Let’s say you’re an upper low level dealer. You pick up a kilogram (1000g) of some decent 50% pure dope. Not bad. If you sell it as is at an average of $125/g (price depends on quantity) people won’t complain and you’ll take in $125,000. That kg ran you $100,000. So you made $25,000. That’s pretty ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ good. But there’s a lot of risk in this game and you’re not trying to be a dope dealer forever. Plus you’re a greedy dope dealer and you want to be able to buy more up front at a lower price and make more money. Money money and money. So you decide to cut your dope. You take your kg and you add .5kg lactose (inert) and .5kg diphenhydramine (Benadryl - drowsiness). Now you have 2kg of dope that is 25% heroin, 25% diphenhydramine, and 50% inert. You still want to sell it at $125/g but it’s noticeably weaker. The diphenhydramine will help mask it a little bit, but people are gonna complain. They are going to go elsewhere. It’s gonna take you longer to sell. If it takes too long someone is probably gonna chop your ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ head off. These are all bad things. You don’t wanna be the d-boy selling dirt at dirt prices. You wanna have the dopest dope on the block, right? So what do you do?

You buy some cheap ass fentanyl analogue thats 100 times as potent as heroin from China or Mexico for a couple dollars a gram. So cheap it’s not even worth figuring it in to the calculation. So you do some math and you decide to cut your kg with .495kg (495g) lactose, .5kg (500g) diphenhydramine, and .005kg (5g) fentanyl analogue. Now you have 2kg of dope that’s 25% heroin, 25% diphenhydramine, and 0.25% fentanyl. At 100 times the potency of heroin that 5g of fent is like 500g of heroin in terms of potency. So you’ve taken 1kg of 50% pure dope and turned it into 2kg of 50% pure dope at negligible cost that you can still sell for $125/g. This nets you $250,000 from a $100,000 investment. That’s a $150,000 profit. Maybe you add a little more fent to make sure you have the dopest dope. Now a seasoned heroin user will definitely notice the difference. Shorter duration, more nausea, less euphoria, more itchiness (the diphenhydramine you added is partially to hide this). But what choice does he have? And what’s better for his money? A weak batch of heroin or a strong batch of a heroin fentanyl mix? In the long run, probably the weak heroin, but he’s an addict not a connoisseur. At the end of the day he’s buying what you’re selling. Plus all the other d-boys are gonna start doing the same thing when people stop buying their ♥♥♥♥.

Trouble is, there is no way to be 100% sure that it’s distributed evenly. There are going to be “hot spots” in your dope where the fentanyl clumped together. With such a high potency that’s a death sentence for one of your customers. But what do you care? You’re a greedy dope dealer and there are plenty of filthy junkies.

I want to point out that I used nice round numbers for easy calculations. Most d-boys don’t have $100,000 dollars to buy a kilo. They are getting it fronted to them. They’re an employee. It’d be cheaper if you actually had the cash. Both reasons to try to make as much cash as possible. You need to pay your guy back (or be killed) and you want a better price, so you can have that sweet profit all for yourself. Mmmm num num num. Oh, and that’s just a pipe dream anyway. You thought that $150,000 was yours, didn’t you? That’s cute. Nope. Your guy is taking your profit and giving you a cut. You’re a pawn in the game. Your guy controls the flow and he’ll replace you (or worse) the minute you start talking about going into business yourself. Get arrested? Too bad. Get robbed? You’re a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ dead man.

Fentanyl is a potent, cheap, and easily obtained synthetic opiate making it an ideal choice for masking the loss of potency in cut dope, but when too much is used or when it isn’t perfectly distributed the result is deadly bags. Oh, and the dope game is a fickle ♥♥♥♥♥.