system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: If you died from taking a pressed pill that you thought was a pharmaceutical but it contained fentanyl, you didn't die of a "drug overdose", you were poisoned.

Think about a college student who takes an Adderall a few times per year as a study aid.

Or a single parent who takes Xanax for a few weeks to help them cope with the emotions of divorce.

Or someone with PTSD who takes Ambien to help them rest.

These are legitimate pharmaceuticals that are fairly well-known and **visually recognizable** to anyone who has ever had a prescription for them, or anyone who has been close to someone who had/has a prescription for them.

Sometimes, for any number of reasons, a person who has a physician-approved medical necessity for these pills may be unable to obtain them through the standard legal channels... Maybe the college student has been so busy that he missed his last doctor's appointment for a refill. Maybe the single parent canceled their health insurance so they could start paying rent. And maybe the PTSD sufferer simply can't afford the prescriptions this month.

When someone receives a controlled medication without a valid prescription, it's illegal, period. Whether it's from a fellow college student, a meth-head in the worst part of town, or it's just handed to them at a party, they're all the same in the eyes of the law. And I believe that's necessary to discourage recreational use and abuse.

**But when someone DIES from this pill, labeling it as a drug overdose is not only branding the victim as a user/addict, but *also* putting more lives at risk by failing to acknowledge or recognize the circumstances surrounding the death. Furthermore, it prevents any responsible party from being held accountable for these deaths.**

In other words, when someone shoots themselves, it's a suicide. When someone accidentally shoots themselves with a gun they're handling incorrectly, it's an accidental death. When someone is shot by someone else, it's manslaughter or murder. Why is it different with deaths from fentanyl?

I believe the reason that most middle-class white-collar families don't realize or understand the fentanyl problem is because when they hear someone died of a drug overdose, they assume the person was an addict and picture them snorting, smoking, or shooting up to get high. That's what most people think when they hear the term "drug overdose" unfortunately.

Look, if I shoot up heroin or smoke meth, then I know the risks. I know this stuff was made by a crackhead in their backyard. There's no telling what it could be laced with or what it could do to me - and that's been true for decades, long before the fentanyl epidemic. I'm not saying these people deserve to die AT ALL, but they are choosing to put a substance in their body that they KNOW is home made, unregulated, and dangerous. They know it's a calculated risk (whether or not an addiction overshadows their ability to make that decision is irrelevant to the greater argument here).

But in the case of pressed pills that are **pharmaceutical replicas** containing fentanyl, the "drug overdose" label seems like quite a stretch - they died from taking a SINGLE PILL that looks IDENTICAL to the pressed pills that come from their pharmacy. Regardless of how the victim obtained the pill(s), they were **deceived.** They thought they got Adderall because it looks just like the Adderall they got from their pharmacy a couple months ago. There was no perceived risk.

If I buy some Kool-Aid packets from the flea market, I'm sure I've broken a law or two by buying an individual retail product not labeled for resale and without its original retail packaging, but that doesn't change the fact that I believe that it's Kool-Aid because it's in a paper packet that looks identical to the Kool-Aid packet I buy at the grocery store. So if that Kool-Aid contains fentanyl and it kills me, did I die of a drug overdose? The fact that it contained something deadly isn't diminished just because the Kool-Aid was obtained illegally.

**TL;DR**

**When someone dies from a substance they consumed too much of for the purpose of getting high or staving off withdrawals, I'd agree that it's a drug overdose.**

**When someone dies from doing something they knew was dangerous/risky, I'd call that an accidental death.**

**When someone dies from a substance they didn't even know they were consuming because it was intentionally disguised as something FDA-approved, legally manufactured, and well-regulated, that's not a drug overdose nor is it an accidental death - it's manslaughter via poisoning.**
gpt
Why do you think the word overdose requires intent? It is simply a combination of two words that describe what happened.

Over = in excess, above

Dose = amount of a medicine or drug

To use your shooting comparison, in both cases the person is shot. The word shot doesn't require intention. The accidental shooting doesn't need to be renamed to manslaughter by unexpected bullet entry.