US authorities seized enough fentanyl in 2022 to kill every single American in the country
Rachel Lang
Featured Image Credit: U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Julia Hiebaum / Alamy.
The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has seized enough fentanyl in 2022 to kill every person in America.
The killer opioid continues to sweep the nation, with a death toll for 2022 sitting at a staggering 107,000 Americans.
In 2022, DEA agents have confiscated more than 50.6 million fentanyl-laced fake prescription pills and more than 10,000 pounds of fentanyl powder.
Those numbers combined equate to about 379 million potentially deadly doses of fentanyl.
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The drug has more than doubled in prevalence compared with 2021, indicating that killer opioids may be still tightening its grip on the US.
DEA administrator Anne Milgram revealed that less than a pencil tip of fentanyl - so about two milligrams - can kill, with the drug 50 times more potent than heroin.
Fentanyl is the deadliest drug facing this country. It's a highly addictive man-made opioid that is 50x more potent than heroin. Just 2 mg of fentanyl, a small amount that fits on the tip of a pencil, is considered a potentially deadly dose #OnePillCanKillhttps://t.co/E2u1lkOhme pic.twitter.com/CJZYLhBACm
— DEA HQ (@DEAHQ) December 22, 2022
"In the past year, the men and women of the DEA have relentlessly worked to seize over 379 million deadly doses of fentanyl from communities across the country,” she said in a statement.
"These seizures – enough deadly doses of fentanyl to kill every American – reflect DEA’s unwavering commitment to protect Americans and save lives, by tenaciously pursuing those responsible for the trafficking of fentanyl across the United States."
She then rounded on the drug cartels bringing the lethal narcotics across the border and onto US soil.
"[The] DEA’s top operational priority is to defeat the two Mexican drug cartels—the Sinaloa and Jalisco (CJNG) Cartels—that are primarily responsible for the fentanyl that is killing Americans today," she said.
According to the DEA, most of the man-made opioid trafficked by the cartels is mass-produced in factories across Mexico using chemicals sourced largely from China.
#DYK DEA seized 10 million+ fentanyl pills between May 2022 – Sept. 2022. Join DEA’s efforts to remember the lives lost from fentanyl poisoning by submitting a photo of a loved one lost to fentanyl. #JustKNOWhttps://t.co/pnfC1HJFE3 pic.twitter.com/mzcSf1DOAX
— DEA HQ (@DEAHQ) December 22, 2022
Some Americans may not even be aware they have the deadly drug on them, with
fentanyl-laced pills masquerading as legitimate prescription medication.
In 2021, the DEA issued a warning about fake medicines, revealing that the fentanyl-spiked copies were nearly impossible to tell apart from real and common medications such as Percocet and Xanax.
And that hasn't slowed down in 2022.
Just last month, the DEA issued a public alert to warn the American public of a steep increase nationwide in the lethality of the pretend prescription pills.
As per agents from the DEA, four out of ten fentanyl-laced doppelgängers of legitimate medications contain enough of the opioid to kill.