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By Jay Town
Overdose deaths in America are rising precipitously, and with an astonishing lack of concern this crisis merits.
Most Americans generally believe that they live beyond the reach of criminal activity. They reason, for instance, that increasing homicide rates have no direct impact because murders do not occur in their neighborhood or illegal immigration is of little concern because their state isn’t a border state.
But illegal narcotics, especially opioids, have entered every walk of life and are agnostic to socio-economic status, race, religion, gender, or any other characteristic one might believe serves as a barrier to the death and destruction caused by opiates.
To counter this misconception and shameful reality, our tactics in addressing the overdose crisis in America must therefore pivot.
We can no longer foil the overdose by convincing the user of the perils of illicit drug use. The days of “this is your brain on drugs” or “Just Say No!” have long passed us by. Addicts have accepted the risk long ago.
And we will barely make a dent in the overdose crisis by simply taking dealers off the streets or trying to prosecute our way out of this mess. Those poison peddlers will simply be replaced tomorrow by another given the same promises of fortune and status.
The only true measure that will impact this American tragedy is to confront the worst among us at the source. And the antagonists are the cartels and Communist China.
Provisional data from CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics indicates there were an estimated 107,622 drug overdose deaths in the United States during 2021, an increase of nearly 15% from the 93,655 deaths estimated in 2020. A record year after a record year. Fatal overdoses have increased 227% since 2014.
To put this epidemic in perspective, the national murder rate in 2021 was the highest in a quarter century at just under 20,000 homicides, not even 20% of the number of fatal overdoses this nation suffered in the same year.
What’s more is that the number of fatal overdoses is vastly undercounted. The CDC’s method for counting fatal overdoses is essentially to gather all the coroner reports from around the country, add up the overdoses identified from autopsy, and then publish a number.
How many fatal overdoses never are brought to the attention of authorities? How many overdose victims never undergo autopsy? This is why the CDC reports overdoses as an “estimate” and the CDC’s own data stream has an asterisk qualifying their statistics ominously with “underreported due to incomplete data.”
And how does the CDC count non-fatal overdoses, the precursor to the ultimate fatal overdose? They don’t. The overdose crisis is much worse than even the grimmest estimates denote.
At the root of the overdose crisis is the opiate. Overdoses from opioids, especially synthetic opioids, account for around 75% of all fatal ODs. This includes heroin, fentanyl and really any drug ending with “one” or “ine.”
The abuse of illicit opioids too often begins with otherwise lawful prescription drug abuse. The ease of getting prescriptions, the irresponsible marketing by big Pharma, and less than
ethical physicians have all contributed to this American tragedy.
But once the prescriptions run out, the pharmaceutical company’s business crippled (see Purdue Pharma), or the pill mill doctor has traded his or her lab coat for prison garb, the user remains addicted to opioids.
Heroin is normally the first stop because it’s cheap and readily available. But recently, fentanyl and its analogues have unseated heroin as the deadliest of the opiates … and is 50 times more addictive.
The tiny fraction of fentanyl that it would take to cause a fatal overdose would barely cover the year on a penny. A kilo of fentanyl could kill 500,000 people. One in four fentanyl pills contains a deadly dose.
If we are to turn back the tides of the American overdose catastrophe, we must focus on the source of narcotics. These deadly drugs cross our border in trucks. Synthetic opioids are manufactured by the Mexican drug cartels. The cartels get the precursor chemicals from communist China. Chinese businesses launder the proceeds. It’s a lucrative cycle of death.
Our resolve to end this crisis must be reflected by our trade sanctions and laws. We must hold the governments in Mexico and China accountable.
It should increasingly difficult for a country to sell hammers in Walmart if that same country is selling deadly precursor chemicals to drug cartels. A country should not be able to manufacture goods to be sold in the United States if they are unable to control the organized crime responsible for manufacturing and selling drugs that kill tens of thousands
of Americans each year.
The full weight of the United States government, from every agency, needs to be committed to this crisis. From the Justice Department to the State Department, from Treasury to DHS to state governments, this full slate of protagonists must unite to form the necessary phalanx to defend against this poison.
We must aggressively go on the offensive against the source of these illegal narcotics as well, whether to our South or to our Far East, by any means necessary.
A drug overdose is agnostic. It matters not your background, affluence or skin tone. Those who manufacture opioids, or abet those who do, need to be brought to justice, need to be out of business, need to be put in American prisons, need to be foiled.
Let it ring forth that killing Americans will not be met with the impact resembling docking someone’s allowance, but will be met with the might and force of the American government!
Until we find that resolve, until we find that fortitude, until we flex to protect our nation and her citizens, and only until then, the American overdose crisis will continue to be our American tragedy.
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