A few years ago, I hired a young man who lived nearby to chainsaw some trees on my property.
He used the money I paid him to buy drugs — and died from a bad batch of fentanyl-laced heroin.
Statistics will tell you he was one of the tens of thousands who have died from opioid addiction — a crisis that has devastated communities for years but is finally showing signs of easing in recent data.
What the statistics can't tell you is that he was smart, talented, and hardworking. He had a strong work ethic and took real pride in what he did. He could have gone to college or mastered any trade. His addiction stole that future.
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, many heroin and fentanyl users begin with prescription opioids, such as OxyContin (a morphine-like drug). They obtain them from family or friends or via a doctor's prescription.
In the 1960s, addiction often involved street users in impoverished areas. Today, it affects soccer moms, business executives, and suburban high school students.
Once addicted, many switch from prescription drugs to street heroin or fentanyl because illicit fentanyl is far cheaper and more potent — whereas prescription pills can cost up to $80 each.
As fentanyl has flooded the U.S., primarily from Mexico (using precursor chemicals from China), it has destroyed lives.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates 72,108 drug overdose deaths in the United States over the 12 months ending in September 2025 — a sharp drop from the peak of around 110,000 total overdose deaths in 2022.
In 2025, opioid-involved overdoses outnumbered gun homicides by more than 3-to-1. Just 10 years earlier, around 2015, gun homicides outnumbered heroin deaths by more than 5-to-1, but the rise of fentanyl has fueled the ongoing crisis.
The drug's powerful addictiveness is the reason why. Like any opioid, as users' tolerance grows, they need increasing amounts to experience the same high. Stopping brings severe withdrawal: depression, nausea, jitteriness, and extreme flu-like symptoms.
Most can't endure withdrawal, so they continue using. Those with resources often fund their downward spiral until a fatal overdose occurs — as happened with actor Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Those without funds often steal from family or burglarize homes and businesses. A bank near my suburban home was robbed four times by young men addicted to opioids.
The only hope for addicts is professional counseling and painful detox — and recovery for life.
The country's only hope is aggressive action to combat this epidemic.
According to NPR reporting, President Donald Trump is pursuing exactly that through a strong emphasis on enforcement: designating Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, imposing tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and China to disrupt fentanyl flows, and launching military operations against traffickers.
The administration also signed the HALT Fentanyl Act, permanently classifying fentanyl-related substances as Schedule I drugs — making it easier to prosecute the dealers who peddle them — and established the Great American Recovery Initiative to coordinate national prevention, treatment, and recovery efforts.
We must keep our foot on the throttle — because no family should have to bury a talented young son who died alone with a needle in his arm.
Find Tom Purcell's syndicated column, humor books, and funny videos of his dog, Thurber, at TomPurcell.com. Email him at Tom@TomPurcell.com.