The Poisoning of America

If a pipeline owned by Dow Chemical or Chevron had leaked toxins that caused the death of 1,000 Americans in a single year, the entire force of the U.S. Government would have descended upon them, immediately shutting down the operation, followed by federal criminal charges being filed by the Justice Department.  It would not matter at all what political party controlled the White House or Congress.   But when toxic chemicals manufactured in China and sold to Mexican drug cartels are put into pills that appear to be widely-prescribed drugs such and Xanax and Adderall and kill thousands, the government response is mostly crickets.  These pills are trafficked across the U.S. southern border and end up in every American city.  In 2021, 70,000 people in the U.S. were poisoned by the fentanyl in those pills or by cocaine laced with the drug.  For perspective, 58,209 Americans were killed over the 19 years of the Vietnam War.  In the face of this massacre, did the federal government shut down the southern border?  Did the President and his State Department sanction China or Mexico for this crime?  Did Congress take any decisive action?

Almost immediately after taking office the current U.S. President opened the southern border.  Since then tens of thousands of foreign nationals have walked across, many wearing T-shirts with Joe Biden printed across the front.  The Border Patrol, which used to arrest aliens entering the country illegally, now processes them, gives them a government smart phone, and puts them on buses for transport across the country.  While the officers are doing this processing, the cartels smuggle tens of thousands of pills and cocaine laced with fentanyl across unpatrolled parts of the border.  Established gangs in every state, with thousands of illegal alien members, buy the pills and sell them to unsuspecting Americans.  A story by Tom Howell in the Washington Times reports that 126,000 were poisoned by fentanyl in 2020 and 2021.

There must be an explanation for our government’s failure to act decisively to stop this slaughter, but I have not heard it.  So far President Biden’s strongest response has been to sign last year’s massive spending bill which will fund treatment programs and the distribution of a drug which appears effective at treating overdoses.   This is a disgrace.

Earlier this week the New York Post reported that the Seattle-King County morgue in Washington state has run out of places to store the bodies of people who have died from fentanyl overdoses.  Officials are reaching out to funeral homes to help with the overflow.

Coming to a city near you.