In 2022, 110,000 adults between the ages of 18 and 49 died of drug overdoses in the United States. Of these over 35 thousand for Fentanyl, rightly considered the most deadly serial killer of American adults. An opioid 50 times stronger than heroin. In 2022 the DEA seized 50.6 million counterfeit pills and 4,500 pounds of Fentanyl powder, the equivalent of “more than 379 million potentially lethal doses” capable of eliminating all 330 million Americans.
The numbers of deaths are so high that the US government has launched, together with 84 countries brought together by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, a veritable world war against drugs and their traffickers. Bliken opened the “war campaign” in front of the countries (among the few absent China) with the metaphor of the canary “America is like the canary in the coal mine”. “Basically what is happening here – said the Secretary – with Fentanyl will soon happen in the rest of the world. Once they have saturated our market, the transnational criminal mafias will concentrate elsewhere to increase their profits. If we do not act together with fierce urgency, it will be a catastrophe”.
Fentanyl, the most skilled criminal organizations of international bureaucracies
“Criminal organizations that traffic synthetic drugs are extremely adept at exploiting weak links in our interconnected global system,” Blinken stressed, “and when a government aggressively restricts commodity chemicals, traffickers buy them elsewhere. When a country shuts down one transit route, traffickers move rapidly to another. This is the definition of a problem that no country can solve alone. That’s why we are creating this global coalition.” Blinken promised more working meetings with international experts and a meeting at the United Nations General Assembly The opioid business is gigantic in the US, as are its victims.
So, fortunately, he is not yet in Europe, as confirmed by Ylva Johansson, European Commissioner of the EU. Blinken also wanted to address the problem of other products that are legally entering different countries. These include ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, legal in the United States; MDMA, in the final stage of FDA approval for patients with disorders such as post-traumatic stress; the painkiller Tramadol; Methamphetamine, protagonist of the penultimate drug crisis in the North American country or Captagon, for attention deficit, depression or narcolepsy. In his speech, Blinken noted how every country is seeing the criminal market grow. In Africa, Tramadol, in the Middle East, fake Captagon pills, in Asia, Ketamine.
Fentanyl, easy to produce and market
Another aspect to consider is the ease with which these synthetic products are easier to produce and transport. Thousands of Fentanyl pills can be hidden in the space of a heroin package. Fentanyl was born in the 60s and arrived from China, revolutionizing anesthesia. Today China sells the “raw materials” to make drugs in Mexico where drug traffickers are able not only to prepare it but also to make fake copies. And the Covid pandemic has made the situation worse. According to the National Institute of Drug Abuse, in 2020, overdose deaths increased by 20%, to more than 90,000 cases. In 2021 106,699, 16% more. The following year, they surpassed 110,000. The world war on drug trafficking, also an occasion for clashes in the USA between Republicans and Democrats, has just begun even if no one hides the danger of the enemy who distributes it and of the increasingly lethal product.
(Italian affairs of 08/07/2023)
CHI PAGA BRING
the association does not receives and is against public funding (also 5 per thousand)
Its economic strength are inscriptions and contributions donated by those who deem it useful
DONATE NOW