How are drugs made cheaper by ‘cutting’ with something that can be even more powerful than the original drug?

Question

How are drugs made cheaper by ‘cutting’ with something that can be even more powerful than the original drug?

In: 357

Answer 1

lol, this is a fun ELI5

Let’s say you have lemonade that costs you $.50 and you sell it for a dollar. You’ll make $.50 profit.

If you add more water it only costs your $.25 so you make an extra $.75. But your customers will notice your lemonade isn’t as good.

So you buy a $.10 sour candy and add that to the lemonade with the extra water. It costs you $.35 to make, but you still sell it for a dollar and customers don’t notice the difference and you make $.65.

lol… replace lemonade with heroin and sour candy with fentanyl.

edit: cost wise fentanyl is smaller and cheaper than heroin, but it’s not used for recreation. So you’re kind of “faking” heroin by using it.