(RightIsRight.co) – The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has seized so much fentanyl this year that the amount is sufficient to kill the entire population of the United States, the agency has announced.
More than 379 million potentially deadly doses of the drug have been captured by DEA agents in 2022, while America’s population is 332 million.
The confiscated fentanyl, smuggled from Mexico, has come in the form of some 10,000 pounds of powder and 50.6 million pills laced with the narcotic.
The DEA noted that the latter are manufactured to resemble actual prescription pills, as cited by USA Today.
The highly addictive fentanyl is 50 times stronger than heroin, with a minimal amount – enough to cover a pencil tip – sufficient to kill a person.
In 2021, the United States saw over 100,000 drug overdose deaths. About two-thirds of those were caused by fentanyl use.
The unrestricted illegal immigration through the Southern Border on the watch of President Joe Biden’s administration seems to have allowed Mexican drug cartels to boost their trafficking of fentanyl.
Nearly 6 million illegals have arrived since he took office almost two years ago, and more than 1 million are undetected “gotaways.”
“DEA’s top operational priority is to defeat the two Mexican drug cartels – the Sinaloa and Jalisco (CJNG) Cartels – that are primarily responsible for the fentanyl that is killing Americans today,” DEA Administrator Anne Milgram declared.
Last year, Milgram and the Justice Department said the fentanyl threat constituted a “national emergency.”
According to her agency, most fentanyl smuggled into the United States is produced by Mexican drug cartels in “secret factories” south of the border, using chemical substances imported from China.
Earlier this year, between May and September, US law enforcement captured over 36 million deadly fentanyl doses.
During that period, they investigated 390 cases of illicit trafficking, 51 of which were connected to fentanyl overdoses.
Thirty-five cases were linked with one or both of the biggest Mexican drug cartels, Sinaloa and Jalisco.
The number of fentanyl-laced fake prescription pills caught by US agencies this year is more than double last year’s total.
DEA tests have found potentially lethal doses in six out of ten pills this year, compared with four out of ten in 2021. In addition, Mexican organized crime is improving at mimicking the size, color, and markings of US prescription drugs as a means of fentanyl smuggling.
Besides the vast amounts of smuggled fentanyl, this year, the Drug Enforcement Administration has also caught 4,300 pounds of heroin, 444,000 pounds of cocaine, and almost 131,000 pounds of methamphetamine.
During the past year, federal authorities seized more than 379 million potentially deadly doses of fentanyl – enough to kill every American – the Drug Enforcement Administration reported Tuesday.https://t.co/GA7sxuiXQR
— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) December 20, 2022
