Category Archives: Current Events

Navalny and Trump: Brothers in Sacrifice. Seriously??

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Recently Trump has compared his troubles to that of Alexei Navalny, the recently deceased political opponent of Putin. Fox News aired a Trump interview with Laura Ingram where she asked how he is going to pay his enormous legal costs. He described his troubles as “a form of Navalny” and quickly pivoted to his large-scale legal woes. He stated that “We are turning into a communist country in many ways.”

First, 4 grand juries of fellow citizens in 4 jurisdictions indicted him on 91 felony counts. He has been given due process. For, Navalny, not so much. He was poisoned with nerve agent in 2020 (a particularly Russian trick) but managed to survive. Following treatment abroad, he returned to Russia where he was quickly apprehended, convicted and sentenced to 19 years in a maximum security prison for recidivists and those with life sentences for violence.

Source: Google Maps. The Fku-Ik3 facility in Kharp, Russia, Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug.

He was sent to penal colony number 3, a distant arctic prison in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. According to Hugh Williamson of Human Rights Watch, “The Russian authorities have abandoned any pretense of justice in dealing with dissenters, and with Navalny they have thrown a litany of charges against him, each more brazenly absurd than the next.

Source: Google maps. Navalny’s Polar Wolf penal colony was in the town of Kharp in north central Russia, as indicated on the map. The town was built by Gulag prisoners in the Stalin era.

The Soviet Union had a large number of Gulags prior to its collapse. The map below shows the locations of the camps. During Operation Barbarossa in WWII, Hitlers army and Himmler’s SS were under orders to kill all Jews encountered and they did. Many non-Jewish Poles, Ukrainians and Belarusians were murdered during Hitler’s advance to Moscow and subsequent retreat. Poland in particular suffered greatly during this time. Some fraction of Jews were sent to various concentration camps but a great many were collected into groups and shot en masse just outside of their villages. As the Red Army moved into Poland killing and pushing the Germans west, Stalin gave orders to take over control of the country and establish a communist government. The participants of the weak non-communist provisional government of Poland were captured and killed by the Soviets and the Polish government was taken over under communist control. Many, many Poles were captured and sent into forced labor in the Gulag system. Poland was savaged by both the Soviets and Germans.

Source: Wikipedia, Gulag. According to Wikipedia, the Soviets had 423 labor camps as of March, 1940. It is said that 18 million people passed through the camps and 1.6 million died due to detention.

As an American, I have been exposed to the history of both the western European and Pacific theaters of WWII. However, the history of Central and Eastern Europe, especially from WWI through WWII has largely been absent in my experience. I just finished reading the 2010 Bloodlands by Timothy Snyder. Snyder is a Yale historian and writes in detail on the period in the Central and Eastern European regions between the times of the Bolshevik revolution and the end of WWII.

The period of 1932 to 1933 (the Holodomor) in Ukraine is particularly interesting and sheds light on the fear and revulsion Ukrainians must feel at the prospect of once again coming under Russian rule. During this time the Soviets, on orders from the Kremlin in Moscow, blocked any exit from Ukrainian territory and starved the Ukrainians in an effort to speed collectivization. Their agricultural products were stolen leaving Ukrainians to starve. Many tens of thousands were killed or sent to the gulags. Being sent to the gulags entailed being packed into rail cars and shipped off without food or warmth. Sometimes when they arrived, they found that they would be forced to build the prison camp they would be imprisoned in.

Some critics complained that the book presents nothing new. It is after all heavily referenced to extensive existing literature. Nonetheless, it is a very compelling read for we non-scholars. For Americans in general, this bit of history is probably unheard of.

For Trump to compare his “treatment” by the American Justice system to that of Navalny betrays great ignorance of the history and contemporary politics of Russia. His lack of compassion for Ukraine is only a small slice of his overall absence of compassion.

Trump bitches that his troubles are of political origin. I agree, they are. Our democratic republic is in part a political system of government. Citizen voting and the legislative process are inherently political, but adherence to the law require is absolute. This political structure has a built-in justice system based on due process and the presumption of innocence with many checks and balances- perhaps to the point of generousness. Trump and his legal team routinely take advantage of our due process by filing for delays, dismissals, objections, nuances in civil trial procedure and lawsuits for the purpose of delaying judgement. He learned from his first attorney, Roy Cohn, former chief counsel to Senator Joseph McCarthy. Trump and his squad of attorneys are very good at it. Trump is a very ignorant and narcissistic man-child who attracts national news coverage because of his outrageous behavior. It’s cheaper than advertising, just like in the 2016 campaign. For him to compare his predicament to that of Alexei Navalny is preposterous. In Trump’s portfolio of legal trouble, where there is smoke, there is fire.

