A Drug Problem — Fact-Checking Myself on the Origins of America’s Fentanyl Crisis

Congressman Garcia said something meaningful during our interview — that most illegal fentanyl coming into the US is not from illegal immigrants but from U.S. citizens crossing the border legally. So, I dug into it. I have been conflating the two problems because 1. many politicians on the Republican side tend to do so, and 2. the media doesn’t work very hard to draw a distinction. But the numbers don’t lie. The CATO Institute, a libertarian think tank (aka not bound to either party and lean conservative at that), produced <a href="https://www.cato.org/blog/fentanyl-smuggled-us-citizens-us-citizens-not-asylum-seekers" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">three poignant stats</a>. In 2021, U.S. citizens were 86.3% of the convicted fentanyl drug traffickers. Over 90% of fentanyl seizures occur at legal crossing points or interior vehicle checkpoints (not illegal migration routes). And only .02% (!!!) of people arrested by Border Patrol for crossing illegally possessed any fentanyl. <a href="https://medium.com/@amuskygoldwyn/a-drug-problem-fact-checking-myself-on-the-origins-of-americas-fentanyl-crisis-76cd2293f4bf">Website</a>