Tag: opioid epidemic

Defense Secretary Hegseth Puts Mexico on Blast: ‘Curb the Influx of Migrants and Fentanyl, or US Military Will Strike the Cartels’

Donald J. Trump is moving decisively on a wide array of fronts, both in domestic and foreign policies—and sometimes, these two categories overlap.

Take, for example, border security and the fight – on both sides of the divide with Mexico – against drug influx and illegal migrant smuggling-human trafficking operations, both undertaken by the brutal and extremely well-armed Mexican Cartels.

Here, too, Trump’s team will not operate in the old, expected fashion – but is alerting the neighboring authorities of their full intention of acting forcefully unless they up their game and tackle the issue.

A report arose that, in late January, a mere 7 days after his confirmation as Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth warned Mexican officials that the US military was ‘ready to take unilateral action’ against the country’s drug cartels.

The only way for Mexico to prevent this, the Secretary reportedly stated, is by working harder to stem the flow of fentanyl and migrants into the US.

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Florida Bill Would Let People With Opioid Use Disorder Qualify For Medical Marijuana

A newly introduced bill in the Florida Senate would expand eligibility for the state’s medical marijuana program by adding as a qualifying condition “an addiction to or dependence on an opioid drug.”

The legislation, SB 778, was filed Monday by Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith (D). If enacted, it would take effect on July 1 of this year.

Current qualifying conditions for medical marijuana in Florida include cancer, epilepsy, glaucoma, HIV/AIDS, PTSD, ALS, Crohn’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, terminal conditions and chronic pain caused by a qualifying condition, according regulators at the state’s Office of Medical Marijuana Use (OMMU).

The new bill has not yet been referred to a committee, according to the state Senate website.

Smith has in the past also filed legislation to legalize cannabis for adults, and last year he criticized Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) for spending the state’s opioid settlement funds on advertisements opposing Amendment 3, an industry-funded ballot measure that would have legalized adult-use cannabis in the state.

“Thousands of Floridians have died from opioid overdoses. ZERO Floridians have died from marijuana overdose,” he said on social media last October. “Yet DeSantis is spending MILLIONS of Florida’s opioid settlement money meant to fight the opioid crisis on his prohibitionist anti-freedom, anti-marijuana campaign.”

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Rep. Addison McDowell: Trump Using Trade to Address ‘Chemical Warfare Against the American People’

The fentanyl crisis is not a drug crisis but “a chemical warfare against the American people,” Rep. Addison McDowell (R-NC) said during an appearance on Breitbart News Saturday.

Discussing how President Donald Trump is using trade to force Mexico and Canada to help secure the borders — thereby stopping the flow of fentanyl into the country –McDowell said this issue hits close to home for him, as he lost his brother to fentanyl poisoning.

“My little brother died from a fentanyl poisoning in 2016. He was 20 years old, and it’s fentanyl that we’re almost certain came up through our southern border. And this is not a unique story to me, but I know personally what this is like,” he said, noting that Friday would have been his brother’s 29th birthday.

“It’s at the front of my mind, and it always is, because it’s something that I’ve had to learn to live with, and I shouldn’t have to,” he said, recalling when Trump endorsed him in his race. He said he told Trump his story and said, “Sir, you’re the only person that’s been taking the border seriously, and you need somebody that’s going to be behind you 100 percent, and that person is me.”

“I know the pain that this stuff causes,” he said, adding that Democrats are making excuses.

“We voted on the HALT Fentanyl Act in Congress this week, and there were 107 Democrats that voted against it. And we’re debating this on the floor. They’re saying things like … ‘We don’t need to send people to prison over this.’ I would so much rather my brother be in jail than dead. Democrats don’t seem to get that,” he said.

“And it’s — this is not a drug crisis. It’s a chemical warfare against the American people, and it’s being fueled by the cartels and the Chinese Communist Party, and President Trump is holding them accountable,” McDowell said.

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Trump Sets Saturday Deadline for 25% Tariffs on Mexico and Canada to Force Action on Illegal Migration and Fentanyl Crisis

President Donald Trump has set a Saturday deadline to impose a 25% tariff on all imports from Mexico and Canada.

The administration asserts that these tariffs will remain until both neighboring countries take substantial measures to curb the flow of unauthorized migrants and illicit drugs into the United States.

This announcement follows a recent agreement with Colombia, where the threat of similar tariffs led the Marxist president to fold like a cheap suit and begin accepting deported migrants.

In a statement from the Oval Office Thursday, President Trump emphasized the urgency of the situation.

“Mexico and Canada have never been good to us on trade. They’ve treated us very unfairly on trade,” Trump said.

“We’ll be announcing the tariffs on Canada and Mexico for a number of reasons. Number one is the people that have poured into our country so horribly and so much.

“Number two are the drugs, fentanyl and everything else that have come into the country. Number three are the massive subsidies that we’re giving to Canada and to Mexico in the form of deficits.