Handing over the presidency of the USA again to Trump would be a tragic mistake that might not be recoverable.

The Pale Blue Dot Revisited

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I would reproduce some memorable text from Carl Sagan’s book The Pale Blue Dot, but that would be a copyright violation. Instead, I’ll chime in and echo his intent. That would be for all of us to pause occasionally to reflect on our tiny spherical paradise amidst the barren expanses of the universe. Earth continues to harbor life because it can. The right distance from an average star for liquid water, the planetary magnetic field protecting the atmosphere from being stripped away, the right combination of chemical elements for the ignition and propagation of life, and the long-term climate that allowed life to survive.

Image of Earth captured by Voyager 1 on Feb. 14th, 1990, just before the camera was shut down to conserve energy as it sped from the solar system. The bands of dim light are artifacts of the camera lens due to the angular proximity of the sun.

In 1989 Carl Sagan requested that an image of Earth be taken from a great distance even though the scientific value was nil. After some internal haggling, the administrator of NASA, Richard Truly, interceded and the imaging was approved. In 1990, the decision was made to allot time to image the Earth just before the camera Vidicon tube was scheduled to be switched off to conserve energy. Just 60 images were taken and stored on an onboard tape recorder until they were later relayed to Earth between March and May, 1990. The signal was received by the Deep Space Network after 5 1/2 hours of transit time.

Image Credit: from Wikipedia. The vertical bars are represent 1 year intervals. Voyager was launched in 1977 and was 40.47 astronomical units (AU) from earth by Feb. 14, 1990, when the image was taken.

Just looking at the image without any concern given to what is happening there at present, the Pale Blue Dot appears unremarkable. On the cosmic scale, it is just a tiny ball of wet rock. Yet with the right elements, compounds and plenty of time this bit of rock spawned sentient beings allowing the universe to become self-aware.

With all of the conflict and tension on Earth, someone has to stand up for the Earth’s biosphere. No matter what people do, nukes and all, planet Earth will remain in orbit spinning about its axis. It is civilization and the web of life -the carbon-based parts- that are serious risk. It is the birthright of each creature to share in the fruits of the earth. Politics and economics must adapt to a healthy and sustaining biosphere, not the other way around.

With the indecisive wars in Korea, Viet Nam, Iraq and Afghanistan, the US has been served many slices of humble pie. Yet, are we learning? Presently we are drawn deeper into the bottomless pit of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. We have hitched our wagon to an Israel that pushed out the inhabitants of a piece of someone else’s land and colonized it. It is an undeniable historical fact. It should surprise no one that 2 million people now forcibly concentrated into a small patch of unproductive land and are militarily, politically and economically isolated are deeply resentful with their lot in life. As they have done many times in the past, the Palestinians have pushed back violently but this time with the help of others either directly or by proxy. The whole thing is further complicated by religious zeal on the part of both sides. Both claim to be doing God’s work, but to different ends. Magical thinking enforced by guns.

Elsewhere on the Pale Blue Dot, Putin’s savage invasion of Ukraine has thus far brought Russia only death and humiliation, though outwardly Putin postures himself as unworried. He is in tight control of a nation that has been under tight control for most of its history. Putin’s conventional military has surprised many by its brittle collapse in the invasion of Ukraine. As with the Soviet regime before him, much of his power rests only on the sandy pedestal of propaganda and the large bureaucracy to monitor or punish everyone. Putin’s real strength is his nuclear arsenal and his expressed willingness to use it.

The last time the Russian populace rose up to successfully overthrow tyranny was the Bolshevik revolution in 1917. Tsar Nicholas II was overthrown, murdered and replaced with a new type of totalitarian regime- The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Over time the USSR was able to modernize the state into a spacefaring, nuclear power but always retained and refined its authoritarian grip on its people.

Meanwhile in the west, a hornet’s nest of anger in the US has been awakened by a single charismatic and malignant narcissist who has attracted a dedicated following of the vocally disenfranchised. While his stunningly bad conduct should be obvious to anyone older than 12, no amount of pettiness, lies and over the top behavior seems to detract from his popularity. It has been said that he validates what his supporters believe. If that is true, then Trump is just the tip of a terrible iceberg.

