Tag: fentanyl

The Truth About Ron DeSantis’ Fentanyl Horror Story

The second Republican debate of the 2024 presidential campaign cycle took place at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library on Wednesday, and at various points throughout the night the topic turned to drug policy.

The candidates argued over the proliferation of fentanyl—the synthetic opioid significantly more potent than morphine or heroin that is often found mixed with other narcotics purchased on the black market. Specifically, the candidates squabbled over who would most aggressively weaponize the military and federal power in an attempt to prevent illicit fentanyl from reaching American shores.

Some of the candidates deployed anecdotes gleaned from the campaign trail of people whose loved ones died of fentanyl overdoses in order to justify increasingly oppressive drug policy. But Gov. Ron DeSantis’s example is much more complicated than he let on.

“In Florida, we had an infant, 18 months [old],” DeSantis said. “Parents rented an Airbnb, and apparently the people that had rented it before were using drugs. The infant was crawling, the toddler was crawling on the carpet and ingested fentanyl residue and died. Are we just going to sit here and let this happen, this carnage happen in our country? I am not going to do that.” As he has in the past, DeSantis used the story to illustrate the need for tougher drug and immigration policy, up to and including shooting people as they cross the border with Mexico.

DeSantis’s campaign did not respond to a clarifying question by press time, but he seemed to be referring to Enora Lavenir, the 19-month-old daughter of a French couple vacationing in Wellington, a small Florida town near West Palm Beach. The Lavenirs rented a four-bedroom house through Airbnb, where on August 7, 2021, Enora’s mother Lydie Lavenir found her unconscious and foaming at the mouth. Paramedics rushed the girl to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

Last year, the Lavenirs filed a wrongful death suit against Airbnb, the property’s owners, and the most recent previous renter. The lawsuit has since been amended to add additional defendants including HomeAway, the parent company of Vrbo, another home-rental service through which the prior tenant rented the house. According to the lawsuit, “the medical examiner detected a lethal level of Fentanyl in Enora’s blood and determined that her cause of death was acute Fentanyl toxicity. Toxicology readings indicated a quick death, ruling out the possibility that Enora came into contact with Fentanyl anywhere else but in the Airbnb rental.”

Contrary to DeSantis’s statement at the debate, the lawsuit does not claim that Enora was “crawling on the carpet and ingested fentanyl residue.” In fact, the suit does not speculate exactly how Enora came into contact with the drug; it merely alleges that Airbnb and Vrbo have “known for years that drug use is prevalent in [their] properties” and “that drugs, paraphernalia, and residue are frequently left behind in rentals, that there is a substantial risk of them being left behind, and that when they are left behind they pose a fatal risk to future guests, including children and infants.”

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Overdose crisis reaches historic levels in New York City

The overdose crisis has reached historic levels in New York City, according to new data from the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

Provisional data shows there were 3,026 overdose deaths in New York City in 2022, the highest total since the department began recording such incidents in 2000.

Newly released data shows that overdose deaths increased by 12% from 2021 to 2022. Fentanyl was detected in 81% of drug overdose deaths in New York City, according to the data. Fentanyl is an opioid that is 50 to 100 times stronger than morphine, the department states.

The report found that Black and Latino New Yorkers had the highest rates of overdose death and the largest increases in rate from 2021 to 2022.

Adults ages 55 to 64 continued to have the highest rate of overdose, followed by adults ages 45 to 54, according to the report.

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Sheriff’s deputy caught with fentanyl was middleman for Mexican cartel, investigators say

Prosecutors filed two felony charges Monday against a Riverside County sheriff’s deputy accused of carrying more than 100 pounds of fentanyl in his vehicle. They also alleged for the first time that he had likely ties to a Mexican drug cartel.

Jorge Oceguera-Rocha, 25, was charged with one felony count each of possessing fentanyl for sale and transporting narcotics. He’s also accused of being armed with a loaded firearm during a drug offense, which could get him a longer sentence if convicted.

Oceguera-Rocha, who resigned after being pulled over and arrested Sept. 17, appeared in court in Banning on Monday and pleaded not guilty to all charges.

The Riverside County Sheriff’s Department filed a request to increase his bail to $5 million soon after his arrest, saying he’s a flight risk because of the possible connection to a Mexican drug organization. The Riverside County District Attorney’s Office said Monday that a judge granted that request at the time, but added that it will be reviewed during a court hearing at a future date.

Last week the sheriff’s department said in a news release that it had been investigating a drug ring when it identified one of its own employees, Oceguera-Rocha, as playing a central role in transporting narcotics in the county.

It then opened an investigation into him in September, according to an affidavit filed in court Monday along with the prior bail request. The documents include details about the investigation that had not previously been made public.

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Fentanyl-Laced Coke and Meth Is Not Fuelling America’s Overdose Crisis

“Overdose deaths from fentanyl-laced cocaine and meth have risen 50-fold,” screamed the Daily Mail about a new study into the US opioid crisis.

The Mail, reporting on the study published last week in the scientific journal Addiction, warned that “many users unwittingly consume fentanyl, as it is frequently used as a cutting agent in cocaine and other illicit drugs to extend the supply and the high”.

