When President Trump announced plans to impose invoices on Mexico and Canada, one of his stated rationales was to force these countries to limit the flow of Fentanyl in the United States. In the financial year 2024, the customs protection of the United States and border protection occupied almost 22,000 pounds of pills, powders and other fentanyl products, from 27,000 pounds in the previous year. More than 105,000 people died of over-doses, three-quarters of them from fentanyl and other opioids in 2023. It does not get much illegal fentanyl-it is said to be about 50 times strong from heroin and 100 times as strong as morphine- cause a deadly overdose.
In my article about the magazine, I note that one of the many tragedies of the opioid epidemic is that a proven treatment for opioid addiction, a drug called Buprenorphine, was available in the United States for more than two decades but is conventional with Delete. Tens of thousands of lives could have been saved if it had been used widely earlier. In its actions and rhetoric, Trump seems to emphasize the reduction of the supply in response to the fentanyl crisis. But Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has highlighted American demand as a driver of the problem. Indeed, if several opioid users in the United States ended up receiving buprenorphine and other effective treatment based on medication, perhaps the demand for illegal opioids such as fentanyl could be reduced.
Comparing buprenorphine -based treatments and abstinence for opioid use disorder.
A wealth of evidence suggests that an approach based on drugs that uses buprenorphine-a type of opioid itself-is much more effective in preventing over-dose deaths than abstention. (Methadone, a slightly more powerful opioid, is also effective as a cure.) That the greatest success comes in part from the fact that by involvement of the same receptors stimulated by fentanyl and other illegal opioids, buprenorphine (and methadone ) symptoms. Several studies show that people who come out of abstain -based programs are truly at greater risk of excessive dose than they did when using illegal opioids. After abstaining for a long time, former users lose their tolerance to opioids. Doses that were previously fine can become deadly. This is one reason that many addiction experts believe that a drug such as buprenorphine is more effective as a treatment for opioid use disorder than stopping cold turkey. It greatly reduces the cravings and misery that could cause relapse.
Where buprenorphine has reduced deaths.
Although the United States government partly funded the growth of buprenorphine as a treatment for opioid addiction, France was one of the first countries to take full advantage of its potential. In the 1990s, French health authorities began to allow all doctors to prescribe buprenorphine. In the early 2000s, heroin and other opioid deaths were reduced by almost 80 %. Other European countries, such as Switzerland, who have been medication for the treatment of opioid use disorder easily accessible also have much lower mortality rates than overdose than those observed in the United States.
Because Fentanyl was so difficult to control in the United States.
The substantial obstruction of the flow of fentanyl in a country as large as the United States is difficult. Very small amounts are required to provide the whole American demand – only 10 metric tones, with one estimate. And these 10 metric tones, equal to the weight of a few cars, must be found among the more than seven million trucks crossing the southern border each year.
How Fentanyl has flooded the illegal opioid market in the United States.
Unlike heroin, which comes from poppy opiou, fentanyl is fully synthesized in the laboratories. Without agriculture, its production does not depend on the earth, the sun, the water, the fertilizer or the extensive work. Proper chemicals, a capable chemist and a lab are everything they need. Fentanyl producers-such as those who make methamphetamines, sedative Xylazine, stimulant captagon and other preparations than what was called “synthetic drug revolution”-are therefore much less vulnerable to the types of law enforcement, for example , for example, for example, for example, for example, for example, for example, Coca Growers in South America. And they can bounce from failures much faster: when a drug mission was seized, they do not have to wait for a new crop to grow. If they have precursors, they can immediately make more medicines.
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