Posted on 04/19/2023 5:45:49 AM PDT by Heartlander
PENN HILLS, Pennsylvania—When the Penn Hills police and paramedics arrived at the modest suburban Pittsburgh home in the 8100 block of Chaske Street on Jan. 14, they found the father of 7-month-old Zhuri Bogle desperately performing CPR on his infant daughter. It was 6:44 a.m., and with the exception of a few flurries swirling in the brisk winter air, the sky was still as dark as midnight.
The first responders immediately took over from the father and administered CPR on the unresponsive baby for the next 21 minutes. At 7:05 a.m., Zhuri was pronounced dead at the scene.
The local police immediately requested the Allegheny County Police Homicide Unit assist in the investigation; those detectives, in turn, launched an investigation into the baby’s death.
Two months later, the Allegheny County medical examiner announced Zhuri died from acute fentanyl toxicity. The detectives on the case also determined that Zhuri’s grandmother and her “friend,” David Poindexter, age 58, were watching Zhuri when the baby overdosed.
On Friday, Poindexter was served with an arrest warrant and charged with involuntary manslaughter and recklessly endangering another person.
In January, 10-month-old Senna Matkovic had luck, a fast-acting nanny and nearby paramedics on his side when he survived exposure to fentanyl. He was playing with his twin brother at San Francisco’s Moscone Park when it happened. Within 10 seconds of Fire Rescue Captain Robert Kuzma administering Narcan, the child went from supine, unresponsive, and blue to breathing and crying for his parents.
Kuzma said it was not the first pediatric opioid overdose in his career. Tragically, it likely won’t be his last.
The number of young children under five who have died from overdoses in the United States has increased significantly in the past few years, according to a new study published in the journal Pediatrics. The highest number of those fatal poisonings of children comes from opioids.
The study, which relied on records for all children five and younger from the National Fatality Review-Case Reporting System, showed that two-fifths of the children who died were infants and that 65 percent of those deaths happened at home. Nearly a third of those occurred under the supervision of someone who was not their biological parent, as in the case of Zhuri.
We have looked the other way as opioid addiction and abuse in the U.S. has gone from zero to a grotesque and infinite epidemic. It now endangers every aspect of life. Our public health has degraded, our economic output has suffered, and our national security has been breached so brazenly and without consequence that it is hard to grasp.
Even infants are not safe. Yet we do nothing.
In the past 23 years alone, over 1 million people in the U.S. have died of drug overdoses, almost exclusively opioids, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. By the end of this week, 1,500 people will have overdosed on opioids and died. By the end of next week, 1,500 more people will have overdosed and died from an opioid, and the week after that, and the week after that.
China is the main manufacturer of the ingredients needed to create fentanyl. They find their way from China to the southern border, where the drug cartels are happy to produce the drug and then hand it off to distribution networks to smuggle it across the porous border.
The Biden administration “urged” Mexico and China to take strong action in their countries. Both countries responded that the problem wasn’t with them—it was with us.
With no consequences from the U.S. government, the drugs make their way into the U.S. Those carrying the drugs blend in easily with the record-breaking 2.76 million other illegal crossings that happened last year. They spread the drugs to cities, suburbs, and rural communities in your backyard.
Fentanyl is 50 times more powerful than heroin and 100 times more potent than morphine. It is cheap to produce and deadly to the unsuspecting, such as children playing in a San Francisco park or coming into contact with an addicted caregiver.
Every year at the border, the number of seizures of the product gets higher. Every year, the amount that gets past law enforcement gets larger as well. Fentanyl is poisoning babies, teenagers and adults. Those in government in Washington, D.C., who were elected to protect us have done the opposite.
It is the border agents, law enforcement, first responders, doctors, firefighters, and paramedics who are our last line of defense. It makes no sense that we accept the death of Zhuri as normal. It makes no sense that any parent must worry about sending a child to a public park and having him or her not come back alive. It makes no sense that this White House has not done something serious to call all of this out publicly, telling both China and Mexico unequivocally that this ends now.
We have allowed China to steal our intellectual property, outperform us in technology and military capabilities, supersede us in forming strategic alliances with our former allies, escape accountability over the spread of COVID-19, spy on us, out-manufacture us, and now poison us. Still, we do nothing.
We have also allowed Mexico to take zero accountability for its hand in this, to turn the problem back on us. Last month, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said that in his country, they do not have a problem with fentanyl consumption. “Why don’t they take care of their problem of social decay?” he asked.
A little baby died here in western Pennsylvania—a victim of a series of failures by our government. When does the Biden administration say that enough is enough?
Even if and when Hunter eats it. He still won’t address it.
Trick question.
It’s not going to be addressed.
Biden will confront the crisis when he learns to spell Fentanyl.
If biden does anything, it will be just enough to get through an election and then end afterwards. The deep state want the chaos .
Until he can figure out how to blame Trump for it.
“Out of chaos comes order.”
They are kidding, right? Biden could stop it tomorrow if he wanted to. He (the government) doesn’t want to stop it. At least not until the people relinquish more of their rights and cry out for government to “do something”
He and his cronies don’t give a hoot. Cuz it’s mostly white folks who are dying.
Only if they start loading it into AR15s.
They must have death and this is a white American death, which works at every level.
We are going to miss the progressives.
It comes from China.
There’s your answer............................
If you haven't noticed, Biden & his admin do not acknowledge any problem. The border & economy are fine ! Legacy news runs cover for the lies. Biden only cares if a decision increases his power & wealth. Fentanyl is not a problem unless it diminishes his power or $$ - IMHO.
Stopped reading right there.
you don’t have to take street drugs.
What has to be done is to let junkies buy FDA quality assured opiates in two-liter bottles with say red to orange coloring indicating the level of codeine content and say purple to pink indication the level of methadone content.
Red and purple colored solutions likely being lethal to opiate naive persons.
Officially registered junkies might buy 30-day, 30-bottle supplies. Other bottles might be $10 (first five in any 90-day period), $20 (second five in any 90-day period) to $50 more, plus delivery fees.
Bottles might have serial numbers to discourage resale and theft.
Never. He isn’t even aware of it.
China told joe to stand down.
And joe and family are getting paid by the cartels.
It’s a good deal for them.
Before asking when a government will take action against something, ask first if the government has the leverage to even address an issue. Why, for example doesn’t the government take any action against homelessness or shootings in Chicago? For starters, homelessness is misnamed. It is not about homelessness it’s about mental illness and drug abuse. The shootings in Chicago are not about shootings, but about a systemic cultural issue, fatherlessness. While there are things that the government could do to address both issues, they would not be without controversy, nor would they be quick and easy. If a politician wants to get reelected, then he has to avoid any issue that he can’t simply wave away whenever he needs it to go away. As for fentanyl, that isn’t an issue about a particular drug, it’s a larger societal issue covering many areas, the government’s war against religion, huge social trends towards fatherlessness, really poor education, the attitude of Americans towards education, the list is practically endless and half or more items on the list clash with the core beliefs of liberalism. The constant articles about “gun violence,” drug abuse, homelessness could all be written by ChatGPT and they would sound the same as those written by an actual hack.
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