288 arrested in multinational Monopoly Market takedown In an international operation 288 people have been arrested across the US, Europe and South America after allegedly selling opioids on the now-shuttered Monopoly Market dark web drug trafficking marketplace, according to US and European law enforcement. Codenamed "SpecTor," this operation spanned the three continents in what …
Congrats on this to the police involved. But I suspect that there will still be lots of others dealing drugs. On the Radio 4 news tonight a reporter claimed that fentanyl was the leading cause of death for people aged 18 to 45 in the USA. Seems to be a very dangerous drug.
Not that fentanyl is the only product, or the USA the only market. A few days ago, around lunchtime, I was walking home, when I saw a young man waiting by the side of the road. Cycling (the wrong way) up a one way street on one of these electric bicycles, another young man arrived, they greeted each other. The man on the bicycle gave a small package to the other, who provided what appeared to be a small wad of cash. Now, I do not know if that was a drug dealer, and it was in broad daylight, but honestly, what else could it have been? I did not call the police, after all the two would have disappeared very soon after, but I have to say I am worried about such blatant activity (if it was drug dealing) so close to home, and opposite a secondary school too.
Fentanyl is actually a majority American problem. Few other nations have problems with it. Part of this is that so many Americans are addicted to painkillers due to their medical profession handing them out like candy, and people turning to the black market once their legal routes are closed down. It's also become "normalised", which means even those not needing painkillers give them a try and then become addicted to them.
Europe and the UK have more of a focus on the more traditional drugs - Pot, Meth, Coke, Heroin, Ecstasy. The Middle East has a definite problem with Captogen. Asia from memory is Heroin, Meth and more local stuff.
But thankfully Fentanyl hasnt really made it outside of the US, it's such a deadly thing, (so easy to get dosages wrong), that I hope it doesnt spread, and what's in America gets stamped out ASAP.
You seem to be correct about fentanyl being mainly a USA problem, but us Europeans are still worried by it (https://castlecraig.co.uk/addiction/drug-addiction/fentanyl-crisis):
"For some years now the UK and most of Europe have managed to avoid the worst of the crisis in fentanyl use that has escalated in the USA since 2010, causing a huge increase in the number of deaths from overdose. There are signs that this North American public health emergency which when combined with Covid, has reduced American life expectancy by more than two years, maybe crossing the Atlantic. European drug agencies are rightly worried."
Worrying times. I remember seeing a documentary in which Roger Daltry of 'The Who' attributed his still being alive to making a conscious decision to avoid drugs completely. He enjoyed alcohol, but knew that his personality type would get him killed if he tried hard drugs.
The Sacklers and Oxycontin have a lot to answer for.
fentanyl was the leading cause of death for people aged 18 to 45 in the USA
I'm trying to find data to confirm or refute this. Are you sure the reporter didn't say it's the leading cause of overdose deaths? That certainly seems to be confirmed. But fentanyl-related deaths at around 20-something per 100K people are dwarfed by heart disease (~170/100K), cancer (~145), and injuries (~65). And, yes, those correlate positively with age so the "18 to 45" is an important consideration, but even so I'm a bit dubious.
In 2019 the leading cause of death for people younger than 45 in the US was unintentional injury [PDF]. We know there's been a large rise (a Forbes article says "55%") in fentanyl overdose deaths between 2019 and 2022, but that doesn't appear to be enough to put it in the top spot.
Still a big problem, of course. And, yes, it's mostly the fault of the pharmaceutical industry and medical establishment pushing opioids. As usual, the government's "War on Drugs" focused on entirely the wrong thing.
"fentanyl was the leading cause of death for people aged 18 to 45 in the USA
I'm trying to find data to confirm or refute this. "
It was on the BBC Radio 4 news, I may not have noticed some context, it might well be, as you say, the leading cause of overdose deaths in the USA for 18 to 45 years olds. Apologies if I got it wrong, but it is still worrying that it kills so many people, and enslaves so many others to addiction.
Of course the great thing about these international police operations is that you typically have no restrictions on, and may not even need a warrant for, surveillance of non-citizens off-shore . So the Germans can watch Americans, and the Americans can watch Germans.
Big Brother's brother is watching...
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