown at him except for that like no they were trying to revolution in the country like they were

00:52:16.600 very religiously focused they they might have quote-unquote been used but they weren't like

00:52:22.200 being used used they were religious extremists in their own way i mean i have respect for that i mean

00:52:29.640 it but it's not as fun and interesting we've got we got the johnny anomaly call now so we gotta hop on

00:52:34.280 that okay i love you bye i mean bye and hello again very like anything else new today

00:52:39.960 no i shared with you my friendship model that was my only fun thought the rest of it was just oh

00:52:47.720 yeah we really got to do an episode on that i'll put that in the notes hold on i'll put it right here

00:52:50.920 get rid of friends get rid of friends to do waste of time well and the real realization that i had since we

00:53:02.840 talked about it was that the only friends that people originally had were utility friends and how can

00:53:09.880 we be the bastards for being utility friend fans when that was literally why everyone had friends

00:53:16.920 in the past people don't know what you're talking about basically what she was no i'm talking to you 0.97

00:53:21.240 malcolm not this isn't for the podcast it is going at the end of the podcast that's why i was asking

00:53:25.480 people like hearing our i really need to be careful about what i say so the utility friends the concept

00:53:30.520 that she's talking about here is to say that the amount of friendships people have had has gone

00:53:34.840 down dramatically recently because a lot of the things you formerly would have asked a friend to do like

00:53:38.440 drive you to you're ruining the podcast take this out let's just start okay i'll just the episode

00:53:43.800 right and what are you working on

00:53:59.960 just

Based Camp - October 04, 2024

The Fentanyl Apocalypse： Why a Century Old Narcotic Exploded in Popularity Out of Nowhere

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