“I’ll be putting the tariff of 25% on Canada and separately 25% on Mexico. We will really have to do that because we have very big deficits with those countries. Those tariffs may or may not rise with time,” Trump said.

When asked about whether he would impose tariffs on Canadian and Mexican oil, Trump said, “We may or may not. We’re going to make that determination probably tonight.”

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Purdue Pharma and owners to pay $7.4 billion in settlement of lawsuits over the toll of OxyContin

Members of the family who own OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma, and the company itself, agreed to pay up to $7.4 billion in a new settlement to lawsuits over the toll of the powerful prescription painkiller, the attorneys general from several states announced Thursday.

The deal, agreed to by Purdue Pharma, the Sackler family members who own the company and lawyers representing state and local governments and thousands of victims of the opioid crisis, replaces a previous settlement deal that was rejected last year by the U.S. Supreme Court.

In the new one, the Sacklers agreed to pay up to $6.5 billion and give up ownership of the company, which would pay nearly $900 million. The maximum contribution from family members is $500 million more than the previous deal.

It’s among the largest settlements reached over the past several years in a series of lawsuits by local, state, Native American tribal governments and others seeking to hold companies responsible for a deadly epidemic. Aside from the Purdue deal, others worth around $50 billion have been announced — and most of the money is required to be used to stem the crisis.

The deal still needs court approval, and some of the details are yet to be ironed out. An arm of the federal Department of Justice opposed the previous settlement, even after every state agreed, and took the battle to the U.S. Supreme Court. But under President Donald Trump, the federal government is not expected to oppose the new deal.

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Purdue Pharma, Sackler family owners agree to landmark $7.4B opioid settlement

Purdue Pharma and its Sackler family owners have reached a new $7.4 billion settlement to resolve thousands of lawsuits alleging that the pain medication Oxycontin caused a widespread opioid addiction crisis in the US, Texas attorney general Ken Paxton said Thursday.

The settlement was announced nearly seven months after the US Supreme Court upended the company’s previous attempt to resolve the lawsuits in a bankruptcy settlement that would have granted the Sacklers sweeping civil immunity from opioid lawsuits in exchange for a payment of up to $6 billion.

The Supreme Court ruled that the Sacklers, who did not file for bankruptcy themselves, were not entitled to legal protections meant to give bankrupt debtors a “fresh start.”

Under the new settlement, the Sacklers will pay $7.4 billion, without fully shutting off lawsuits from states, local governments, or individual victims of the opioid crisis. Those who do not wish to join the settlement are free to pursue lawsuits against the Sacklers, who have said they would vigorously defend themselves in court.

The deal was negotiated by 15 states, including New York, California, Connecticut, Oregon, Texas, Florida and West Virginia. The other states will be asked to sign on the settlement, which must be approved by a US bankruptcy judge before it becomes final.

Connecticut attorney General William Tong said that the settlement would help provide closure to victims of the opioid crisis.

“It’s not just about the money,” Tong said. “There is not enough money in the world to make it right.”

The latest settlement is meant to address a drug addiction crisis that has led to over 700,000 opioid overdose deaths in the United States over the past two decades.

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Legalizing Medical Marijuana Leads To ‘Significant Decrease’ In Opioid Companies’ Payments To Pain Doctors, Study Shows

Legalizing medical cannabis appears to significantly lessen monetary payments from opioid manufacturers to doctors who specialize in pain, according to recently published research, with authors finding “evidence that this decrease is due to medical marijuana becoming available as a substitute” for prescription painkillers.

“We find MML [medical marijuana legalization] leads opioid manufacturers to decrease direct payments to physicians prescribing opioids,” wrote authors, from the University of Florida, University of Southern California and the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo. “Our analyses suggest this shift is due to increased adoption of marijuana for pain management, indicating that opioid manufacturers perceive marijuana as a superior substitute and respond by reducing these payments.”

The study was published late last year in the Journal of the American Statistical Association and was partially funded through a grant from the National Science Foundation. It looked at various financial incentives that opioid drugmakers provide to prescribing doctors—such as consulting fees and travel to conferences—and used a novel method of analysis meant to estimate causal effects from observational data.

“Our analysis finds a significant decrease in direct payments from opioid manufacturers to pain medication physicians as an effect of MML passage,” the report says.

Wreetabrata Kar, an assistant professor of marketing in the SUNY Buffalo’s school of management, co-authored the new study.

“Our findings indicate that medical marijuana is increasingly viewed as a substitute for opioids in chronic pain treatment, with the potential to transform pain management practices and help mitigate the opioid crisis that has profoundly affected communities across the U.S.,” the researcher explained in a press release. “The availability of new pain management options can change the financial dynamics between drug companies and health care providers.”

The team’s analysis found that decreases in direct payments from opioid makers to physicians was higher among physicians “practicing in localities with higher white populations, lower affluence, and a larger proportion of working-age residents.”

