Afghanistan became the world’s #1 producer of poppies by like a magnitude of 10x during the American occupation. After the Taliban took over they banned the growth of poppies.
Just been reading a bit about it and it sounds like the biggest factor might be the reduction in fentanyl use in the US, which shot up (excuse the pun) in relation to heroin over the pandemic due to supply chain pressures and is now falling again. It was accounting for 50-80% of opioid overdoses.
What the US did in Afghanistan and Iraq was really bad though.
From what little I’ve gathered it sounds like it’s a bit more complicated than supply of a single type of opioid. Without removing the same amount of other opioids, and controlling for changes in the broader context of drug use and treatment I think it’s just hard to tell. I’m sure it’s relevant and is something worth noticing though.
opiate availability is not the driving force. Opiods are cheap drugs, trivial to manufacture. ODs are more caused by unreliable supply which has been tampered with, with potent opiates like fent or these new nitazines.
Idk how it is in the usa but more widespread availability of opiod antagonists like narcan are also a significant factor in saving lives.
I’m talking about overdose deaths in the US
Afghanistan became the world’s #1 producer of poppies by like a magnitude of 10x during the American occupation. After the Taliban took over they banned the growth of poppies.
The opioid epidemic was home grown
Ah OK.
Just been reading a bit about it and it sounds like the biggest factor might be the reduction in fentanyl use in the US, which shot up (excuse the pun) in relation to heroin over the pandemic due to supply chain pressures and is now falling again. It was accounting for 50-80% of opioid overdoses.
What the US did in Afghanistan and Iraq was really bad though.
You don’t think removing 80-90% of global poppy production from the market had anything to do with overdoses?
From what little I’ve gathered it sounds like it’s a bit more complicated than supply of a single type of opioid. Without removing the same amount of other opioids, and controlling for changes in the broader context of drug use and treatment I think it’s just hard to tell. I’m sure it’s relevant and is something worth noticing though.
opiate availability is not the driving force. Opiods are cheap drugs, trivial to manufacture. ODs are more caused by unreliable supply which has been tampered with, with potent opiates like fent or these new nitazines.
Idk how it is in the usa but more widespread availability of opiod antagonists like narcan are also a significant factor in saving lives.