Overdose deaths recently reached a record high of 109,000 Americans, with roughly three-quarters involving opioids and 90 percent involving illicit fentanyl. As a result, lawmakers have decided to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic, passing toothless laws that will make little difference in reducing harm.
Drug cartels make illicit fentanyl using several simple, readily available chemicals. As law enforcement cracks down on illicit fentanyl, it merely induces cartels to synthesize more potent analogs of fentanyl, called fentanyl-related substances (FRSs), which can be easier to smuggle in smaller sizes and subdivide into more units to sell. One recent example is para-flourofentanyl, which is increasingly found in combination with or in place of fentanyl.
This is what economists call the iron law of prohibition: the harder the enforcement, the harder the drug.
# Reprinted with permission of The Daily Beast. The opinion piece in its entirety can be read here.
Josh Bloom
Dr. Jonathan (Josh) Bloom, ACSH's Director of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences, earned his Ph.D. at the University of Virginia and completed postdoctoral training at the University of Pennsylvania. During his 20-plus years in drug discovery at Wyeth, his research group discovered the antibiotic Tygacil®, approved in 2005. He holds 25 issued patents and has authored 35 academic papers. Since joining ACSH in 2010, he has written more than 2,000 articles and dozens of op-eds for major newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal and Chicago Tribune.
