Overdose deaths hit record levels in 2021, the Daily Caller reports.
It appears that the drug fentanyl could have been a large part of the reason why, which in turn would suggest that the southern border crisis brought about by President Joe Biden and his administration could be a source of blame.
The preliminary numbers
This information comes from a new report from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS).
It ought to be noted at the outset that all of these numbers are preliminary estimates. This is because of the more difficult verification process that is required for a death to be labeled an overdose death.
That being said, according to the preliminary numbers from NCHS, in 2021, at least 105,000 Americans died as a result of drug overdoses. To put this figure into perspective, in 2020, 93,000 Americans died from drug overdoses. So, the rise of overdose deaths is happening at an extremely fast rate.
The fastest rate of increase in overdose deaths is happening among young adults, aged 14 to 18.
Before 2020, the young adult overdose death rate was consistently at about 500 per year. In 2020, it went up to 954, and in 2021 it increased even more to 1,150.
A cause of the problem
The Associated Press recently released a report linking teen overdose deaths to an increase in the drug fentanyl.
“Experts attributed the spike [in teenage overdose deaths] to fentanyl, a highly lethal drug that has been cut into heroin for several years,” the outlet reports. “More recently it’s also been pressed into counterfeit pills resembling prescription drugs that teens sometimes abuse.”
Reports indicate that a large amount of fentanyl is being brought into America via the southern border, which has become more open during Biden’s presidency.
Breitbart News recently reported that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has confiscated some 4,249 pounds of fentanyl since the start of the 2022 fiscal year. The outlet highlighted this in a report that it released about an 85-pound confiscation of fentanyl by border agents this past week.
Republicans have long argued that this is one of the many reasons why steps need to be taken to secure the U.S.-Mexico border.
