Possible effects of cheap fentanyl on drug markets, use, and harm: A theoretical analysis
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The spread of illegally manufactured fentanyl (IMF) has been a public health disaster in Canada and the United States, driving overdose deaths to unprecedented levels. It has also changed the production function for drug traffickers, most notably by radically reducing raw materials costs for those producing illegal opioids. This paper explores possible consequences of that cost reduction through the eyes of the actors who comprise the drug supply chain, including Chinese firms who supply Mexican Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs) with the precursors of fentanyl, the TCOs responsible for manufacturing fentanyl and shipping it across the U.S. border, the multiple layers of the domestic drug distribution network, along with the money launderers who help facilitate this illegal market. This paper then sketches potential long-run implications for the structure, conduct and performance of the illegal opioid supply industry, and some potential consequences for drug law enforcement organisations.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.006 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.004 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.004 |
| Research integrity | 0.004 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.030 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".