A fentanyl “crisis” has the United States. In 2022, nearly 110,000 citizens died of drug overdoses, “the majority from synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, up to 50 times more potent than heroin,” the AFP bureau reported on Friday, July 7.

The troubling issue has reconciled the minds of Democrats and Republicans, whose senators in June approved “a committee on banking, housing and urban affairs” to, Infobae and Channel 26 explained, “enable the U.S. executive to to block accounts, seize assets and ban all transactions by members of the Mexican cartels accused of trafficking fentanyl.

The law promotes and prosecutes, Infobae quoted, “imposing sanctions related to the illicit trade of fentanyl and its precursors by transnational criminal organizations, including cartels.”

In recent months, the French news agency noted, “the United States has imposed sanctions on members of drug cartels, including “Los Chapitos”, sons of Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán, for trafficking fentanyl and has ordered nearly 44 million pills of seized this opioid in one year.

These are the charges against four sons of El Chapo Guzmán announced by the United States for trafficking in fentanyl

What the US fentanyl law seeks

In detail, Infobae pointed out that the proposed law:

To China because “they are accused of illegally selling the chemical precursors used to produce the drug.”

And to Mexico, because “there it is produced by drug cartels.”

The law, Channel 26 explains, states that “international trafficking of fentanyl, fentanyl precursors or other related opioids poses an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy and economy of the United States.”

Moreover, it characterizes this drug crisis as “a national emergency”.

Cartels and fentanyl

At least 8 Mexican cartels are under the watchful eye of authorities:

Fentanyl, 50 times more potent than heroin, is causing “the worst drug crisis in US history”.

sanctions

They will seek the blocking and prohibition of all transactions in property and proprietary rights “” if such property and interest in property is located in the United States or is in the possession or control of any person of the United States.

Infobae also pointed out that the legal instrument analyzes that “any confiscated property must be deposited into the Treasury Department’s Confiscation Fund.”

The role of the Treasury Department will be critical, as it must “require U.S. financial institutions to take steps to sever ties with foreign banks or institutions that have “reasonable reasons” to believe they are being used to transfer money. laundering from the opioid trade.” “.

The trade in potent fentanyl, another legacy of “Chapo” Guzmán? It is said that he sent emissaries to China on business

Scope of the fentanyl crisis

When New York prosecutor Bridget Brennan was consulted by the AFP about “what is the most striking evolution she has observed in the fentanyl trade,” she replied:

“What we see are deadly mixtures. The xylazine is now mixed with fentanyl. And xylazine is not an opioid, it is a sedative, a sedative for animals (…) This mixture is not only deadly, but also very destructive”.

Now we see fentanyl also being made in pill form, often in Mexico, sometimes in the United States. We see a real explosion of confiscated pills.

Bridget Brennan, New York drug prosecutor

Last year in New York, he said, “my office alone seized nearly a million fentanyl tablets (425% more than in 2021). And the phenomenon continues to spread. The pills are distributed via social media and the internet.”

Brennan warned that those in that company “can imitate brand name Xanax, oxycodine, Adderall.”

“It worries me,” he said, “because people who buy through social networks and the Internet may be much more confident than those who buy on the street. And they may not tolerate fentanyl. They may think they are buying Adderall, but what they buy is fentanyl.”

At the end of June last, the UN condemned: The “cheap, quick and easy production” of synthetic drugs has profoundly changed many markets in the world.

Likewise, he warned countries of “disastrous consequences”.

Fentanyl, said the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), “has revolutionized opioid use in North America.”