"This is a disaster created by the United States itself" (in-depth observation) Number | Medication | United States
Preliminary data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States recently showed that the number of drug-related deaths in the United States reached a new high in 2022, reaching 109000. The death toll from drug abuse in eight states in the United States has increased by 9% or more, with Washington and Wyoming experiencing the largest increase of 21% in drug overdose deaths. According to the latest data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States, nearly 107000 Americans died from drug overdoses in 2021, with the number of deaths from opioid overdose increasing nearly fourfold from approximately 21000 in 2010 to 80000 in 2021. "The high mortality rate of drug abuse in the United States is a concern," said Nora Volkov, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse
The report released by the US Department of Health and Human Services shows that drug abuse has become a major public health challenge in the United States, causing huge losses to American society. Data shows that over 27 million people in the United States are using illegal drugs or abusing prescription drugs, and illegal drug abuse causes an annual economic loss of $193 billion to the United States.
Fentanyl and other opioid drugs are exacerbating the current drug crisis in the United States. Since 2000, over one million people in the United States have died from drug overdoses, most of which were caused by opioid drugs. According to data from the National Center for Health Statistics in the United States, over 1500 Americans die each week due to taking a certain opioid medication. According to an article published by the American Association for Foreign Relations, the number of deaths from opioid drugs in the United States in 2021 is more than 10 times the total number of US military deaths in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks. Opioid abuse has become a long-term epidemic in the United States, endangering public health, economic output, and national security.
Recently, a synthetic opioid drug called "zombie drug" mixed with fentanyl has caused a new panic in Philadelphia, USA. It is understood that the drug is a mixture of fentanyl and a low-cost stimulant called methylthiazide, with an intensity 50 times higher than heroin. According to the Financial Times, more than two-thirds of drug overdose deaths in the United States in 2022 were related to this drug, equivalent to one death every 5 minutes. The US Drug Enforcement Agency stated that nearly 1/4 of the fentanyl powder tested in its laboratory in 2022 contained methylthiazide. Since 2023, the number of people tracking excessive use of zombie drugs has surged again. In April, the United States officially listed fentanyl mixed with methylthiazide as a new threat. Joseph Friedman, a researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles, said that people are constantly synthesizing new benzodiazepines, stimulants, cannabinoids, and adding them to drugs, so people do not know what they have bought or consumed.
US Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayocas, stated that excessive use of fentanyl has become "the biggest challenge facing the United States as a country.". A study in the medical journal The Lancet predicts that by the end of 2030, 1.2 million people in the United States will die from opioid overdose. "Millions of people in our country are addicted to opioid use, which cannot be easily solved," said Jonathan Kolkins, an addiction policy researcher at Carnegie Mellon University. "I am not particularly optimistic about the future.".
The problem of drug abuse in the United States is becoming increasingly severe, but the US government is slow to take action in reducing domestic drug demand and strengthening prescription drug control. The American media generally believes that the root cause of the increasingly serious drug abuse in the United States lies in domestic factors such as lax regulation of psychotropic drugs and political polarization hindering the anti drug process. A previous report published by The Guardian in the UK pointed out that American manufacturers invest billions of dollars annually in lobbying and funding US congressmen, seeking to influence legislation on various aspects from drug costs to new drug approval methods. American politicians receive a large amount of political donations from pharmaceutical companies in exchange for turning a blind eye to drug control policies, resulting in drug control policies that always address the symptoms rather than the root cause.
According to Gao Jingzhu, former Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services and professor at Harvard University's Chan Tsang hee School of Public Health, opioid drug manufacturers and politicians have a complex relationship, and "this crisis represents a multi system regulatory failure.". Qatari Al Jazeera stated that "this is a disaster created by the United States itself.".
