Colin Kroll, Founder of HQ Trivia and Vine, Died of Accidental Drug Overdose (nbcnewyork.com) 117
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NBC New York: Colin Kroll, the co-founder of HQ Trivia and Vine, died of an accidental overdose, the city's medical examiner announced Tuesday. According to the autopsy results, Kroll died of "acute intoxication due to the combined effects of fentanyl, fluoroisobutyryl fentanyl, heroin, and cocaine." Kroll, 34, was found dead in his SoHo, Manhattan, apartment on Dec. 16, 2018. Police responded to a 911 call for a welfare check at the Spring Street apartment where they found Kroll unconscious and unresponsive in a bedroom of the apartment, a New York Police Department spokesman previously told NBC News. Kroll was named the chief executive of HQ Trivia, a phone-based trivia platform, in September. Prior to that, Kroll co-founded Vine, the popular short-form video service acquired in 2012 by Twitter. Vine was discontinued four years later.
Don't do heroin, kids (Score:5, Insightful)
Out of all the drugs out there, stay away from heroin.
Re:Don't do heroin, kids (Score:5, Insightful)
Odds are it was the fentanyl that got him.
Re: (Score:3)
Probably. Most of what passes for heroin these days in the chic set is actually fentanyl, watered way down.
Re: (Score:3)
Probably. Mix a little heroin plus a little fentanyl with a good amount, water it down, and sell it as a more expensive real heroin. Bigger profits.
Re: (Score:2)
Why bother with blending with heroin at all? Why not just cut fentanyl to super-strength heroin potency and sell it as your super strength heroin?
It makes logical sense -- fucking fentanyl is hard to cut to a dose that won't kill an entire division of infantry at once, I can't imagine getting a partial dose useful for boosting weak heroin is easier.
If the "drug lords" could ever get just enough chemistry to *reliably* cut fentanyl to heroin strength, its going to make the opiate problem that much worse. A
Re: (Score:2)
Not a junkie, but what I've heard from folks I know is that the fentanyl high is less euphoric than a true heroin high. Also doesn't last as long.
Re: (Score:2)
If you simply put fentanyl in water - it looks, smells, and tastes like water. Someone who is used to buying black tar heroin is going to re
Re: (Score:2)
So if black tar is highly viscous, basically tar-like, how the hell are they adding fentanyl to it? Is it happening at the "source" where they're cooking down opium to morphine base and then converting to heroin? It sounds extremely non-practical to try to add fentanyl to tar just from a materials properties basis.
I've read that a lot of counterfeit pills are out there with fentanyl, and honestly, it's kind of what I would expect would happen with fentanyl. Mostly because it represents what I assume som
Re:Don't do heroin, kids (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Don't do heroin, kids (Score:4, Interesting)
Or carfenanil, which is much stronger and is being used to cut drugs more often as fentanyl is being squeezed dry. Carfenanil is just plain nasty, a grain the size of sand will either put you into a coma you never wake up from, or will kill you. I do mean it's nasty, it's easily absorbed(skin/lungs/mucus membranes) and has a long half life in the body. The biggest bust in the US has been about 6kg and they called in a hazmat team for it, and the unlucky cop that found it nearly died via OD from a trace amount in the air. Here in Canada it was 42kg and they considered demolishing the house by a controlled burn if they couldn't get a hazmat team in to deal with it.
Screwed up thing about the bust in Canada, you might remember the mass shooting in Toronto a year or so ago. The shooters brother(also likely the source of the gun) was running the stuff, and has been in a coma ever since they found it.
Re: (Score:3)
At that point, you basically have a chemical weapon... It's not hard to speculate how some ISIS type person could use it as such.
Re: (Score:2)
At that point, you basically have a chemical weapon... It's not hard to speculate how some ISIS type person could use it as such.
A bunch of intelligence agencies have already done a threat analysis on it, the declassified or non-restricted guesses are pretty nasty. Enough so that special warnings(in US, Canada and various EU countries) were issued a few years ago to watch for it.
Re: (Score:2)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
I'd also go into an analysis of how China is dumping fentanyl on the US as an act of economic war analogous to the Opium Wars in the 1800s - and taking much glee in the turnabout. But then I'd start sounding like a conspiracy theorist...
Re: (Score:2)
Odds are it was the fentanyl that got him.
The odds are that choosing to use heroin in the first place got him on the train to fentanyl.
Re: (Score:2)
Odds are it was the fentanyl that got him.
