this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2024
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About 90% of the fentanyl seized at the border in recent years was at legal crossings, which undocumented migrants generally avoid, and 91% of the seizures were from U.S. citizens, according to Border Patrol data. It’s much easier to transport fentanyl pills or powder in one of the thousands of vehicles that pass through legal ports of entry every day than with the bedraggled people walking, wading and climbing across the border.

Former President Trump and other politicians and pundits have nevertheless been relentlessly linking migrants with fentanyl on the campaign trail, in Congress and on social media. A Trump campaign ad warned of “record numbers streaming across our border, costing taxpayers billions, and almost as many Americans killed from fentanyl as killed in World War II.” It showed images of crowds walking along a roadside and a Fox News headline reading, “Border Patrol seized enough fentanyl to kill entire U.S.”

This is a classic example of what we call dangerous speech: language that inspires fear and violence by describing another group of people as an existential threat. And it’s working to terrible effect: Americans are increasingly convinced that migrants are to blame for the fentanyl crisis. Social media posts blaming migrants for the drug’s toll more than tripled from December to January, according to our analysis of more than 30 sites

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[–] [email protected] 53 points 9 months ago (2 children)

The guy from Pawn Stars blamed the migrant border crisis for his son overgosing on Fentanyl. It's just white people who don't want to blame the pharmaceutical industry and our porus ports. It's always the poor brown people's fault somehow, not your terrible parenting that resulted in your kids being drug addicts.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It's just white people who don't want to blame the pharmaceutical industry and our porus ports

Don't forget the main culprit of widespread fentanyl: the war on drugs

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago

This, there are many reasons people do opiates, isolation, doctors prescription, homelesness, economic depression etc. but the only reason people are doing fentanyl is because it's cheap and available, and it's cheap and available because the war on drugs makes it so the most concentrated substances are the most easily supplied.

If the war on drugs ends fentanyl goes away just like those high proof moonshines that were making people blind in prohibition. Opiate use won't because the other underlying problems would remain, but it would be far more safe.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

You've got drugs that are relatively small and hard to detect (compared to weed). To smuggle it do you A) Illegally cross the border and get cavity searched if you get caught or B) Just fucking hide it in something. I would imagine the US postal service is likely the biggest fent smuggler around.

edit: https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/atlanta/nearly-7-tons-illegal-drugs-shipped-through-us-mail-were-headed-georgia/5PZ2AULTIZBONBIBEKTV2RJ4LU/

https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2020-03/DEA_GOV_DIR-008-20%20Fentanyl%20Flow%20in%20the%20United%20States_0.pdf

Currently, China remains the primary source of fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances trafficked through
international mail and express consignment operations environment, as well as the main source for all
fentanyl-related substances trafficked into the United States

[–] Kecessa 11 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Right, they cross the border and then walk to a facility where they get sorted and where their luggages get checked, but they're bringing fentanyl...

Yes some of them end up selling drugs, not because they bring it in the country but because they need to work as resellers or transport once they're inside the country to pay back their crossing!

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

Undocumented migrants actually come through legal crossings more often than not. What makes them "undocumented" is when they stay past the length of their Visa. I do find it interesting that they've identified US citizens as being the largest importers of Fentanyl. Surely, as a US citizen, you are watched more stringently if you travel to China than say Mexico. With drug sniffing dogs, thermal imaging, x-ray, and a thorough understanding of all of the holes a person has in their body, how is so much Fentanyl still coming into the US? Are border patrol that bad at their jobs? Or is it more likely that there's an acceptable amount of Fentanyl being allowed into the US to justify law enforcement budget hikes?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Gary Webb found out the truth and paid the ultimate price for it

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I think it's down to the being so incredibly many people coming across legally ever day, you can't realistically find most of it with how many people they have to search for it.

[–] Corkyskog 0 points 9 months ago

Pretty sure the doggos can't smell fentanyl without overdosing anyway...

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago (1 children)

91% of the seizures were from U.S. citizens,

About 90% of the fentanyl seized at the border in recent years was at legal crossings

So scary brown people illegally entering the US are t the problem. Weird.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

Not commenting on the politics here. But is seized drugs a good indicator where the drugs that don't get seized come from? Or do the customs also do just logging the drug shipments without interfering to get more accurate data?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It wouldn't be coming across the border at all if all the Chads and Todds would stop buying it.

And the only way to do that is to fix our shitty system that creates new Chads and Todds every day by keeping them poor and working them to death. Unfortunately, our government still subscribes to the outmoded Puritan idea that struggling is somehow virtuous. And half the country gives 10% of their pay every Saturday/Sunday to the men who continue to propagate that idea.

Shut down the churches by taxing the ever-loving fuck out of them, make laws where religious people are barred from office, and impose term limits on all three branches of government. That is the only way you'll see any change in the next 100 years.

Maybe we can leave something other than a smoldering pile of shit for our descendants.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

But we got every other drug in existence off the streets by attacking the supply chain.

/s

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Fuck people are dumb. There's no thinking here.

The overdose crisis worsened when there were border restrictions, because contamination was more widespread. Also fuck me, the real problem is obviously mostly legal opiate distributors.

[–] Corkyskog 3 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Also fuck me, the real problem is obviously mostly legal opiate distributors.

Care to elaborate?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

When youre prescribed legal opiates, you take them and then youre supposed to be off after a certain time, however prescriptions are usually either too long or too strong by design from the drug manufacturer, creating a dependence and addiction to opiates. And THEN you hit your cutoff time. These people usually seek out something to ease or continue their addiction, but they also develop tolerances to whatever theyre taking, so then they need stronger and stronger doses. Enter Fentanyl, one of the strongest opiates in circulation because drug manufacturers created the need for it by getting people addicted to their original products.

People dont usually go out seeking fent for the first time, they seek it because its the next step in their addiction

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

You probably know about the Friend's actor that portrayed the Chandelier Bong character. He got into an accident and was prescribed with opioids. He got addicted and recently died of an opioid overdose.

Some doctors do it because they are paid to prescribe these drugs even when it isn't necessary. It's a mafia.

I broke a few bones riding my bike and I was given a very very mild pill. I remember feeling SO GOOD, my body felt like a marshmallow cloud melting on a rainbow. You know that feeling when it is cold and you get in a warm bed? Imagine that feeling nonstop. I couldn't wait for the time to take the next one. When they where over, it felt like there was an empty space in my brain. Like, that constant feeling of pleasure and wellness was just gone and it didn't feel right.

Thankfully I was aware of what was going on and fought through it.

Edit: remembering this was 100% a mistake. My brain is asking for the pills. It's crazy, it's been like 4 years.

[–] darth_helmet 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Opium Wars 2, but China is smarter than England, because they’re letting Latin Americans take the blame.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

I've been saying this for more than ten years. It is insane to me that this concept has not become mainstream or widely accepted. It is clear that China is using Fentanyl as a social destabilization mechanism against the West. It is one of the many methods they are employing in their death by a thousand cuts strategy.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

Didn't the president say this?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

Many Americans are so painfully stupid that it hurts everyone around them.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Bahaha. They're not bringing fentanyl, they're bring cocaine. Silly republicans.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

I'll blame migrants for taking priority over born americans on other things way before I'll blame them for a mostly-american problem.