Fentanyl Overdoses Become Leading Cause of Death in 18- to 45-Year-Olds

Fentanyl-related drug overdoses in 2020 became the top killer in adults aged 18 to 45—overtaking suicide, vehicle accidents, and gun violence, according to an analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data by nonprofit group Families Against Fentanyl.

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that’s 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine, highly addictive, and deadly. Buyers may be unaware that the drugs they buy contain illicit fentanyl, a 2 milligram dose of which can be fatal.

The substance is most often manufactured in Mexico using chemicals supplied from China and trafficked across the southern border by Mexican drug cartels. Fentanyl is mixed with other narcotics to increase potency as well as pressed into counterfeit pain pills that are made to look like blue Oxycodone prescription pills and are commonly known as “Mexican oxys.”

Families Against Fentanyl is advocating for the U.S. government to designate fentanyl and its analogs as a weapon of mass destruction under federal statute.

The statute defines “weapon of mass destruction,” in part, as “any weapon that is designed or intended to cause death or serious bodily injury through the release, dissemination, or impact of toxin or poisonous chemicals, or their precursors.”

More than 100,000 Americans, a record amount, died of drug overdoses in the 12-month period ending in April, according to CDC data. Fentanyl was involved in almost two-thirds of those deaths.

During 2020, as lockdowns became prolonged and widespread as a response to the pandemic, overdose fatalities accelerated.

“This represents a worsening of the drug overdose epidemic in the United States,” the CDC stated in an emergency health advisory issued more than a year ago, on Dec. 17, 2020.

An analysis by the Well Being Trust in May 2020 estimated a possible 75,000 additional “deaths of despair,” including suicide as well as drug and alcohol abuse

Drugs are bad, mmmmm-kay?

The Fentanyl simply speeds up the process, and probably reduces the total number of victims. One way to shut down demand on anything, is quickly kill your customers

These customers will happily prey on innocents to feed their habits. Whether robbing homes, cars or people - they will literally do anything to feed their habit. I have no sympathy

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