The odds are that being prescribed codeine/oxy/etc in the first place got him on the train to heroin, which had a transfer to fentanyl.
FTFY
Fentanyl is 100 times stronger than H (Score:1)
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/12/09/china-deadliest-export-fentanyl-editorials-debates/2229428002/ - 80 Americans a day = a lot, even for Heroin.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
It screams "make it look like an accident" to me.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I've heard that fentanyl is added to coke to offset the effects of the meth.
Re: (Score:1)
This sounds like the sort of logic that only a true addict could have come up with.
Re: (Score:2)
Follow the Wikipedia link about "Speedball" several postings up from here for details about that combo.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The fentanyl crisis was directly precipitated by abruptly limiting or terminating access to known-dose pharmaceutical products. Everyone with a clue knew the opiate crackdown would cause an OD spike. Everyone involved in passing, enforcing, or supporting these policies has blood on their hands. The dealers who sell products of unknown potency are more culpable, but those who created, enforced, or supported that situation despite expert a
Fentanyl (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
No, he means 9 PM. [whitehouse.gov] You must be in the Central Time Zone. It's 8 PM CST, but 9 PM EST.
Re: (Score:3)
Did he even know what is in the mix?
It could well be that a middle man saw an opportunity to sell cocaine+heroin+fentanyl for a bigger profit than a comparable amount of cocaine+heroin. And many customers may actually like this better, at least the ones that live.
Re: (Score:1)
While I don't necessarily agree that use of recreational (and highly addictive) drugs like heroin will result in productive and contributing members of society, having the "freedom" to make one's own choices in personal matters should take precedence. The only corollary I would make in this case is that society should not be burdened with maintaining these types of pathologies. One should be free to make poor choices, given they are subsequently also responsible enough to provide for their own sustenance. A
Re:Fentanyl (Score:4, Interesting)
A century ago, most of these drugs (i.e. cocaine, opium, etc.) were available to the general populace
Most of the available opiates were a lot weaker and diluted into oral tinctures that cuts their bio-availability. Most users weren't injecting them, and in fact smoking opium was the predominate form of "opiate abuse" into the 1920s.
Succesive bans and increased enforcement pushed illicit varieties into their more concentrated forms to aid in evading enforcement. This is more or less what happened once the DEA cracked down on overprescribing oral narcotics. People switched from pharmaceutical grade and lower dose pills to street heroin, and when supply couldn't match demand, synthetics like fentanyl got into the mix, partially abetted by the ease of obtaining them from corrupt Chinese labs.
I figure eventually a more or less reliable kitchen sink method is going to be developed for cutting and bulking fentanyl, some kind of solvent dilution combined with a binder which can be dried and handled at gram-size masses, capped into pills, etc.
This will create real problems because what has really held heroin back has been its complex supply chain, from poppy field to consumer. If you can cut this supply chain to a single lab that can synthesize fenatnyl it creates a ton of problems for enforcement. One, you can't just trace shit from "farm to table" so easily, and fentanyl is so potent that in its raw form it greatly reduces smuggling risks.
Re: Fentanyl (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm thinking this is largely why someone like Keith Richards survived so many years of heroin use.
From what I read, back in his day, he could afford to get pharmaceutical grades of things like coke and his heroin was pure, rarely bought from any low end street dealers, etc.
Likely the purity of the stuff he did, was largely responsible for
Re: (Score:2)
But even basic safety precautions prevent ODs in anyone with even modest tolerance. If it's a new batch, push in very slowly, you
Re: (Score:2)
One would think that a big-name tech entrepreneur could afford a reasonably clean supply.
Re: (Score:2)
It is not money but some kind of pride that prevents someone from being certain ahead of time, for timely medical care for foreseeable dangerous side effects of their lifestyle. That applies to both Colin Kroll and Michael Jackson. If either had someone reliable on hand actually checking their pulse at regular intervals, they would have gotten assistance in time to save their lives.
Re: (Score:2)
If you knew anything about the hard drug scene you would know that all heroin and most cocaine is laced with fent these days. Its stupid cheap to obtain from the hundreds of chinese labs who synthesize it.
This was an accident? (Score:4, Interesting)
That is quite the cocktail of drugs right there...
Seems like less of a mistake and more like no fucks to give.
Re: (Score:3)
or spent some money on a TESTING KIT?
