OPINION:
Forget the COVID-19 pandemic. A scourge different from the one that struck fear of death into populations across the globe four years ago this month is now raging across the United States: drug overdoses.
While those who take dangerous drugs have themselves to blame for the outcome, President Biden shares responsibility for enabling millions to select this option in the first place. His refusal to secure the nation’s borders allows the relentless influx of lethal opioids that kill Americans by the hundreds each day.
In August, the administration claimed it had made headway in efforts to curtail the rise in mortality. “After years of tragic and rapid increases in the overdose death rate, we are encouraged to see progress in flattening this trend,” Dr. Rahul Gupta, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, said in a statement.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates there were 110,468 such deaths last year, meaning baby steps aren’t enough. The majority of these lives were claimed by fentanyl, a synthetic opioid smuggled from Mexico across Mr. Biden’s open border.
Even as the Department of Homeland Security made record seizures of fentanyl shipments at the southern border, the problem persists. That’s because the president’s policy of granting de facto asylum to millions lets furtive drug trafficking conduits continue to bring in this poison. More than 43,000 pounds of the potent opioid were stopped in fiscal 2023 — more than enough to provide a fatal dose to every American. Thousands of pounds more get through.
This diminishes our national security. The Pentagon found fentanyl deaths in the armed services had doubled to 330 between 2017 and 2021, and nonfatal overdoses hit 15,000, according to Military.com. Alarmed by the trend, Congress included a provision in the Defense Department budget in December a directive to track overdoses within the ranks and make lifesaving antidotes available.
To be fair, the administration has tried various strategies to quell the carnage, including expansion of access to overdose-reversal medication such as over-the-counter naloxone, the launch of a global coalition to fight synthetic drug threats, regulation of precursor chemicals used in making deadly fentanyl and sanctioning members of the Sinaloa Cartel involved in illicit drug trafficking. The death count has hardly budged.
Americans are disgusted with the Biden-era surge in illegal immigration and the deleterious effects it has on their communities, with drug deaths the most appalling. Republican caucusgoers in Iowa this past week cited immigration as the most important issue confronting the nation, according to AP VoteCast, even though the Hawkeye State is a thousand miles from Mexico.
To succumb to the scourge of a drug-addled existence is a waste of human life. It is not President Biden’s fault that too many Americans make choices that take them down a dark path. But it is beyond dispute that many more will perish as long as there is no presidential will to safeguard the homeland.
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