The southern border and fentanyl's scourge

Last week, six men and a woman, including five West Point cadets on spring break, overdosed on fentanyl-laced cocaine powder. According to WebMD, "Four of the seven patients voluntarily ingested the cocaine, and the other three overdosed when they performed CPR."

In the years when I was on the bench as presiding judge of the Criminal Division in Rock Island County, I cannot ever recall a prosecution for fentanyl coming before me.

The drug prosecutions that I saw — and I saw many of them — were, in the main, prosecutions for cocaine, crack cocaine and marijuana.


So, what exactly is fentanyl? According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, physician-prescribed fentanyl can be a useful and beneficial drug.

"Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid typically used to treat patients with chronic severe pain or severe pain following surgery. Fentanyl is a Schedule II controlled substance that is similar to morphine but about 100 times more potent. Under the supervision of a licensed medical professional, fentanyl has a legitimate medical use. But patients prescribed fentanyl should be monitored for potential misuse or abuse."

The growing problem, however, is that illegal drug dealers are flooding the U.S. across our southern border with illicitly-made fentanyl, according to the DEA.

"Illicit fentanyl, primarily manufactured in foreign clandestine labs and smuggled into the United States through Mexico, is being distributed across the country and sold on the illegal drug market. Fentanyl is being mixed in with other illicit drugs to increase the potency of the drug, sold as powders and nasal sprays, and increasingly pressed into pills made to look like legitimate prescription opioids. Because there is no official oversight or quality control, these counterfeit pills often contain lethal doses of fentanyl."


"Producing illicit fentanyl is not an exact science. Two milligrams of fentanyl can be lethal depending on a person’s body size, tolerance and past usage. DEA analysis has found counterfeit pills ranging from .02 to 5.1 milligrams (more than twice the lethal dose) of fentanyl per tablet.

• 42% of pills tested for fentanyl contained at least 2 mg of fentanyl, considered a potentially lethal dose.

• Drug trafficking organizations typically distribute fentanyl by the kilogram. One kilogram of fentanyl has the potential to kill 500,000 people.

"It is possible for someone to take a pill without knowing it contains fentanyl. It is also possible to take a pill knowing it contains fentanyl, but with no way of knowing if it contains a lethal dose."

According to a Fox 10 News report in Phoenix on Dec. 16, 2021: "Fentanyl overdoses [have] become No. 1 cause of death among US adults, ages 18-45: 'A national emergency.'"

The Fox report said, "Between 2020 and 2021, nearly 79,000 people between 18 and 45 years old — 37,208 in 2020 and 41,587 in 2021 — died of fentanyl overdoses, the data analysis from opioid awareness organization Families Against Fentanyl shows."

President Biden is not unaware of the problem.

"I find that international drug trafficking — including the ... global sale and widespread distribution ... of extremely potent drugs such as fentanyl ... constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy and economy of the United States."

But how many Americans have to die before Biden does something more than talk and issue meaningless executive orders? While Biden blathers, "Customs and Border Patrol agents have seized more than 11,000 pounds [5000 kilograms] of fentanyl so far in fiscal year 2021 … dwarfing the 4,776 pounds seized in fiscal 2020," according to the previously mentioned news report.

A cynical citizen might ask if the smuggling of fentanyl into the U.S. "constitutes and unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy and economy of the United States," why Biden reversed President Trump's efforts to build a border wall to secure the border?

According to CBP, January 2022 saw 153,941 individuals illegally crossing or attempting to cross our border with Mexico. That is nearly double the number of 78,414 encounters in January of 2021, and quadruple the 36,585 that attempted to enter in January of 2020.

Our southern border is wide open to illegal immigrants, as well as fentanyl drug runners. And what is the result? If you care, just Google "fentanyl" and up will pop "top stories."

Today's "top stories" are:

• KDVR: 4-month-old's parents among fentanyl overdose victims.

• Denver Post: Five dead in Commerce City apartment likely overdosed on fentanyl.

So, what's more important? Harvesting possible votes from south of the border, or preventing 45,000 American deaths in a 12-month period?

If one kilogram of fentanyl can kill 500,000 Americans, 5,000 kilograms can kill every American — eight times over.

As long as Biden keeps the border open to illegal immigration, he keeps it open to the drug cartels pouring deadly fentanyl into the U.S. 

So does Biden really care?

Copyright 2022, John Donald O'Shea

First Published in the Moline Dispatch and Rock Island Argus on March 17, 2022