The New War on Drugs

Spencer White

            On October 2, 2017 Tom Petty of “Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers” died suddenly. The official cause was declared cardiac arrest but on the 21^st of January it was released by his family that the cardiac arrest was actually caused by an accidental drug overdose from a number of substances. Just a few months ago the rapper Lil Peep overdosed off the same substance and overdosed on Xanax. The drugs found in Petty’s system include opioids, sedatives, antidepressants, and the most dangerous substance in America, fentanyl. These two overdoses aren’t isolated incidents. Opioids are now the leading cause of death in Americans under 50. It has now passed the rate of deaths caused by HIV during its peak.  Right now, cartels and drug dealers across Mexico and the U.S. are lacing their drugs with fentanyl, the cause of thousands of overdoses across the country including our twelve largest cities. Fentanyl, is a man-made narcotic and 50 times stronger than heroin which is why it is so dangerous and there are so many overdoses. This is a nationwide pandemic that is only going to get worse without legislation promoted by Congress. If we don’t act quickly as a country the number of opioids in our major cities and overdoses nationwide is only going to grow with time until it is no longer controllable. The federal government needs to take a fresh look at the war on drugs.

With the legalization of marijuana in many states, recently in Vermont, the cartels of Mexico are smuggling in more dangerous drugs to the country including fentanyl to make up for loss profits. This opioid pandemic is a leading cause for why the United States needs to see a resurgence of our efforts for the war on drugs. Since the 70s when marijuana was smuggled through California and other southern states the U.S. has been in what our government described as “the war on drugs” the fight against these illegal imports has died down somewhat in the last decade but the smuggling of these substances is still happening and is still worth millions of dollars.  First marijuana, then cocaine, and now worst of all heroin. Heroine imports are a huge business and the majority of it is coming from Mexico with fentanyl being synthesized domestically in the U.S. and in China. In order to combat the mass imports of dangerous drugs like these the federal government needs to once again focus efforts on preventing drugs from being brought into our country. If congress doesn’t recognize these threats soon the fentanyl problem will escalate to uncontrollable levels where it will take cooperation between South American and the United States to control it. Given the state of Mexico and their past history of struggling to prevent the imports of drugs to our country and their apparent refuse to efficiently deal with their cartels, I don’t think that this is very feasible. Instead congress must implement policies to better restrict these cartels abilities to import these substances through better border control, better and more restrictions on the imports. If congress can implement ways to limit the importation of these substances, then it will also hinder Mexican cartels and have a positive effect on the South American countries where these cartels resign. Obviously, this is an extremely complicated process, but efforts must be made to prevent a continent-wide drug pandemic and the inevitable violence.

Nixon’s war on drugs was an expensive and laborious process that many Americans found to be a waste of resources and overall ineffective. But with the growing imports of fentanyl it is important that the government take action to prevent any further escalation. Legislation that forces domestic authorities to seek out these producers of synthetic drugs will help to lower the amount produced in the United States. Better communication between China and Mexico will reduce the amount of these substances being brought into the country from foreign countries. If we can attack this opioid problem now it will prevent it from growing to unstoppable proportions.