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Fentanyl: Americans die from an overdose of a drug they do not know they are taking (analysis)

2021-11-18T09:15:50.730Z


Fueled by the coronavirus pandemic and an increase in fentanyl consumption, the US overdose epidemic exploded while Americans were locked up.


2020, the year with the most overdose deaths in the US 0:36

(CNN) -

Fueled by the coronavirus pandemic and an increase in fentanyl consumption, the overdose epidemic in the US exploded while Americans were locked up.

From May 2020 to April 2021, more than 100,000 people died of overdoses in the US, according to interim data released Wednesday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

That's a horrible new record for drug overdose deaths - a nearly 30% increase over the same period last year and nearly double in the past five years.

The epidemic grew alongside the covid-19 pandemic, which claimed around 509,000 deaths in the same period.

Synthetic opioids like fentanyl, a pain reliever 50-100 times more potent than morphine, accounted for the majority of those drug overdose deaths - about 64,000.

  • Drug Overdose Deaths Hit New Record in U.S., CDC Data Finds

The pandemic played a role

What are the effects of fentanyl?

1:14

"In a crisis of this magnitude, those already taking drugs can take higher amounts and those who recover can relapse. It is a phenomenon that we have seen and perhaps we could have predicted," Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute, told CNN. on Drug Abuse.

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  • Covid-19 increased deaths by 16% and also affected mental health in OECD countries, according to a report

Enough fentanyl to kill 333 million people

DEA seizes 1.8 million pills containing phentalanine 0:40

Read this line from the CNN report:

The U.S. government has seized enough fentanyl this year to give every American a lethal dose, Drug Enforcement Administration Administrator Anne Milgram said Wednesday at a press conference at the White House, calling the Overdose epidemic in the US as a "national crisis" that "knows no geographic boundaries and continues to worsen."

Deadly counterfeits that look like prescription pills

Illegal drugs are often made to look like prescription pills, available online and sold through social media, according to a warning from the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in September.

That same month, the DEA announced more than 800 arrests and the seizure of more than 1.8 million pills as part of a two-month raid.

The agency noted that fentanyl has been seized in every state and issued an urgent warning in September about falsely prescribed pills mixed with the drug.

As little as 2 milligrams can be deadly and are often combined with Oxycontin, Percocet, or other counterfeit medications.

Who abuses opioids?

FDA: 17 websites sell opioids illegally 0:33

Many people.

An estimated 10.1 million Americans age 12 and older abused opioids in 2019, including 9.7 million prescription pain reliever users and 745,000 heroin users, according to CNN reports.

Who is dying?

A Google search turns up dozens of stories like these:

  • The 28-year-old man in Northern California who died after taking a fake pain pill containing fentanyl.

  • The 11-month-old baby left unsupervised in North Carolina who died of a fentanyl overdose.

    His mother and grandmother face charges.

    (While Googling specific cases of fentanyl deaths, I saw reports of many young children eating their parents' pills - the father of a 15-month-old boy charged with death from an overdose in Southern California. A mother of a baby 1-year-old in Alabama arrested after boy overdosed.)

  • The family of a prisoner in Alabama who died of a fentanyl overdose but didn't find out until months later.

  • The teenager outside of Los Angeles who bought what he thought were prescription painkillers from a friend of a friend and died of fentanyl poisoning.

  • The 25-year-old woman in Las Vegas who thought she was buying Percocet but died after taking fake fentanyl pills.

The stories are everywhere.

Where do they get the fentanyl drugs from?

Check out these two stories from Las Vegas: A 27-year-old man is accused of selling fentanyl pills via Snapchat to a 32-year-old man who died of fentanyl toxicity.

A 21-year-old woman with the Snapchat username "yungdrugaddict" was charged with murder for selling fentanyl pills that killed a woman of the same age.

What does Snapchat say?

In an Oct. 7 statement on its website, Snapchat argues that it is improving its work with law enforcement and using artificial intelligence and community reporting to identify and remove drug dealers from the platform.

  • Over 800 arrests in DEA's crackdown on counterfeit fentanyl drugs

How does fentanyl get to the US?

Chemicals used to make fentanyl are often shipped from China to the US or Mexico for production by drug cartels in Mexico and then smuggled into the US.

The drug can come in small mail-order shipments of less than one kilogram.

The Chinese government's crackdown on fentanyl has slowed down this method.

India is another source of fentanyl in the United States.

Here is an excerpt from the DEA report on fentanyl:

Fentanyl is being mixed with other illicit drugs to increase the potency of the drug, it is being sold as nasal powders and sprays, and is increasingly being pressed into pills that look like legitimate prescription opioids.

Because there is no official supervision or quality control, these counterfeit pills often contain lethal doses of fentanyl, without any of the promised drugs.

  • Biden seeks to repair the frayed relationship with Mexico, key to dealing with migrants at the border and the fentanyl crisis

What is President Joe Biden doing?

The administration notes that it committed $ 4 billion in funding from the Covid-19 relief package, known as the American Rescue Plan, to combat overdose deaths, including expanding services for substance use disorder and mental health.

Biden told reporters Wednesday that his administration is also "working to make health coverage more accessible and affordable for all Americans so that more people who need care can get it."

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Source: cnnespanol

All news articles on 2021-11-18

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