Healthcare
Report: Fentanyl is Leading Cause of Death in Americans Ages 18-45
The leading cause of death amongst Americans ages 18-45 is the deadly drug fentanyl, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Because of the Biden administration’s backwards priorities, a large percentage of Americans have never even heard of the drug.
“We are in the worst overdose crisis we’ve ever been in in the United States,” said Lisa Raville, executive director of the Harm Reduction Action Center in Denver. “In a magical world there would be no drugs, but we live here.”
Arizona’s abc15 reports “In the year ending in April 2021, fentanyl claimed the lives of 40,010 Americans ages 18-45. That’s more than car accidents (22,442), suicide (21,678), COVID (21,335), and cancer (17,114).”
Awareness of fentanyl really only began roughly six years ago. It was developed in 1959 “primarily used as an anesthetic and pain reliever for medical purposes without the side effect of nausea. It is 100 times more potent than morphine and 50 times more potent than heroin” reports abc15.
The synthetic drug became very popular and migrated its way onto the drug scene in 2015 for a few reasons. It is cheaper to produce than most illicit drugs such as heroin which requires cultivation, and because of its potency, only a small amount is necessary to get high.
As a result, fentanyl became a cheap “cut” that has been found in nearly every drug supply in the United States. The National Institute on Drug Abuse announced that last year, 75% of cocaine overdose deaths were mixed-use with fentanyl as were 50% of methamphetamine overdose deaths.
Drugs cut with fentanyl has caused so many overdoses that Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse says people need to be educated on “how to use that drug in ways that is going to minimize the risk…And that includes, for example, never taking drugs alone. Why? Because if take these drugs alone and you overdose no one can give you the Naloxone.”
Both Raville and Dr. Volkow agree “solving the overdose issue is different from addressing the drug use issue. Both women agree improving things like education about contaminated drugs, addiction help, Naloxone access, and drug testing strip access are all vital.”
Healthcare
CA to provide all low-income illegal immigrants health care at a cost of ‘$2.7 billion a year’
On Thursday, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a $307.9 billion operating budget “that pledges to make all low-income adults eligible for the state’s Medicaid program by 2024 regardless of their immigration status” reports the Associated Press.
The guarantee of free health care for low-income immigrants here illegally, is a “move that will provide coverage for an additional 764,000 people at an eventual cost of about $2.7 billion a year” adds the AP.
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, a health care nonprofit, people living in the country illegally in 2020 accounted for roughly 7% of the population nationwide, or about 22.1 million people. The border crisis and number of migrants entering the United States illegally has skyrocketed to historic levels since 2020 when President Joe Biden took office.
Medicaid nationwide is the current combination of federal and state governments assisting Americans and low-income adults and children to receive free health care, but the federal government does not cover those living here illegally.
“Some states, including California, have used their own tax dollars to cover a portion of health care expenses for some low-income immigrants” reports the AP. “Now, California wants to be the first to do that for everyone.”
“This will represent the biggest expansion of coverage in the nation since the start of the Affordable Care Act in 2014,” said Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access California, a statewide consumer health care advocacy group. “In California we recognize (that) everybody benefits when everyone is covered.”
While 92% of Californians currently have some form of health insurance, “that will change once this budget is fully implemented, as adults living in the country illegally make up one of the largest groups of people without insurance in the state” the AP concludes.
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Kelli Martin
January 4, 2022 at 10:03 pm
Thank you for keeping this in the spotlight. The heroin is now complete fentynal. We have to fix this.
From akron ohio
Steve Baker
January 4, 2022 at 10:16 pm
Sara, love your reporting on immigration and illegal drugs. Can you please identify the locatin of the super labs that are making Fentanyl. They need removed any way possible, peaceably or militarily. This is an act of war! China is just as culpable as Mexico.