Testimonials
Fentanyl, the powerful drug that is decimating the United States
It has become the leading cause of death among 18-45 year olds in the United States. Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid of previously unparalleled potency, kills an American every seven minutes by overdose. However, originally, it was a medicine manufactured and exported from China. Diverted by Mexican cartels, it is sold in the form of a highly addictive blue pill labeled M30.
Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic opiate, used in the medical field, but whose use is diverted as a drug. AP - Beth Nakamura
By: Marine Lebègue
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“
Everyone told me '
Hey you have to try this, it's way stronger than heroin, it'll give you the same feeling as the first time you got high'
.
» In 2018, Tom Wolf is a heroin addict, he lives on the streets in San Francisco, and witnesses the arrival of a new drug in the city: fentanyl. “
I felt a rush of warmth, as if someone had covered me with a blanket, I suddenly felt warm. And all my problems went away, this kind of euphoria. It was the best high since I first took drugs.
»
Bodies broken in two
The effects of fentanyl are impressive both inside and out. Addicts line the streets, their bodies bent double by the power of the drug, their heads tucked into their knees. And for good reason: fentanyl is a hundred times stronger than morphine, fifty times stronger than heroin, and highly addictive.
The lack of fentanyl is felt only a few hours after taking it. “
The problem is that you have to take it often, and you don't know how loaded the drug is
,” emphasizes Tom Wolf.
You don't really know what dose you're taking, so the risk of overdose is very high.
»
Tom Wolf during his fentanyl addiction and then in remission. © San Francisco Sheriff's Office/Tom Wolf personal collection
Indeed, when 200 milligrams of heroin is lethal, only two milligrams of fentanyl are enough.
According to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the counterfeit pills contain between 0.02 and 5.1 milligrams of fentanyl, twice the lethal dose. A real Russian roulette. Tom Wolf assures us, “
being a heroin addict, you can live 25 years, but with fentanyl, because of the risk of overdose, you barely have two years left and you are dead.
»
In San Francisco, the number of overdoses due to fentanyl increased by 279% between 2016 and 2021, according to the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Fentanyl instead of heroin
It is often mixtures with other drugs that are the cause of the first consumption of fentanyl, leading to immediate addiction. This is how Corey, the son of Jacqui Berlin, a resident of a suburb near San Francisco, developed his addiction to fentanyl a few years ago.
“
He started doing drugs when he was 20, and over the last few years he unknowingly became addicted to fentanyl, because dealers put it in the heroin he was taking
,” she recalls. , his voice tight.
From the time he started fentanyl, his condition deteriorated much more quickly than during all the years he used heroin or other opioids.
» Corey is unable to work, specifies Jacqui Berlin, “
because the fentanyl makes you lose consciousness. Street drugs are cocktails of several drugs, we don't really know what effect it can have on the person, so it's impossible for him to have a job.
»
So, Corey lives on the streets. “
He has to be… Well, he believes he has to be as close as possible to his dealers because with fentanyl, he starts to get withdrawn after just a few hours.
»
Read alsoFentanyl: diving into one of the main Mexican cartels
Fentanyl, a legal drug
Before it hits American streets, fentanyl is a pharmaceutical product. Bertrand Monnet, professor at EDHEC Business School, has been studying the manufacturing chain of this drug for several years. “
At its core, it is a perfectly legal painkiller, administered in hospitals around the world, in tiny dosages. But a small part is diverted from its use by Mexican drug traffickers, who modify it, mix it with other products to be able to transform it into lozenges.
» And the researcher clarifies: the cartels “
do not talk about fentanyl which is the basic product. What they sell is the M30 tablet, which contains fentanyl, but not only that. Drug addicts rarely consume pure fentanyl. Very often they mix it with heroin and cocaine, they call it
speedball
. Others mix it with a veterinary analgesic, which is the
tranq
.
»
The little blue pill made the financial success of the Sinaloa cartel, one of the largest in Mexico. Bertrand Monnet managed to approach the members of the cartel, and was able to closely observe the different stages of the drug's development before it was put on sale on American streets. “
There is a chain of intermediaries: first Chinese and Indian intermediaries. These are perfectly justified companies in purchasing this medication to resell it afterwards. It is not the companies as such that collaborate with the cartel, but within these companies, they bribe certain people in key functions in the export logistics chain, so that they divert the quantities they need and that they provide it to them. This is how it happens in Mexico.
»
Once there, explains the researcher, the fentanyl is distributed among the hundred cartel clans that produce the drug. “
It’s down to the milligram, the people who do that are chemists.
»
Sino-American discussions
The United States and China have opened discussions to try to break this chain. A bilateral anti-narcotics working group has been created, in line with an agreement reached in November 2023 by the Chinese and American presidents. But for the moment, Beijing has only closed one company, and if the Chinese government has blocked some international payments and claims to want to strengthen its surveillance of drug trafficking, this is not enough for Washington. China, for its part, criticizes the United States for being too lax in its fight against drugs, and in its public awareness against synthetic opiates, of which fentanyl is one.
Also read: China and the United States have resumed discussions on fentanyl
Sober for two years, Tom Wolf returned home to his wife and children. He assures her, “
never again. ”
But the fear of falling back into it will always be there. When you go into remission, you stay that way forever. I always have to be careful that an unwelcome event doesn't push me back down. It's constant work to stay sober.
»
If he was able to get out of it, this is not the case for everyone, far from it. In the United States, fentanyl claimed more than 130,000 lives last year, and continues to kill an average of 150 people each day, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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