Fentanyl Gridlock

Congress cannot agree on a permanent ban for chemical derivatives of America's deadliest ever drug

I first wrote about fentanyl in 1990, long before it became a household name as a synthetic drug that left a trail of death and destruction across America. A California prosecutor told me then that the only reason it was not a bigger problem was that no major organized-crime syndicate had taken control of its dis­tribution. That ended long ago with the entry of China’s unregulated chemical industry and Mexico’s Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels.

Last year, the DEA seized more than 57 million fentanyl-laced pills and more than 13,700 pounds of powder. A lethal dose of fentanyl can be as little as 2 mg, about 5 grains of sand. In the first ten weeks of 2023, fentanyl seizures set another record, over 47 million deadly doses. DEA officials privately admit that they intercept only a small fraction of the drug entering the U.S. Fentanyl is responsible for 70% of the record-breaking 106,000 overdose deaths and poisonings last year; the l…