Tag Archive for: Drug Crisis

As Fentanyl Overdoses Rise, a Child in New York Dies of Exposure

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Records concerning the fentanyl epidemic started being kept in 2020, and the latest numbers show that the issue is getting worse. According to Breitbart, August marked a new record of overdose deaths in San Francisco, with approximately three deaths per day due to fentanyl. As reported by The San Fransisco Chronicle, the city “is on track to see 845 overdose fatalities this year.”

London Breed, the mayor of San Francisco, declared the fentanyl crisis a “state of emergency” in 2020, and since then the problem has continued to worsen across the U.S. This week, in an at-home day care in New York City, a one-year-old boy, Nicholas Dominici, died due to drug exposure, with three other children hospitalized. While the tragedy is still under investigation, the presence of fentanyl has been confirmed. Grei Mendez and Acevedo Brito, the owner and tenant of the day care where the deaths took place, have been charged for murder, manslaughter, and assault and “ordered to be held without bail.”

Ashwin Vasan, the City Health Commissioner, said in a news conference, “I’m very sorry, but one of the things that my child care inspectors are not trained to do is look for fentanyl. But maybe we need to.” Otoniel Feliz, the father of Nicholas Dominici, shared, “In what mind does it make sense that you’re going to mix narcotics with children?”

In 2021, the U.S. witnessed more than 100,000 people across the nation being killed by drug overdose — the highest it had ever been in a single year. According to BBC News, over 66% of those deaths were directly related to fentanyl. As reported by BBC, a recent study revealed “virtually every corner of the US, from Hawaii to Alaska to Rhode Island, has been touched by fentanyl.” Experts say nearly “300 individuals a day [are] dying from overdose, and almost all of those are fentanyl related.”

Joseph Backholm, senior fellow for Biblical Worldview and Strategic Engagement at Family Research Council, commented to The Washington Stand, “Certainly the consequences of sin have often lead people to medicate their pain through drug use. That’s not a new phenomenon, but it is evidence of sin.”

He continued, “The problem with fentanyl is that it’s killing people who aren’t trying to use it, like the children in New York.” For Backholm, this tragedy can be traced back to homeland security issues. “We have a completely open southern border,” he said. “Virtually anyone from anywhere can walk across the border into the U.S. … [It] is killing a lot of Americans and enriching cartels who are able to benefit tremendously from the human and drug trafficking opportunities it provides.”

In a reflection on how to respond to the fentanyl crisis earlier this year, The Christian Post’s Matthew Barnett wrote, “Light shines brighter when darkness hovers. We can see farther at night, out into the expanse of stars surrounding us than we can during the day. These truths remind us that we must hold onto hope during [the] fentanyl crisis.”

AUTHOR

Sarah Holliday

Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©2023 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

As Drug Addictions Rise, Biden Admin Moves to Reclassify Marijuana as ‘Low-Risk’

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On August 30, reports surfaced that the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) will review a recommendation from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to reclassify marijuana as a lower-risk Schedule III drug. Experts warn that because of marijuana’s proven track record of being used as a gateway drug to highly addictive narcotics such as fentanyl, the move could lead to increased drug addiction and abuse nationwide.

The move by the Biden administration is the latest in a sustained effort to decriminalize cannabis, which currently remains a prohibited Schedule I drug at the federal level due to its psychoactive (mind-altering) effect and lack of any FDA-approved medicinal purposes. In October of last year, President Biden pardoned thousands of people who were convicted of marijuana possession as a federal offense.

Over the last two decades, a decisive legal shift regarding marijuana has occurred as more and more states have relaxed their laws governing the drug. Twenty-three states now allow for the recreational use of cannabis, and an additional 14 states allow the drug to be used for medical purposes.

With the increased allowance of the drug has come increased usage. A study published last year found that in states where marijuana was legal for recreational use, people used the drug 20% more frequently than those in states where it remained illegal.

In addition, studies show that new, highly potent forms of cannabis with higher concentrations of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) are becoming increasingly common worldwide and are causing an increase in addictions. In the U.S., three in 10 marijuana users are addicted to the drug. In Europe, a drug monitoring center “found a 76% rise in people entering treatment for cannabis addiction over the past decade.”

Dr. John Fleming, a medical doctor who served in the Navy and ran his own private practice in Louisiana, has done extensive research on the effects that marijuana has on the human body. During Tuesday’s edition of “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins,” he pointed out that cannabis has proven to be a gateway drug for far more potent and dangerous drugs.

“The NIH and other agencies within the federal government show that the younger people [are who] use marijuana or any drug that’s illicit or addicting, the more likely they’re going to become addicted one day to … a pharmacological pool of drugs,” he explained. “Those who become addicted usually are addicted to three or four drugs simultaneously, and alcohol as well.”

Fleming continued, “Obviously, after they reach a certain level of ‘benefit’ in terms of what makes them feel good and gives them euphoria through their neurotransmitters, they’re ready to move on to other drugs. And as they get older, they step up to harder and harder drugs as they go along.”

Fleming, who formerly served in the Trump administration and as a Republican congressman representing Louisiana’s 4th congressional district, went on to highlight a variety of adverse health effects that can occur from marijuana use.

“[P]eople who smoke it experience the same problems that tobacco [users do], only worse. They see four times the number of bipolar disorders. … [T]hree out of 10 — in one study — of schizophrenics began with using marijuana. … And now we’re seeing that women who smoke it are more likely to have fetal abnormalities, premature labor, infant mortality, maternal mortality.”