Many 20th century dictatorships in history have been led by a charismatic idealist who understood the dark zeitgeist. Lenin, Mussolini and Hitler among others have risen to power and directed brutal attacks on whom they chose, sometimes driven by greed for power and other times by utopian fantasies. While Stalin didn’t author the Bolshevik revolution as Lenin did, he set the high-water mark for murder and cruelty in Russia. As bad as these actors were, all somehow avoided the assassin’s bullet during their heyday. One little piece of lead could have disrupted the timeline of terror each journeyed. Civilization does not have a provision that encourages this, though.

For crying out loud, people. Get a grip on how rare and special the Earth’s biosphere is. If there is another wonderous place like Earth, we are unaware of it and may never become aware. The earth is to be treasured.

Tough Sleddin’ for Bobo

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At a Republican district 4 congressional primary debate in Ft Lupton, CO, last Thursday, Colorado’s very own US Representative Lauren “Bobo” Boebert (R-CO) took fifth place out of 5 in a small straw poll, grabbing 12, or 10 % of the votes. The word “carpet bagger” was mentioned a few times. Given that her home district Democratic opponent has accumulated a large war chest, she decided the odds in the 2024 election were poor. So she loaded up the pickup truck, truck nuts and all, and crashed the party in district 4.

Boebert hails from Silt, CO, but was born in Florida. For today I’ll leave this nugget alone.

Let me back up. Boebert was elected twice in Colorado district 3 to the US House of Representatives, most recently in 2022 by a very slim margin. District 3 lies in the much less populous western third of the state. Most all of it is high, dry and approaching vertical in many places. A 65 % majority of the population is rural and mostly conservative.

The tragic comedy that is Boebert is available on Google so I won’t take time to repeat any of it. Suffice it to say that she is even unpopular among Republicans in District 4 as we saw Thursday.

It appears as though the depth of shame isn’t bottomless among district 4 Republicans. Who knows which straw it was that broke the camel’s back. I’m guessing it was the frisky hijinks at a certain musical that did it.

Here she is: Boebert.house.gov

Colorado is peaceful enough nearly everywhere that a sidearm is just dead weight that you carry around needlessly. Like everywhere else, the coppers need to carry a sidearm because the threshold for stupid behavior continues to drop. Otherwise, it is a form of peacock plumage displayed to make a statement. If the Taliban were hunkered down in Boulder or if I had to move in next to a strip joint in Denver, I suppose I’d carry one too.

The Golden Calf Plods Forward

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As expected, New Hampshire Republicans rallied for their Golden Calf yesterday. Naturally, media people are using this to boldly predict the future. I’ve had to abandon NPR because they are serving wall-to-wall election coverage as though nothing else has happened. Despite the years of legal actions against the Orange Jesus, his popularity endures and Republican politicians and candidates continue to rally around him, hoping some of magic rubs off on them.

In interviews, Trumpsters confidently say that things were better during his presidency than under Biden’s despite what the numbers say about the economy at present. Even though inflation has dropped from 9.1 % to 3.2 % over the last year according to the AP, many consumers apparently expect prices to come down as well. Are the Trumpsters really upset about the economy or are they just angry that he lost the 2020 election?

“We don’t care about no stinkin’ 91 felony indictments. Yes, he’s committed fraud and sexual assault. But, but, but he is going to drain the swamp and halt immigration!!”

Reducing prices is not something that business people will do to make life easier for people. What industry will be the first to reduce their prices willingly because it is a “nice idea?” Prices are always set to what the customer is willing to pay. A common nightmare of a business person is that they may have left money at the table during a negotiation or a sale. Businesses charge as much as they can all the time. People who leave money at the table are not the people who rise into the thin air of the C-suite of business.

During the pandemic, supply chain interruptions helped trigger inflation. Businesses ratcheted up their prices to grow or maintain their margins. Many businesses had to raise their prices because their costs had risen, but not evenly across the board. Why waste a good opportunity to raise prices if others are doing it? For essentials, consumers soon adapted to it because they had little choice. Strangely, the economy has shown unexpected vigor during this inflationary period. Some products like pickup trucks and real estate, however, are suffering badly.

