Fentanyl is the “biggest challenge facing the United States as a country,” the Homeland Security Secretary said.
Alejandro Mayorkas made the comments during a Senate hearing on Wednesday, in what is believed to be the first time a member of Biden’s cabinet has described the deadly synthetic opioid so clearly.
Mr Mayorkas pointed to the record 75,000 deaths in 2022 from fentanyl overdoses, equivalent to 1,500 US deaths per week.
The drug, which enters the US from Mexico and China, has become the leading cause of death for people between the ages of 18 and 49, surpassing gun and car accidents, according to figures.
Republican lawmakers have blamed the Biden administration’s lax immigration policies for the increase in fentanyl crossing the southern border.
The number of deaths due to fentanyl in the US increased sharply in the 2010s. At the start of the decade, 2,666 Americans died of a fentanyl overdose. That number rose to 19,413 in 2016. Covid worsened the situation, with a record 72,484 deaths in 2021, followed by another record 75,000 deaths last year
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told a Senate hearing Wednesday that fentanyl is the “biggest challenge facing the US as a country.”
According to US Customs and Border Protection, the vast majority of fentanyl enters the US through legal gateways in vehicles
Senate Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman, Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, opened the Senate panel by asking Mr. Mayorkas to say he wants the fentanyl crisis to be the department’s top priority for 2024.
Senator Murphy said, “This budget had better do everything humanly possible to stop the importation of deadly fentanyl into the United States.”
Mayorkas told the committee that the current fentanyl crisis was underway before Biden took office. He added that the government is working with Mexico to “take the fight to the cartels.”
Customs and Border Protection seized a record nearly 15,000 pounds of fentanyl last year. More than 90 percent of the arrests occurred at ports of entry along the Mexican border.
The powerful synthetic opioid is 50 times stronger than heroin and 50 to 100 times stronger than morphine. It is used by doctors in patients with severe pain or terminal illnesses.
It’s cheap, addictive, relatively easy to smuggle into the US, and cheap for dealers to mix into their inventory, which saves them money and can extend or increase the high user experience.
But it takes a negligible dose of fentanyl to cause a fatal overdose. Just two milligrams, the equivalent of five grains of salt, is enough to cause death.
Because it is included in other popular medicines, many people who die of an overdose do not know they are taking fentanyl. Fentanyl is partly responsible for the sharp decline in life expectancy in America over the past three years.
It’s now in everything from cocaine to Molly to street benzodiazepines like Xanax.
Fentanyl, a highly addictive synthetic opioid, is killing the streets of Portland, Oregon. The drug has flowed into the US, initially along the East Coast, but the strongest increases are now being seen in the West.
The drug was initially manufactured in India and China and shipped to recipients in North America. Since then, makeshift laboratories have sprung up in Mexico to receive the precursor chemicals from Asia, mix them or crush them into pills, and smuggle them into the United States
The fentanyl crisis has contributed to the sharp decline in American life expectancy in recent years. Americans now live an average of 76.4 years, compared to 78.8 years in 2019. In the UK, which like the US has suffered from the Covid pandemic but has not experienced a fentanyl crisis, life expectancy is slightly lower at 81 .3 years in 2019 to 81.52 years in 2021.
The Department of Homeland Security includes the Customs and Border Protection Agency, which is tasked with preventing illegal fentanyl and other narcotics from entering America.
According to US Customs and Border Protection, the vast majority of fentanyl enters the US through legal gateways in vehicles.
However, no one knows how much fentanyl, in both gel and tablet forms, successfully crosses the southern border, and the number of attacks remains low.
Opioid cuts with virtually every street drug in the country have killed a record 75,000 Americans through 2021, the equivalent of 1,500 lives lost a week.
The common counterfeit drug is very potent and deadly in large doses. The equivalent of five grains of fentanyl salt is enough to cause death.
Fentanyl’s Deadly Grip on America: Cheap Synthetic Opioids Flood US Street Drug Supply and Reduce Life Expectancy
Drugs are blamed for turning parts of many once-thriving American cities into “zombie lands.”
Meanwhile, a drug testing company found a ninefold increase in fentanyl use in the western US over the past three years, showing that the powerful opioid has now cast its deadly shadow across the country..
This week, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Narcan, the nasal spray that rapidly reverses opioid overdoses.
The drug can now be sold without a prescription.
Fentanyl was invented in the United States in 1959 as a cheaper alternative to other painkillers used in hospitals and health centers around the world.
Three chemicals, benzylfentanyl, 4-anilinepiperidine and norfentanil, are considered by the DEA to be precursors to fentanyl – meaning they are key ingredients in the manufacture of the drug.
It binds to opioid receptors in a person’s nervous system, which are responsible for making the body feel comfortable when activated.
However, its prevalence in the illegal drug trade increased in the 2010s: in 2011, fentanyl caused 2,666 deaths – a number that has increased dramatically almost every year since.
The fentanyl crisis began in 2016, when annual deaths more than doubled to 19,413, from 9,580 the year before. In 2017, the number of deaths due to the synthetic opioid was 28,466.
Covid accelerated the fentanyl epidemic and caused a spike in deaths in the years that followed.
Already in the first three weeks of 2023, there have been 35 drug overdose deaths in King County, Washington, according to local outlets. Pictured: A man in Seattle smokes fentanyl
Kensington, a bustling industrial neighborhood until the 1950s, is now described by the Philadelphia Inquirer as “the poorest neighborhood in America’s poorest city.”
In 2020, the first year of the pandemic, fentanyl-related deaths rose 52 percent to 55,516, from 36,359 in 2019.
The crisis deepened in 2021, with death tolls rising another 30 percent to 72,484.
America’s homeless population is one of the people hardest hit by the nation’s fentanyl crisis.
In King County, Washington, which includes Seattle, officials say the number of fentanyl-related deaths among the city’s homeless has left morgues running out of space to store bodies.
America’s homeless population is one of the people hardest hit by the nation’s fentanyl crisis.
In King County, Washington, which includes Seattle, officials say the number of fentanyl-related deaths among the city’s homeless has left morgues running out of space to store bodies.
Source link
Crystal Leahy is an author and health journalist who writes for The Fashion Vibes. With a background in health and wellness, Crystal has a passion for helping people live their best lives through healthy habits and lifestyles.
