War on Drugs

Children under 14 dying from fentanyl poisoning at ‘faster rate than any other age group’

Published

2 months ago

September 20, 2023

According to a new report produced by Families Against Fentanyl (FAF), children under 14 years-old are dying from fentanyl poisoning at a “faster rate than any other age group in the United States.”

FAF reported its findings in a newly published brief, “The Changing Faces of Fentanyl Deaths,” which evaluated Center for Disease Control data of fentanyl poisoning fatalities.

Tragically, the majority of deaths were poisonings, meaning they resulted from fentanyl being ingested without the person’s knowledge. In 2021, less than 1% of fentanyl-related fatalities were suicides, reports The Center Square.

“These disturbing new findings should serve as a wake-up call to our nation’s leaders,’” Jim Rauh, founder of Families Against Fentanyl, said. He again called on President Joe Biden to classify fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction “and immediately establish a White House task force dedicated to the fentanyl crisis.”

“Americans deserve to know what is being done to save lives, and what is being done to uncover and stop the international manufacturers and traffickers of illicit fentanyl,” Rauh added. “This is the number one killer of our nation’s young adults. It is killing more and more children each year. It’s time to treat this threat with the urgency it deserves.”

It announced its findings after the DEA issued several public safety alerts last year about fentanyl and Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody warned of Mexican cartels targeting young Americans with rainbow fentanyl pills, fake prescription pills that look like candy but are laced with fentanyl.

China

Biden to lift sanctions on China in exchange for third promise to combat fentanyl

Published

2 weeks ago

November 15, 2023

Sara Carter Staff

Reportedly President Joe Biden is making deals with Chinese President Xi Jinping to help improve anti-drug trafficking measures. China is one of the top fentanyl producers and distributors, culminating in a pandemic of fentanyl overdoses and deaths in the United States.

The Biden administration will be lifting sanctions on a Chinese government ministry, in exchange for bolstering anti-drug trafficking measures, Bloomberg reported. “We’re hoping to see some progress on that issue this coming week,” National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Monday, according to the New York Post. “That could then open the door to further cooperation on other issues where we aren’t just managing things, but we’re actually delivering tangible results.”

The Daily Caller News Foundation noted that should a deal materialize, it will be at least the third time that China has promised to get tough on fentanyl. In 2016, China agreed to increase counter-narcotics operations, and Xi again agreed to launch a crackdown in 2018. Nonetheless, China and Mexico are “the primary source countries for fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances trafficked directly into the United States,” according to a 2020 DEA intelligence report.

“China remains the primary source of fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances trafficked through international mail and express consignment operations environment, as well as the main source for all fentanyl-related substances trafficked into the United States.”

President Joe Biden and Xi are meeting for the first time in over a year during this week’s Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in San Francisco. Sources familiar with the situation told Bloomberg that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) will crack down on Chinese companies manufacturing chemical precursors for fentanyl in exchange for the U.S. lifting sanctions on the Ministry of Public Security’s Institute of Forensic Science, which the Commerce Department added to the Entity List in 2020 for “engaging in human rights violations and abuses” in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.