Fentanyl Rehab in Northern California ·

Why California Workers use Fentanyl, and What it Does to Your Life

On January 31, the U.S. Border Patrol seized 254 pounds of fentanyl and 395 pounds of methamphetamine at the Arizona border. Street value of the fentanyl totaled about $3.5 million; the meth, $1.1 million. They found the drugs in hidden compartments of a truck carrying cucumbers.

That is enough fentanyl to kill over 50 million people.

Fentanyl Seizure US Border — Enough fentanyl to kill millions, on one table. Photo courtesy of CBP.gov.

Why bring such a dangerous substance into the U.S.? Because people want to use it. Because it’s horribly, fatally addictive.

This article will go through what fentanyl is, how it works on the body, why people use it, and how to break addiction to fentanyl.

What’s So Dangerous About Fentanyl

Fentanyl is an extremely strong synthetic opioid used to treat severe pain. Medical facilities commonly use it during surgery, as well as pre-operative and post-operative care. If it had stayed in/around the operating room, we might instead hail fentanyl as a major help in surgeries & post-surgery recovery.

It didn’t though. Something good became something with the potential to cause serious harm to mind and body. When used correctly, prescription painkillers help those with acute and chronic pain. However, fentanyl is 50-100 times more potent than morphine…itself a strong painkiller.

This made fentanyl very appealing to those who misuse opioids. For instance, those who “need” to keep working day in, day out, in California’s ruthless business environment.

To fully understand why fentanyl is dangerous, we must understand both how it acts upon the body, and how we as individuals perceive those effects.

How Fentanyl Works

Everyone’s body has opioid receptors. They’re in the brain too, in areas that regulate how you experience…as well as areas that regulate emotions.
Fentanyl binds to those opioid receptors. Originally, fentanyl’s developers wanted it to block pain signals in the brain. This would help manage pain after trauma much more easily.
The problem came when people began taking it not to treat pain, but for the feelings fentanyl triggers.

How We Feel When Taking Fentanyl

Like heroin, fentanyl floods your brain’s “reward centers” with dopamine. This creates feelings of euphoria, a sense of heavy relaxation, and the pain relief mentioned already.
Unfortunately, fentanyl is much more powerful than heroin. As such, its effects can hit the body much harder. Fentanyl users have experienced nausea, severe drowsiness, confusion, and trouble breathing.
Death from fentanyl use often occurs as a result of these side effects. Someone takes a large dose of fentanyl and lies down. The relaxation takes away their energy…while the drug slows their lungs down too. They can’t breathe, but they can’t move to alert someone either. They slowly suffocate, and die.

Fentanyl Addiction Rehab — Taking a nap, or taking fentanyl? Photo by Adi Goldstein on Unsplash.

Why do People Use Fentanyl?

It doesn’t seem to make sense, does it? If fentanyl is so dangerous, no one would ever take it!

The sad fact is, people use it because it feels good. California workers especially feel a desire to ‘unplug’ from the constant hustle. Guaranteed relaxation and a pleasant numbness sounds appealing…if you don’t consider the sky-high addiction potential and clear chance of a fatal overdose.

Many fentanyl users are aware of its fatal side effects, but believe that will never happen to them.

Some dealers even “cut” street drugs (e.g. heroin) with illegally-produced fentanyl. This makes the drug much more intense than the user expects…catapulting them into an overdose. This is one of the reasons for the sad epidemic of overdoses we hear about on the news.