10K Deaths In NJ From Fentanyl Since 2015, National Group Says

NEW JERSEY — Last April, federal authorities seized more than 4 pounds of fentanyl during a drug bust in South Jersey.

The people who were arrested had an array of illicit substances, authorities said, including heroin, cocaine, and THC edibles. But it was the 4 pounds of fentanyl that drew the most attention: the amount seized was enough to kill 1 million people, authorities said.

“This case is another great example of how law enforcement has stepped up to the challenges of this health crisis,” said Gurbir Grewal, who was New Jersey’s attorney general at the time, noting the arrests prevented “thousands of potentially lethal doses of fentanyl and heroin from reaching the street."

For every dose of fentanyl that’s been seized, however, others have gotten through. It’s been a growing problem since 2015, with fentanyl escalating deaths from the opioid addiction crisis by more than 800 percent according to figures compiled by Families Against Fentanyl, a national organization that is fighting to get the synthetic opioid listed as a weapon of mass destruction.

In New Jersey, more than 10,000 people have died as a result of fentanyl poisoning since 2015, the organization says. Its estimates come from published figures from the national Centers for Disease Control, which keeps records on drug overdose deaths

According to Families Against Fentanyl, fentanyl is now the No. 1 cause of death for people ages 18 to 45.

“The CDC estimates that half of all overdose deaths are directly caused by fentanyl,” the group says on its website. “Two-thirds of all accidental overdose deaths are caused by synthetic opioids like fentanyl, carfentanil, and other manufactured substances, and about 200 people die every day from fentanyl poisoning in the U.S.”

The group is urging President Joe Biden and federal authorities to declare fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction.

“Too many families like mine have been devastated because of fentanyl,” wrote Jim Rauh, an Ohio man who founded Families Against Fentanyl following the death of his son, Tom, from a fentanyl overdose in 2015, in an opinion piece published in The Hill. “The federal government needs to admit that illicitly manufactured fentanyl is a weapon of mass destruction.”

Rauh believes it should be labeled a weapon of mass destruction because it takes so little fentanyl — 2 milligrams — to be fatal to the average person.

“The threat from fentanyl isn’t just to drug users and their families,” Rauh wrote. “Illicitly manufactured fentanyl and fentanyl analogs endanger every American.”

Opioid addiction and overdoses have been a battleground in New Jersey for years, but the effects of the coronavirus pandemic have led to an increase in overdoses and deaths in each of the last two years.

Fentanyl, which is 100 times as strong as morphine, is used to treat chronic pain in cancer patients in its legal form.

In its illegal form, however, it has been a deadly piece of the drug overdose crisis. It is mixed with other illicit drugs, forming a deadly cocktail, and it also is mixed with other drugs and formed into pills that look like legitimate prescriptions.

Fentanyl also has put first responders, police officers and many others at risk, because it takes so little to be lethal. Law enforcement agencies, paramedics, firefighters and emergency medical technicians all have had to implement safety measures for handling drugs during criminal investigations and treatment of patients to prevent accidental overdoses from contact with the drug.

New Jersey has been hard-hit by the addiction crisis, averaging more than 2,800 fatal overdoses per year. In the last two years, the state has had more than 3,000 overdose deaths, according to preliminary numbers from the state’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.

According to Families Against Fentanyl, the state had the 15th most per-capita deaths from fentanyl from June 2020 to May 2021. New Jersey’s total fentanyl deaths in that time were 2,276, ranking it 10th in terms of numbers of fentanyl deaths during that time.

While New Jersey continues its efforts to fight the addiction crisis through programs from the state to the local level, Families Against Fentanyl believes it will take national muscle to halt the efforts of the illicit manufacturers in China and other countries and stop the flow of fentanyl into the country.

In a petition on Change.org, Families Against Fentanyl says labeling fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction will bring more resources to the fight to stop the import and distribution of the drug.

“This would enable the Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), Department of Defense and other relevant federal agencies to better coordinate their efforts and immediately publish the necessary administrative directives to eliminate the threat posed by these deadly substances,” the group’s petition on Change.org says. The petition says federal law describes a weapon of mass destruction as "any weapon that is designed or intended to cause death or serious bodily injury through the release, dissemination, or impact of toxin or poisonous chemicals, or their precursors."

“Illegal fentanyl and its analogues, especially carfentanil, are such toxins, capable of causing mass deaths or biological impairment,” the petition says. More than 28,200 people have signed the petition so far.

"Almost all illicit fentanyl is manufactured in other countries,” Rauh told the Daily Voice. “By designating fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction, the U.S. can do more to root out the illegal manufacturers and stop this poison before it ever reaches our streets. If 200,000 deaths isn’t mass destruction, I don’t know what is."