Tag Archive for: Fentanyl

Did Washington Ignore Warnings About Fentanyl?

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“We are losing an entire generation due to drugs,” said Michael Cole, the founder of Lauren’s Wish Addiction Triage Center, an organization named after the daughter he lost to a fentanyl overdose. Growing up in West Virginia, Lauren was a strong student, athletic, and kind to others. At 16 she became addicted to opioids. She died on July 9, 2020, at the age of 26.

Driven largely by fentanyl, drug overdoses are now the leading cause of death among Americans ages 18 to 45. In 2020, close to 92,000 Americans died of a drug overdose, but the number rose sharply during the pandemic and lockdowns. In 2021, life expectancy in the U.S. hit its lowest point in two decades. In 2022, there were 109,000 overdose deaths, according to provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control, with deaths from synthetic opioids up 80% over the same period and most of those attributable to fentanyl.

Other countries in the world don’t come close to America’s level of illegal drug consumption—or to its death tallies. The U.S. now consumes about 85% of all the world’s opiates. As a result, the rate of overdose deaths is around 20 times higher in America than the global average.

To understand how it is that a deadly and highly addictive poison has flooded the streets of American cities and small towns, one has to untangle the knot of connections linking Chinese drug manufacturers, Mexican cartels, and a homegrown culture of addiction that uses chemical remedies to treat economic and spiritual woes. That globalized and lethal supply chain, which is enriching criminal cartels while undoing the fabric of American life, is in part the result of shortcomings in U.S. policy, multiple former agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration told Tablet. According to them, the federal government failed to respond to repeated warnings about the coming fentanyl crisis, even as the casualties began to mount…..

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Continue reading this article at Tablet Magazine.

‘Ground Zero’ Arizona Republicans Sounding Alarm Over Fentanyl Flowing From Border

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Arizona Republican state legislators doubled down on their call to action on the border crisis, particularly on fentanyl, at a news conference on Thursday.

The legislators said that the rise in fentanyl deaths in the state is deeply concerning and called for more resources to support law enforcement and greater education on prevention techniques like the use of naloxone for accidental overdose deaths.

“We need to take swift action to deal with what is happening to combat it,” Rep. Steve Montenegro, who is the Chairman of the House Health & Human Services Committee, said.

Opioid overdoses, which commonly stem from fentanyl, result in over five deaths daily in Arizona, according to the state’s Department of Health Services.

Montenegro mentioned introducing a “placeholder bill” that will later be amended after talking with other government officials and experts.

“Now, Gov. Hobbs has stated that she agrees that this is a crisis. But her actions in gutting border-related funding to law enforcement says otherwise. That’s unacceptable,” he said.

Hobbs’s proposed budget cuts to the state’s Border Strike Force, The Center Square reported.

Later in the news conference, Republican House Majority Leader Leo Biasiucci also criticized the governor.

“She is not here to help the Arizonans with our border crisis. We are as Republicans,” Biasiucci said of the Democrat, who took office earlier this month.

Former interim director of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Tom Homan spoke as well, and he referred to Arizona as “ground zero” for fentanyl.

When The Center Square asked if the legislation would crack down on social media platforms being used for trafficking activity, Montenegro said the current focus is raising awareness.

“The focus is making sure Arizona understands this is a public health crisis. This is a public safety crisis,” he said.

“It’s a porous border. Fentanyl is killing our – kids aren’t blue or red. Kids that are dying, they don’t understand politics, but they’re dying. And we need to do something about that,” Montenegro added.

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This article was published by The Center Square – Arizona and is reproduced with permission.

Democrats Nap Peacefully Through Border Crisis They Engineered

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Editors’ Note: If the reader is like us, this border chaos is beyond frustrating. The Biden administration and those supporting it act as if nothing is wrong. The administration and Congressional leaders regularly trot officials forward to say the border is “under control.” The outright lying and the choice to simply ignore the laws of the land are serious breaches of their oath of office. All this is made possible by the extremely narrow margin Democrats have in the Senate. This makes the current Senate race in Arizona of utmost importance.  The Prickly Pear endorses Blake Masters and we urge our libertarian friends not to waste their vote and instead, support the Republican candidate.

We have attached a video produced by Arizona U.S. Representative Andy Biggs above this article explaining the southern border crisis created by the President and the Democrat party in less than two years. The effects of this travesty will ripple across the nation for decades to come. The enormous human tragedy, the cartel enrichment and the damage done to countless U.S. citizens and economies throughout the nation are incalculable and a direct consequence of the attempt to secure permanent power by the Democrat party at the expense of the American people. Mark Kelly is unquestionably complicit in this lawless violation and should be removed from the U.S. Senate on November 8th.

Democrats are napping peacefully through the U.S.-Mexico “border” crisis that they engineered. Perhaps these data will snap them from their slumber:

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security reports that the Mexican cartels’ income from smuggling illegal aliens into America has soared from $500 million in 2018 to $13 billion this year—up 2,500%.

