What on earth is White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre thinking, or saying?
Because of the work that this President has done, because of what we’ve done specifically on fentanyl at the border, it’s at historic lows — historic levels that we have been able to record a number of personnel working to secure the border because of what we’ve been able to do, seizing that fentanyl. We’ve done it in a historic way. That’s because of what this President has done.
Fentanyl abuse, trafficking, and overdoses are not at historic lows. There is a strong case that fentanyl overdoses are now the leading cause of death for Americans between the age of 18 and 45. DEA administrator Anne Milgram called fentanyl “a new, deeper, more deadly threat than we have ever seen.”
Both overall drug overdoses and specifically fentanyl overdoses leaped in 2020 and 2021, the most recent years available, according to data from the National Center for Health Statistics. USAFacts summarized, “In 2021, 70,601 people died from a fentanyl overdose in the US. That figure is up 25 percent from 2020 and is nearly double the amount of fentanyl overdose deaths in 2019… Fentanyl overdose deaths in 2021 were over 26 times higher than a decade prior.” Elsewhere the site concludes, “fentanyl stands out for an 800 percent increase in overdose deaths in just four years.”
According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, “consistent with overdose death data, the trafficking, distribution, and abuse of illicitly produced fentanyl and fentanyl analogs positively correlates with the associated dramatic increase in overdose fatalities.” At the end of 2022, the DEA announced the seizure of more than “50.6 million fentanyl-laced, fake prescription pills and more than 10,000 pounds of fentanyl powder this calendar year. The DEA Laboratory estimates that these seizures represent more than 379 million potentially deadly doses of fentanyl.” For perspective, the U.S. has about 336 million people. The DEA states that most of the fentanyl trafficked by the Sinaloa and CJNG cartels is being mass-produced at secret factories in Mexico, with chemicals sourced largely from China.
Jean-Pierre is closer to the truth when she talks about “seizing that fentanyl” at the border. U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized 4,800 pounds of fentanyl in fiscal year 2020; 11,200 pounds of fentanyl in fiscal 2021; 14,700 pounds of fentanyl in fiscal 2022, and an astounding 12,500 pounds in the first four months of fiscal 2023. But the rising amount of fentanyl seized at the border is also an indicator that more fentanyl is coming across the border.