The United States’ largest-ever drug crisis continues, spurred by the rise of the synthetic opioid fentanyl. The fight is underway, but progress is irregular and tough. Recent events show the deadly drug remains in demand among users and lucrative for dealers.
Over 47,000 opioid deaths occur each year — 130 each day — mostly due to fentanyl made in black market labs, not pills diverted from pharmacies. It was good news that the Centers for Disease Control announced in August a one-year, 4.6% drop in opioid deaths and a 7% decline in prescription opioid deaths. But the CDC’s bad news can’t be glossed over: Deaths due to illegally-made fentanyl went up by 11.1%, and it remains responsible for the majority of opioid deaths.
Made and controlled legitimately, fentanyl pills are painkillers. But those seeking a high will find that fentanyl is a path to poison. The ease of making illicit fentanyl was exposed in an August criminal trial that broke up a multimillion-dollar international ring centered in Utah. It was run by young people in their 20s, including college dropouts from Utah Valley University where I teach.
The leader, Aaron Shamo, found fentanyl recipes on the internet and easily imported ingredients from China and Mexico. In a homemade basement lab, he counterfeited prescription pills mislabeled as oxycodone and sold them through the dark web. Shamo now awaits sentencing after a Utah jury convicted him on 12 of 13 counts. His story demonstrates how any success we’ve seen in keeping prescription opioids off the black market is insufficient, because illicit drug labs are worse than ever.
These scenarios happen because the ingredients are cheap to import and the profits are immense. The threat emerges because illegal labs cannot properly control their blends of fentanyl. Since fentanyl is 50 to 100 times stronger than heroin, even tiny errors with the doses can be fatal.
Yet, the deadly ingredients continue to flow freely.
The largest operators of illicit labs are Mexico’s drug cartels, which buy bulk fentanyl powder from China. That makes them the single biggest criminal threat to the U.S., according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.
The largest two cartels, the Sinaloa Cartel and Jalisco Cartel, then parcel the powder out to small contractors who process it into pills that they can return to the cartels for distribution into the U.S. The Los Angeles Times reports many Mexican families now depend on making fentanyl pills for a living.
High-profile busts in August show the staggering scale of these enterprises:
- Just before Labor Day, Mexico’s navy seized a cartel-bound shipment from China of over 25 tons of fentanyl. Reportedly, that much could kill 7 billion people, or 90% of the global population.
- The DEA announced seizing over 1 million fentanyl tablets in Arizona, marked as though they were prescription oxycodone. This is almost a three-fold increase from a year ago.
- A Virginia-based bust arrested 35 people from three states, confiscating what authorities said was enough Chinese-made fentanyl to kill 14 million people.
The good news is that law enforcement is intercepting some large-scale shipments of this deadly drug. The bad news is that massive amounts, broken into smaller shipments, are often hidden within the immense volume of mail and delivery services, making them more difficult to intercept. As the Treasury Department announced last month, “The most common distribution medium [used by China to ship fentanyl into America] is via the U.S. Postal Service.”
Fortunately, the Trump administration is acting on multiple fronts. One key reform is adding resources: The administration is now drafting an executive order to increase inspections of mailed packages, in an effort to crack down on illicit shipments.
Going even farther, in an Aug. 23 tweet President Trump proclaimed, “I am ordering all carriers, including Fed Ex, Amazon, UPS and the Post Office, to SEARCH FOR & REFUSE, …. all deliveries of Fentanyl from China (or anywhere else!)” Private carriers responded by saying they’re already doing this.
Additionally, the Trump administration announced $1.8 billion in new anti-opioid federal grants for states and the CDC. This follows $400 million already awarded to treat substance abuse and provide mental health services. Plus, authorities have shut down several dark web sites, the marketplaces often used to sell and purchase illegal fentanyl pills.
Despite these efforts, fentanyl persists as a bigger killer of Americans than guns or traffic accidents. The 130 daily deaths continue for two reasons: because the demand remains and because buyers think they’re getting prescription-grade goods instead of often-deadly counterfeits.
As the news this summer has shown, stopping the human tragedies of the opioid crisis will require more enforcement against traffickers and more awareness from potential users about the deadly risks. Both Congress and the Trump administration need to continue cracking down on the bad actors, and never lose focus on this life-and-death issue.
Former Congressman Ernest Istook worked in Congress on curtailing illegal drugs and now teaches political science at Utah Valley University.