Along comes the Federal Reserve to slay the dragon of inflation. They pulled their one big tool out of its sheath for staunching inflation- raising interest rates. And so they did with success. The down-side is that it hurts those seeking a mortgage or other loans due to increased interest rates.

Another effect of the pandemic is the continuing trend of employees working from home. According to one source, the 1Q23 vacancy rate for NYC office space was 22.2 %. Remote work activity has caused businesses to reconsider the size of the office space they are leasing. Many are opting not to automatically renew their leases in favor of leveraging better terms or outright downsizing their space requirements. The new workforce shift has had a negative effect on surrounding businesses who rely on the daily flood of office workers to buy lunch and shop. It also has a big effect on the owners of office buildings who likely had business models and loans relying on higher occupancy rates. The knock-on effect is that the banks who made the commercial loans to the office building owners are beginning to see an increase in loan defaults. Commercial borrowers also face significantly higher interest rates than they started out with. News reports are very pessimistic for a reprieve in the near term.

The term that was coined for this is the urban “doom loop.” Reduced office occupancy leads to reduced tax revenue for municipalities who supply services like transit, police and street maintenance. But I don’t want to spoil it- Google “urban doom loop.”

Back to the Golden Calf.

I would offer that there is a portion of the grand American bell curve that probably shouldn’t be left in charge of a vast international economic and nuclear superpower wielding a military machine the likes of which the world has never seen before. Further, I would offer that just possibly many of the followers of #45 are comfortably squatting on that side of the bell curve.

As I see it, the Golden Calf getting back into office will adversely swerve the fate of Europe, the Balkan and the Baltic states into direct conflict with an expanding Russian Empire. Putin is obviously trying to reestablish and reenergize the reach of the former Soviet Union. He has little care for the lives of Russian soldiers as they fight and die on the battlefield, and even less for those who defy his wishes. They are expendable in the grand scheme of a Great Russian Empire of Tsar Putin.

The State of Ukraine traces back to October of 1917 when the Bolsheviks tried to capture Kyiv and failed. By January of 1918 the Ukranian revolutionary parliament declared the formation of Ukrainian People’s Republic. After much conflict, Ukraine was made part of the USSR.

In the 1930’s there was the Holodomor, or the “Great Ukrainian Famine” of 1932-33 with continued mass killing and exile of Ukrainian Kulaks to the east for the rest of the decade. The collectivization forced on Ukraine was brutal. Many thousands of Ukrainians were exiled to the east and disappeared. As Hitler invaded Poland and continued with Operation Barbarossa to Moscow, his plan to exterminate Jews went with him. The wholesale slaughter of Jews in Poland and Ukraine wasn’t limited to the concentration camps. Villages were captured by the Nazis and Jewish citizens were marched by the many tens of thousands into the woods and executed by a bullet to the head, falling into pits where they would be buried. No age or gender was spared. Hitler gave orders to Himmler to carry out the Final Solution in eastern Europe and Russia and he did with a vengeance.

A large scale international concern is with Putin’s latest invasion of Ukraine. Russia has a long history of conflict with Ukraine starting after the Bolshevik Revolution. Putin does not recognize their sovereignty and further claims that there is no Ukraine, only Russia. He seeks to establish the boundaries of the former Soviet Union and Ukraine is the first step. To allow Putin to conquer Ukraine will enable him to go after the Baltic states, the Balkans and Poland along with their manpower and resources to fortify the depleted Russian military-industrial complex.

Trump has a record of stating his disinterest in protecting the European Union and remaining in NATO. American retreat from the EU and NATO would only serve to telegraph to Putin that the US will not interfere with further Russian conquests. A massive Russian dictatorship butted up against western Europe will not lead to an enduring peace. A Russian dictatorship the size of the USSR will be no friend of the western powers.

An America that withdraws from international affairs is an America in steep decline. After all that we have accomplished and learned, under Trump and his ilk we will step down from our international platform and slink away into some imaginary Libertarian Southern Baptist utopia with the inmates running the asylum. No thank you.

The election of Trump has a ghastly downside for western civilization that is largely kept quiet by the popular media. In their desire to portray fairness, they tend to avoid topics like this for fear of the accusation of bias..

Zombie Oil & Gas Wells in Texas

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Much has been written about the gas & oil industry in the US. My aim only is to highlight the leaking, not actively producing, oil & gas wells.

