Group calls for US to track fentanyl deaths

An organization battling the use of fentanyl in the United States is asking the administration of US President Joe Biden to track fentanyl poisoning and overdose deaths the same way it tracks COVID-19 deaths.

Families Against Fentanyl sent the request in a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky early this month.

"More than 100,000 Americans died by overdose last year and an estimated 70,000 of those were killed by synthetic opioid poisoning," said the letter. "Our research findings reveal that fentanyl poisoning is a national emergency requiring the same level of monitoring accorded to the coronavirus."

FAF is a nonprofit organization dedicated to raising awareness of the illicit fentanyl crisis and is advocating for federal action. The organization was founded by James Rauh of Akron, Ohio, after his son was killed by fentanyl poisoning in 2015.

Recent data released by the CDC shows there were 71,238 overdose deaths from fentanyl in 2021, a rise of 23 percent over 2020.

FAF said fentanyl-related deaths have doubled across the United States since 2019 and tripled among people in the US between the ages 13 and 19. In that same period, deaths among black teens increased fivefold.

According to organization, fentanyl kills 1 person in the US every 8.57 minutes, or about 175 people per day. "It is now the number one cause of death among Americans 18 to 45, surpassing COVID-19, suicide, and car accidents," the letter said.

According to FAF data, about 79,000 people between 18 and 45 years old－37,208 in 2020 and 41,587 in 2021－died of fentanyl overdoses.

With the number of fentanyl-related deaths reaching an unprecedented level, "it is imperative that the public has access to real-time, granular synthetic opioid fatality, nonfatal overdose, and naloxone administration data" to fully understand and respond to the trends and threats, the letter said.

Naloxone is a medication that reverses the effects of fentanyl poisoning and saves lives.

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that can be deadly even in very small amounts. It is often laced with other dangerous drugs such as heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana. Most supplies of fentanyl enter the US from Mexico.

Fentanyl is 50 times stronger than heroin and is being increasingly added to other drugs to make users more addicted. Many users often don't know their drugs contain fentanyl.

"We've been seeing counterfeit pills. (Fentanyl traffickers) buy pill presses, so it looks exactly like a Zanzibar or Xanax," Roneet Lev, an adviser to FAF, an emergency room physician and former chief medical officer of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, told Fox News.

"And people think that's what they're buying, but they're buying it not from a pharmacy. And there's no Xanax in there. There's fentanyl, and they've seen it even in marijuana products, vaping products. So really, anywhere people get drugs outside a pharmacy, they are at risk for fentanyl," Lev said. Xanax is a drug prescribed to treat anxiety and panic attack disorders.

As more US states have legalized marijuana, the Mexican cartels have ramped up smuggling of harder drugs into the US to compensate for the lost market, according to data from the US Customs and Border Protection agency.

A study published in February by The Lancet medical journal and Stanford University projected that US opioid deaths will reach 1.22 million this decade if no new action is taken.