Street Drugs

[LovelyLadyLux]

I got this as a forward from a gf who lives in Rhode Island. At first I kinda thought it might be a joke but on chatting with her she confirmed that, 'no' it isn't a joke but a real serious matter these days. I guess it has to do with the actual potency of some of the new street drugs. Really beyond my scope how they're making these new drugs so extremely potent however I do know that HERE in my corner of the world we're in the midst of an epidemic of drugs like fentanyl taking peoples lives on almost an hourly basis.

This is the message: Heard something today that's so worth sharing. You know when you go to Wal-Mart and they have the wipes to clean your cart handle? How many of you don't use them? Well I do and I always thought of the germs only. Was told today that the police chief also suggests you do it also because of all the problems with drugs now days and if they have Fentanyl or something like that still on their hands and they touch that cart then you do ,it can get into your system. Scary but worth taking the time to clean the handle. All you'd have to do is like rub your nose or touch your child's mouth..I never even considered this possibility. But here in this tristate area there have been officers exposed and children exposed to just the powder or residue. And has been a very bad situation. Also think about putting your child in the seat and their little hands coming in contact with something .

[Horus]

I think that this is just another of those warnings that cause panic and although they may be public spirited there is actually very little evidence for this actually happening in real life, even the original report on ‘Facebook’ (a highly dubious source) was removed within hours. While it may be advisable to wipe a supermarket trolley handle and I wish that they offered that same facility in UK supermarkets, but they don’t, as it would at least cut down on general germ transmissions such as viruses. Just touching some Fentanyl residue is unlikely to result in anything serious as it has to pass through the skin, ironically enough though is that if you use an alcohol based wipe on the handle it is more likely to pass through the skin because alcohol will actually assist it to do so.

[LovelyLadyLux]

Really??????

I'm not sure where my gf got this from but I thought it was legit. Fentanyl is a huge problem here and even though our population is tiny, comparatively, people are dropping dead every weekend because of it. One of the other issues with fentanyl here is that even if Naloxone is administered and the person initially comes around they can and do OD several hours later once the anti-OD drug wears off as the fentanyl is still strong in their system.

Just this past week the BC Gov't voted to fund these anti-OD kits to be handed out to ANYBODY via our pharmacies that might come in contact with anybody OD-ing!!!! (Pretty bad commentary on the state of our population overall)

Anyway - I took it seriously as it presented to me as a huge issue (but hey Fake News is everywhere these days!) I had no idea the alcohol in the wipes would assist the transfer of the drug.

https://nanaimonewsnow.com/article/5626 ... ose-crisis

[Horus]

As your article points out they are handing out those kits to people who may use the drug or come in contact with people who do so, I doubt that they mean a supermarket trolley handle. These powerful tranquilliser drugs are certainly killing people, but I doubt if casual hand contact with residue would happen very often and it is hard to envision a situation where this would occur. Breathing in the substance as a powder would be a different matter and this could happen whilst handling the stuff as they use it to cut other drugs and so they will mix it with poor quality Cocaine or Heroin, so dealers, users and say police officers doing a body search may be at risk.

[Grandad]

That really does sound to be an exaggeration of the situation if one even exists. It seems to infer that there are many uses of Fentanyl visiting supermarkets with the powder all over their hands. Typical scaremongering and taking the most remote possibility and blowing it up to epidemic proportions.
And the media don't help by even publishing this stuff.
I just checked Wiki and it is claimed that more than 20,000 uses died as a result of using Fentanyl in the US in 2016. That's 20,000 fewer to claim social benefits in my opinion. I don't have any patience with drug users.

[LovelyLadyLux]

I will admit to not thinking much about it and this particular gf isn't into scaremongering etc. She is actually quite serious minded and I'm thinking quite possibly like me she got the info and so passed it along to me without too much thought.

I have very little to no tolerance for drug addicts. I can understand how over time slowly insidiously people can become alcoholics as alcohol use & overuse can creep up slowly over time without the user necessarily even being aware but nobody starts shooting, snorting, eating, whatever DRUGS without knowing it is illegal and highly addictive. To use METH, heroin, cocaine, fentanyl you've GOT to CRAZY and have to know you're essentially throwing your life away.

Anyway - didn't realize what I cut and pasted was floating about FB and now, on thinking about it it highly overblown that the hordes are rushing to grocery stores with that much drug residue on their hands!