“Lower income regions tend to have higher rates of chronic pain and opioid misuse, making them key areas for potential substitution with medical marijuana,” Kar said. “Black patients are also less likely to be prescribed opioids for pain, and younger populations may be more open to alternative treatments, which could explain the different impacts of marijuana legalization in these communities.”

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Legalizing Marijuana Led To ‘Immediate Decline’ In Opioid Overdose Deaths In U.S. States, New Research Concludes

A newly published paper examining the effects of adult-use marijuana legalization on opioid overdose deaths says there’s a “consistent negative relationship” between legalization and fatal overdoses, with more significant effects in states that legalized cannabis earlier in the opioid crisis.

Authors of the new analysis, published to the preprint repository Social Science Research Network (SSRN), estimated that recreational marijuana legalization (RML) “is associated with a decrease of approximately 3.5 deaths per 100,000 individuals.”

“Our findings suggest that broadening recreational marijuana access could help address the opioid epidemic,” the report says. “Previous research largely indicates that marijuana (primarily for medical use) can reduce opioid prescriptions, and we find it may also successfully reduce overdose deaths.”

“Further, this effect increases with earlier implementation of RML,” authors wrote, “indicating this relationship is relatively consistent over time.”

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Oregon sees record overdose deaths in 2023 despite national decline: report

Despite the US seeing an overall national decline in overdose fatalities Oregon experienced the second-largest surge in drug overdose deaths of any state in 2023, setting a record in the state. The findings come as Oregon has been one of the most pro-drug states in the country over the last few years.

Federal data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that roughly 1,880 people in Oregon died from overdoses involving opioids, stimulants, and other substances last year—representing a 35 percent increase from 2022 and setting a record for overdose deaths in the state. Only Alaska, with a 45 percent year-over-year increase, saw a sharper rise in 2023.

Nationwide, overdose deaths declined by 2 percent in 2023, dropping from 109,400 in 2022 to 107,700. This marked the first national decrease since 2018. However, Oregon’s overdose death rate has grown dramatically—by 237 percent since 2018—far outpacing the 58 percent national increase during the same period. 

Jonathan Modie, a spokesperson for the Oregon Health Authority, noted that preliminary data for 2024 indicates a possible decline in overdose deaths. 

“Our very preliminary 2024 data show Oregon is seeing a similar trend in overdose decrease,” Modie said, according to  Oregon Live, “but we are not sure why at this point.”

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Why Has Fentanyl Become Tool For US to Shift Blame?

The Global Times provided a detailed analysis of the origins and developments of the fentanyl crisis in the US in yesterday’s in-depth report, highlighting the role of the American pharmaceutical industry and the negligence of government regulatory agencies.

In today’s follow-up report, we reveal why the US government continues to shirk responsibility for the fentanyl abuse crisis, shifting the blame onto other countries, using it as a tool for extortion and attacks against China.

China was, in fact, the first country in the world to officially scheduled all fentanyl-related substances in 2019. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning recently stated that China has carried out extensive and in-depth counternarcotics cooperation with the US, which has been highly productive.

“China remains ready to continue counternarcotics cooperation with the US on the basis of equality, mutual benefit and mutual respect. We hope the US will not take China’s goodwill for granted and work to ensure that the hard-won positive dynamics will stay in the counternarcotics cooperation,” Mao said.

Conflating Border Issue With Fentanyl Crisis

According to US media outlets, in this year’s US elections, both Republican and Democratic presidential candidates reached a rare consensus – the American drug problem is entirely the fault of drug dealers.

Republicans have heavily criticized Democrats for allowing fentanyl to surge into the country, while Democrats have responded by claiming that they have cracked down on fentanyl traffickers, media reported in October.

Statistics from AdImpact, an American advertising company, show that in September, Republicans spent over $11 million on TV ads accusing Democrats of contributing to fentanyl trafficking, while Democrats spent almost $18 million to defend themselves, highlighting their efforts in combating trafficking.

The New York Times reported in July that Donald Trump’s first television ad attacking Harris in the summer featured footage of her dancing at an event celebrating the 50th anniversary of hip-hop music and images of migrants crossing the border. The ad claimed that “on Harris’ watch,” over 250,000 people died from fentanyl overdose. The 30-second ad also displayed the slogan “Failed. Weak. Dangerously Liberal.”

Facing attacks, Harris emphasized that during her visit to the US-Mexico border in September, she would make disrupting fentanyl’s flow into the US a top priority.

A spokesperson for the Harris campaign stated that she would target the global fentanyl supply chain and fight for more support for Americans battling addiction, NBC News reported.

A report noted in October that this consensus reflected by both parties represents a shared sentiment among American voters – that most fentanyl comes from Mexico, and the country’s approach to drug addiction has become hardening.

Regarding why both parties choose to link border crossings with the fentanyl crisis, Erika Franklin Fowler, a professor at Wesley University, analyzed, “It’s an easy shortcut in a 30-second commercial to tie a broader issue to one that has an easy explanation.”

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