OPINION:
On June 9, The New York Times ran this headline on Page A1: “Drug That Killed Prince Is Making Mexican Cartels Richer, U.S. Says.” The first line of the story reads, “The drug that killed Prince has become a favorite of Mexican cartels because it is extremely potent, popular in the United States — and immensely profitable, American officials say.”
The Times goes on to describe the drug, fentanyl, as coming partly from labs owned and operated by the Mexican cartels themselves and partly “shipments from China.” As the United States cracks down on prescription drugs such as oxycodone, the cartels and their Chinese suppliers are shifting to fentanyl which is cheap and easy to produce. It is also more than 40 times as potent as heroin. One seizure of 60 pounds of fentanyl on a remote landing strip in Mexico last year has the kick of almost a ton of heroin. Like oxycodone, fentanyl has legitimate uses, such as end-of-life relief, but it is strictly controlled in the United States and Western countries.
Thanks to the Open Borders policy of the Obama administration and the marketing expertise of the Mexican drug cartels, fentanyl is now widely distributed across the country. Here are some headlines from local media outlets:
“Chinese drug stronger than heroin causing deaths in Pa” — Philly News
“The China pipeline, Part 3: The deadly toll of synthetic drugs in South Florida — Miami Herald
“Heroin Epidemic Is Yielding to a Deadlier Cousin: Fentanyl” — New York Times reporting on Massachusetts.
“Ohio Father, Son Found Dead of Suspected Fentanyl Overdose” — Associated Press
And this from Sacramento’s CBS affiliate:”The pill that killed Jerome Butler, the father of three, contained the potent pain reliever fentanyl. ’It shut down his organs. It shut down his kidneys. It shut down his liver. His brain was swollen. The doctor said there was nothing he could do for him,’ Mrs. Butler said. ’From one pill.’ Her son’s death was one of 10 in the Sacramento area in just 12 days that doctors have traced to heavy fentanyl-laced narcotics being sold as generic opioids on the streets.”
From the standpoint of the Mexican drug cartels and their Chinese suppliers, fentanyl is a new highly lucrative profit item to supplement the existing traffic in heroin, cocaine and methamphetamines. It doesn’t supplant them. In the first place, recently the White House had to report that Mexico is greatly increasing the acreage of its opium poppy production. By the end of this year, poppy production on President Obama’s watch will have tripled. During a 24 hour period in March, the U.S. Border Patrol intercepted over $2 million in illegal cocaine and methamphetamines coming across the Texas border from Mexico.
If you only look at the overdoses, we are running over 10,000 deaths a year. If they are the Killed in Action of the War on Drugs, it is approaching the heights of the Vietnam War period. If you add in the associated gang murders and other violence, the casualty list is far higher. It’s not just Chicago. As The New York Times reported last April on gang violence in Pueblo Colorado: ” the surge in violence is driven by a phenomenon rolling through communities from Long Island to St. Louis and Los Angeles: a flood of cheap heroin from Mexico and an eager base of customers from a range of economic backgrounds, some of whom switched to the drug after using prescription painkillers.”
“A range of economic backgrounds” is exactly right. If even a black multimillionaire (Prince) from Minnesota cannot protect himself from this scourge, what chance does a white baby in Appalachia have if her mother is hooked on poison from over the border?
Last year Peggy Noonan of The Wall Street Journal wrote, correctly, that a country which cannot secure its borders is not a nation. We have been looking at the people who illegally cross the American Open Borders and it is certainly appropriate to start there. However, that’s not the end of the issue. There is also the Open Borders of things. What are they bringing with them? Heroin? Cocaine? Methamphetamines? And now fentanyl? Plus the murder and gang violence that are a part of this trade?
Hillary Clinton’s campaign website addresses “Immigration Reform” and opens with “America needs comprehensive immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship.” There is zero recognition that the Clinton-Obama Open Borders policy could result in any harm to American citizens, much less 10,000 drug overdoses a year from Chinese and Mexican illegal drugs. All members of the Uniformed Services take an oath to defend the United States “against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Isn’t it time for the commander in chief to take the same oath?
• William C. Triplett II is the former chief Republican counsel to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
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