More than 80,000 Americans are dying of opioid overdoses every year. That’s like a commercial passenger airliner crashing and killing everyone on board every single day.
Fentanyl is driving these numbers — and it is everywhere. We’ve had more Americans die of fentanyl poisoning than were killed in the Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam wars combined.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, fentanyl overdose is now the leading cause of death for Americans ages 18 to 45. Yet fentanyl was only briefly mentioned in last week’s presidential debate, and then only in the context of the border crisis, which seems to be the only time it gets mentioned.
But there is much to be done right here in our communities to help ensure that more people do not die preventable deaths. When will the presidential candidates say something about this?
As a West Virginian and a mom to a 13-year-old and an 11-year-old, I am keenly aware of this epidemic that has hit teens (and my state) especially hard. But if you’re an average American who closely follows presidential politics, you may not realize that fatal drug overdoses accounted for more than 100,000 deaths in 2023 — close to three times the number of gun deaths that same year.
This is not to disparage the serious problem of gun violence (which is, sadly, top of mind again), or any other issue, for that matter. But why hasn’t fentanyl poisoning (the term “overdose” does not adequately describe the situation) been a more prominent issue in the 2024 presidential campaign?
For one thing, there may be a sense that drug victims are not sympathetic — that only addled “addicts” die. When it comes to many of the victims of fentanyl poisoning, however, that’s certainly not the case.
As Tony Mattivi, Director of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation told me recently, “When you look at the faces of the people that are dying from fentanyl, it looks like you’re just ripping pages out of a high school yearbook.”
Interestingly, there are potential solutions. Unfortunately, these issues are rarely discussed on a big stage.
Take, for example, the Kids Online Safety Act, or KOSA, which the U.S. Senate passed this summer. As The Washington Post reported, “The bill would create the new obligation for companies to mitigate potential harms to children, known as a ‘duty of care.’”
How does that relate to fentanyl overdoses? As Rolling Stone’s Paul Solotaroff reported this July, grieving families are alleging “that the social media giant Snapchat has helped fuel a teen-overdose epidemic across the country.”
It comes as no surprise that some of these grieving parents, who lost teens to fentanyl-laced pills purchased via social media, are now pushing for KOSA to become law.
Solotaroff’s reporting also indicates that the COVID-19 lockdowns helped to dramatically worsen the fentanyl crisis, driving lonely kids to their phones, where many were fed a steady diet of pitches for fake pills.
The next time we, as a nation, are forced to weigh the potential downside of a quarantine, we should consider the mental health costs (some of which led to fentanyl deaths) on our kids, along with learning deficits and negative economic externalities.
Likely, the most important thing our political and media class could do is devote more air time to publicizing and promoting naloxone (more commonly referred to as Narcan), the miraculous life-saving drug that can fully reverse a fentanyl overdose, if it is administered in a timely fashion (In the interest of disclosure, I am a consultant for a non-profit that distributes Narcan).
Many public and private gathering places, including colleges and universities, still do not have easy access to Naloxone, and they should. Destigmatizing naloxone access and making it as accessible as, say, a fire extinguisher, would go a long way to saving young lives.
As I write this, some states (including mine) are weighing how to spend the billions of dollars in settlement funds from companies that manufactured, sold or distributed prescription painkillers that contributed to the opioid epidemic. These funds should be used for drug education and prevention, as well as addiction treatment and harm reduction, as a way to save more lives.
Unfortunately, much of this money is being spent on items such as general police equipment. I’d love to hear the presidential candidates weigh in on how this settlement money should be spent.
These are just a few of the fentanyl-related topics that could spark a debate and garner attention.
Regardless, simply talking about fentanyl poisoning on the debate stage could help ensure that more parents and kids realize that a small amount of fentanyl can be lethal, that one pill can kill, and that Naloxone should be kept handy.
Activists are always talking about “raising awareness,” but fentanyl poisoning is one area where it really matters.
I hope that the moderators of the upcoming vice presidential debate, Nora O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan of CBS, will press the candidates on this issue. They would be doing a service to their viewers if they spent time on an issue that is affecting far too many communities and families.
And Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (Minn.) should both have a real interest in solutions to this crisis, given their stated emphasis on addressing the problems of middle America.
American voters deserve a plan. We’re still waiting.
Erin DeLullo is the founder and principal of Civitella Strategies and a resident of the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia. She hosts The Poisoning podcast and serves as an advisor for HarborPath.