A reminder about harm reduction!

Submitted by FentCheck t3_11tyf61 in nyc

While celebrating St. Patrick's Day, it's important to remember to do so safely, especially if you plan on drinking or using drugs. Unfortunately, many street drugs are contaminated with fentanyl, a potent and deadly synthetic opioid that can cause accidental overdoses.

That's why organizations like FentCheck are so important. We are a non-profit organization that provides fentanyl test strips and Naloxone kits to individuals and organizations to help prevent overdose deaths. With the proper resources and education, individuals and communities can protect themselves against the dangers of fentanyl, regardless of the drugs they intend to ingest. 

If you or someone you know uses drugs, consider getting a fentanyl test strip from FentCheck (or anywhere!) to check for the presence of fentanyl before using. And if you or someone you know experiences an opioid-related emergency, remember to call 911 and administer Naloxone if available.

The map on our website can guide you to the closest FentCheck location, a venue that works with us to provide these resources to the community.

And of course, please reach out through here or our website if you have a business that would like to participate with our mission, or if you want to volunteer with us!

Let's all have a safe and happy St. Patrick's Day!

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Comments

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borderskitz t1_jcll1jr wrote

No joke, both Prince and Tom Petty died from fentanyl laced pharmaceutical copies. They were sure they were safe.

Skip the powders and the pills and keep the booze and weed to max 2 of each at a time

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joeymorris91 t1_jcllyhj wrote

How do these rich and famous people manage to not get legit pharmaceuticals? Seems crazy to me

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borderskitz t1_jclmjyv wrote

Unless you pick it up yourself at the pharmacy, you never know what you're getting.

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FentCheckNYC t1_jcly657 wrote

LITERALLY this part.

Mac Miller died from pressies as well.

Let's not forget many celebrities use middlemen to acquire their drugs - Rx or otherwise - and like border said - if you didn't pick it up at the pharmacy yourself - you don't *really* actually know.

Then there's the whole level of people knowing the pills are fake/pressies and not actually caring ("I knew the perc was fake but I still ate it cause I'm a gremlin")

If you're gonna use powder and pills - PLEASE test them.

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VenetaBirdSong t1_jcm54us wrote

Was it ever confirmed that Tom Petty died from fent-laced pressies? Tox reports state he had multiple drugs in his system, including fentanyl, oxycodone, and various benzos/ssris. But he could’ve had a legit script and just accidentally took too much. It happens. I’d rather not spread misinformation unless it’s 100% certain.

Edit - also, yes. Harm reduction is key. The various non-profits that engage in this throughout the city are doing great work, keep it up!

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borderskitz t1_jcm99go wrote

As they're cutting all kinds of drugs with fentanyl, there's no way of knowing how it got him if he was taking multiple drugs.

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VenetaBirdSong t1_jcmatub wrote

Exactly my point. To say he died from fent-laced pharmaceutical copies is a specious. There’s no way of knowing. He very well could’ve had a legit fentanyl patch prescribed to him.

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borderskitz t1_jcmjc6l wrote

Sure, but so what? Doesn't make taking any pill these days safer.

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VenetaBirdSong t1_jcmjzxh wrote

We’re on the same side here. But if you’re going to write something in the first sentence of your first paragraph about two beloved musical heroes who died of ODs, and claim it’s b/c of fent-laced fake pills, I’m going to call BS on that because no one knows the details. I don’t want misinformation spread.

Opioids are bad.

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RW3Bro t1_jcmbe19 wrote

The only thing this works for is pressed opiates. If you’re doing nose drugs there’s absolutely no way to test 50mg (likely less) and be sure the other 950mg are safe when it takes just a few milligrams to kill someone without tolerance.

Don’t give people a sense of false confidence with this test kit shit. It only works for presses. You should not be doing coke right now if you care about your life.

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FentCheck OP t1_jcmyfdi wrote

Hi! Appreciate you weighing in here, this is an important reminder of some very common misconceptions. Fentanyl test strips actually do work for non pressed substances and non opiates. Happy to cite some literature if that would be helpful, but some basic googling will confirm this for you.

It’s also important to remember that FentCheck and drug testing in general is a harm reduction practice. Just “not using” is not harm reduction, it’s abstinence and it doesn’t work for everyone. It’s important to make lots of different resources available since there isn’t one universal solution, the same as their isn’t one universal experience of drug use. We shouldn’t limit what others can access based on what works for us personally.

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RW3Bro t1_jcn3tj6 wrote

You don't have to cite literature, I've done more than my fair share of reagent tests during my partying days.

You're misunderstanding me though. I agree with you that the tests will tell you whether there's fent in whatever you use them on. My point is that's only useful for a press which (usually) has (some) consistency in how the active ingredient is distributed, but not for a powder where there's zero way of telling whether the rest of the bag is cross-contaminated.

