Fentanyl

The number of fentanyl overdose deaths is skyrocketing. According to Families Against Fentanyl, fentanyl deaths have doubled since 2019. They report that fentanyl poisoning is now the number one cause of death in adults 18-45 with over 64,000 deaths for the year ending in April 2021.

As a whole, drug overdose deaths surpassed 100,000 per year for the first time in 2021.

According to a press release from Congressman Glenn Grothman, during April through June of this year, about 3,115 pounds of fentanyl was seized at the southern border. That 3 month apprehension was more than the total amount seized in all of fiscal year 2019 and equivalent to over 750 million lethal doses, enough to kill the entire American population twice.

Appearing on Crosstalk to discuss this issue was Mark Shaw. Mark is the director of counseling at Grace Fellowship Church in Florence, Kentucky, and is the founder of The Addiction Connection. He is a certified alcohol and drug addiction counselor. He's an ordained pastor, speaker, teacher and author of multiple books such as The Heart of Addiction, How Not to Raise an Addict and many others including the recently released booklet entitled, Fentanyl.
Fentanyl is a very powerful, synthetic opioid drug. While perhaps not as widely known as marijuana, heroin, LSD or cocaine, it's been around since the '60's. People typically add it to whatever they're currently taking while still others end up taking fentanyl that gets placed into drugs without their knowing about it.

According to Mark, fentanyl is 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine. As little as 2 milligrams can cause an overdose.