A bipartisan group of 37 House lawmakers signed and sent a letter, dated August 2, to Secretary of State Antony Blinken requesting that he place the highest priority on strengthening and growing a “whole of government approach” to battling and weakening the international trade of the deadly drug fentanyl.
The lawmakers urged Secretary Blinken to use the occasion of his present and ongoing discussions with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to forge agreements that disrupt and block a primary leg of the trade that brings fentanyl to the United States: the flow from China to Mexico of precursors from which Mexican drug cartels make fentanyl, which they then traffic into the U.S.
Most of the illicit fentanyl in the U.S. was made in Mexico from precursors brought in from China.
“The number of pills containing fentanyl seized by law enforcement in the United States has dramatically increased every year since 2018, more than doubling from 2020 to 2021,” wrote the lawmakers. “The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) found that 6 out of 10 counterfeit pills it tested contained a lethal dose of fentanyl.
“In addition, the DEA alone ‘seized more than 50 million fake pills and 10,000 pounds of fentanyl powder equating to approximately 379 million deadly doses of fentanyl,’ enough fentanyl to kill every person in the United States last year.”
Deaths in the United States from fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that is 50 times more potent than heroin and 100 times more potent than morphine, have skyrocketed in recent years.
Synthetic opioids are the leading cause of overdose deaths in the United States. The CDC estimates that, every day, more than 150 people die in the U.S. from “overdoses related to synthetic opioids like fentanyl.”
Fentanyl overdoses are the leading cause of death for Americans ages 18 to 49.
Fentanyl has expanded the opioid crisis, for decades primarily a rural phenomenon, into the cities.
What also contributes to the devastating impact that fentanyl has had on the American public is that because the substance is addictive, and because just a speck is so powerful, drug dealers weave fentanyl into other drugs they sell, including cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and meth with the intent of creating repeat customers. But, often, the dealers don’t tell their customers that a drug contains fentanyl.
An essay that the RAND Corporation published in January 2020 determined that “Fentanyl is unlike any other drug problem in modern history. It’s more useful to think of it as a mass poisoning than as a traditional drug epidemic.”
As the legislators cited in their letter: “Of the 109,940 fatal overdoses between February 2022 and February 2023, 75,929 deaths involved illicit fentanyl.”
“In addition, the DEA alone ‘seized more than 50 million fake pills and 10,000 pounds of fentanyl powder equating to approximately 379 million deadly doses of fentanyl,’ enough fentanyl to kill every person in the United States last year.”
The letter posed to Mr. Blinken a series of questions, including inquiring as to what types of activity the Department of State has been engaged in with other domestic government agencies to combat the fentanyl trade, and also asked about what types of progress have been made in the U.S.’s talks with China.
“Should diplomatic efforts fail to see meaningful progress, what tools remain at your disposal to protect American lives?” queried the lawmakers.
They also asked: “Are there authorities or flexibilities that you do not have that Congress could provide you to help address this crisis?”
The letter from the House members follows, earlier this summer, the Justice Department charging, for the first time, China-based companies and employees with trafficking precursors.
The companies openly advertised the chemicals on social media platforms and shipped them surreptitiously to buyers.
Two of the eight people charged were arrested. The government also seized more than 200 kilograms of precursor chemicals needed to make fentanyl.