That said, I also don't think they're particularly useful for pills. They won't tell you whether there's a hotspot in what you're about to consume; only whether there's fent. And anyone buying pills off the street these days already knows they're cartel presses which contain fentanyl. Putting your life in the hands of the Sinaloan hillbillies that make these pills is foolish and inexcusable unless you're already deep in the throes of addiction.

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FentCheck OP t1_jcnbtx6 wrote

Here’s a link to how you can accurately test your drugs for fentanyl including pressed pills because that’s also a misconception! Happy to help keep folks up to date and informed about the crisis.

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RW3Bro t1_jcniqdl wrote

Again, you are offering a binary test. That doesn’t detect the strength of fentanyl in a substance, only the presence. That’s not useful for powder drugs because there are 950mg of untested substances and it’s not helpful for pills because it doesn’t detect hotspots. It’s irresponsible to say that this will reduce harm for the average weekend cocaine/ketamine user.

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FentCheck OP t1_jcnje8w wrote

Again, I will refer you to our website, where we explain that we are giving access to recreational drug users the informed consent on if what they’re about to consume has fentanyl or not. For which, these test strips are forensically your best tool. It’s irresponsible to think that fentanyl isn’t so severely devastating to someone who doesn’t mean to ingest it, like all of the underage users and everyone making this the number one cause of death for Americans ages 18-45

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RW3Bro t1_jcnogmv wrote

Your website recommends testing 50mg. Fentanyl’s LD50 is a little less than 10mg. Are you really saying that testing 5% of a gram is enough to make an informed decision when 1% is enough to kill? What about the other 95%?

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FentCheck OP t1_jcnpjo8 wrote

The test strips detect 10 nano grams per milliliter. A gram is 1000 milligrams. There are 1000 nano grams in a milligram. Yes.

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RW3Bro t1_jcns7hi wrote

I don’t doubt that your test detects fentanyl extremely accurately in whatever it samples. But that’s only enough to make a determination about the 50mg which is consumed by the reagent test. There are 950 untested milligrams remaining, of which 10mg is enough to kill.

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FentCheck OP t1_jcnsy0o wrote

First, 2 mg can kill. Not 10. That’s why a test strip that is SO sensitive that can detect 10 nano grams is so important Test all of your drug. It’s about what you are about to ingest. Be safe

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RW3Bro t1_jcnubi4 wrote

And how can you test all of it unless you dissolve it all in water?

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FentCheck OP t1_jcnylsc wrote

FTS can detect 10 nano grams of fentanyl per ml. Fact. So 2 mg - 2000 micrograms or 200000 nanogqms. The test can detect 10 nano grams per ml.

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FentCheck OP t1_jcnyvlt wrote

They’re so sensitive, you can dump your coke out of the baggie and test the bag itself. I don’t want to keep engaging with misinformation, fentanyl test strips aren’t new and the science supports us helping folks survive nightlife.

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RW3Bro t1_jcr2ba9 wrote

You keep calling me misinformed and regurgitating product facts (that I never disagreed with) instead of engaging with my point, which is that your tests are not a useful safety tool unless the tested mixture is homogenous - which cross-contaminated powders would not be.

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Black-n-GoldBleeder t1_jcmohne wrote

Exactly. The true harm reduction is not to take street drugs in the first place. That is a sure fire way to and fent poisoning. People should know the risk by now, this isn’t new.

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robxburninator t1_jcot7jw wrote

"We should only teach abstinence"

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Black-n-GoldBleeder t1_jcpfwz9 wrote

Buying highly illegal, hard drugs off the street to shoot into your vains is hardly comparable to having sex while the parents are away. Come the fuck on.

As a parent if a 9 year old, I’m one hundred perfect teaching abstinence when it comes to hard drugs. What is your plan, “don’t forget to practice safe smoking meth?” I’m also raising my kid a tad differently than how my wife and I came up.

And yes, I know a little of what I’m talking about. While I never touched meth, heroin, or crack, or had an opioid addiction, I did eat my weight in tabs and acid decades ago, as I was heavily involved in the late 90’s party scene. So I’ve been around everything, and thank fucking god there wasn’t this fent issue 20-30 years ago. Not because I think I’d be dead. I’m too smart for that and wouldn’t have did what I did in today’s environment given the risk involved. I just wouldn’t have had the fun that I did.

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mission17 t1_jcrijwy wrote

> I just wouldn’t have had the fun that I did.

Sure you wouldn’t, you all-knowing genius.

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Important-Ad1871 t1_jcr7fkm wrote

We should teach people to abstain from sketchy drugs

If you’re buying legal cocaine from a regulated pharmacy or something, snort away

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Ed_Hastings t1_jcwt6qd wrote

Yea, because hormone riddled teenagers having sex is super comparable to taking hard drugs.

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