This is NOT a drug war repeat at all , fetanyl is on a category on its own , it can kill you if you consume just 2mg it’s not a drug crisis it’s a mass poisoning event. Unlike past drug wars , most victims don’t knowingly take fentanyl , they consume it disguised as Xanax, Adderall, or other pills. Harm reduction assumes users are aware of what they’re taking, but fentanyl kills instantly, often on first use. Traditional drug markets rely on repeat customers, but fentanyl shipments are so lethal that this seems more like a national attack than some drug business , This isn’t a War on Drugs it’s a War on Poisoning. Fetanyl is closer to dealing with a biological weapon than dealing with drug war . There is no supply demand crisis like cocaine etc , it’s a supply side crisis only
Ohhh K but I'm hearing effectively identical rhetoric to what we've been hearing for decades about the War on Drugs, which makes me skeptical that the War on Fentanyl (I.e., aggressive federal government action being taken) is going to go any different.
Yes, this is a deadly drug. As is the case with any deadly drug, education and harm reduction are key, not checkpoints and tariffs that are antithetical to personal freedom, *and* ineffective at stopping fentanyl to boot (which due to its tiny dosing can be easily smuggled in passenger vehicles).
https://reason.com/2025/02/05/trumps-tariff-threats-cant-win-the-unwinnable-war-on-drugs/
Discussion
>they consume it disguised as Xanax, Adderall, or other pills
... So, pretty sure nobody's taking Xanax they got from a legitimate pharmacy with a prescription and getting fentanyl in that. What you're talking about are grey- or black-market pills, which is just another reflection of the drug war, because people are trying to obtain that without a prescription.
But again, harm reduction includes things like testing kits, etc. And this is still a "demand" problem, because black market actors still believe they can make money, which is why they're doing this.
Nobody's smuggling fentanyl because they're some kind of terrorists out to kill people per se, they're doing it to make money. The law of supply and demand still applies even for "really bad things."