Article Summary
The United States is facing a severe Fentanyl crisis, with the drug responsible for 107,000 deaths between August 2021 and August 2022. Fentanyl is an opioid prescribed primarily to cancer patients to treat severe pain but is now prevalent in illegal street drugs, which has created an epidemic, leading to the loss of many lives, especially young adults and adolescents. The prevalence of illicit fentanyl on the streets of the United States gets tied to a well-built supply chain by Chinese and Mexican crime syndicates. Illicit fentanyl has quickly become the leading cause of overdoses in the US, with a rate of one person every five minutes. Additionally, fentanyl costs the US government $1.5 trillion annually, which continues to strain citizens who are still reeling from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Despite the efforts of President Biden’s administration, the fentanyl crisis continues to ravage American youth, as overdoses have become the leading cause of death for people less than 45 years, overtaking suicide. Criminal cartels in China and Mexico continue increasing the drug’s use in America, leading experts to call for greater accountability from the government and increased border control to eliminate seeping through of the illegal fentanyl drugs. There also needs to be additional efforts to reduce the recruitment of American youths into dealing and use.
Article: https://www.ft.com/content/bd1b1614-8407-4447-a0e3-3723368fbbf8
Fentanyl Crisis in the United States
Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid primarily prescribed to patients with chronic pain, such as cancer patients. Fentanyl’s use is only recommended for such patients because of its potency; it is 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine (Smyth & Roeder, 2023). However, fentanyl is now easily accessible on the streets, with many teenagers and young adults using it as they experiment with drugs. Due to fentanyl’s potency and the youths’ reduced tolerance of synthetic opioids, many users overdose, creating a health crisis in the United States.
Deaths by fentanyl overdose have skyrocketed in the past five years, between 2018 and 2023 (Smyth & Roeder, 2023). President Biden has sought to handle the crisis actively since his election campaign, and after becoming president, he opted to treat those addicted to opioid use rather than criminalizing them. The approach has helped many individuals suffering from opioid use disorder get good and relevant help toward rehabilitation. Public awareness campaigns like “One Pill Can Kill” specifically targeted to youths seek to raise awareness on the drug, helping reduce its use in that demographic (Smyth & Roeder, 2023).
Challenges Faced by Border Agencies
However, despite these efforts, fentanyl keeps seeping into the United States market, leaving citizens vulnerable to adverse effects, especially threatening the youth. The majority of the illegal fentanyl gets into the United States getting snuck through the Mexican border, with port director Mariza Marin reporting an increased incidence of smuggling in the last three years (Smyth & Roeder, 2023). Marin points out that smuggling fentanyl is relatively easier to carry out compared to traditional drugs like marijuana. With fentanyl, the drug’s high potency allows couriers to successfully sneak small amounts of the pills concealed in their pockets or backpacks, which still generate high returns after sales. Getting an equivalent profit from marijuana or cocaine would require carloads of the drugs, which are much easier to flag and capture (Smyth & Roeder, 2023).
Fentanyl’s easy transportation also makes it easier to sneak into the country through the post office without significant scrutiny. Fentanyl’s proliferation in the United States has been primarily due to efforts by Mexico’s biggest cartels, Jalisco New Generation and the Sinaloa, who manufacture the drugs in secret factories in Mexico and then smuggle them into the United States (Smyth & Roeder, 2023). San Diego has been established as the primary route for fentanyl entry into the United States, with more than half of all seized drugs confiscated there (Smyth & Roeder, 2023). The cartels use stash houses in Los Angeles and Phoenix before shipping the drugs nationwide. The ingredients that are necessary for the manufacture of synthetic fentanyl get sourced from China (Smyth & Roeder, 2023). Tracking the extent of these smuggling operations has been difficult for US drug enforcement agencies. However, there has been immense success in seizing shipments, with about 380 million doses seized by the US Drug Enforcement Administration in 2022 (Smyth & Roeder, 2023).
The fentanyl crisis has also led to claims that the prevalence is linked to increased illegal immigration in the United States. Many citizens and opposition politicians blame the president for a lax approach to immigration policy. However, data presented by the United States Sentencing Commission identifies the majority of fentanyl traffickers in the US as American citizens. According to the statistics, in 2020, 83% of traffickers were US citizens, and in 2021, 86% were citizens (Smyth & Roeder, 2023). Many of these culprits are the youth, primarily from poor homes, that get incentivized using gifts and low amounts of money.
Additionally, these recruits would get misinformed that they would not be prosecuted due to being minors and US citizens. However, in the United States, children can get charged as adults (Smyth & Roeder, 2023). The evidence, therefore, does not support the view that a lax immigration policy is responsible for the increased prevalence of fentanyl in the United States. Therefore, limiting immigration is not the solution to reducing the use of fentanyl in the US. However, it is increasing efforts to curtail the manufacturing and importation of pharmaceuticals and chemicals laced with the drug.
