Some very interesting pharmacological news came about in recent years. A group of university students derived thebaine from sugar using yeast, and then another group used e-coli to produce even greater yields. That's pretty huge stuff because thebaine is the stuff that oxycodone, naloxone, naltrexone, and buprenorphine are all derived from. If anybody were to get their hands on those modified e-coli then they could produce thebaine from their basement, no poppy farm required. The studies emphasize how small their yield is, but a small yield is infinitely higher than none at all. Suddenly anyone's basement is fertile soil for cultivating thebaine. Thing is, it's difficult to find out exactly what your average basement chemist could do with plain thebaine. That's clearly by design, it'd be hard to make that public knowledge.
Where I'm at with all of this, is that I feel like blowing the whistle on a whole new opiate epidemic on the horizon. Now that everyone has the seed for the idea, it's like there's a couple billion more monkeys with typewriters joining the crew trying to bash out a Shakespeare play. Yeast and e-coli are the big leads right now, and the hurdle after that is figuring out how to derive opioids from thebaine at home. I'm sure it's possible, heck maybe I'll be excited if it ends up destroying the xylazine market. Maybe it'll replace it with a mildly safer drug that's easier to manufacture. Still super easy to die from it though. With an epidemic like this on the horizon I think that the government should pull all the levers in regards to legalizing opioids. There needs to be a facility to go to where people know exactly how strong their stuff is, a vetted dispensary.
What kills people most often is people not knowing how strong their stuff is. If instead people could have their dose calculated by a professional in a safe and judgement free environment I think that we'd be seeing several fewer deaths. I use kratom for a few reasons, a mix of mental and physical effects. If kratom weren't legal and I had to get it on the streets I would have no way of knowing whether or not it's cut with something else. The fact that I can order a package of pills with a clearly labeled quantity within each pill has made it possible for me to remain on the same dose for two years already. If I had no way of knowing how strong my stuff was then I could not have remained at the same dose because of combatting withdrawals. The longer we try to dam this river in denial of its water, ignoring this fact of life and fatiguing to suppress it, the worse it's going to be.
Also, bare in mind, if anything happens after all of this it wasn't because of me. I'm operating on publicly available knowledge, meaning just about anybody could have figured this stuff out as long as they have an internet connection and common sense. Jailing people for victimless crimes isn't something that solves any of these issues. Shit, I'm functioning basically purely because of the opioid-like kratom I've got in my system at all times. I take it like it's medication, it suppresses my anxiety and offers pain relief for the pain I get when I move my arm after I got ran over. It also makes me less paranoid, I get less magical thinking, and I can respond to a variety of situations in a calm and collected manner guided by reason undilute by emotion. It works for me, but I do not suggest taking it yourself. That's up to you, because I'm not you.