If these criminals merged into a corporation, their 2022 gross revenues would rival that of—are you sitting down?—Fox Corporation. Fox News Channel’s parent company earned $12.91 billion in the year ended June 30, 2021, and gleaned $13.97 billion 12 months later.

This fact might awaken “Sleepy Joe” Biden and the lazy Left: Mexico’s human-trafficking cartels are now as big as Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham.

If Democrats still are dozing through the havoc of their no-border strategy, these figures might rouse them:

  • Border Patrol agents apprehended 951,568 illegal aliens during President Donald Trump’s final 19 months in office. In President Joe Biden’s first 19 months, the Border Patrol encountered a staggering 3,588,877 illegal aliens—up a sickening 377%.
  • In fiscal year 2020, the last one fully under Trump’s control, 69,000 illegal aliens were detected on the “border,” but got away into America’s interior. Fiscal year 2021 (four months of Trump, eight of Biden) witnessed 389,155 got-aways—up 464%. In fiscal year 2022 (all on Biden’s watch), got-aways hit 599,000—up 54% versus fiscal year 2021 and 768% compared with fiscal year 2020.
  • “At least 266,000 unaccompanied migrant children/minors have been encountered at the southern border since President Biden took office, per [Customs and Border Protection] data,” Fox News Channel’s invaluable southern-frontier correspondent Bill Melugin explained via Twitter on Sept. 26. “That’s enough to fill up approximately three Rose Bowls.”
  • Fourteen House Republicans wrote Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Sept. 23 to complain that “between October 2021 and July 2022, more than 130,000 Venezuelan nationals were encountered after entering the United States illegally.” The Marxist regime of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela, they added, “is deliberately releasing violent prisoners early, including inmates convicted of ‘murder, rape, and extortion,’ and pushing them to join caravans heading to the United States.”
  • Twelve U.S. senators contacted the U.S. Marshals Service about crooks cascading across the “border.” According to their Aug. 30 letter, “So far in FY22, [Customs and Border Protection] has apprehended over 9,000 criminal aliens, including 53 for homicide or manslaughter, 283 for sex crimes, and almost 900 for assault, battery, and domestic violence.”
  • During Trump’s fiscal years 2017 through 2020, 11 terrorists on the watchlist were captured at the border—two, six, zero, and three, in those respective years. Under Biden, Border Patrol apprehended 15 in fiscal year 2021 and a terrifying 78 in fiscal year 2022, through Aug. 31. September’s figures will follow. How many terrorists got away? Who knows?
  • According to data from the United Nations’ Missing Migrants Project, during Trump’s final 20 months in office, 712 illegal aliens died on or near the U.S.-Mexico border. For Biden’s first 20 months, that number is 862—up 21%.

These fatalities range from drownings in the Rio Grande to the barbaric demise of 53 illegal aliens whose four smugglers let them roast to death inside an abandoned truck. Officials discovered this carnage on June 27 in San Antonio, Texas. That day’s high temperature: 97 degrees Fahrenheit.

  • Fentanyl killed some 71,000 Americans in 2021, up 23% compared with 2020. For those aged 18 to 45, fentanyl leads COVID-19, car wrecks, suicides, and every other cause of death.

It’s tragic enough when witting users fatally overdose on cocaine, heroin, or other fentanyl-laced contraband. Sadder still are those innocently poisoned via counterfeit, toxin-tainted “Adderall,” “Xanax,” and other phony pharmaceuticals.

Fentanyl is 100 times stronger than morphine. Two milligrams in one pill can kill.

Under Trump, Border Patrol’s fentanyl seizures for fiscal years 2019 and 2020 (through Aug. 31) totaled 7,595 pounds. Under Biden’s equivalent dates in fiscal year 2021 and 2022: 24,062 pounds—up 217%.

Mexican cartels freely traverse the “border” to transport this venom. Biden Democrats couldn’t care less.

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This article was published by The Daily Signal and is reproduced with permission.

Arizona GOP Governor Candidate on Migrant Surge: Declare Invasion, Send Guard to Border

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If elected governor of Arizona, how would Kari Lake handle illegal immigration?

Sending illegal immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts is not a part of her plan.

Making an appearance on Tucker Carlson Tonight on Fox News on Wednesday night, the Republican said she disagreed with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s decision to send two planes of illegal immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard.

“You know, I actually get a kick out of it watching these liberal mayors just, you know, throw their hands up and say ‘we can’t handle it,’ because it’s life every day for us in these border states. However, I’m not a fan of it, Tucker. I mean, we’re just taking people here illegally who shouldn’t be here, we’re moving them further inland.”

Florida unexpectedly dropped off 50 Venezuelan illegal immigrants on the small Massachusetts island on Wednesday. The people spent the night at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Edgartown, Massachusetts, according to The Cape Cod Times.

So while Lake disagrees with this plan to handle illegal immigration, she laid out some of what she wanted to do on the issue.

“My plan is the most bold, aggressive plan on the border,” Lake told Tucker Carlson. “We’re going to secure the border. We’re going to call it what it is, issue a declaration of invasion on day one, get troops on the border in the form of our national guard. We’re going to stop people from coming over. And we’re going to stop the cartels from having control of our border.”

