Enough fentanyl has been seized at US borders in just the last three months to kill over a billion people, a top-ranking border official admitted Tuesday.
The revelation came as two US Border Patrol chiefs were grilled during a Congressional hearing on border security.
Rep. Tim Burchett cited Customs and Border Patrol figures that at least 9,400 lbs of the ultra-dangerous synthetic drug has been stopped from entering the country since October, about 7,200 lbs of which was seized at the southern border.
“That’s enough fentanyl to kill every American five times over,” the Republican from Tennessee pointed out.
The US population was recorded at 332m in the 2021 census.
The lawmaker’s math was based on Drug Enforcement Administration information that as little as two milligrams of the synthetic opioid — an amount so small it easily fits on a pencil tip — is enough to kill a person.
The killer drug is 50 times more powerful than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine. Although it is used as a painkiller in hospitals, it has to be professionally handled and administered to prevent overdoses.
However, fentanyl is increasingly killing people who don’t even know they’re using it, as it’s often cut into pills that look like prescription pills and are sold as “Oxytocin” or “Xanax”
but actually lead to overdoses and death for people who don’t know what they’re taking or how strong it is. In 2022, synthetic opiate deaths averaged over 70,000 a month, according to official data, the highest amounts on record.
Drug cartels have turned to smuggling fentanyl over other drugs because it is cheap to make and so concentrated, a small amount can make huge profits.
Tucson Sector Chief Patrol Agent John Modlin told elected officials, that any shipment which makes it into the country has huge potential to be deadly.
“In the Tucson sector last year we seized about 700 lbs of fentanyl,” he explained. “Based on the lethality of a dose of fentanyl, that’s enough to kill everyone in Arizona 21 times or basically half of the population of the United States.”
Ruthless smugglers have stashed fentanyl in coconuts, disguised it as Lego or stashed it on the cavities of cars or tires to bring it over the border. One callous woman was even accused of hiding it in her childrens’ luggage.
“Of biggest concern is the liquid fentanyl — is the latest threat that we have seen,” Chief Gloria Chavez, head of the Rio Grand Valley sector explained of what her agents are seeing in Texas.
Despite the best effort of agents to stop it at the international boundary, Modlin acknowledged fentanyl continues to slip through as it is being found in cities across the nation.
In Arizona, Border Patrol inland checkpoints have been closed for months due to a lack of staffing. The inspection centers are meant to be a second line of defense to catch any drugs or illegal immigrants who made it past the border.
“You’re keeping the agents from doing their job; that’s how drugs fan out to other places,” Arizona’s Yuma County Supervisor Martin Porchas told The Post of the three roadside checkpoints in his county.
Democratic Congressman Greg Casar of Texas pushed back on the notion illegal immigrants who sneak into the country are smuggling drugs — adding nine out of ten fentanyl smugglers are Americans.
“People driving narcotics across the border are citizens with passports who can get past the checkpoints,” said Casar. “The people trafficking fentanyl on the border are US citizens. The people suffering and dying from overdoses in our communities are US citizens — so why on Earth are we talking about immigrants today?”
