I love “DEA math problems”… this article states that 75% of the 93,000 drug overdoses was caused ILLEGAL FENTANYL – amazing they actually stated that the deaths were caused by ILLICIT FENTANYL without showing a graphic of a legal Fentanyl Rx med.  This calculates out to abt 70,000 of the 93,000 ALL DRUG OVERDOSE DEATHS.

Here is a chart that shows OD deaths up to 2019 … we have abt 320,000,000 population… so doing the math…  Heroin is abt 4/100,000 of 12,800 deaths, Methadone is abt 1 so 3200 deaths, Cocaine and Meth is abt 5 so that is 16,000 each…   Using that chart the apparently the number of illegal Fentanyl OD’s have abt DOUBLE between 2019 and 2020.

Using the chart it would appear in 2019 83,000 OD’s from the illegal drugs on this chart and if one adds the estimated 15,000 that die from the use/abuse of NSAIDS – most GI bleeds… one comes up with 98,000 OD from just this hand full of drugs/meds. That would be abt 5%-7% error on these sources on numbers from matching up… I guess that is close enough for the bureaucrats.

But the chart shows that abt 12,000 people OD’d on Rx opiates…  that would throw the total OD’s in 2019 to 110,000…  But those legal opiate OD’s don’t delineate how many were legally prescribed to the person that OD’d…  but that is only about 10% of all OD’s using legal opiates… but … it would be interesting to know how many people OD’d with their legally prescribed opiates and if they had any other substances in their toxicology.  Since most OD’s, toxicology shows 4 to 7 different substances, with one typically being the DRUG ALCOHOL. My money would be on … if the toxicology only showed a legally prescribed opiate and alcohol … it would most likely be a SUICIDE !  Even if this data was ever divulged, it would appear that OD’s with legally prescribed opiates by chronic pain pts… is in the single digit percentages of all OD’s.  One could speculate that if chronic pain was better managed … that thousands of OD’s could be prevented.

 

 

Fentanyl frenzy: More than 800 people arrested in DEA crackdown on fake fentanyl-laced pills

https://www.wapt.com/article/fentanyl-frenzy-more-than-800-people-arrested-in-dea-crackdown-on-fake-fentanyl-laced-pills/37824027

The Drug Enforcement Administration said Thursday it made 810 arrests and seized more than 1.8 million fake pills during a two-month sweep to stem the flow of counterfeit medications containing the synthetic opioid fentanyl.

The lethal tablets are fueling a surge in U.S. drug-overdose deaths in recent years, and largely are trafficked from Mexico, where drug cartels produce the tablets from precursor chemicals imported from China, top U.S. officials said at a news conference Thursday.

“Illicit fentanyl was responsible for nearly three-quarters of the more than 93,000 fatal drug overdoses in the United States in 2020,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said at Justice Department headquarters.

“The pervasiveness of these illicit drugs, and the fatal overdoses that too often result, is a problem that cuts across America from small towns to big cities and everything in between.”

DEA Administrator Anne Milgram said the agency is working to shut wide distribution networks selling tablets that look like name-brand prescription medications such as Xanax and Percocet.

“DEA laboratory testing reveals that today, four out of 10 fentanyl-laced fake pills contain a potentially lethal dose (2 milligrams),” the agency said in a news release.

Milgram said the DEA has never seen a higher lethality rate.

The fake pills seized were capable of killing more than 700,000 people, she said.

During the sweep, the DEA also seized enough powder to make tens of millions of pills, more than 4,000 kilograms of methamphetamine and more than 650 kilograms of cocaine.

The agency seized more than 9.5 million fake tablets last year, a 430% increase over 2019.

Milgram said the pills are widely available on social media platforms as well as on the streets, an issue that she said social media companies need to address.

Milgram said she raised the issue with Mexican Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Manero during a meeting this week, asking to work with Mexican law enforcement agencies to tackle the problem.

Earlier this week, the DEA issued a public safety alert about a sharp increase of fake prescription pills laced with fentanyl and methamphetamine. It was the first such alert issued by the DEA in six years.

 

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