Fentanyl: The Silent Assassin
Drug overdoses have become the leading cause of death among 18–46-year-olds, surpassing Cancer, Heart Disease, and Covid-19
I was a heroin addict for the better part of 27 years, and now have over 8 years clean & sober. In all of my years of using I never saw so many addicts dropping like flies. As we approach the 50th anniversary of Nixon’s Declaration of War on Drugs, we are no closer to solving the problem than when we began.
A War With No End In Sight
Over the past 40 years, we have seen the rise of the Prison Industrial Complex. Beginning with Reagan’s Mandatory minimums for drug offenders culminating with the 1994 “Crime Bill” which targeted minorities, especially Black Americans.
The main focus for drug addicts and offenders has been to lock them up like common criminals, with minimal treatment available for those who wanted a different life.
The past 10 years have seen a growing progressive movement to keep addicts out of jail and therefore, less of a tax burden on society. Programs such as Drug Court’s and Alternative Sentencing Facilities, where your progress is rewarded, are becoming the new norm.
It seems just as we are finally beginning to get a handle on the drug problem in the U.S., the cartels have found a new and improved form of chemical slavery.
According to the CDC, 2020 saw 91,799 deaths from drug overdoses. It is believed that almost 52,000 of those were fentanyl. (Source DrugAbuse.gov)
This is an increase of almost 20,000 deaths from the previous year, and the numbers are not declining.
According to the article and on the CDC website you can track overdoses over the past 22 years.
As the graphs clearly show, heroin overdoses have declined as Pharmaceutical drug overdoses skyrocketed.
According to an unclassified DEA Intelligence Report, linked here, the majority of fentanyl flow into the United States is via the Mexican drug cartels. It comes in the guise of heroin and or pressed pills made to look like actual prescriptions.
The New “Black Goat”
In an amazing PBS News Hour expose’, journalist Monica Villamizar was able to meet with, “Pedro”, one of the Sinaloa Cartel’s heroin cooks. He allowed camera crews to record the entire operation.
He would go on to explain to her the toxic, poisonous process of cooking the new “Black Goat”, a name the Mexican cartels have used for heroin for decades.
With the ever-growing police presence in Sinaloa and aerial coverage of crops constantly looking for illegal poppy fields, piled on top of the difficulty in smuggling poppy resin for production, fentanyl is a perfect choice.
It takes a fractional amount of fentanyl to make heroin compared to organic opium at a fraction of the cost, and near negligible chance of getting caught coming from China to Mexico.
But Fentanyl Is Not Alone
Psychostimulants, primarily methamphetamines, have become the number two killer. If you look at Figure 2 above you will see each drug has its own color.
According to the chart, there has been a tremendous spike in overdoses in this class of drug. This is due to several reasons. Notice the rise of the light blue and gray lines.
Many of us will recall “Bath Salts” being all over the media between 8–10 years ago. Made popular by Charlie Sheen, sold in the pipe, tobacco, and head shops all over the country.
Packages labeled “Not for human consumption” allowed Chinese companies to sell psychostimulants to the public legally. According to an article on drugfree.org
“Because they were sold legally, many people thought that these drugs had to be safe. There are literally dozens and dozens of names used to market them, and the list continues to grow… Internet sites report the drugs produce a very euphoric feeling which is much better than Ecstasy, and legal. As time goes by, the effects look more and more like methamphetamine… The European literature and the early experience in the United States demonstrates a clear potential for addiction.”
With the death toll rising and the easy accessibility, it would appear the problem is only getting worse.
The Time to Act Is Now
Our leaders and educators need to pull their collective heads out of the sand. We need to realize at a legislative level that this problem is only getting worse and create policies that put prevention education in our schools at an early age.
As a former teen addict, I can tell you that high schools and middle schools are the gateways. Cartels and dealers target children the way Big Tobacco did for decades.
We need to educate our future generations about the dangers and harm of these synthetic, pseudo-drugs. We need to target the cartels and manufacturers of these deadly, silent killers.
More focus needs to be put on identifying and treating individuals who self-medicate due to untreated or undiagnosed mental health issues. We need to spend more resources on ending the “War on Drugs” and begin a new era of compassion and empathy.
As restrictions decrease and the world begins to return to a sense of normality, we have a golden opportunity to move in a newer and brighter direction.
