Fentanyl is synthetic heroin. It was created in the 1950s but only became popular when legal access to morphine, like codeine, was restricted a decade ago. Oxycontin was a scam propagated by Purdue Pharma, controlled by the Sackler family, who became inordinately wealthy at the expense of society. It was criminalized and when addicts could no longer get those relatively safe drugs, they switched to readily available fentanyl, and overdose deaths skyrocketed. As usual, the law of unintended consequences was worse than the solution. From a moral perspective, the Sackler’s can be held indirectly responsible for those deaths too.

Why are these drugs even popular? The industry claims they alleviate pain, and that’s true, but recreational use, as it’s called, dwarfs legitimate utility. People, especially men who have given up on life, have always used drugs as an escape, but never with the availability & deadliness of fentanyl, approaching 80K deaths/year, and substantially more overdoses prevented by quick administration of epinephrine via an emergency “EpiPen.” Contrary to political posturing, fentanyl is manufactured in and distributed from Mexico, with some ingredients from China, but if those weren’t available, there’s plenty of other sources. The problem isn’t who sends it here, the problem is why people take it, and if they’re going to take it no matter what , why no supervision like with methadone clinics?