Fentanyl is 100 times more powerful than morphine and 50 times more powerful than heroin. But when Belgian chemist Paul Janssen created it in 1959 as an anesthetic and pain reliever, fentanyl was not destined to become the 21st century’s most widespread and deadly drug.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even very small amounts of it can cause respiratory depression, leading to death. A very short period of use is enough to cause addiction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cheap as a synthetic opioid, it is now commonly used to adulterate heroin, cocaine and other powdered drugs. But in drug markets, it even comes in pills, which look like prescription painkillers and anxiolytics, but are just like fentanyl.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They are mass-produced in illegal drug cartel laboratories, mainly in Central and Latin America. Many of the substances needed to make the synthetic opioid come from China and India.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In American territory, its use has long assumed crisis proportions. It was magnified in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021 alone over 70,000 American deaths were attributed to overdoses of synthetic opioids, mainly fentanyl.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although it is called the “poor man’s heroin”, due to its comparatively low cost of manufacture, its victims come from all socio-economic strata. And indeed of any age. Even children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), in 2022 more than 50.6 million fentanyl pills and more than 4500 kg of powder were seized in the US. The amount is equivalent to “more than 379 million potentially lethal doses of fentanyl,” the DEA said. Theoretically more than enough to kill every last American.<\/p>\n\n\n\n