The number of American troops dying from fentanyl more than doubled between 2017 and 2021, according to Department of Defense (DOD) data released Wednesday.
The data show that fentanyl was to blame for 54 overdose deaths in 2021, which account for 88% of drug deaths that year, according to DOD’s response to a bipartisan congressional inquiry. The number is a staggering increase from the 22 overdose deaths caused by fentanyl in 2017.
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Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels spoke at the US House Judiciary Committee’s Wednesday hearing on the southern border crisis, speaking on how his county has been affected by the ongoing issue.
“Our southern border, against all public comfort statements out of Washington D.C., is in the worst shape I have ever seen it,” Dannels said. “Communities have been neglected and abandoned, relying on our own local and state resources to address a border that is in crisis mode.”
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The America Project (TAP) held a conference on border security Saturday in Phoenix at the Hershberger Theater. The Border 911 event featured leading experts on human trafficking, cartels, and drugs coming over the border, including former acting ICE Director Tom Homan, who also served as a Border Patrol agent in Phoenix.
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PHOENIX, Arizona – Republican members of the state legislature gathered outside the state capitol to discuss the ongoing crisis caused by conditions at the southern border and how they plan to address it in the coming session. State Rep. Steve Montenegro (R-Avondale) began the meeting by addressing the fentanyl flowing into the country across the border.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is now a public health crisis, and we need to take swift action to deal with what is happening, to combat it,” Montenegro said. “The legislature is focused on empowering law enforcement to stop border crimes by directing resources, forming task forces, and applying pressure on those who are abetting this crisis and denying the disastrous effects it has on our communities.”
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The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) announced Friday that it had made multiple discoveries of suspected fentanyl pills being smuggled by newly booked inmates into the Intake, Transfer, and Release Facility (ITRF).
“This week alone MCSO detention officers have seized approximately 260 pills in the jail system, suspected to be fentanyl and pending lab analysis. The seizures were a compilation of three unique incidents,” according to the office.
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Arizona State Rep. Quang Nguyen (R-Prescott) announced Tuesday the introduction of House Bill (HB) 2167, known as the Ashley Dunn Act, which may be a tool to help prosecutors crack down on fentanyl peddlers. “The safety of the people in our state is my top priority,” said Nguyen in a press release. “Fentanyl is killing tens of thousands of Americans each year and destroying families. It’s a public crisis that should unite political parties to act urgently. We are in a war to save lives.”
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Children under age 14 are dying from fentanyl poisoning at a faster rate than any other age group in the U.S., according to a new analysis from Families Against Fentanyl.
In the past two years, synthetic opioid (fentanyl) deaths among children surged.
Fentanyl-related deaths among infants (children under age one) quadrupled from 2019 to 2021; more than tripled among children between the ages of 1 and 4 and nearly quadrupled among children between the ages of 5 and 14.
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Nogales Port of Entry Director Michael Humphries stated Monday that more fentanyl had been seized at his port in three months than in the entirety of the 2022 fiscal year (FY).
“In the first 3 months of FY23, the Nogales POE has already surpassed the total amount of fentanyl seized throughout all of FY22, which was already a record year,” tweeted Humphries.
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A former top Drug Enforcement Administration official is warning that China is using the Mexican drug cartels to traffic fentanyl as part of a larger “unrestricted warfare” strategy to kill off America’s next generation and supplant the U.S. as the world’s preeminent power.
Derek Maltz, the agency’s former chief of special operations, told Just the News the Biden administration has strong evidence of how China markets the precursor ingredients for fentanyl to the cartels and where in Mexico the production labs are based. But, he said, the administration is allowing cartels to operate freely across the U.S. southern border to move drugs and earn billions of dollars trafficking humans to create new cash flow for their fentanyl supply networks, a scourge claiming more than 100,000 American lives a year.
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Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich (R) announced that over 2 million in grant funding would be going to service organizations in rural counties to combat the effects of the opioid crisis.
“Our office has been leading and is continuing to hold accountable manufacturers, marketers, and distributors who have contributed to the opioid crisis,” said Brnovich. “We are now investing settlement funds to reduce the financial impact to Arizona taxpayers and assist people recovering from addiction and resuming their lives as healthy and productive members of society.”
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Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody on Monday called on President Joe Biden to reverse an Obama-era decision to make the Director for the Office of the National Drug Control Policy a cabinet-level position again.
