Opioids, often produced by communist Chinese and smuggled by illegal aliens, have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans over recent years. A new congressional report shows that the opioid crisis is not only causing this terrible loss of life but also a severe economic impact.
Human and Economic Costs:
Between 2019 and 2020, the number of overdose deaths in the United States increased by 30%. This is a five-fold increase from 1999. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that opioid-involved deaths increased by 38% and synthetic opioids-involved deaths rose by 56% between 2019 and 2020.
According to the CDC, opioids were responsible for 80,816 of the 107,622 drug overdose deaths in America in 2021. Fentanyl is the most deadly drug for adults between 18 and 45.
Rep. David Trone (D.Md. Rep. David Trone (D-Md.), a member of the Congressional Joint Economic Committee that produced the report accounting for the economic impact of the drug epidemic, stated, “It’s equivalent of one 737 (jet), every day going down. No survivors.” It’s an incredible number of deaths.
Reuters reported that JEC’s report indicated that the opioid crisis cost the U.S. economy $1.47 Trillion in 2020, after inflation adjustment. This is an increase of $487 billion over 2019 and 37% more than in 2017.
According to the report, “the total cost of opioid overdoses is likely to continue rising” due to the steady rise in fatalities from last year.
According to the Council of Economic Advisers, the cost of the crisis was $696 billion in 2018, which is 3.4% of GDP.
In the past, cost estimates such as the CEA have included the loss of life, increased costs for substance abuse treatment and health care, criminal justice costs, and a reduction in productivity.
Bad Actors:
Craig Singleton is a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Foundation for Defense of Democracies and stated earlier this month that China was the main source of fentanyl flooding America’s illicit drug marketplace.
Although President Joe Biden had previously neglected to mention China’s role in the export of fentanyl, which has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans in the past, the Drug Enforcement Administration highlighted China’s contribution in a January 2020 Report.
According to the report, Mexico and China were the main sources of fentanyl or fentanyl-related drugs trafficked into the United States.
China Also Traffics Drugs Through Mexico:
Although China was keen to continue sending fentanyl into the U.S., it has since banned all opioid forms in its domestic market. This was under the pressure of former President Donald Trump. Singleton pointed out that only authorized firms to which the Chinese government has granted special licenses are allowed to manufacture, export, or sell fentanyl-class drugs.
In a September 15 memo, the Republican Study Committee stated that Chinese operations continue despite the ban and that “fentanyl trafficking across our borders increased by 132%” for 2021.
China’s apparent crackdown on fentanyl led to “a significant amount of China’s manufacturing of fentanyl… moving to Mexico, where cartels established their own operations to produce the fentanyl from precursor chemicals imported from China.”
Rep. David Trone of the Democratic Party, who was involved in the JEC report, stated that China is “critically involved in the… deaths” because they are the only supplier of [fentanyl] pre-precursor chemicals. They are shipping to Mexico.
Trone added that they know it’s being shipped from China to Mexico. It’s being done through Chinese middlemen, who sell it directly to Mexican cartels. It is coming into America by the hundreds and millions of pills, and it all begins in China.”
Much of America’s fentanyl is imported from China by the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels in Mexico.
Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis blamed China for America’s September 22 fentanyl crisis. He said, “If they look at their manufacturing of fentanyl as well as shipping it to the cartels that run it across our Southern border… it wouldn’t be happening if not for China.”
Sen. Senator Rob Portman (R.Ohio), told Politico that Mexican transnational criminal organizations had increased their cooperation with Chinese criminal gangs to import into Mexico the ingredients for fentanyl. … This issue must be addressed by the Biden administration.
These sentiments were echoed by the RSC, which wrote, “The weakness of the Biden administration has allowed this deadly partnership between Chinese actors and cartels to flourish.”
The RSC recommended several legislative solutions to the problem. These included:
Arizona Republican Paul Gosar has introduced a bill that would place life imprisonment or death penalties on anyone who deals fentanyl, which causes death.
Tennessee Republican Tim Burchett has introduced a bill that would allow anyone convicted of trafficking in fentanyl to be sentenced to life.
Jackie Warlorski, a Republican from Indiana, introduced legislation that allows individuals and state attorneys general to sue foreign governments for injury or death caused by an inability to stop illegal fentanyl trafficking into the U.S.
Michael Pillsbury, the Hudson Institute’s director of the Center on Chinese Strategy, wrote: “The Hundred-Year Marathon” about how elements of the communist Chinese government have long desired to “replace America as the economic, political, and military leader of the world by 2049 (the one-hundredth anniversary of Communist Revolution)”, in part to “avenge/wipe clean” (xi Xue), past foreign humiliations, such as the Chinese dependence on opium during the 19th century.
The 2021 Pentagon report highlighted the Chinese goal to “achieve the great renewal of the Chinese nation” by 2049 to match, surpass, or surpass U.S. international influence and power, displace U.S. security partnerships and alliances in the Indo-Pacific area, and revise and improve the international order to favor Beijing’s authoritarian system.
According to reports, the communists will make “far-reaching efforts” in order to achieve this geopolitical goal.