Lake also said there is another reason why border security is vital: preventing fentanyl from entering the country.

“I don’t like it as a mother and I know no Arizonan likes it that we’re the pipeline for the most dangerous deadly drug this country has ever seen called fentanyl,” she said. “Number one killer of young people. It’s all coming through Arizona because [President] Joe Biden gave control of our border to the cartels.”

As a result, Lake said she wants Arizona to take back control of its sector of the U.S.-Mexico border from the federal government. She thinks the federal government has failed to do its job on this issue under Biden.

“On day one we’re going to invoke our Article 1 Section 10 authority and take back control of our border away from the federal government,” she said. “It’s a dereliction of duty what they’ve done and we’re not going to let Joe Biden drag the state of Arizona down while he’s trying to destroy this country.”

Lake is running for governor against Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs. It’s an open-seat race as incumbent Republican governor Doug Ducey is not seeking re-election.

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This article is published at The Center Square and is reproduced with permission.

Fentanyl From China: Biden Should Stop Chemical War on America

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Since Russia has not rolled through Ukraine as was speculated by many people, some have argued that Putin would use more extreme measures. The same people began speculating and the Biden Administration followed stating that Putin was poised to use chemical warfare against Ukraine. Biden should first start with stopping the current chemical war waged against the United States.

When most Americans think about the use of chemical weapons, they think about World War I. The scenes of soldiers wearing gas masks in trenches where chemical weapons were used early on by both sides. Interestingly, there was a pre-war agreement not to fire projectiles carrying the dangerous chemicals so canisters were strategically placed so the wind would cause the chemicals to drift into the opposition’s bunkers.

The destructive aspect of chemical warfare was so universally recognized after World War I that an agreement was made called the Geneva Protocol which was passed in 1925. It was put into force in 1928 to prohibit the use of chemical and biological weapons.

That did not stop the use of these deadly chemicals in multiple military conflicts after the adoption of the Protocol. The most ominous use was by the Germans in their death camps where millions of Jews and others were murdered, now commonly referred to in the civilized world as The Holocaust.

In 1997, the Chemical Weapons Convention prohibited the use of these weapons. As of last year, 193 countries had signed on to the agreement. Russia is a party to the agreement. They have been accused of using chemical weapons in Chechnya and Syria but have denied it at U.N. meetings. Certainly, there is a concern that Russia has chemical weapons, but whether they will use them in Ukraine is unknown.

We do know that one specific country has been willing to use chemical weapons and continues to do so. The focus of those chemical weapons has been the United States. We know where these chemical weapons come from. At least one President has asked the country that is shipping these deadly chemical weapons to stop the manufacturing. Everyone knows if they wanted to, they could.

This chemical weapon is so deadly that consuming just two milligrams is deadly to most humans. There are one million milligrams in a kilogram which is 2.2 pounds, about the size of one Tomahawk steak. A kilogram (a kilo) could kill 500,000 Americans. Recent seizures by the border patrol and DEA have netted 588 pounds of weapon which is about 267 kilograms or enough of this drug to kill 133,500,000 Americans. 

The DEA estimates that in one year, from May 2020 to April 2021, 64,000 Americans died from the ingestion of this deadly chemical weapon.  

We know where this weapon comes from. We know where it is shipped to for entry into our country. This is not new. This has been going on since at least 2013. Both the Obama and Trump Administrations confronted the adversary and asked them to stop the illicit production of the chemical. This country has complete control over what goes on within its borders, but somehow cannot shut down the factories manufacturing this chemical. At this time, hundreds of thousands of Americans have died. Their families have been pillaged, towns have been devastated and children have lost their parents, yet we have been unable to stop this mass murder.

The same country has recently shut down entire cities and provinces because of the threat of COVID. Yet it cannot seem to stop the manufacture of fentanyl, however, because it seems it does not want to do so.

If you have not figured out by now what this is about, it is the illicit manufacturing of fentanyl in China that is shipped to America. A 2020 study by the Left-wing Brookings Institute stated “The government of China at first tends to deny the existence of a problem. Under international or strong domestic pressure, it eventually moves to tighten regulation. But its enforcement tends to be limited and subverted by powerful vested interests of industry representatives, officials of line ministries charged with regulating or promoting the industry, and government officials.” We all know that Xi Jinping could shut this down immediately if he wanted to, but he does not care to do so.

China states it has cracked down on illicit production. It states to the world that it cannot find any smuggling of the drug out of their country. The Chinese government’s responses have been bald-faced lies. They are guilty of chemical warfare against the United States and potentially other countries.

While the Biden Administration decries a potential Russian chemical weapon attack in Europe it ignores a real, existing, and ongoing attack on our own citizens. Biden once again proves his distorted focus on Russia while ignoring the real threat – China. Mr. President, put a stop to this before another 100,000 Americans are buried and thousands of children are left without a parent.

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This article was published by FlashReport and is reproduced with permission from the author.