(AmericanProsperity.com) – A new synthetic opioid is hitting the US and rapidly becoming one of the most favored illicit drugs on the market. With a potency 100 times stronger than morphine, fentanyl, and other synthetic opioids, it is causing the most overdose deaths in the nation.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 100,306 drug overdose deaths were reported during a 12-month period ending in April of this year. Fentanyl accounted for 75% of those overdose deaths.
According to an article from the American Pain Society, fentanyl was first developed during clinical studies back in 1959 and was regarded as a highly potent painkiller. Thirty years later, it was used as a patch for cancer patients for chronic pain after chemotherapy treatments. Not long after, it was developed to be administered through lozenges and tablet forms, making it easier to manufacture.
‘It’s devastating’: how fentanyl is unfolding as one of America’s greatest tragedies https://t.co/5kWnXu75Y5
— Guardian Australia (@GuardianAus) November 22, 2021
Dr. Nora Volkow, the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) director, said fentanyl is not only more potent than heroin and morphine but also activates the opioid brain receptors, creating similar feelings of euphoric bliss. During an interview with The Guardian, she called the drug an “epidemic within a pandemic,” noting experts did not expect such a high rise in drug abuse and overdoses during the pandemic.
Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) administrator Anne Milgram said drug cartels mainly drove the opioid crisis in Mexico, mass-producing fentanyl and other drugs, such as methamphetamines. They get mixing chemicals from China. With low manufacturing costs, high-profit margins, and large volumes of illegal border crossings, drug cartels will stop at nothing to smuggle and distribute these types of dangerous synthetic opioids across the United States.
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