I’ve always heard that a singular dot of fentanyl can kill you. Yet we use it medically, for pain relief. And many people are addicted to it but stay alive while using. Is there like a different method of using it? How do people use it and not die?
In: Chemistry
When it comes to drugs, the dosage or the amount is the thin line between treatment and harm. For fentanyl, and surprisingly a lot of important and life-saving medications, the dose required to provide the medicinal effect is extremely small and heavily regulated. When designing medications and the various ways to use it, whether through a pill to swallow or a patch to apply to the skin, they make sure that the amount inside each individual dose is accurate to a high degree, and difficult to overdose from without taking more than the prescribed the amount. When someone is making illegal medications for abuse, their sources may be more concentrated, less pure, and potentially have more harmful substances inadvertently mixed into it. If someone didn’t “cut” or dilute the mixture properly, their customers might get a substantially lower dose or in lethal cases, a slightly higher dose.
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