How Do We End This Drug Pandemic?
As the United States population continues to grow, the concerns for loved ones increase as well due to America having a giant drug pandemic. Whether it is local drugs or drugs being trafficked through our borders, it is a problem nonetheless and this generation’s youth is feeling those repercussions.
When I was a young teenager I understood drug problems, I grew up in a small town that had a ton of addicts so understanding the issue our country has was not very hard. Small towns are being hit hard with these opioid problems that are arising and I remember it well for when I began to notice how big of a problem my town had. Back then was different from now, all you hear now with overdoses in the news is a minute drug, like weed, being laced with fentanyl. Many kids who fall under peer pressure one time lose their lives because their “friends” bought drugs from sick individuals who lace drugs to kill or to get consumers hooked faster. It is sad to see these things happen and I know I used to be on the side of, “Well maybe they shouldn’t do drugs and that wouldn’t happen.”, because I lost my uncle to drugs a couple of years ago. Now I realize everyone makes mistakes and people shouldn’t lose the brilliance of life just because of one stupid mistake.
“Does the United States government even care about these kids?”, “What have they done to even stop this drug pandemic if it got worse over the years?”, “Why does it feel like it is still going on?”. I have asked myself these questions since my uncle’s passing, the same questions I ask when writing this article. I researched to answer my thoughts, questions that need to be known so people don’t have to lose loved ones to drugs.
“The United States has many treatment plans, but how many of these treatment plans work? If drug overdoses are increasing, then how could we ever say they are working?”, with the statistics shown it seems that fentanyl in this country is the leading cause of most overdoses, but how did this happen? Well, most things like this can be inspected inside our country’s politics.
Fentanyl comes from Asian countries like China or small parts of India and is then trafficked to places like Mexico or Canada, so clearly, it is a border issue mainly. During the Biden-Harris Administration, over 7.2 million border encounters have appeared and have most likely gone hand-in-hand with why fentanyl has increasingly entered this country. Now even though the Biden-Harris administration has had similar apprehension rates of illegal immigrants in this country as the Trump-Pence administration, Fentanyl production has increased, and the amount of crossings and encounters does not matter if the drug is still entering our country. We can further back this for the number of “gotaways” that each administration had, with the Biden-Harris administration having 1.5 million “gotaways” and the Trump-Pence administration having 500 thousand “gotaways”. With this knowledge, we should not entirely “blame” the Biden-Harris administration, but there could be a correlation for the increase of overdoses in the United States.
“So how has our government been working to fix this pandemic?”, well they know fentanyl is a huge problem, they understand that there are less plant-based drugs like cocaine and heroin and more synthetic chemical-based drugs like methamphetamine and fentanyl. Understanding this issue and knowing what the problem truly stems from is a step in the right direction, so when the seizures of these drugs have nearly doubled since 2021, we can deduce that our government cares more now than before. Lab seizures in Mexico for methamphetamine have increased and cartels have been easier to track down due to social media, so we can have hope since over time our DEA’s NDTA can gather information faster and more efficiently due to a better understanding.
“But is that not just prevention methods? How in the world do we fix problems that are already going on then?”, well the CDC has been working tirelessly to combat this opioid pandemic in the United States, and it is not just through prevention measures. The CDC has listed five main strategies to help cure America of this pandemic, and although some are preventive measures, there are some treatment benefits as well. The first step is the most important, by monitoring and analyzing trends in cities and towns, the CDC can find specific combative measures for each rising issue. The second step is to build state, tribal, local, and territorial capacity, but the third step is an important treatment step by providing aid and support to hospitals, providers, and health systems. While the fourth step is to cooperate and partner with public safety and community organization, the fifth step is to raise the public’s awareness and reduce trends and stigma. The CDC’s mission is to collect and analyze data to drive innovation and to tailor treatment in local communities.
“This is all good news, but can we still have hope?”, I answer this question simply with, “Currently I believe we can.”. Although these trafficked drugs feel like they are becoming more and more local, we can rest assured that whoever may be in power of our government they care for this pandemic. With recently Trump becoming our president-elect, we know that his vice president-elect Vance has said time and time again that this fentanyl pandemic is important and needs to be stopped. The CDC and the DEA are working day-in and day-out to find solutions for every problem that arises.
So although the American people’s concerns are rising, over time, this opioid pandemic will fade away or become less of an issue than it is. So my point is to raise awareness for you, my reader, because this can and may soon affect you. You and I, along with many other Americans, can solve this issue together as long as we stand together. All this bickering over politics will not help these first-hand issues we face, because together we will stand but divided we shall fall. I fight for this pandemic to end for my uncle’s sake, so I can feel that I made him proud. I now ask you, dear reader, what reason will you have to fight this issue for yourself?
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