Rich Lowry: We Need to Take the Fentanyl Crisis More Seriously | The Patriot Post

Rich Lowry: We Need to Take the Fentanyl Crisis More Seriously | The Patriot Post  link
"...According to the National Center for Health Statistics, more than 100,000 Americans died of drug overdoses during the first year of the pandemic. 

That’s double the figure from 2015 and, as The New York Times notes, more than were killed in car crashes and gun fatalities combined.

• ...If 10 kilos of fentanyl are interdicted, it’s relatively easy for a hard-to-detect lab in Mexico to produce more and get it into the United States.

...According to the commission, three to five metric tons of the drug would cover the annual consumption of all illegally supplied opioids in the United States. 

By way of comparison, in 2016, Americans used 47 metric tons of heroin and 145 metric tons of cocaine.

• ...Most fentanyl comes across the Southwestern border, and we can do more try to interdict the supply. We need to push China and India to crack down on the manufacture and export of precursor chemicals that feed the Mexican labs..."