<Anchor>



In the United States, fentanyl, a narcotic pain reliever, has recently emerged as a serious social problem.

It is also called the drug of death because it can kill a person even in an amount lightly smeared on the tip of a pen.



Correspondent Kim Jong-won from New York.



<Reporter>



The dispatched police rush into the house.



Inside the room are two 17-year-old high school students who are addicted to fentanyl.



Police officers administered an antidote and administered first aid, and the students barely survived.



Fentanyl, called the drug of death, was developed as a narcotic pain reliever for critically ill patients such as terminal cancer patients.



However, the effect is 50 times that of heroin, but it is cheaper to manufacture, so Chinese and Mexican drug gangs are indiscriminately distributing it.



It is so toxic that the lethal dose is only 2 mg, which is smaller than that of an ant, and it often happens that a police officer who confiscated fentanyl fell unconscious just by smelling it.



It is so cheap that you can buy it for only 1-2 dollars, and it is sold through Internet messengers, so anyone can easily get it.



Enlarge Image


In particular, it is rapidly spreading among teenagers as it is sold in the form of candy or jelly recently, and cases of middle and high school students eating it in classrooms and being taken to hospitals or losing their lives follow one after another.



The one behind me is the elementary school building.



A while ago, a shootout took place right in front of this place between the police and drug dealers. As the drugs penetrated the classrooms, this incident occurred in a typical upper-middle class quiet neighborhood where many Koreans live together, and even in front of the school.



Over the past six years, fentanyl poisoning has been the number one cause of death among 18-49 year olds, with 210,000 deaths in the United States alone.



[James Comer/U.S. Republican Representative: Police officers from 50 U.S. states are appealing to Congress for the Biden administration to do something about the fentanyl smuggling at the Mexican border.]



In the U.S., China, the largest manufacturer of fentanyl, is There is even talk of a new opium war saying that crackdowns are being neglected due to conflict with the government.



(Video coverage: Lee Sang-wook, video editing: Jeong Seong-hoon)