Reporting on the same study, carried out by researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), ABC News told its readers: “Many people who use drugs like cocaine recreationally may not be aware these drugs are laced with fentanyl… this could be fueling unintentional overdoses, according to experts.”

But is this really happening?

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As more children die from fentanyl, some prosecutors are charging their parents with murder

Madison Bernard climbed into bed before dawn with her toddler, Charlotte, who was asleep next to a nightstand strewn with straws, burned tinfoil and a white powder.

Hours later, the mother woke and found her daughter struggling to breathe, according to investigators who described the scene in court documents.

After being rushed in an ambulance to a hospital, the 15-month-old girl died from a fentanyl overdose. Her mother and father, whom authorities said brought the drugs into their California home, were charged with murder and are awaiting trial.

The couple has pleaded not guilty but are part of a growing number of parents across the U.S. being charged amid an escalating opioid crisis that has claimed an increasing number of children as collateral victims.

Some 20 states have so-called “drug-induced homicide” laws, which allow prosecutors to press murder or manslaughter charges against anyone who supplies or exposes a person to drugs causing a fatal overdose. The laws are intended to target drug dealers.

In California, where the Legislature has failed to pass such laws, prosecutors in at least three counties are turning to drunk driving laws to charge parents whose children die from fentanyl overdose. It’s a unique approach that will soon be tested in court as the cases head to trial.

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U.S. Citizens Were 89% of Convicted Fentanyl Traffickers in 2022

Fentanyl overdoses tragically caused tens of thousands of preventable deaths last year. Many politicians who want to end U.S. asylum law claim that immigrants crossing the border illegally are responsible. An NPR‐​Ipsos poll found that 39 percent of Americans and 60 percent of Republicans believe, “Most of the fentanyl entering the U.S. is smuggled in by unauthorized migrants crossing the border illegally.” A more accurate summary is that fentanyl is overwhelmingly smuggled by U.S. citizens, almost entirely for U.S. citizen consumers.

Here are the facts:

  • Fentanyl smuggling is ultimately funded by U.S. consumers who pay for illicit opioids: nearly 99 percent of whom are U.S. citizens.
  • In 2022, U.S. citizens were 89 percent of convicted fentanyl drug traffickers—12 times greater than convictions of illegal immigrants for the same offense.
  • In 2023, 93 percent of fentanyl seizures occurred at legal crossing points or interior vehicle checkpoints, not on illegal migration routes, so U.S. citizens (who are subject to less scrutiny) when crossing legally are the best smugglers.
  • The location of smuggling makes sense because hard drugs at ports of entry are at least 96 percent less likely to be stopped than people crossing illegally between them.
  • At most, just 0.009 percent of the people arrested by Border Patrol for crossing illegally possessed any fentanyl whatsoever.
  • Each individual busted for fentanyl by Border Patrol possessed, on average, half as much fentanyl as each person busted at ports of entry in 2023 (10 versus 20 pounds).
  • The government exacerbated the problem by banning most legal cross‐​border traffic in 2020 and 2021, accelerating a switch to fentanyl (the easiest‐​to‐​conceal drug).
  • During the travel restrictions, fentanyl seizures at ports quadrupled from fiscal year 2019 to 2021. Fentanyl went from a third of combined heroin and fentanyl seizures to over 90 percent.
  • Annual deaths from fentanyl nearly doubled from 2019 to 2021 after the government banned most travel (and asylum).

It is monstrous that tens of thousands of people are dying unnecessarily every year from fentanyl. But banning asylum and limiting travel backfired. Reducing deaths requires figuring out the cause, not jumping to blame a group that is not responsible. Instead of attacking immigrants, policymakers should focus on effective solutions that help people at risk of a fentanyl overdose.

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Marijuana laced with fentanyl? Claims unfounded, doctor says

Police departments across the country have recently warned of finding marijuana laced with fentanyl, but one doctor is cautioning not to put too much stock in the warnings.

Concerns over fentanyl have grown as more drugs are being laced with the deadly narcotic. Authorities in states including Alabama, Illinois, Louisiana and New York all claimed to have begun finding fentanyl-laced marijuana.

In one of the most recent cases, the district attorney in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, just outside Philadelphia, said Friday that police discovered THC gummies that contained fentanyl and claimed the supposedly tainted product was responsible for two overdoses.

But the office walked that back Monday, saying testing conducted over the weekend found that the products “did not alert to any illegal drugs at the lab’s threshold level of detection.”

One doctor who argues the reports should be taken with a grain of salt is Dr. Ryan Marino, a toxicologist who has conducted extensive research on fentanyl exposure.

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Bombing Mexican Cartels Won’t Stop Fentanyl

Americans continue to overdose on illicit fentanyl despite increased seizures of the drug coming north from Mexico. Several prominent Republicans are suggesting that the U.S. respond with wartime tools such as airstrikes and troop deployments. But combining the war on drugs with the war on terror is a surefire recipe for costly engagement abroad and little progress in reducing fentanyl-related harm at home.