Many states have a problem with orphaned and zombie wells. Big ole Texas has a problem with orphaned and “zombie” oil wells also. Over time, oil and gas companies have been abandoning uncapped oil and gas wells in their eternal haste to produce “Black Gold, Texas Tea.” Inactive or non-compliant wells with delinquent organizational reports (Form P-5) for more than 12 months are called “orphan” wells in Texas. The state of Texas does have procedures for the disposition of orphan wells. Wells may be abandoned because of low output or the owners going bankrupt. It is possible to take over an orphaned well, though why would someone takeover a depleted orphan well or a low output well?

What’s worse, even the capped wells have begun to leak because of the corrosion and decay of well casings and plug material. The leak may be far down the hole or near the surface. These abandoned wells that are now leaking are called “zombie” wells. The zombie wells push up brackish water along with hydrocarbon liquids and vapors into the atmosphere and the surface soil as well as underground into the water table. Some underground flows are large enough that sinkholes form and fill up with polluted water.

The Oil & Gas division of the Texas Railroad Commission is responsible for “Regulating the exploration, production, & transportation of oil and natural gas in Texas.”

In a September 14, 2022, article in the Houston Chronicle, James Osborne writes

“After more than a century of oil drilling in Texas, the state is littered with abandoned wells, the vast majority of which were never properly plugged. No one’s entirely sure how many but the Texas Railroad Commission puts the number of inactive wells at almost 150,000, approximately 17,000 of which haven’t operated in more than 20 years, according to the activist group Commission Shift.“

Source: Houston Chronicle

Following up, Amanda Drane writes in her July 17, 2023, article in the Houston Chronicle

“The Railroad Commission plugged 1,068 wells during fiscal 2022 at a cost of $29.5 million, and added another 944 over the same period. During the second quarter, it said it plugged 363 wells at a cost of $11.7 million — 119 wells with state funds and 244 wells with money from the federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which has promised Texas nearly $320 million in phased disbursements.”

Source: Houston Chronicle

The Texas Oil & Gas Association has stated-

“the oil and natural gas industry has paid hundreds of millions of dollars to have orphaned wells properly plugged… We welcome federal funding to enhance what industry has already contributed to address orphaned wells.”

Source: The Houston Chronicle.

As can be seen, the Texas Oil & Gas Association seems to feel that it has done its job with orphaned wells. The Teflon-coated Texas Oil & Gas trade association did what trade groups are supposed to do- shield their members from public blame and immense liability.

One component of crude oil & gas is hydrogen sulfide (H2S) which resides in both the liquid and vapor phases. This component is capable of both oxidation in the air to form a series of variously oxidized sulfur products as well as elemental sulfur itself. Hydrogen sulfide is extremely toxic and prone to cause olfactory fatigue in humans. The odor threshold is extremely low which could lead one to safely vacate the area, but the “nose numbing” effect on the sense of smell can lead to a false sense of security and continued exposure. Most cases of intoxication occur in confined spaces, however.

In a way, drilling for and striking oil & gas is like opening Pandora’s box. The well can produce valuable oil & gas, but along with it comes produced water with undesired dissolved minerals, petroleum and drilling residues. It seems clear that the State has a compelling interest in the final disposition of the well. The driller or party who owns the drilling rights to the well should be financially responsible for its clean shutdown. Bankruptcy should not absolve a company from responsibility for trouble the well brings.

Industry and people are like a gas- they expand to occupy the space available to them.

This post is limited to the issue in Texas but it can exist anywhere oil & gas drilling has occurred. Obviously, the oil & gas industry represents a massive amount of economic activity and consequently it has enjoyed a privileged position in American industry in terms of regulations. It is doubtful this will change but that doesn’t mean that the beady eye of scrutiny should blink.

Even if hydrocarbon vapors and other gaseous substances blowing out of wells were not greenhouse gases, can’t a case be made for capping-off wells just to prevent pollution? There is a mentality out there that holds that if some pollution action is not mandatory, then it is not necessary. Their response to a problem is often that they “met regulatory standards.” That is, they would have done less if they could have.

And God Made Who??

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There is a video on Truth Social posted by Trump or one of his lackies made by a fan with a soundtrack that sounds suspiciously like the radio broadcaster Paul Harvey from the days of old. It is a hagiography, a Valentine to #45 repeating over and over that God chose Trump to rescue America from a long list of troubles nagging at conservatives. Good heavens, there are even Marxists out there!

