Why fentanyl busts cause drug deaths to go up

                                                      Dr. Jeffrey Singer

Huge numbers of people die from drug overdoses in the U.S., but somehow drug warriors still get to set policy. 

In a new piece, "Fentanyl Police Busts Actually Make the Overdose Problem Much Worse," David J. Bier and Jeffrey Singer explain why the law enforcement in what RAW called "the war on some drugs" actually makes overdose deaths more likely. Excerpt:

"Start with the short term. When local law enforcement conducts major drug busts, they do temporarily disrupt the market for street drugs, but people who use and have grown dependent on drugs do not simply give up drugs and live clean. Instead, they search out new, unfamiliar dealers who might sell them drugs with different ingredients and potency, which can lead to more deaths.

"Now, it’s true that it might take days or weeks for drug users to connect with a new dealer, and this might seem to 'save lives.' But this often backfires, because by the time they find a new source, users’ tolerance has waned, making them more susceptible to a fatal overdose if they consume their usual dose."

Singer is a reliable source of good information on the war on drugs. (I suspect Bier is, too, but Singer is the person I am more familiar with.)