Moody sent a letter to the president asking him to take action immediately before the public health authority Title 42 ends this week, “which will fuel a massive border surge and allow even more deadly fentanyl to flood into the country,” she said.
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A new study from the California-based Millennium Health (MH) showed that fentanyl positivity increased in Arizona by 261 percent between the first half of 2022 and 2019.
“We have already seen too many Arizona families lose loved ones to drugs. Our goal is to work hand-in-hand with public health and safety authorities, health care providers, and community organizations to proactively address drug exposures and help prevent drug overdose deaths,” said Angela Huskey, PharmD, CPE, Chief Clinical Officer at MH.
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Los Angeles County saw accidental fentanyl overdose deaths increase more than twelvefold from 2016 to 2021, according to a new County Public Health Department report.
Accidental fentanyl overdoses killed 1,504 people in the county last year, a roughly 1,280% rise compared to the 109-individual death toll in 2016, according to the report released Tuesday. Total accidental drug overdose deaths more than doubled in that time, with deaths from accidental opioid overdoses and methamphetamine overdoses both rising by over 300%.
Adults from 26 to 39 years old had the highest accidental fentanyl overdose rate of any age group in 2020, while 18- to 25-year-olds had the highest fentanyl overdose hospitalization rate that year, based on the report’s data. Men died of accidental fentanyl overdoses at a far higher rate than women.
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Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell revealed that Cristian Machado, 21, has been sentenced for supplying the population of the major homeless camp in Downtown Phoenix with fentanyl and other drugs.
“Selling illegal drugs to anyone in our community is a threat to public safety. To target those who are experiencing homelessness, and particularly vulnerable, is especially cruel, and this sentence demonstrates that my office will hold those who pose a danger to others accountable,” said Mitchell.
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Arizona’s Republican Senate nominee, Blake Masters, spoke Sunday night against incumbent Mark Kelly (D) and the Biden Administration’s failed handling of the Southern border, saying they are not even trying to protect anything.
“Well, [Joe] Biden and Marky Kelly, they’re not even trying. Look at what they’re doing at the southern border. It would be bad enough if Mark Kelly and Joe Biden were trying but failing to secure our border, but guys, they’re not even trying. Day one, one of the first things Biden did, he signed away the border wall,” Masters said. “This dereliction of duty at the southern border, I think it’s just one of many reasons why Senator Kelly is going to be fired on Tuesday.”
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Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake gracefully handled an attack ad that featured the mother of deceased Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick who blamed Lake and “people like her” for her son’s death.
In the video ad, paid for by the Republican Accountability PAC, Gladys Sicknick is heard introducing herself as “the mother of Brian Sicknick, the Capitol Police Officer who died defending our country on January 6.”
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Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey announced Monday that he had continued his mission to plug holes in Arizona’s border, this time in Cochise County.
“Today, we continued to follow through on our promise to add physical barriers to the border where possible. We stepped up to the plate in Cochise County. Construction on a 10.25-mile border wall gap began this morning [Monday],” Ducey said. “The unresolved border and public safety crisis caused by the Biden admin continues – in Arizona, we don’t stand idly by when our citizens need us most. Arizona isn’t afraid of a challenge. We will not back down. We will protect our state.”
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With just over two weeks until Arizona’s General Election, Republican gubernatorial nominee Kari Lakes continues her flow of TV advertisements, this time addressing the fentanyl crisis plaguing Arizona.
“I have met with too many grieving families to just stand by while our open border allows millions of fentanyl pills to flood Arizona’s communities and take the lives of our babies. Our open border may be too politically inconvenient for Katie Hobbs to talk about, but Arizona families deserve to know what their candidates are going to do to put an end to this invasion of fentanyl into our state,” Lake said in a statement shared with the Arizona Sun Times.
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As a result of law enforcement operations from May through September of this year, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents and law enforcement partners confiscated 36 million lethal doses of fentanyl, enough to kill 36 million Americans.
As part of the DEA’s One Pill Can Kill initiative, DEA agents and law enforcement partners in multiple states seized more than 10.2 million fentanyl pills and approximately 980 pounds of fentanyl powder.
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Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) celebrated the results of a first-of-its-kind law enforcement operation between 26 states to crack down on cartel activity by seizing deadly drugs and firearms.
“In Arizona, we’re taking action to stop the flow of dangerous drugs through the southern border, impede the cartels’ criminal activity and protect our communities,” said Ducey. “Earlier this year, we teamed up with Texas and 24 other states to share intelligence and strengthen security through the first-of-its-kind American Governors’ Border Strike Force. We’re already seeing results thanks to this coordinated effort — including thousands of pounds of drugs being seized all across the nation.”
