rug overdose deaths from fentanyl remain a national crisis. This synthetic is 50 times more powerful than heroin, and 100 times worse than morphine. Inescapable doom.

Despite efforts on multiple fronts, the problem is getting worse. Last year, there were nearly 110,000 overdose deaths in America. That carnage is the equivalent of one 9/11 attack every three days.

The victims fall into two basic categories. The smaller includes a minority of users who ingested fentanyl through no choice of their own. Those are people who began taking pills under doctors’ prescriptions…people seriously injured in accidents, those in chronic pain, or those suffering post-surgery.

The other, larger group of victims entered hell voluntarily; they willingly decided to dive into the abyss.

Before we deal with them separately, let’s look at the core of the fentanyl problem—and how misconceptions are preventing solutions.

hen first running for President, Donald Trump notoriously announced that he would build a wall all along the southern border to fend off “rapists and murderers”—and the purported flood of fentanyl toted across the Rio Grande by immigrants. Political pustules like Texas governor Greg Abbott were more than happy to hop aboard the b.s. bandwagon. Meanwhile, fellow Texas pustule Sen. Ted Cruz organizes sightseeing trips to the border for fellow legislators and obedient media to see firsthand a threat that effectively wasn’t there. These trips are just successful diversionary tactics. Because the narrative of plodding immigrants secreting bags of narcotics is largely a ruse. Do some bring drugs along with them? Well, sure. But not so much as to make a difference.

Fact #1: More than 90% of seized fentanyl comes at established border crossings (most often, San Diego) rather than across any open spaces

Fact #2: Roughly 85% of those seized drugs were being smuggled by American citizens—not foreign nationals. This rate of American-based crime has remained steady for years.

Fact #3: To underscore the lies spread by Texas politicians, the death rate in Texas from fentanyl overdoses is fourth lowest in the country. Maybe not so much is coming across the Rio Grande after all?

Fact #4: The original source of these drugs is not Mexico or any Latin American country; it’s China. Online “pharmacies” there used to ship directly to U.S. users via UPS, Fed Ex, etc. Under pressure from the Trump administration, China finally cracked down. One Chinese manufacturer was even sentenced to death.

However, the illegal market adapted. Instead of shipping fentanyl pills directly to users, Chinese producers began selling the chemical precursors to Mexican drug cartels. They then put the ingredients together to package as pills or liquids…to be smuggled across checkpoints--almost entirely by Americans.

K, let’s look at this from the opposite angle—from the standpoint of the users. As mentioned, some people remain “hooked” after a medical prescription has ended. But most choose to become victims, many of them young. In those cases, their grieving families frequently show up online, on TV newscasts and at Congressional hearings. Understandably, their stories generate sympathy.

But their loved ones were not random victims—from gun violence or horrible traffic crashes or cancer. Their loved ones chose to take the first hit. No one forced them. And once addicted, they faced a second, far more difficult choice—how to get out. One homeless person told the Seattle Times, “People don’t want to die, but they don’t want to get sick from withdrawal, either.” A hellish decision, to be sure. But no one can make it but the user.

Few of those users can say, “I didn’t know what I was getting into.” Drug education has been a staple of school curricula for decades. Sometimes fentanyl is laced into other pills—but even then, these aren’t products sold over the counter. Young people know they’re buying illicitly. And to be clear, this isn’t just a problem for “kids.” The CDC says the single leading cause of death for Americans aged 18 to 45 is fentanyl overdose. No one volunteers to get cancer. But to repeat, most fentanyl users knew the risk and decided to jump in anyway.

o why do people decide to take this risk? Is it because their pain is ceaseless? Or because life is unbearable? Or to feel good?

Certainly there are real physical or psychological torments which persuade some to befriend fentanyl. It is also certain that many of those torments are partially the result of piercing rips in our social fabric. So many things are wrong. It would be wonderful if we could just mend that fabric.

But this requires long-term solutions to an immediate crisis. What do we do now? What is a government supposed to do?

So far this year, 46 different states have proposed or adopted stronger laws against those who distribute or use non-prescription fentanyl. This is pointless political posturing. It’s already illegal. Making it more illegal won’t make people change.

So what do we come up with that prevents people from making the wrong (and often fatal) choice of fentanyl in the first place? Is there any answer?

In the 1980’s, President Ronald Reagan announced a simplistic and failed “War on Drugs.” Its frontperson was his wife, Nancy Reagan, who coined an equally simplistic slogan: “Just Say No.”

As a good liberal, I have spent decades sneering at that—like it’s really that easy. It sounds so lame.

But by now, I’m reconsidering. Maybe Nancy was right. Even a good government can’t stop people from making bad choices.

If users don’t start saying “no”, the problem doesn’t go away—no matter what government does.

Issue 23

The Truth About Fighting Fentanyl