At least in Russian roulette you have only a one-in-six chance of dying.
There are so many frightening sentences and stats and numbers in Dale Ellis' story the other day that we scarcely know where to begin. So how about here: Show this editorial (and Dale Ellis' story from Monday, where we get our info) to your kids.
Ungodly amounts of fentanyl, heroin's deadly cousin, are on the American market today, sometimes hidden in other drugs. Two milligrams can kill you, according to the CDC. And what does two milligrams look like? It'd be about enough to cover up the year pressed into that copper penny in your pocket.
Some other scares in the story:
• According to the Centers for Disease Control, fentanyl is 50 to 100 times more potent than heroin and morphine.
• Of the 107,000-plus people who died of an overdose in the United States in 2021, 67 percent--two in three--died from overdoses "attributable to synthetic opioids."
• Gangs in Mexico are mass-producing deadly fentanyl and fentanyl-laced fake prescription pills designed to look like legit prescription drugs, often with enough fentanyl in them to kill.
• These drugs are on the streets in Arkansas.
This from one agent at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration office in Little Rock: "Once fentanyl came on the scene it ushered in the deadliest era we've seen yet when it comes to drugs. Drug overdoses are now the leading killer of Americans between the age of 18 and 45, and 70 percent of those deaths are caused by synthetic opioids like fentanyl."
In 2021 alone, the story said, the DEA has seized enough fentanyl to kill every person in the United States. And that's just the drugs the feds seized. The amount on the street surely must be much more.
And because the fentanyl is disguised, the folks who take it might not even know they're taking it. Many wake up dead. (Warning: Don't take any pill you don't get at the pharmacy.)
The DEA isn't going to fix this problem. The border control folks aren't going to fix this problem. This problem is going to have to be fixed on the "demand" end. That is, with all of us who warn everybody in our orbit: Fake, laced, deadly pills are on the street. Don't even take an aspirin if you didn't get it from a reliable source.
And the guy at the party isn't a reliable source.