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The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration announced Wednesday that an enforcement operation spanning from May to September seized millions of illicit fentanyl pills.
“On the frontline as we race to save lives, DEA Arizona continues to seize historic amounts of deadly fentanyl,” said Cheri Oz, the Phoenix DEA Special Agent in Charge of the operation. “It is terrifying that the drug cartels are mimicking candy to make fentanyl appear harmless. We need your help spreading the word about the dangers of fentanyl. It’s a matter of life and death.”
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Strung out on drugs half her life, Brandi Edwards, 29, said the longest she held a job before getting sober four years ago was “about two and a half months.”
“I worked at an AT&T call center, a day-care center for a month, fast food places, but I had to take drugs to get out of bed in the morning and when I did show up, I wasn’t productive,” the West Virginia mother of three told RealClearInvestigations. “The first paycheck came along and I was out of there.”
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The second-largest school district in the country is stocking its schools with naloxone, an opioid overdose reversal drug, following student deaths, according to a Thursday news release.
In the recent weeks, nine students have died from overdoses in the Los Angeles Unified School District, with one student overdosing in the bathroom after obtaining a pill containing fentanyl from a peer, according to the Los Angeles Times. Every school in the district, beginning with elementary schools, will be stocked with the nasal spray version of naloxone, or Narcan, according to news release by the school.
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The Phoenix Police Department (PHXPD) shared Friday that officials made the largest single seizure of fentanyl pills in the department’s history this week.
“Phoenix police detectives with the Drug Enforcement Bureau have made the single largest fentanyl bust in Phoenix police history. Two men have been arrested in connection to the seizure which netted more than one million fentanyl pills,” according to a media advisory shared with the Arizona Sun Times.
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Arizona Department of Public Safety (AZDPS) troopers on September 14 seized more than 50pounds of fentanyl during a traffic stop in Pima County, according to a release from this week.
“During the traffic stop, the trooper observed multiple indicators of criminal activity,” the release said. “A subsequent search of the vehicle led to the discovery of 52 pounds of suspected fentanyl pills concealed within a compartment built into the vehicle’s rocker panels. The suspected fentanyl was being smuggled from Nogales, Mexico, to Tucson.”
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New southern border encounter statistics from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) revealed that officials encountered over 200,000 migrants at the border for the sixth month in a row, which Gov. Doug Ducey said is especially harsh on Arizona border towns.
“Border towns bear the weight of this record illegal immigration. Government services, hospitals and food banks are strapped. The Yuma sector had more than 24,000 migrant encounters in August – almost a quarter of the town’s population,” tweeted Ducey.
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The Maricopa County Grand Jury indicted two women Monday for possessing over 850,000 counterfeit pills laced with fentanyl, enough to cause potentially millions of overdoses.
“Two out of five counterfeit pills that come across our border are laced with lethal doses of fentanyl. These drugs are being marketed to our youth in the most proliferous ways and are being produced in candy-like colors. We must hold those who bring these lethal pills into our community accountable,” said County Attorney Rachel Mitchell.
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Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody and Connecticut Attorney General William Tong are leading a multistate, bipartisan effort urging President Joe Biden to classify illicit fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction (WMD).
“I first called for President Biden to take swift action in July and call fentanyl what it is – a weapon of mass destruction,” Moody said. “Now, I am leading a bipartisan coalition of 18 attorneys general demanding the president take action now, declare fentanyl a WMD and join us in our fight to prevent the death and destruction caused by this highly-lethal substance from getting even worse.”
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U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents are seizing record amounts of fentanyl and meth in Arizona and Texas brought in by Mexican cartel operatives and foreign nationals trying to enter the U.S. illegally.
In just five separate inspections ahead of Labor Day weekend, for example, officers seized 625,000 pills in Nogales, Arizona, which borders Sonora, Mexico, Michael Humphries, CBP Director of the Nogales Port of Entry, said.
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Arizona Republican Senate nominee Blake Masters recently blasted his incumbent opponent Mark Kelly (D-AZ) for supporting the Biden Administration’s open border policies that have led to a flood of fentanyl entering the country.
