Posted on 10/30/2019 8:30:30 AM PDT by Kaslin
The United States is currently fighting one of the worst addiction problems in its history by way of the opioid crisis. While many Americans are aware of its existence, few likely understand the ongoing issues surrounding this large-scale public health emergency and the extent to which it is undermining the foundations of our great country.
The human and financial toll of this crisis is staggering. In 2018 alone over 47,000 people died from opioid-related overdoses. Meanwhile, a recent analysis from the Society of Actuaries found that over a four-year period from 2015 to 2018, the total economic cost of the opioid crisis was $631 billion.
This crisis is also destroying families and stretching social service programs to the brink. During that same four-year period, an additional $39 billion was spent on child and family assistance programs and education programs. Every day children are separated from their drug-addicted parents who can no longer care for them and are entered into the foster care system. Babies are born with opiate dependencies, forcing them to confront the scourge of addiction right from the start of their lives. The financial costs certainly can’t be overlooked but it is these intangible societal costs of the opioid crisis that might be the greatest concern of all.
This is why it is so important policymakers in Washington work to identify and counter the drivers of today’s opioid crisis. Increased public education, updated prescribing protocols, and a series of legislative and regulatory efforts aimed at shutting down bad actors have helped significantly reduce the amount of excess prescription pain medication in the country. As a result, the nature of the crisis has morphed from a prescription problem into a heroin crisis and now a full-blown fentanyl epidemic.
It is not hard to see why overdose deaths have spiked significantly since the widespread adoption of fentanyl. A synthetic opioid 50 to 100 times more potent than heroin, just 2 milligrams – the equivalent of 4 grains of salt – is enough to cause a fatal overdose. Curbing the supply of this drug will be key to kicking our country’s current opioid addiction.
The largest suppliers of illicit fentanyl are Chinese laboratories and Mexican drug cartels. The two often work in concert to deliver this deadly drug to our streets.
The majority of fentanyl and its precursors are manufactured in Chinese laboratories and shipped to Mexico. From there, the drug works its way into the drug supply many ways before it is smuggled over the border by the drug cartels.
A common activity is to press fentanyl into counterfeit prescription pills, called “Mexican oxy.” Other times the cartels lace heroin products with the synthetic opioid to provide users with a greater high and to pad their profit margins. And other times the drug is smuggled in its raw form into the United States where it is processed and distributed by affiliate gangs within our borders.
The sheer volume of fentanyl entering the country demonstrates how pressing of an issue this has become. In 2018 alone, almost 1,800 pounds of fentanyl was confiscated at the border, a more than 2500% increase since 2015. That is just what was caught—never mind what made it through.
Fortunately, Congress is considering a number of measures to help curb the supply of this drug. Several versions of a bill called the Fentanyl Sanctions Act are currently under consideration. This legislation would not only direct the president to identify foreign traffickers of opioids on an annual basis, it would also provide law enforcement and sanctions targeteers with a number of precision economic and financial tools to cripple their operations.
To truly end this addiction crisis, we must be sure to also take action to help curb the demand for these drugs as well. As Surgeon General Jerome Adams has pointed out, the country could do well to leverage “the special talents and calling of the faith community” when combatting the opioid crisis. The Department of Health and Human Services has already affirmed that states may use opioid response grant funds to support substance use disorder treatment services by faith-based organizations. Policymakers at the state and local level should take advantage of these special resources and Washington should continue to support these efforts wherever possible.
Ending the opioid crisis once and for all is an all-hands-on-deck endeavor. A collaborative effort from law enforcement, elected officials, and members of civil society will be required to end these senseless overdose deaths and ensure a healthy drug-free America.
“ensure a healthy drug-free America.”
That has never existed.
L
It’s not popular to say in today’s PC culture but there is a FAITH solution. https://teenchallengeusa.org/
How about, just don’t do drugs?
Cartels wouldn’t exist without huge demand. Junkies already know the s***’s bad for them but they do it anyway.
