this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2025
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Pierre Poilievre’s Pipe Dream: Imprison Drug Users for Life (thetyee.ca)
submitted 16 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 10 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) (1 children)

Good: Article title is accurate

Bad: Why is the author deliberately comparing the mass of two vastly different drugs?

Under Poilievre’s plan, “anyone caught trafficking, producing, or exporting over 40 mg of fentanyl” would receive a mandatory life sentence in prison.

This 40-milligram threshold is a mere 1.6 per cent of the 2.5 grams that someone can possess under British Columbia’s decriminalization pilot project. For context, 40 milligrams is less than half of a typical baby Aspirin tablet.

For reference, 40 milligrams of Aspirin is safe for a baby. Without building up tolerance, even 2-3 milligrams of fentanyl can kill a full grown adult.

[–] RedditWanderer 7 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) (1 children)

Because they are providing context on quantities not how lethal it is.

40mg of fentanyl is 1.6% of the 2.5 grams allowed in BC. For those wondering what 40mg physically looks like (for context), it's about half the size of a .

If they had said 0.00000001 football fields, they weren't comparing the lethality of football fields to fentanyl.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

In the context of fentanyl, isn't that completely irrelevant? So 5mg of fentanyl is 1/8 the mass of a tablet of baby aspirin. Now what?

I completely understand the aim is to illustrate how arbitrary outlawing possession of 40mg would be. I'm aware of the implications and I agree. But comparing fentanyl to baby aspirin generally doesn't make sense and especially not in terms of mass or concentration.

[–] RedditWanderer 1 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

I agree it's pretty irrelevant to the fentanyl problem, but it's a good way for people to estimate how much 40mg is. I think they meant a similar mass in this case. 40 mg of fentanyl is not necessarily 40mg of aspirin, but 40mg of fentanyl is the size of half a tablet. You see this all the time especially in the US, again with football fields or something like "which equates to about 3 large elephants". Nobody know what that means but it gives some picture.

I'd completely agree with you if they said "less than half a tablet of aspirin worth of fentanyl can kill you", but they are only showing what 40 mg looks like and not what it takes to harm someone. Harm is not in this article (or i missed it). The point about 40mg being arbitrary is made later in the article, where they say it's often sold in 100mg doses so it's just a trick to get everyone.

Not saying youre wrong, just saying how I perceived it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 hours ago

Yeah, I get that. I read the article. But knowing that aspirin has a greater mass than fentanyl has no purpose, it's not useful information. It's not relevant to anything at all, so it's just strange to mention.

It's like saying 40mg of a banana would fit on the head of a pin to emphasize the point instead of using baby aspirin... yes, that's a very small amount, but it doesn't really provide additional context (other than to force someone to realize, "wow, things that weigh the same can do different things?!") since it's so obvious.