Fentanyl, a drug fifty times more potent than heroin, continues to wreak havoc in the United States. Between April 2020 and April 2021, the government identified more than 100,000 fatal overdoses, putting this mortality in first position ahead of Covid-19 and cancer in 18-45 year olds.
Michael K. Williams, Tom Petty, Prince are just a few names of celebrities who have died of a Fentanyl overdose (or a drug cut with Fentanyl). This opiate, originally used to relieve the pain of the injured (sportsmen, road accidents, joint patients and others) has gradually been confiscated and distributed by drug cartels for its addictive effects. Purchased in the street, opiates – Xanax, Adderall, Fentanyl – inexpensive and obtainable anywhere, have plagued American cities.
In the United States, in 2020, there were 93,331 overdose-related deaths, 60% of which were from Fentanyl according to the New York-based Dynamic Youth Community Inc. (DYC) addiction center. This is 30% more than in 2019 …
Gina Castrianni, Outreach Coordinator at DYC, told The Sun that she is stunned by these numbers and wishes to warn consumers: “We have been hearing for so long that Fentanyl is mixed with all types of substances, not even just Fentanyl. in opioids, ”adding that deaths are also due to mixtures:“ We find out that fentanyl is added to Xanax, cocaine, methamphetamines. ”
The coordinator also made a history of this drug, not so new on the market according to her statements. She says that Fentanyl was used by traffickers to cut heroin around 2013 because it could make more margins on the products they were selling.
A health and social crisis which has only just begun …
The current mayor of San Francisco, London Breed (D), even established, Friday, December 17, the state of emergency in the district of Tenderloin, in the city center, which knows a monumental increase of deaths by overdose, mainly related to Fentanyl. As City Councilor Matt Haney explains, “We lose more than two people a day from overdoses, mostly from fentanyl. It is a public health crisis, which requires an urgent response to the height in terms of coordination and determination ”.
In the city of the Golden Gate Bridge, there were 711 deaths in 2020 from this opiate, and the figures for 2021 would likely be in line with this continuity according to the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper. This state of emergency will ensure that the authorities can open accommodation centers and take care of drug addicts, whether physically or psychologically.
