>>18300910 MariaBartiromo - US sees rising number of deaths due to fentanyl poisoning (PB)
September 3, 2019- Tackle Fentanyl like a Poisoning Outbreak, Not a Drug Epidemic
https://www.rand.org/blog/2019/09/tackle-fentanyl-like-a-poisoning-outbreak-not-a-drug.html
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently released drug overdose statistics for 2018, and they are shocking. Of the estimated 47,000 deaths from opioids last year, roughly two-thirds involved potent synthetic opioids, most of them fentanyl. For most victims, fentanyl was not their drug of choice. Rather, they were poisoned by dealers who mixed it into baggies of heroin or pressed into fake-opioid tablets.
America's fentanyl problem is far deadlier than past crises with other illegal drugs. It also has a fundamentally different character. For most victims, fentanyl was not their drug of choice. Rather, they were poisoned by dealers who mixed it into baggies of heroin or pressed into fake-opioid tablets.
What is happening with fentanyl is unlike the trajectory of previous drug epidemics. Those typically involved “contagious” spread of initial use—primarily among those who may have been ignorant of the drug's risks. This was the case with prescription opioids, which were prescribed aggressively for chronic pain…
In the case of fentanyl, it is largely the suppliers—not users—who have embraced the drug because it is an ideal cost-cutting substitute… Anyone with an internet connection can purchase synthetic opioids that are most frequently made in China and delivered through the mail or by parcel service. Some Mexican crime syndicates trafficking heroin are also adding fentanyl to their portfolios.
Most of the people exposed to—and dying from—fentanyl didn't think they were buying it and didn't want to use it. https://www.rand.org/blog/2019/09/tackle-fentanyl-like-a-poisoning-outbreak-not-a-drug.html
January 13, 2020- Drug overdoses kill more Americans than car crashes, gunshots, or AIDS at its peak. But it's no longer just a crisis of prescription pills or heroin. It's a crisis of fentanyl. Deaths involving it and other synthetic opioids have surged from around 3,000 in 2013 to more than 30,000 in 2018.
Lethal, and Easy to Obtain The crisis arrived in Dayton, Ohio, with a series of unexplained deaths in the fall of 2012. Police found a white powder that looked like heroin but tested positive for fentanyl. By 2015, as the crisis took hold, more than 250 people were dying of drug overdoses every year in Dayton and the rest of Ohio's Montgomery County. The death toll rose to nearly 350 in 2016. The year after that: 566. The coroner's office had to bring in refrigerated trucks to accommodate the dead.
https://www.rand.org/blog/rand-review/2020/01/fentanyl-the-most-dangerous-illegal-drug-in-america.html
and faux 'headlines' that it's "rising".