"In fact, Trump's numbers are wildly inflated. According to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, fentanyl killed roughly 48 thousand people in the U-S last year - a 27 percent drop from the year before. Experts also say fentanyl would be difficult to use as a weapon of mass destruction. There is only one documented incident worldwide, in 2002, where the Russian government weaponized fentanyl in gas form."
""It is not evident that there is any basis or need for, or net benefit to, officially designating fentanyl compounds as weapons of mass destruction," concluded a 2019 report by the Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction at the National Defense University. Jeffrey Singer, a physician and an expert on street drugs at the Cato Institute, said people are dying from fentanyl in the U.S. because of widespread opioid addiction, not because cartels are deliberately weaponizing the drug."
An executive order designated the street drug fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction, citing manufacture and distribution by organized criminal networks as a national security threat and a driver of lawlessness. The order asserted two to three hundred thousand annual deaths, while CDC data show roughly 48,000 U.S. deaths last year, a 27 percent decline. Experts note fentanyl is difficult to weaponize and cite only one documented global incident in 2002 when Russia used fentanyl in gas form. A 2019 report found no clear basis or net benefit for a WMD designation, and drug policy specialists attribute U.S. fatalities to widespread opioid addiction rather than deliberate cartel weaponization and say the designation is unlikely to reduce supply or overdoses.
Read at www.npr.org
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