Fentanyl Deaths Among Young Children Rising at Alarming Rate: Advocacy Group

Some of the approximately 1 million fake pills containing fentanyl that were seized when agents served a search warrant at a home in Inglewood, Calif., on July 5, 2022. Drug Enforcement Administration via AP

A significant number of deaths among American adults are now being accounted for by fentanyl, with deaths among children increasing by more than 1,400 percent since 2015, according to a national advocacy group.

Families Against Fentanyl (FAF), the organization that compiled the data, said in a Jan. 12 statement that fentanyl deaths in children are rising faster than any other age group.

“These disturbing new findings should serve as a wake-up call to our nation’s leaders,” said FAF founder Jim Rauh.

FAF also said that that deaths among Americans in the age group of 25 to 44 made up 53.2 percent of all fentanyl deaths in America in 2021, and fentanyl poisoning was found to be a more likely cause of death among Americans aged 35 to 44 than any other 10-year age group.

Fentanyl deaths among children between the ages of 1 and 4 “more than tripled” in two years, with deaths among infants less than 1 year old rising fourfold. Since 2015, deaths among infants have ballooned by almost tenfold while deaths among those between the ages of 1 and 14 have risen fifteenfold, FAF said.

“Families Against Fentanyl is calling for the Biden Administration to declare fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction and immediately establish a White House task force dedicated to the fentanyl crisis,” Rauh said. “Americans deserve to know what is being done to save lives, and what is being done to uncover and stop the international manufacturers and traffickers of illicit fentanyl.”

Targeting Children

In August, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) warned about an “alarming emerging trend” of drug cartels using “rainbow fentanyl” to expand their businesses among youngsters.

“Rainbow fentanyl—fentanyl pills and powder that come in a variety of bright colors, shapes, and sizes—is a deliberate effort by drug traffickers to drive addiction amongst kids and young adults,” DEA Administrator Anne Milgram said in an Aug. 30 statement.

At the time of the statement, the DEA and other law enforcement agencies had seized rainbow fentanyl in 26 states, the agency said.

Though there are claims that some colors of pills are more dangerous than others, lab testing by the DEA has found no evidence to back this up. Every color, size, and shape of fentanyl must be considered extremely dangerous, the agency advised.

In the two years from 2019 to 2021, fentanyl deaths among infants rose “twice as fast” compared to overall fentanyl deaths across the United States, FAF said.

“This is the number one killer of our nation’s young adults,” Rauh said. “It is killing more and more children each year. It’s time to treat this threat with the urgency it deserves.”

China Links, Deaths

A big chunk of fentanyl and related substances that are trafficked into the United States come from China. In 2018, Beijing promised to crack down on fentanyl production in China, but nothing much has been done on the ground to prevent the trafficking, some experts say.

Lawmakers like Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) have raised doubts about Beijing’s sincerity on the matter.

“It’s all propaganda. It’s all based on deceit and lies,” he said in an interview for “Capitol Report,” a program on The Epoch Times’ sister media outlet NTD. “If they were serious, they would stop stealing our technology or intellectual property.”

In October, former President Donald Trump said on social media that it is imperative for the Biden administration to confront China on the issue of fentanyl.

“It is ripping our country apart,” Trump said in an Oct. 6 Truth Social post.

According to data from the CDC, there were 80,816 deaths from synthetic opioids—primarily fentanyl—in 2021. This made up 75 percent of the estimated 107,622 drug overdose deaths that year.

A February 2022 report by FAF showed that fentanyl fatalities doubled in 30 states, tripled in 15 states, and rose fivefold in six states over a period of just two years.

“Fentanyl fatally poisons one person in America every 8 minutes. Significant amounts are smuggled across the southern border each day. That’s why it’s so important to get the border crisis under control,” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said Wednesday on Twitter.