"Fentanyl Bomb" about the USA: the epidemic that kills 80,000 a year

There is a deadly and silent epidemic creeping through American cities. An epidemic of overdoses, pills and devastated communities. For more than a decade, the United States has been fighting the so-called opioid crisis. A real scourge of drug abuse deaths, claiming the lives of a million people in a few decades, one death every five minutes. An epidemic so severe that it reduced livelihoods life expectancies of American men.

America has been dealing with the facets of these emergencies for years. After years of analysis, the starting point was found in the over-prescribing of opiate-based painkillers, sublimated by the over-consumption of Oxycontyn. A deadly mix in many working class communities is caused by chronic pain. However, over time, addiction has shifted from drugs to other drugs. As the number of deaths continued to mount, the crisis changed face and can now be superimposed on the deadliest of drugs in circulation: the fentanyl.

The figures of the massacre

Before understanding how the monster that is devouring part of America evolved, one must start with the numbers, for their implications are devastating. We’re talking about a phenomenon that kills every week 1,500 Americans. The number of drug overdose deaths in America is increasing rapidly every year.

In 2021 the number of opioid overdoses reached 82,000, in 2020 it was 68,000, in 2018 it was 49,000 and in 2018 it was 47,000. According to the first projections for 2022, the numbers are likely to remain constant at 79,000 deaths. Between 2021 and 2022, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions USA, there were 105,452 overdose deaths in 2022, down 2% from the previous year.

figures out drugged. If we look in detail at the figures from the National Center for Health Statistics, we find that a large proportion of these opioid-related deaths are due to fentanyl. In 2016 there were 18,000, in 2018 30 and in 2021 69,000. Over the years, indicators have also increased for other substances such as methamphetamine (6,000 deaths in 2016 and 31,000 in 2021) and cocaine (11,000 in 2016). 26 thousand in 2021). The only decrease is for heroin.

But what does the X-ray of the fentanyl victim look like: predominantly male, white, between the ages of 25 and 54. Although that number is decreasing, according to the CDC, between 2018 and 2021, overdose deaths among 15- to 19-year-olds increased by 150%. Basically, as the Council on Foreign Relations stated in one of its dossiers, we are talking about a massacre. In 2021 alone, ten times more human lives were killed than in the two post-war years September 11 fought in Iraq and Afghanistan.

What is fentanyl, where does it come from and who administers it?

But what is fentanyl? As already mentioned, it is a substance that belongs to the opioids. It is a found synthetically It was developed in the 1960s and is used to treat pain in certain patient groups, such as cancer patients. In recent years, however, the illicit drug market has been flooded with very cheap versions of fentanyl, leading to a spike in use and deaths. In fact, fentanyl is about 50 times more potent thanheroin and can be fatal on first consumption.

Most of the fentanyl consumed illegally in the US is not manufactured on US soil, but comes from across the border. southern border Apparently. As several DEA reports have pointed out, trafficking in this opioid is in the hands of the drug cartels Mexicans who have also managed production in recent years. The problem is that rebuilding the streams of these illicit value chains is not easy. Up until 2019, much of the illicit fentanyl used came from China. Then a temporary policy shift between Washington and Beijing had frozen course and effectively redefined value chains and made them more decentralized.

The next Diplomatic breaches between Americans and Chinese did the rest. Today there is an extensive global network that transports the chemicals used to manufacture fentanyl from China to Mexico, where they are used to manufacture the end product. Among the cartels best equipped for this production is the von Sinaloa and that the Jalisco New Generationa tandem that manages the entire distribution network.

Interestingly, the US is the ultimate point of contact between Mexican cartels and consumers. It is estimated that between 2017 and 2021, 86% of smugglers smuggling fentanyl across borders were US citizens. The amount of pills in circulation is difficult to estimate, but it is in the millions. In 2022, the goddess seized something like that 50 million pills and 4.5 tons of fentanyl powder: enough to kill the entire American population.

fentanylLethal amount of fentanyl

The consequences of the crisis

In addition to the catastrophic social consequences that devastate families and communities, the fentanyl epidemic poses a double threat to America. First, under the economic plan. In 2022, a US Congressional Economic Affairs Committee study estimated that the opioid crisis cost America about $1.5 trillion in 2020, 7% of national GDP, a third more than the first estimate from 2017. Not only that . The epidemic obviously affects the workforce. According to an estimate by the nonprofit American Action Forum, of the 6.3 million workers locked out of the workforce, more than 1.3 million have been locked out because of opioid-related problems, accounting for 20% of the total.

The second problem caused by the epidemic concerns the National security. The fact that the (illegal) value chains behind the black market supply of fentanyl have their roots in China presents a delicate flank for the United States. Over the past year, Washington has made several attempts to bring China into the dossier. Recent trips to Chinese soil by American officials, such as that of the US Secretary of State Antony Blink and the secretaries of the Treasury Janet Yellen, had the fentanyl dossier among the various topics. For now, China is again talking about a problem caused by US domestic demand, but is well aware that it has potential bargaining chips. A lever that she will probably use to uncover other dossiers that are more sensitive to her, such as the technological order and the delicate status of Taiwan.