Re: It's like saying (Score:1)
Speedballs (Score:2)
The lie of "success" (Score:2)
How ironic, we keep being told that the way to be happy, the strongest expression of vitality, is to be an Entrepreneur, or a CEO. And yet, in order to sustain this type of life, one must poison himself like that man did.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, like Steve Jobs. His billions didn't save him.
Listening to his doctor might have.
Organoholisticmacrobiotichomeopathicveganism didn't. By the time he realized it wasn't, it was too late for real medicine.
Re: (Score:3)
Sam Walton is quite the counter-example.
Do stupid shit, die of stupid shit. None of those drugs were useful to sustain anything worth sustaining.
'accidental'? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Unless we find a suicide note or some other indication that it was a suicide attempt it seems likely that it was an accidental overdose. Especially since fentanyl is so easy to OD on.
Re:He choose to do drugs (Score:5, Insightful)
It is more like someone who is known to love to drive his sports cars 110mph deserved to die in a car accident.
I have driven 100mph for a few moments in my life. But I sure would not make a habit of it, even if I owned an appropriate vehicle, because I do not want a minor mistake by myself or someone else to snowball into a stupid death.
Did this guy deserve to die? I would say no. But he lived a life where a minor mistake by himself or someone else could snowball into a stupid death. He rolled the dice, and it came up snake eyes.
Re: (Score:1)
Did this guy deserve to die? I would say no. But he lived a life where a minor mistake by himself or someone else could snowball into a stupid death. He rolled the dice, and it came up snake eyes.
Addicts make poor decisions, like buying unregulated street drugs from people who don't get high on their own supply. The question is how he became an addict. Was it due to prescription drugs? If so, it's really not his fault his brain didn't work correctly.
Re:He choose to do drugs (Score:4, Insightful)
All these people who got hooked on prescription pain killers and then moved to heroin never once asked for help beforehand. They liked it.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Addicts make poor decisions, like buying unregulated street drugs from people who don't get high on their own supply. The question is how he became an addict. Was it due to prescription drugs? If so, it's really not his fault his brain didn't work correctly.
All these people who got hooked on prescription pain killers and then moved to heroin never once asked for help beforehand. They liked it.
What part of "Addicts make poor decisions" did you find unclear? Which word was it? Or was it a particular syllable?
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
" It is their own fault they lack self control, and also their own fault that they looked to fix their pain with pills rather than live with a little bit of pain"
1. People are trained to trust doctors
1b. Doctors are getting kickbacks in exchange for pushing certain drugs
2. Have you ever lived with the kind of pain for which opiates are prescribed?
3. Do you understand that pain affects people unequally?
4. Who hurt you? Was it your parents?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You lost the argument there, buddy.
No, sport, America is losing the argument [cdc.gov], and only big pharma execs are winning.
Re: (Score:2)
So do people who take painkillers for every little thing, and take them when not needed. You can't get addicted if you don't abuse them.
Re: (Score:2)
The simple solution is to execute anyone caught selling drugs.
Simple solutions only work for simple problems. Simple solutions are for simple people. Simple solutions are how we got where we are now (pain? medicate to hell and back!)
The war on drugs has proven to be both a sham and a failure. It's a sham because big pharma is permitted or even encouraged to sell bad drugs that don't work right by the legal framework — one which they have purchased. It's a failure by any reasonable measurement.
Countries where they execute drug dealers still have illegal drugs, so
Re: He choose to do drugs (Score:1)
If they could get help. (Score:2)
Get injured, get put on painkillers, lose job because of injury, insurance goes with it, not can only get treatment from shady doctors who are in the pay of the painkiller manufacturers, they get shut down. Now only source of medical treatment are emergency rooms, stil have pain and are addicted to opioids, and the only source left for them are dealers.
Seems a quite likely progression.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
You made my day.
110mph in a sport car as exscessive speed? Really?
I was driving 110mph regulary for many years(150 000mills totally, believe that over 50 of it was over 100mph) in Chrysler Grand Voyager and never had accident 110mph was the electronic limit for this car. Speeding in sport car starts probably over 150mph, but never had a sport car, so cannto tell
Longer cars are usually more stable on the road and I fe;t uncomfortable/unsafe at 40mph in many small cars. Lack of skills is much more dangerous
Re: (Score:1)
No, it's more like saying it was his choice to drive his car into a fucking brick wall.
Re: (Score:2)
More like getting into a Prius in Fort McMurray during a blizzard warning at forty degrees below zero with no snow tires to contend against all the heavy trucks exiting town for an extra-long weekend, but I take your point.