During his presidency, The New York Times reported last year, Donald Trump expressed interest in using missiles to attack Mexican drug cartels and destroy their labs. Reps. Mike Waltz (R–Fla.) and Dan Crenshaw (R–Texas) helped revive that idea in January, when they introduced a joint resolution that would authorize the president to “use all necessary and appropriate force” against “foreign nations, foreign organizations, or foreign persons” involved in fentanyl production or trafficking.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R–S.C.) argues that the military should “go after these organizations wherever they exist.” Several GOP presidential hopefuls, including former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, have echoed that sentiment.

There is little reason to believe these strikes would be as precise or effective as proponents claim. “Even a campaign of air strikes against cartels could easily escalate,” says Benjamin H. Friedman, policy director at Defense Priorities. “Cartels could retaliate,” he notes, and “strikes are bound to fail to affect fentanyl shipments, let alone meaningfully damage cartels.”

Mexico hawks like Waltz say the U.S. has “done this before,” citing Plan Colombia, a Clinton-era counternarcotics and counterterrorism initiative. But “claiming that Plan Colombia was a success is just plain false,” says Javier Osorio, a professor of political science at the University of Arizona whose research focuses on criminal violence in Latin America.

When the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) “demobilized after the peace agreement in 2016,” Osorio says, coca cultivation “skyrocketed.” He notes that “it’s even higher than before the U.S. started conducting aerial eradications” of coca fields. A similar counternarcotics program in Mexico, the Mérida Initiative, has been “a total disaster,” Osorio says: It has not stopped drug trafficking, and years after the initiative began, Mexico’s top law enforcement official was still “in bed” with the Sinaloa cartel.

The war on drugs has helped turn Latin America into the most violent region in the world, leading to increased black market activity and corruption. “If airstrikes miraculously kill off a cartel, another will fill the gap,” Friedman says, “likely with considerable violence between criminals as the market shifts.” According to Osorio, “There’s always going to be someone willing to kill and die for supplying drugs when there’s such a huge market.”

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The Republican Primary Consensus for Sending the Military Into Mexico

When Sen. Tim Scott (R–S.C.), a comparatively affable chap in the context of contemporary GOP politics, announced his 2024 presidential bid on Monday, the speech was predictably full of the upbeat, anecdotal, ain’t-America-grand stuff that Scott, like generations of Republicans before him, has made central to his political career.

Then things suddenly turned dark.

“When I am president, the drug cartels using Chinese labs and Mexican factories to kill Americans will cease to exist,” Scott vowed. “I will freeze their assets, I will build the wall, and I will allow the world’s greatest military to fight these terrorists. Because that’s exactly what they are.”

Scott’s bellicosity was no mere bolt from the blue. As Reason has been documenting for six years now, Republicans, even while otherwise souring on U.S interventionism abroad, have increasingly concluded that the alarming spike in domestic fentanyl overdoses would best be treated by sending the military into Mexico.

Donald Trump first floated the idea, while he was president, of designating drug cartels as terrorist organizations—thereby allowing for extraterritorial prosecutions, enhanced investigative powers, and increased penalties for domestic drug-related crimes—in March 2019, but held off after the government of Mexico repeatedly objected on grounds of sovereignty while making uncooperative noises about transnational migration policy.

But the appetite for corralling cartels into the otherwise-unpopular war on terror was only beginning to rumble in the conservative belly. Trump himself in the summer of 2020 twice asked then–Defense Secretary Mark Esper whether “we could just shoot some Patriot missiles and take out the labs, quietly,” according to Esper’s 2022 memoir. Notable MAGA politicians Sen. J.D. Vance (R–Ohio) and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R–Ga.) have both suggested violent interdiction south of the border, as have a bevy of more traditional hawks. There are a handful of escalatory bills bouncing around Congress.

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Cops say they’re being poisoned by fentanyl. Experts say the risk is ‘extremely low’

Last December, Officer Courtney Bannick was on the job for the Tavares, Fla., police department when she came into contact with a powder she believed was street fentanyl.

The footage from another officer’s body camera shows Bannick appearing to lose consciousness before being lowered to the ground by other cops.

“I was light-headed a little bit,” Bannick later told WKMG, a local television station. “I was choking, I couldn’t breathe.”

Other officers can be heard on the tape describing Bannick’s medical condition as an overdose. They administered Narcan, a medication that reverses opioid poisoning.

“She’s breathing,” a cop says. “Stay with me!”

The Tavares police department blamed the incident on fentanyl. Local officials declined NPR’s requests for an interview, as did Bannick. Speaking with WKMG, a television station in Orlando, she said she felt lucky to be alive.

“If I didn’t have backup there, I wouldn’t be here today,” she said soon after the incident.

Reports of police suffering severe medical symptoms after touching or inhaling powdered fentanyl are common, occurring “every few weeks” around the U.S. according to experts interviewed by NPR.

But many experts say these officers aren’t experiencing fentanyl or opioid overdoses.

“This has never happened,” said Dr. Ryan Marino, a toxicologist and emergency room physician who studies addiction at Case Western Reserve University. “There has never been an overdose through skin contact or accidentally inhaling fentanyl.”

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