God took the time to plan this out for the sake of right-thinking Americans. The Big Guy who set the galaxies spinning and is the author of quantum entanglement and irritable bowel syndrome is also mucking about in Republican politics here on the pale blue dot.

This was released just prior to the Iowa caucuses to wheedle the Republican faithful to take heed and turn out to vote ’cause it’d please the Big Guy.

Jeepers. Would’ya get a load of that?

Tempest in a Teapot Over Austin

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I am a little annoyed by the breathless attention given to Defense Secretary Austin for his “failure” to release a notice of his absence due to illness. Yes, he is the SecDef after all and he is an important player in our national defense establishment and US foreign policy. But if any organization has an extensive chain of command it is the Defense Department. His position can be covered by his direct-reports while he is out. To say that the Pentagon depends on a single person every moment of the day for critical decisions only he personally can make is to say that SecDef represents a single-point failure for the entire military apparatus of the US. This is absurd. 

Could it be that the news media are hyperventilating over this? Are they so daft as to believe that this was some kind of close call? It seems likely that in the Pentagon’s PR office handbook on protocol there is a paragraph on notifications like this. Well, they muffed it. Some poor fool will get their tit in a wringer over this. Big Freaking Deal. Move on.

I imagine that in 6 AM staff meetings in newsrooms across the country, staffers buzzing on 4 cups of Folgers coffee were trying to come up with fresh news “stories”. In some eager beaver’s mind they imagined that a breach of protocol at the Pentagon involving SecDef was going to attract attention. And if one broadcaster does it, they all have to. Are you listening NPR? I think some 4th estate swimmers dove into the pool and scraped their noses on the bottom.

Tempest in a Teapot. Source: Wikipedia.

A Bit of Fentanyl Chemistry

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A recent raid on a clandestine drug lab in the Hatzic Valley east of Vancouver, BC, netted 25 kg of “pure” fentanyl and 3 kg which had already been cut for street use. Precursor chemicals used to manufacture the fentanyl were also seized. Along with the drug, the raid also seized 2,000 liters of chemicals and 6,000 liters (about 30 drums) of hazardous chemical waste, according to an RCMP news release 2 November, 2023.

The police said that the seizure represented 2,500,000 street doses.

In August of 2023 the police in Hamilton, Ontario, announced the results of Project Odeon. This was a large-scale sweep of illicit drug production in the Hamilton and Toronto area. From January 1, to July 30, 2023 there were 606 incidents related to suspected opioid overdoses and 89 suspected drug related deaths in the Hamilton area. Twelve people were charged for a total of 48 criminal charges. The police disclosed the following items that they seized-

  • An operational fentanyl drug lab at 6800 Sixteen Road, Smithville.
  • A dismantled fentanyl drug lab at 4057 Bethesda Road, Stouffville.
  • Approximately 3.5 tons of chemical byproduct from fentanyl production.
  • 800 gallons of chemicals commonly used in the production of fentanyl
  • Lab equipment commonly used in the production of fentanyl
  • 64.1 kg of illicit drugs, including 25.6 kg of fentanyl, 18 kg methamphetamine, 6 kg of ketamine
  • A loaded, Glock firearm and ammunition and four extended magazines
  • Over $350,000 of seized proceeds, including cars, jewelry, furniture and cash

Fentanyl is a synthetic drug first prepared in 1959 in Belgium by Paul Janssen (1926-2003). Janssen was the founder of Janssen Pharmaceuticals, now a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson. In addition to fentanyl, the Jenssen team developed haloperidol, the ultrapotent carfentanil, and other piperidine based congeners. Piperidine itself is a DEA List 1 substance in the US.

Carfentanil is just modified fentanyl. Graphics: Will O. de Wisp

The elephant in the room with fentanyl is its extraordinary potency as an opioid. In pharmacology, potency is a quantitative measure of the amount of dose needed to elicit a specific effect on an animal or human in terms of dose weight per kilogram of body mass. Potency is subject to variability across a population and rises to an asymptote which can be difficult to pin down. For these reasons potency is reported at 50 %. For highly potent drugs like fentanyl, the measure is expressed as milligrams or micrograms of dose per kilogram body weight (mg/kg or mcg/kg body weight). One milligram per kilogram is one part per million (ppm).

When matters of toxicity arise, it is important to remember the maxim that “the dose makes the poison”. This observation traces back to Paracelsus in the mid-sixteenth century.

