Fentanyl crisis in the U.S.

This year in the U.S., enough fentanyl was seized to kill every American in the country …

Transcript

00:00The Drug Enforcement Administration announced it had seized enough fentanyl in 2022 to kill

00:05every person in the U.S. The synthetic opioid is 100 times more powerful than morphine,

00:1050 times more potent than heroin, and is considered the deadliest drug threat facing

00:15the country. In 2022, 379 million doses of potentially deadly fentanyl was seized by

00:22authorities, including 10,000 pounds of fentanyl powder and 50.6 million fake fentanyl lace

00:28prescription pills. According to authorities, the lace pills are typically made to look like

00:33OxyContin, Percocet, and Xanax. And this year's seizures of the fake pills was two times higher

00:39than last year. In 2021, fentanyl was linked to 70,000 deaths in the U.S., and according to a

00:45Washington Post investigation, it is the leading cause of death for Americans between the ages of

00:5018 to 49. The DEA said that as little as two milligrams of fentanyl, which is an amount

00:55small enough to fit on the tip of a pencil, can be a potentially deadly dose.