“There are no words to describe tens of thousands of dead American teenagers, dead from fentanyl because of the wide-open southern border,” Masters said. “Mark Kelly should be forced to attend the funerals of each of those dead children, so he can better understand the consequences of his support for Joe Biden’s open borders. I truly mean that.”
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An Arizona state trooper made a massive drug bust when he pulled over a motorist in late August.
“During the traffic stop, the trooper observed multiple indicators of criminal activity,” said a Friday press release from the Arizona Department of Public Safety (AZDPS). “A subsequent search of the vehicle led to the discovery of approximately 46 pounds of suspected fentanyl pills concealed in natural compartments within the vehicle.”
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Arizona Governor Doug Ducey (R) announced Wednesday that over 3,000 feet of previously open sections in Yuma’s border wall had been filled, celebrating that Arizona is doing what the federal government will not.
“Five wide open gaps in the border wall near Yuma neighborhoods and businesses are now closed off. In just 11 days, Arizona did the job the federal government has failed to do — and we showed them just how quickly and efficiently the border can be made more secure – if you want to,” said Ducey.
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The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) recently shared the total number of encounters at the southern border in July, and several of Arizona’s leaders have spoken on the new numbers, including Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar (r-AZ-04).
“For the seventeenth straight month, more than 150,000 illegal aliens crossed the southern border including [nearly] 200,000 illegal aliens in July 2022. Since Biden and the open border democrats took over in January 2021, they have facilitated an invasion of our sovereign borders of more than 4.2 million illegal aliens. Included in this invasion are terrorists – over five dozen documented so far, drug traffickers, sex traffickers and common criminals,” Gosar said.
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Four alleged cartel members were charged in connection with an international money laundering operation that involved sending funds to China to produce fentanyl.
The four New Jersey men, William Panzera, 49, Thomas Padovano, 48, Bartholomew Padovano, 71, and Sean Tighe, 46, were indicted by a federal grand jury in the District of New Jersey Wednesday, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ).
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Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) issued an executive order Friday to fill a 1,000-foot gap in the Yuma sector of the southern border wall.
“Arizona has had enough,” Ducey said. “We can’t wait any longer. The Biden administration’s lack of urgency on border security is a dereliction of duty. For the last two years, Arizona has made every attempt to work with Washington to address the crisis on our border. Time and time again we’ve stepped in to clean up their mess. Arizonans can’t wait any longer for the federal government to deliver on their delayed promises.”
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Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ-04) recently introduced House Rule (HR) 8228, which aims to punish those who distribute fentanyl, resulting in death, with the death penalty or life in prison.
“One of the many deeply troubling consequences of Joe Biden’s open border policies is the deadly flow of fentanyl across the southern border. Since Biden assumed office in January 2021, more than 1,000,000 pounds of illegal drugs have been seized, including 7,700 pounds of fentanyl in just the first five months of 2022. The overwhelming majority of fentanyl is smuggled across the border from Mexico,” Gosar said in a press release.
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Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich (R) recently announced two historic multistate settlements, totaling $26 billion, with four pharmaceutical companies over their roles in the opioid crisis.
“We are working to get these opioid abatement funds to local communities as quickly as possible,” Brnovich said in a press release. “They will help facilitate more effective treatment, education, and prevention as our state continues to tackle this heartbreaking crisis.”
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The Arizona US Attorney’s Office (USAO) recently revealed that 22 Arizonians have been indicted for drug-related charges following a multi-year investigation of a South Phoenix criminal street gang.
“According to the criminal complaints filed last week, in January 2020, the Arizona Department of Public Safety (“DPS”) began an investigation targeting a drug and firearms supplier in South Phoenix. In February 2021, in conjunction with the DPS investigation, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (“FBI”) Violent Street Gang Task Force began investigating the Lindo Park Crips (“LPC”), a criminal street gang operating in South Phoenix,” according to a press release from the USAO.
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Border Patrol agents in California on Monday seized enough fentanyl to kill over 2 million people. The population of San Diego is an estimated 1.4 million.
Agents in the El Centro border sector searched the vehicle at a highway checkpoint, where they found six black packages wrapped in cellophane hidden inside the car’s dashboard and air vents, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said Wednesday. The male driver, 53, and the female passenger, 27, in the car were both from Mexico and didn’t have the proper documents to be in the U.S.
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Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers at the California-Mexico border recently made a single seizure of fentanyl with the potential to kill over 12 million people.
CBP officers stationed at the Calexico West Port of Entry searched a vehicle on June 6 coming in from Mexico, finding 43 packages of blue pills containing fentanyl hidden in the car’s gas tank, according to a Tuesday press release.
