The California Highway Patrol may best be known for freeway chases and the Hollywood glamour of its motorcycle cops in television shows like “ChiPs.” But now the storied agency is patrolling the streets of San Francisco’s Tenderloin as part of a multiagency effort to crack down on rampant drug dealing that’s decimating the 50-square-block area.
On one day recently, CNN watched as task force members arrested a suspected drug dealer accused of selling meth and fentanyl. Inside a plastic bag: 33 grams of fentanyl that CHP officer Andy Barclay estimates, at its worst, could potentially kill thousands of people.
“We’re looking at around 16,500 fatal doses of pure fentanyl in that small bag. Yes, 16,500 people could potentially die,” Barclay said.
They just took 33 grams and divided by 2 mg which is the typical cited lethal dose of fentanyl to get 16,500. When dosed correctly it would kill zero people. But when you’re dealing with such tiny amounts in the microgram range that drug users/dealers can’t reliably weigh and make errors, unknown potency, differences in people’s tolerance, yes it’s quite dangerous and deadly. 100 times more potent than morphine. Would that batch have killed 16,500 people in reality? No likely not. But they did say “at worst” in fairness. So yeah assuming that’s the weight and one hundred percent potent divided into exactly lethal doses given to opiate niave people and perfectly doled out all at once that’s about how many it could kill. Cops also could be lying about weight, or it may be cut with something and not pure. I’m certainly not trying to argue for the war on drugs which I very much disagree with or against your other points, but that’s where that number came from. And it is a very dangerous drug because of its high potency with dosing in microgram ranges and often unknown purity.
No street dealer is carrying around 33g of pure fentanyl, and no one is selling pure fentanyl to junkies. It’s probably been cut/diluted to 1:1000.