 “All things are poison, and nothing is without poison; the dosage alone makes it so a thing is not a poison.”

– Paracelsus, 1538. Source: Wikipedia

Fentanyl acts much like morphine in regard to its affinity for one particular opioid receptor. Morphine is commonly the “standard” with which other opioids are compared. For instance, fentanyl is said to be 50-100 times more potent than morphine. Only 0.1 mg of fentanyl is equivalent to 10 mg of morphine. Carfentanil is more potent still at 10,000 times the potency of morphine.

Morphine is an agonist which activates the μ-opioid receptor. Activation of this receptor with morphine produces analgesia, sedation, euphoria, decreased respiration and decreased bowel motility leading to the earthly delights of constipation. Fentanyl is thought to interact with this receptor as well.

Original fentanyl synthesis by Janssen. Graphics: Will O. de Wisp

So, how is fentanyl synthesized? See the synthetic scheme above. I’ll just comment on the Janssen synthesis and some issues. I have no idea of how it is made out in there by the Mexican cartels and in ramshackle American trailer parks. The synthesis above has some steps that may be undesirable for backwoods or jungle operations like hydrogenation. In the first step, aniline will be needed to make the phenyl imine. It’s pretty toxic and stinks to high heaven. Next, lithium aluminum hydride is needed to reduce the imine double bond to an amine. This innocent looking grey powder is very hazardous and should only be used by an experienced chemist. It is also available as a solution in tetrahydrofuran. The next step is the formation of the amide with propionic anhydride. While the reaction entails a simple reflux, you still have to isolate the product. Once you have recovered the amide, the benzyl protecting group on the piperidine nitrogen must be removed. It allowed amide formation exclusively on the upper aniline nitrogen and has served its purpose. Finally, the piperidine nitrogen must be festooned with a phenylethyl group and phenylethyl chloride was used to afford the fentanyl product. 

An excellent review of the pharmacology and drug design of this family of opioids, see Future Med Chem. 2014 Mar; 6(4): 385–412.

In chemical synthesis generally, substances are prepared in a stepwise manner and with as few high yielding steps as possible. To begin, one must devise a synthesis beginning with commercially available raw materials as close to the target as possible. If the product has many fragments hanging off the core structure, it’s best to solve that problem early. Synthetic chemistry is almost always performed in a non-interfering solvent that will dissolve the reactants and allow the necessary reaction to occur. A low boiling point is preferable for ease of distillation. An important side benefit from a solvent is that it will absorb much of the heat of reaction which can be considerable. Left on its own, a reaction might take its solvent to the boiling point by self-heating, generating pressure and vapor. The benefit from evaporation or reflux boiling is that as a solvent transitions from liquid to vapor there is a strong cooling effect which helps to control the temperature. An overhead condenser will return cooled solvent to prevent solvent loss.

You can do any chemical synthesis in one step with the right starting materials. Unfortunately, this option is rarely available. The next best option is to take commercially available starting materials through a known synthetic scheme. People who run illicit drug labs are never interested in R&D. They want (and need) simple chemistry that can be done by non-chemists in buckets or coke bottles at remote locations. Chemical glassware can be purchased but sometimes the authorities will be notified of a suspicious order. This is especially true with 12 liter round bottom flasks.

The most difficult and risky trick to illicit drug synthesis is obtaining starting materials like piperidine compounds in the case of fentanyl and its congeners. In the case of heroin, acetic anhydride shipments have been investigated for a long time because it is used to convert morphine to heroin- an unusually simple one-step conversion. Solvent diethyl ether is similarly difficult to get outside of established companies or universities. Many other common drug starting materials are difficult to obtain legally in the US or EU by the criminal element. However, China is thought to be a major supplier of starting materials outside the US and EU. Countries with remote coastlines, loose borders, lackadaisical or corrupt law enforcement reduce the barriers for entry of drug precursors. China in particular has a large number of chemical plants that make diverse precursors for legitimate drugs. Unfortunately, some of these precursors can also be used for illicit drugs or existing technology adapted for this use. Precursors can be sold to resellers who can do as they please with them. Agents may represent many manufacturers and can mask the manufacturer’s identity and take charge of the distribution abroad. Shady transactions become difficult for authorities to detect and trace. The identity of illicit precursor chemicals are easily altered in the paperwork to grease the skids through customs. Resellers can repackage chemicals to suitable scale, change the paperwork and jack up the price for export. It has been my experience that many if not most Chinese or Japanese chemical manufacturers conduct business through independent export agents. However, behind the curtains there often a byzantine web of connections between companies and agents, so you may never know who will manufacture your chemical. As an aside, this complicates getting technical information from the manufacturer since the agent will not disclose a contact at that manufacturer.