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Kentucky has seen a record year of overdose deaths as it continues to deal with fentanyl being trafficked into the state, multiple outlets reported based on state data released Monday.
Kentucky saw 2,250 overdose deaths in 2021, a 14.5% increase from 2020, according to the Kentucky Office of Drug Control Policy’s report. The state ranked third in the country for the number of overdose deaths due to the high number that occurred in Kentucky during the pandemic, according to WLKY.
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Border authorities in Texas seized 22 pounds of fentanyl worth $339,300 that a smuggler was attempting to drive into the U.S. on Wednesday, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced.
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) says that 2 milligrams of fentanyl can be enough to kill a person, 22 pounds is 9,979,032 milligrams. Applying the DEA’s own metrics, this means the latest seizure is enough to kill 4,989,516 people.
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Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich (R) announced the indictment of a man recently arrested on drug trafficking-related charges.
“On May 11, 2022, law enforcement arrested [Jose Luis] Montoya Miranda on suspicion of trafficking illicit drugs. Law enforcement located approximately 140,000 fentanyl pills, over 11 pounds of fentanyl powder, 2.11 pounds of heroin, 2.9 pounds of methamphetamine, and a handgun. The charges are based on an investigation conducted by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA),” according to a statement by the attorney general’s office.
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Monday, Casa Grande police seized approximately 500,000 Fentanyl pills from two Arizona women after a traffic stop.
Lopez, 31, and Solis, 30, were arrested and booked for charges involving narcotic drugs, weapon dismantlement, and child endangerment. Authorities placed the two juveniles in the custody of the Department of Child Safety.
Customs and Border Protection’s Air and Marine Operations interdicted 62 tons (124,000 pounds) of illicit drugs in the first three months of this year, CBP reports, working with international, federal, state and local partners.
“Collaboration keeps us all safer,” CBP Commissioner Chris Magnus said of their efforts. “CBP AMO works with U.S. and international partners to stem the flow of illicit narcotics. Through the end of March, AMO has contributed to the seizure of over 124,000 lbs of narcotics by partner agencies.”
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Upon taking office, Biden swiftly implemented these promises, escalating the crisis. He reinstituted the Obama-era policy of releasing migrants apprehended at the border into the interior of the country, pending hearings they often skip. His Department of Homeland Security secretly transported migrants across the country in the dead of night to avoid public scrutiny. Confronted with a court order to reinstate the “Remain in Mexico” policy, Biden passively refused to comply.
In March, monthly border encounters hit a new record of 221,303, beating the previous record (also set by Biden) of 213,953 in July. Biden has funneled 1 million illegal aliens into the United States in just over a year.
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Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey and 25 other governors launched the American Governors’ Border Strike Force on Tuesday to combat the expected surge in migrants and crime on the border when the Biden administration lifts the Title 42 restrictions in May. A statement from Ducey describes it as “a partnership to do what the federal government won’t: secure the southern border,” but some Arizona leaders are disappointed, believing it doesn’t go far enough.
Leading gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake expressed her skepticism of Ducey’s plan during an interview on The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show, saying he’s only taken “little pieces” from her border security plan. “We already have an invasion at our border … It’s going to get worse … the floodgates are open,” she said. “The question is, do we have the elected officials who are willing to do the tough work. And that means finishing that wall on the border. The materials are right there. The federal government abandoned them at the border and we need to take those materials back and finish the wall and get troops on the border.”
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As cartels continue to devastate American communities with fentanyl, they’re now finding more customers for the drug in northern Mexico, Noticias Telemundo reported.
Migrants and locals just south of the border, in areas like Tijuana, Mexico, are seeing more users on the streets turning to the drug, the report detailed.
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Law enforcement officers with the Arizona Department of Public Safety recovered more than 17 pounds of fentanyl pills during a traffic stop on Interstate 10 outside of Marana.
According to the officials, the 22-year-old Tucson resident attempted to conceal the pills but was charged with possession, transportation, and sale of a dangerous drug.
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Amid an epidemic of overdose deaths caused largely by fentanyl, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is warning state, local and federal law enforcement of a spike in “mass-overdose events.”
“The DEA is seeing a nationwide spike in fentanyl-related mass-overdose events involving three or more overdoses occurring close in time at the same location,” a letter the DEA sent to law enforcement offices across the country Wednesday said.
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