Tuesday October 17, 2023
Froma Harrop, columnist PHOTO: File
Fentanyl has killed more Americans than the wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan combined. And behind that are even more vicious illicit drugs.
The Justice Department may charge Chinese companies producing fentanyl and the precursor chemicals used to make it. The Biden administration can pressure Mexico to go after drug trafficking harder.
None of this will work. As long as people can make money from these drugs and others are willing to pay to buy them, the flow will not stop. How has the 52-year-old war on drugs fared so far?
Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid. Inexpensive to manufacture, it is approximately 50 times more potent than pure heroin. Of the 107,081 drug overdose deaths reported in the United States last year, more than two-thirds involved synthetic opioids other than methadone. One gram of fentanyl is so dangerous that experienced drug users have sometimes died after making a careless dosing error.
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Fentanyl usually comes as a white powder that can be made into pills or mixed with other drugs, such as methamphetamine, cocaine, or heroin. And those who buy street versions of commonly prescribed drugs – such as Xanax for anxiety or Oxycodone for pain – may be purchasing a product containing fentanyl.
And there are even scarier drugs. Carfentanil, a member of the fentanyl opioid family, is 100 times more potent than fentanyl and 10,000 times more potent than morphine. Originally developed as a tranquilizer for elephants, it can pass as heroin.
Another animal sedative, xylazine, is increasingly being detected in fentanyl products. Often called a “tranq” or “zombie drug,” xylazine is not an opioid but a sedative. This means that overdose treatments, such as Narcan, do not work against it. This further causes horrible bodily injuries.
These monstrous drugs can be made in the laboratory. The failure to stem the flood has changed the calculations of groups trying to alleviate this crisis. Instead of fighting the supply side, one epidemiologist said, “This is something we coexist with.”
Their strategy is “harm reduction”. Knowing there is a huge market for illegal drugs, they are trying to make that supply safer. One way is to install machines in health departments and universities that can test for deadly substances in medicines. Users can anonymously submit their illegal drugs for analysis.
The machines, however, can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. There are much cheaper and generally reliable test strips that allow users to check for the presence of fentanyl.
Who will use this technology? This could work in social settings such as nightclubs, where testing is done directly on site. But what about kids who get pills at a party?
And will addicts suffering from distressing withdrawal bother to try a drug that they believe could quickly relieve their anxiety? Do-it-yourself test strips require a number of steps — much like at-home COVID test kits — that a disorganized drug addict might have trouble following.
Florida, Texas, Kansas and Georgia, meanwhile, have made these test kits illegal, deeming them “drug paraphernalia.” It’s a shame, as well as poor labeling. We should try everything to save lives. But it would also be a mistake to let testing reinforce the sense that illicit drug use is somehow safe.
Fentanyl is even present in some marijuana. Legal marijuana purchased from dispensaries is a fairly safe, if not foolproof, bet. And note that in states where weed use has been legalized, it is still illegal to purchase weed from illicit sources.
As for fentanyl, governments cannot stop the killings. Only its customers have this power. At the moment, they are not using it.
Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at [email protected].
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