The recently reported news that drug overdose deaths jumped by a shocking 30% in 2020 has reminded us that COVID-19 is not the only public health crisis facing our nation. Policymakers, public health officials, and law enforcement are all now working to identify the source of the problem and stop the death and destruction on our streets.
Data suggests that illegal opioids, especially a flood of illicit fentanyl manufactured in China and trafficked by Mexican drug cartels, are what is driving this surge in overdoses. According to the CDC, deaths from synthetic opioids increased 12-fold from 2013-2019, and that rise has only continued in 2020. Fentanyl is not only used to lace heroin and other street drugs to provide a more potent high but it is also pressed into counterfeit pills made to look like legitimate prescriptions that are dangerous cocktails of the synthetic opioid and other drugs. The best course of action would be to direct as many law enforcement resources as possible towards ending these criminal enterprises and smuggling networks that are bringing these drugs into our country.
Unfortunately, the top law enforcement officials in states such as Washington and Oklahoma, Attorneys General, have decided instead to focus their limited attention and resources on suing legal drug companies that manufacturer prescription pain medications. This comes in spite of the fact that a $26 billion settlement has just been offered to states across the country, with many of these companies to immediately help fund treatment programs to end the opioid crisis. Continued litigation in these states will only delay and potentially jeopardize the arrival of these much-needed settlement funds for their residents and reduce the law enforcement resources available to shut down illegal opioid operations.
The disrupting effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, easy access to fentanyl from street dealers, and increasingly restrictive prescribing regimes that have forced those with legitimate pain to go to the streets to acquire their medications have all contributed to this growing overdose problem. “Our public health tools have not kept pace with the urgency of the crisis,” Dr. Brendan Saloner, an associate of health policy and management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, has noted. As 2020 turbocharged an addiction issue that was already out of control, access to funding for more treatment programs are needed now more than ever.
Similarly, as the situation at our southern border has deteriorated over the last several months, law enforcement officials, from elected leaders to men and women who walk the beat, need to be targeting cartel illegal importation of the drugs across this area. If the influx of bootlegged, fake drugs from China and raw fentanyl are stopped at the Mexican and Canadian Borders, the street dealers will disappear, the drugs dry up and the streets of America clean up. In short, the only way to stop these drugs from infiltrating our country is by having a full-frontal law enforcement assault on the Mexican cartels and Chinese importers who are illegally bringing these drugs to America.
As the bureaucracy fumbles and muddles with lawsuits against major drug manufacturers, the death tolls mount and addiction rates continue to multiply because this illegal drug flow isn’t stopping. Big government seldom gets it right, and when these lawsuit funds are awarded, we must be sure they are spent in a way that will combat this overdose crisis. Long-term treatment and education of those suffering from addiction must be the focus, instead of funding menial state projects and padding the pockets of trial lawyers, as has too often been the case with similar class-action lawsuits in the past.
While the threat of illicit opioid abuse continues, death will be an unfortunate part of the life of individuals suffering from drug addiction. However, when our elected law enforcement officials can pivot from distracting lawsuits to formal and well-funded interdiction at our borders and on the coasts, then drug smugglers will be stopped. America’s drug habit may never be fully kicked; however, let’s make sure that we save and help the ill, and always ensure legitimate patients in pain can continue to receive necessary medications and punish the illicit producers and distributors.
James Fotis is the President and Founder of the National Center for Police Defense, Inc. as well as the former Executive Director of the Law Enforcement Alliance of America where he served for 23 years. Fotis has a Master’s in Industrial Psychology from NY Tech, is a disabled veteran and retired from the Lynbrook Police Department as the highest and most decorated officer.
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