In addition, those who regularly use marijuana are more than twice as likely to consider suicide, suffer from increased anxiety, suffer from a reduced capacity to learn, suffer from premature aging of the brain, experience cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome (CHS) which causes severe vomiting, have an increased risk of heart attack, have an increased risk of bronchitis, emphysema, and lung damage, are 22% more likely to visit the ER, and are 40% more likely to die by the age of 60.

Fleming concluded by arguing that Biden’s effort to reschedule cannabis as a low-risk drug is based on politics instead of concern for public health.

“I believe this move to [reschedule marijuana] is to get votes by Biden. I think it’s pretty obvious what he’s trying to achieve there.”

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

As Fentanyl Deaths Reach Historic Highs, White House Claims Fentanyl at Border Is at ‘Historic Lows’

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On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre asserted that the level of fentanyl present at America’s southern border is currently “at historic lows.” Amid calls for the Biden administration to secure the border after the deaths of two kidnapped Americans in Mexico at the hands of a drug cartel, observers are pointing to vast increases in overdose deaths and human trafficking under President Biden’s watch.

As news spread of the murders of two Americans and the recovery of two others after the four were kidnapped in Mexico by members of a drug cartel in the border city of Matamoros, Jean-Pierre attempted to draw attention to the Biden administration’s efforts to enforce the law at the southern border. “Because of the work that this President has done, because of what we’ve done specifically on fentanyl at the border, it’s at historic lows,” she said at a Tuesday press briefing.

Observers were quick to question the validity of Jean-Pierre’s claim. National Review’s Jim Geraghty pointed to reports showing that “In 2021, 70,601 people died from a fentanyl overdose in the US. That figure is up 25 percent from 2020 and is nearly double the amount of fentanyl overdose deaths in 2019. … Fentanyl overdose deaths in 2021 were over 26 times higher than a decade prior.” The report further indicated that “fentanyl stands out for an 800 percent increase in overdose deaths in just four years.”

Geraghty went on to observe that Jean-Pierre may have been referring to an increase in seizures of fentanyl by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) which soared from 4,800 pounds in fiscal year 2020 to 11,200 pounds in 2021 to 14,700 pounds in 2022. In just the first four months of fiscal year 2023, 12,500 pounds have been seized. “But the rising amount of fentanyl seized at the border is also an indicator that more fentanyl is coming across the border,” Geraghty noted.

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has reported that the amount of fentanyl seized in 2022 amounted to “50.6 million fentanyl-laced, fake prescription pills and more than 10,000 pounds of fentanyl powder. … The DEA Laboratory estimates that these seizures represent more than 379 million potentially deadly doses of fentanyl.” Notably, the DEA also reported that “[m]ost of the fentanyl trafficked by the Sinaloa and CJNG Cartels is being mass-produced at secret factories in Mexico with chemicals sourced largely from China.”

On Wednesday, Congressman Pat Fallon (R-Texas) joined “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” to discuss the Biden administration’s handling of the border crisis.

“I met with the DEA a couple of weeks ago, and they say, ‘It’s a matter of accepted fact that the more drugs being seized, it’s just merely a percentage of what’s getting through,” he observed. “So it’s not a good thing. … And for unfortunate proof of that fact: we lost 108,000 Americans to opioid overdoses, [including] 80,000 to fentanyl just last year. That’s a record high. So the Biden administration doesn’t want to talk about 108,000 Americans dying. They want to talk about seizures.”

Fallon went on to assert that “the Mexican drug cartels do present a clear and present danger to the United States — they make about $25 billion [per year] in narcotics trafficking. They’re making about $12 billion [additionally] in human smuggling.”

Observers are pointing to an increase in human trafficking at the border since Biden took office in January 2021 following his administration’s reversal of a series of Trump-era restrictions on immigration. The Heritage Foundation’s Hannah Davis has found that in the last fiscal year, human trafficking arrests “rose 50%; convictions soared by 80%. The vast majority, 72%, of those trafficked in the U.S. are immigrants. Most of them are here illegally.”

Davis, a researcher at Heritage’s Border Security and Immigration Center, also pointed to a study that found that “60% of unaccompanied alien children [UACs] are caught by cartels and exploited through child pornography and drug trafficking.” She further found that in January 2023, “5,882 UACs crossed the border — an increase of more than 80% over the number logged by the Trump administration in January 2020.”

“[Biden] is facilitating the largest human smuggling operation in human history,” Fallon declared. “His policies have enriched the cartels. Their profits are up approximately 50%.”

He further explained the link between drug and human smuggling that the cartels employ. “They’ll have a bunch of illegal migrants, and they’ll exploit them by charging them about $3-4,000 a head. So that’s a direct payment to the cartels. And then they’ll say, ‘Okay, you 500 go across now.’ So they’ll flood a sector knowing that a mile or two down the road in about an hour, all of the Customs and Border Patrol’s resources are going to be sent to deal with the 500 illegal migrants, and then they just sneak across their narcotics. So one hand is pretty much washing the other.”

In light of the ongoing border crisis, the Biden administration appears to be rethinking at least a part of their immigration policies. On Wednesday, reports surfaced that the White House is considering reinstating a policy that would detain illegal border crossers, which is angering some Democrats on the Hill who say the administration’s “lack of communication on immigration-related policy decisions is an insult.”

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.