The wall is a distraction from the fentanyl crisis

In October 2017, President Trump declared the opioid crisis a national public-health emergency. Now his fight over the border wall, which he has in part justified on stopping drugs, is a harmful distraction from that very real problem facing the country.

According to statistics released by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, there were 72,306 overdose deaths in the United States in 2017. Of those, the majority, 49,068, involved opioids. Synthetic opioids, “predominately Fentanyl,” as cited in the report, made up 29,406 of those deaths, the vast majority.

Fentanyl comes almost exclusively from China. Most of it, according to the DEA arrives in the U.S. through conventional mail services. Of the fentanyl, and other opioids, that do enter the country across the southern border, almost all of it comes through legal points of entry. Even then, the fentanyl is sourced from China or produced in Mexico with chemicals imported from China.

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