Fentanyl is growing problem in region

We sometimes like to think the rural nature of Southeast Missouri insulates us from so-called “big-city” problems. Sometimes, we’re correct. Not always. Fentanyl is one of those problems that is invading our region. A synthetic opioid exponentially more potent than morphine, fentanyl, usually illicitly sold in pill form, presents a unique danger, because on the street, drug dealers imprecisely mix it with cutting agents. It doesn’t take much fentanyl, which has a heroin-like effect, to kill a person, and lower doses in some pills and higher doses in others is leading to tens of thousands of overdoses each year. How many? According to the DEA, fentanyl overdose is the leading cause of death for 18- to 45-year-olds in the U.S. Mexican cartels and Chinese chemical companies are churning out fentanyl in huge quantities, and much of it is finding its way to the United States. How much? According to Southeast Missourian reporting, the St. Louis district of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration seized enough fentanyl last year to kill 24 million people. One year. A few recent examples from area law enforcement agencies show the growing prevalence of fentanyl in the region: q Jackson authorities arrested two men for fentanyl trafficking after they were allegedly found with 39 fentanyl-laced pills. q Police arrested a Scott City couple who allegedly had 274 prescription fentanyl pills at their home. q Last year, a nurse at a local hospital pleaded guilty to taking left-over fentanyl from her workplace. q And in July, federal authorities arrested 19 members of an alleged Charleston drug ring characterized as the “main supplier of methamphetamine and fentanyl” in Southeast Missouri. Detective Austin Reed of the Jackson Police Department, a former DEA agent, noted the increasing presence of the drug. “Fentanyl is becoming a pretty common thing around the Cape Girardeau County area,” he said. “We’re seeing quite a bit of it, especially since 2020. It’s increasing every year. Fentanyl is becoming much easier to obtain, and that’s why we’re seeing more of it.” There are no easy answers to eradicating illegal drug use. If there were, we would have won our “war on drugs” long ago. But there are things we can do. One, anyone at risk of using such drugs should be aware of the danger fentanyl poses. One pill may be a person’s last. No “high” is worth someone’s life. Parents, talk with your children. Make sure they understand that fentanyl can and does kill. Two, we encourage more investment in programs aimed at lowering drug overdoses and other “deaths of despair”. These deaths don’t only kill those on the low end of the socioeconomic scale. Actor Angus Cloud and singer/musicians Tom Petty and Prince, among others, died in part because of fentanyl use. Three, our federal law enforcement authorities must do more to prevent the raw materials for these drugs and the finished products from coming into our country, and we should put more pressure on the governments of Mexico and China to help us in the fight. Fentanyl is a real and growing threat here and elsewhere. Wishing it away won’t help. Resolved action will.