Highly potent drugs like fentanyl must be taken in very small dosages which means that kilo-scale batch quantities of drug result in many individual sales per kilo. Small quantities of highly potent drugs are more easily smuggled than bulky drugs like weed with its strong odor.

There is a down-side to the illicit manufacture of drugs like fentanyl. It is quite toxic at very low dosages and must be handled with the greatest of care lest the “cook” and other handlers get inadvertently and mortally poisoned. Good housekeeping helps, but I have yet to see a photo of a tidy drug lab.

Fentanyl can be sold as a single drug but perhaps is cut with a solid diluent that some random yayhoo decided was Ok to use. Other drugs of abuse like heroin may be surreptitiously spiked with fentanyl to kick up the potency. In either case, a given dosage may or may not be safe even for a single use. There is no way for a user to know. Also, the concentration or homogeneity of mixed solids may be subject to wide variation. For more than a few people, their first fentanyl dose will be their last.

Howdy Arabia

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I heard a sarcastic moniker for Texas yesterday for the first time. It was “Howdy Arabia”. It was used by one of my favorite comedians, Trae Crowder, and refers to ultra-conservative xenophobic southern American culture. Crowder is from Tennessee and calls himself a progressive hillbilly or a liberal redneck. But Howdy Arabia has been around for a while as a Google search will show. The phrase “Y’all Qaeda” also bubbles up.

Why all of this intemperate 8th grade slander on an entire state? The abortion fiasco led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton happening in Texas presently is so foul and unnecessary that I can barely listen to it without becoming angry. Medical reality doesn’t seem to have a place in Paxton’s absolutist, linear brain. He is putting on a performance to display his Republican bona fides. His are the Bible belt constituents who elected him. In this sense, he is a duly elected official giving his voters what they want no matter the cost. It isn’t just Paxton- it is the entire GOP party apparatus at work.

Paxton is an aggressive, doctrinaire male exerting control over a woman’s body from a distance. He won’t be present as she suffers through this ordeal. He could have accepted the local court’s decision and allowed the woman to go forward with the procedure. Instead, he appealed to the Texas Supreme Court and ruled against the lower court’s decision. Further, he sent letters to local health care providers threatening severe legal consequences if they were to aid in the woman’s abortion. This is Republican Texas.

Idiots are elected by idiots.

Execution by Nitrogen Hypoxia

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It came out that the state of Alabama is preparing to execute a prisoner by nitrogen hypoxia. Oklahoma and Mississippi are the only other states that have authorized this method of execution. The prisoner, Kenneth Eugene Smith, had previously selected nitrogen hypoxia as a secondary means of execution. This decision was backed by the US Supreme Court. The first attempt to execute Smith by lethal injection failed because of the inability of workers to find a vein after 4 hours trying.

Smith’s attorneys have made the argument that this new form of execution claim that Smith is a “test subject for this novel and experimental method.” According to the Death Penalty Information Center, some have claimed that “those who support the use of nitrogen hypoxia can only theorize that the method will be painless and quick, but opponents have likened it to human experimentation.”

Criticism of the nitrogen hypoxia method have raised safety concerns for witnesses. It’s been argued that nitrogen escaping from the condemned man’s mask could threaten the health of those nearby, particularly the preacher standing close for spiritual comfort.

Critics say that the state of Alabama has not adequately prepared for the execution and the safety of witnesses and workers nearby.

“They could start to hyperventilate because their body would detect that they’re in a low oxygen environment,” said Dr. Joel Zivot, an anesthesiologist and associate professor at Emory University School of Medicine. “And that severe hyperventilation can lead to a stroke.” The doctor expressed concern that the method is full of unknowns and seemed quite skeptical of the method.

Seems to me that on basic principles alone, this method should work just fine. It would’ve been nice to read that the state had a written procedure that specified the type of mask and the nitrogen flow rate. As for the safety of others, minimally there should be an O2 concentration meter present, which is the case. The air exchange rate in the room can be measured and increased, assuming this is possible in an Alabama prison. Best of all, supplied air hoods or masks are widely available. This would only require an air compressor in fresh air.