The Drug Enforcement Administration announced Tuesday that the agency had seized enough fentanyl in 2022 to kill every single American.
“As 2022 comes to an end, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is announcing the seizure of over 50.6 million fentanyl-laced, fake prescription pills and more than 10,000 pounds of fentanyl powder this calendar year,” according to a DEA press release.
“The DEA Laboratory estimates that these seizures represent more than 379 million potentially deadly doses of fentanyl.”
The population of the United States is estimated to be about 334 million, according to the United States Census Bureau.
“In the past year, the men and women of the DEA have relentlessly worked to seize over 379 million deadly doses of fentanyl from communities across the country,” said DEA Administrator Anne Milgram.
She continued, “These seizures — enough deadly doses of fentanyl to kill every American — reflect DEA’s unwavering commitment to protect Americans and save lives by tenaciously pursuing those responsible for the trafficking of fentanyl across the United States.”
“DEA’s top operational priority is to defeat the two Mexican drug cartels — the Sinaloa and Jalisco (CJNG) Cartels — that are primarily responsible for the fentanyl that is killing Americans today,” Milgram said.
Most of the fentanyl trafficked into the United States by these cartels is reportedly mass-produced in secret factories in Mexico using chemicals primarily sourced from China.
The DEA seized more than double the amount of fentanyl-laced, fake prescription pills in 2022 that it did in 2021. In addition, it confiscated nearly 131,000 pounds of methamphetamine, more than 444,000 pounds of cocaine, and over 4,300 pounds of heroin.
Dallas police have fought against the use and sale of fentanyl on city streets for the past several years.
Police Chief Eddie Garcia recently spoke to city council members about law enforcement’s efforts to combat the spread of fentanyl during a Public Safety Committee Meeting, as previously covered by The Dallas Express.
“It wasn’t really until the last few years that we have seen it here,” Garcia said. “Twenty-to-life for killing someone by dealing them fentanyl — that’s one of the ways we’re going to combat this.”