Federal,
state and local authorities have taken
Volume 23
significant action to address the threat posed
by opioids, but more must be done to expand
the use of existing technologies and the de-
ployment of new tactics to disrupt the threat.
May 2018 Edition
The opioid epidemic is a transnational threat
to the United States.
A wide array of opioid analogues are produced in
places like China and Mexico and then illegally
smuggled into the United States.
(Opioid overdose emergency department visits rose 30% in all
parts of the U.S. from July 2016 through September 2017)
A bipartisan report issued at the beginning of 2018 by the From 2015-2016, the overdose death rate from synthet-
United States Senate Homeland Security & Governmental ic opioids (like fentanyl) more than doubled.
Affairs Committee’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investi-
gations found that in just two years, nearly $800 million While those figures are tragic in the ex-
worth of pill forms of the opioid fentanyl were purchased
online and illegally shipped by Chinese distributors to cus- treme, the impact on the first respond-
ers who face this problem on American
tomers in the United States.
streets is growing more dangerous all the
When powdered forms of fentanyl are accounted,
time.
the figure is much higher.
In 2017, a State Department official testified before Con- The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is-
gress that between 170,000 and 400,000 companies in sued a report in 2017 that called accidental ex-
posure to fentanyl-related substances by first
China manufacture synthetic drugs like fentanyl.
That massive scale is only one component of the
true depth of the problem. In addition, Mexican
drug cartels are also smuggling opioids into the
United States.
responders a “real danger.”
The massive illicit flow and use of these highly
powerful drugs is killing Americans at an un-
precedented rate.
According to the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention (CDC), drug overdoses killed (FENTANYL: A Real Threat to Law Enforcement courtesy of DEA)
63,632 in 2016 and nearly two-thirds of
those deaths (66%) involved a prescription The report described how officers, who are exposed to
even tiny specs of fentanyl while executing searches or
or illicit opioid.
3