Zombie Nation: Harrowing images lay bare the crippling drug crisis ravaging America's communities - stretching from the Pacific Northwest to Massachusetts and from Louisiana to Philadelphia

The numbers are horrifying, but drug overdose death statistics can't fully convey the crisis ravaging America, so DailyMail.com has documented the suffering in some of the worst-affected communities.

There were 107,622 deaths from drug overdoses in the US in 2021, an increase of nearly 15 percent from the year prior, and shocking national trends show few signs of the crisis abating.

Just two milligrams of fentanyl - the amount that fits on the top of a pencil tip - is deadly. Despite successful nationwide stings to bust dealers, authorities admit there's no end in sight for the epidemic.

The animal sedative Xylazine - known as 'tranq' - is now exacerbating the crisis. It's often combined with fentanyl and its horrific effects cause visceral 'flesh-eating' abscesses and addicts to zonk out as they lose feeling in their muscles.

These harrowing pictures lay bare the devastation across the country - as 'zombied' fentanyl and tranq users collapse on needle-littered streets stretching from Washington to Massachusetts, Louisiana to Philadelphia.

This report bothers me and my sensibilities to be sure. I want to launch into a “we ought to do this, and politicians are to blame” mindset. The homelessness issue has pulled on my heartstrings since it began.

But in the end, the responsibility now has to lie with the users. There is NO politician now that cares. There will be no “campaign” to end this. The borders are open, the drugs are flowing, and if you choose to open your mouth and put these drugs into it, or shoot them into your veins, YOU, and ONLY YOU, are to blame. You and only you can save yourself by avoiding them and the people and risky situations that lead to it.

I came from a less than great family. I was abused as a kid, and essentially left home at 18. Worked my way through college, refused to associate with losers, checked my friends out carefully and now am married to a guy who holds a top secret clearance and we have a great life. I had choices, and I made them. I don’t buy all of this when people say they’re down on their luck. If you have half a brain you can see this is not good for you. If you are too stupid and too careless to start, then, sadly, you are going to have a rough time of it.

We grill our youngest college aged son non-stop to not accept anything from anyone — a pill, a drink, a vitamin — unless it was prescribed by a doctor. no taking a drink from someone — order your own. If he decides to do anything against our advice, it will be on him, not us. The older one just never had a desire to do drugs, although he drank a lot. I still worry he could get poisoned inadvertently, but so far he manages to stay away from harm. Again, it will be on them, if they decide to stray from our advice. They’ve been told and warned repeatedly.

That’s just reality now in post-Obama’s America. They need to be told, but in the end, it’s on them.

I think we can look at other developed Western countries for guidance on drug policy. The US has the highest incarceration rate in the world certainly among Western nations. Much of that is due to drug related crimes.

I don’t think you can make a case that all this incarceration has served society as a whole very well.

Look at Portugal, Switzerland for example on drug policy. It doesn’t need to be outright legalization of all drugs. But the penalties and disincentives are much less draconian.

For one, some of the most egregious drug policies concern prescription opioids. The US is the only nation that has an agency dedicated to policing and imprisoning hundreds of physicians for prescribing controlled substances. This has resulted in a substantial drop in prescriptions but no concomitant reduction in ODs or improvement in addiction rates. Meanwhile millions with previously well controlled chronic pain suffer more and those with acute pain after surgery or terminal cancer pain can’t get adequate pain control.

This self serving theory promoted by the DEA and the law firms benefiting from litigation that the opioid producers and fraudulent pills mills were causing death and addictions has been proven to be false over time. Prescriptions for opioids are down over 60% but ODs are at record levels. No other country on the planet does this nonsense.

Going on AS PLANNED! by Elites worldwide!

Exactly! Just, later in life abortions for their losers in life.

The increasing love affair with the deadly homosexual lifestyles is just another later in life abortion lifestyle courtesy of the elites in America and around the world.

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