I think it’s high time to investigate the dea. No doubt there is corruption and bribery going on. You can’t be a federal agency operating in de facto secrecy and not be corrupt. They have nothing to show for nearly 50 years except wasted billions.
Don’t believe those dea pics with pallets of drugs. In all likelihood they are being recycled back through the illicit market.
Stupid people think all we need is another “government program” to manage this. Its the culture, and the roots of this problem go deep.
It seems every generation throughout history complains about “moral decline” but we are truly living it. Material excess and prosperity, extreme “rights” and license, political correctness and conformity - all combined with no higher-calling, no faith and no shame create a lot of lost people.
After reading some gossip about Afghanistan and the Ukraine and how high ranking government officials have backwater deals with Afghanistan and their redound opium industry (which the taliban has completely closed down and came back after we invaded).
I can’t help but wonder if this opioid “crisis” and the attempts to de-legalize pain medicine (which has a very real need) isn’t some clandestine attempt to enrich the illegal opium trade by those same government officials.
In the 60’s and 70’s it was heroin. 80’s and 90’s it was crack. 00’s and 10’s it was meth. Looks like the next boogie man is going to be fentanyl. As someone else mentioned, what has 50 years of WOD bought us?
Americans don’t understand that China is fathering the ‘opioid crisis’ in America, just as the West fathered the opium crisis in China in the 19th and 20th centuries. It’s payback.
What perplexes me is anyone with half a brain can see the serious opioids come on the black market while the powers that be force docs to be red flagged for daring to write a script for acute or chronic pain. The war is not in the hospitals, it’s in the daguumed streets and a border sieve killing our people one clean needle( government sanctioned) at a time.
Here’s what Red Lawhern, an opioid researcher wrote about the dea. THis is under comments on a previous post:
https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3790135/posts
“I think it’s time to clean house in that benighted organization by firing their Administrator plus Department heads and key staff within their Operations division, Inspection division, and Intelligence division, on grounds of gross managerial incompetence and policy misdirection. In the the most recent proposed drug quota announcement, DEA admitted that they are unable to trace more than 1% of current retail volume of prescription opioids to diversion. They are also cutting back vitally needed surgical anesthetics and post-surgical pain relievers that are already in shortage across US hospitals in the 50 States.
I can only suggest that this ineptitude reflects a willful refusal to properly integrate existing DEA in-house databases which supposedly track drug deliveries all the way from manufacturers to importers to US distributors to pharmacies. There may be grounds for investigating DEA personnel under criteria of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. While the process can be complex, it’s not rocket science and DEA has had literally decades to get its act together.”
I personally know two people who lost adult children to this scourge, in the past six months. And I’m not in a major city or a predominantly Dem region.
Isn’t it time we got serious about opioids? If they are so dangerous, why do doctors prescribe them? Are there no alternatives?
We regulate liquor. We put warnings on cigarettes. Heck, we even warn people that they can get burned if they put a hot cup of coffee between their legs.
I’ll be the last person to recommend government intervention in anything; but that said, the medical profession needs to step and accept responsibility.
Execute drug dealers, from street level to kingpin.
And never will.
Try getting any pain killer medicine from your doctor or ER. I know two people who had accidents recently and were/are really hurting. They only give tylenol.
Once again, the government is punishing the law abiding citizen with its hysterical reaction to the crisis. It’s just like gun control. Punish the good guys, don’t prosecute all those with guns and no permits.
BTW if you want pain meds, see your veterinarian. Your dog can get all the pain meds and sleeping pills you want.
If you are really going to have a “War On Drugs”, there’s only one way to do it, and that’s to go “Full Singapore”.
It is pretty much in the entire country at this point. Even very rural areas are impacted.
As long as there are people who lack self control, willpower and a sense of personal responsibility, problems like this won't go away.
Just have Beto buy back all the opioids. Problem solved!
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