Impact of Fentanyl on Domestic and International Terms
The fentanyl crisis in the United States primarily affects the youth, especially teens and young adults in their 20s. Most of them in the age of experimenting with drugs are unwittingly using fentanyl, and due to its potency, and their low tolerance to synthetic opioids, they are often overdosing, even on small doses of the drug. Most victims are even using fentanyl unknowingly, believing that they are buying cocaine, heroin, and other less severe opioids, only to take fentanyl-infused products.
Consequently, this seepage of fentanyl into the US market has increased teenage deaths due to overdose by 150% over the last five years between 2018 and 2023 (Smyth & Roeder, 2023). Additionally, the economic implications of fentanyl use in the US are severe, with up to $1.5 trillion lost annually to the drug. Parents of children who are victims to fentanyl call the crisis a “war on young people,” where the youth are robbed of their futures due to drugs.
There is increased fear that the fentanyl crisis in the United States could eventually seep across the globe, creating another global-scale crisis like the covid-19 pandemic. The prevalence of fentanyl in street drugs and infusion into prescription medicine could spell doom for the global community, especially due to the globalization of multiple US pharmaceutical companies. Fentanyl is cheap to produce and easy to transport, making it increasingly possible for the drug’s use to spread globally (Smyth & Roeder, 2023).
With a limited capacity to effectively screen for its importation, many traffickers will easily introduce synthetic fentanyl into multiple local markets, garnering stupendous profits while endangering many lives and the futures of most youth. Additionally, due to minimized regulation of offending countries like China and Mexico, the proliferation of these drugs can go global, leaving the new generation of youths and young adults in danger (Smyth & Roeder, 2023).
Strategies to Deal with the Problem
President Biden has promised increased efforts to counter the production, sale, and trafficking of fentanyl in the US through increased scrutiny of cargo, more stringent inspection, and the use of more drug detection machines (Smyth & Roeder, 2023). The strategy involves curbing the supply chain and introducing tough penalties for culprits. The United States hopes to cooperate with China and other nations, like India, to increase legislation on transporting chemicals used for manufacturing fentanyl (Smyth & Roeder, 2023). Increased scrutiny on sales and production of fentanyl-producing chemicals can help the Chinese government, in conjunction with the United States, take note of all buyers of the chemicals, ensuring that they do not engage with cartels.
Additionally, proper labeling and tracking of shipments of the chemicals can help assess any sinister uses for fentanyl production (Smyth & Roeder, 2023). However, cooperation efforts between the United States and China seem unlikely, with diplomatic ties between the two states deteriorating in the last few years. The United States support of Taiwan’s independence has irked the Chinese government. The recent incident where the US air force shot down a Chinese spy balloon continues to diminish camaraderie between the two parties (Smyth & Roeder, 2023). In 2018, China agreed to work with the United States to control two primary fentanyl precursor chemicals, NPP and 4ANPP. After the diplomatic tensions between the two countries, China withdrew these efforts, leaving the US in turmoil (Smyth & Roeder, 2023).
Increased analysis of all pharmaceutical and chemical imports into the country can also help the United States more precisely identify the origin of all the ingredients used in manufacturing, down to the specific places they got sourced. These raw materials should be cataloged in an international database accessible by relevant inspection authorities, allowing for more effective screening (Smyth & Roeder, 2023). Legislation calling for importers to provide samples of all their imports can help the US government monitor the products they bring for public use more effectively.
Some government officials are also calling for tougher measures, like sanctions towards violating countries, to curb the proliferation of fentanyl in the US effectively. For instance, a case involving a young man named Thomas, who died from fentanyl use, led to an investigation by US law enforcement, eventually highlighting that the drugs were tied to a Chinese criminal syndicate, the Zheng Drug Trafficking Organization (Smyth & Roeder, 2023). Several members of congress are convinced that the absence of sufficient formal sanctions on the offending entities and their governments could lead countries like China to weaponize the fentanyl crisis for global supremacy.
Conclusion
The fentanyl crisis in the United States severely affects the future of American youth, with increased dependence and overdoses due to the drug’s potency. The proliferation of the drug is due to lax border control, with the drugs easily getting smuggled into the United States through the Mexican border, where they are manufactured. Additionally, the absence of adequate screening measures for incoming goods and imports makes it easy to smuggle fentanyl into the US through the postal system. Implementing sufficient screening and reviewing the manufacturing processes of all imported drugs to the country should help more effectively tackle the crisis. Additionally, partnerships with other countries like Mexico and China to halt the manufacturing process can more effectively tackle the threat of fentanyl, as it is easier to stop production rather than supply.
References
Smyth, J., & Roeder, O. (2023, February 20). Fentanyl: America’s struggle to contain a deadly drug. Financial Times. Retrieved March 13, 2023, from https://www.ft.com/content/bd1b1614-8407-4447-a0e3-3723368fbbf8
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