IT’S A LIVING … FROM DYING –
May 2, 2023 – Synthetic opioids ‒ mostly fentanyl ‒ now kill more Americans every year than the Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined, feeding an argument among some politicians that the cartels should be branded terrorist organizations and prompting once-unthinkable calls for U.S. military intervention across the border. “The problem with fentanyl, as some people at the State Department told me, has to be repositioned. It’s not a drug problem; it’s a poisoning problem,” said Alejandro Hope, a security analyst in Mexico. “Very few people go out deliberately looking for fentanyl.”
Hope predicted fentanyl would probably become an issue in next year’s U.S. elections, but he opposed any threat of U.S. intervention, saying “I don’t think that would be a very good way of addressing a public health issue.”
