
Guest Post: Heroin & Non-Consensual Capitalism
Via Notes From Disgracedland’s Bjarne Knausgaard
Heroin consolidates all your problems into one big one. No more worrying about aggression, repression, poverty, futility, and frustration — just heroin and how to get a hold of it.
The street price of heroin has dropped below $100 per gram. A disturbing development. For a novice, about 10-20 mg provides a decent high. Simply put, one can get high on heroin for the price of a chocolate bar. The most addictive drug is now also the cheapest, ch
Wow, I love seeing black market analysis like this; stuff you never hear about or can see actual stats about. Very cool
Do you think that at the heart of the matter, this is conspiracy or cause and effect? I.e. is what you’re saying explicit or implicit? Is it a description of the equilibrium that we’re seeing in the US, or a description of a successful plan constructed and executed by powerful actors?
I see heroin as a commodity product, the pricing of which has fallen because of
– supply chain improvements
– competition (between heroin dealers, and from other substitute drugs like synthetic opiates but also crack and meth)
– increases in producer experience and associated reductions in production and distribution costs
– cheaper labor (a growing base of poor to use and sell it)
To take the other side, I can’t think of another commodity that has shown similar pricing dynamics, though it’s hard to find an effective comparison because of heroin’s recent introduction to markets. Can you think of a useful comp?