Heroin, fentanyl remain biggest drug threat to U.S.

WASHINGTON — Opioid overdose deaths hit the highest level ever recorded in the United States last year, with an estimated 200 people dying per day, according to a report by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

Preliminary figures show about 72,000 people died in 2017 from opioid-related overdoses across the country. About a week ago, U.S. Health Secretary Alex Azar said overdose deaths have now begun to level off, but he also cautioned that it was too soon to declare victory.

The DEA’s National Drug Threat Assessment, released on Friday, showed that heroin, fentanyl and other opioids continue to be the highest drug threat. But U.S. officials are concerned that methamphetamine and cocaine are being seen at much higher levels in areas that haven’t historically been hotspots for those drugs. The DEA is also worried that people are exploiting marijuana legalization to traffic cannabis into the illicit market or to states that don’t have medicinal or socalled recreational-use marijuana laws, according to the report.

U.S. President Donald Trump has declared the opioid crisis as a “public-health emergency” and last week, pledged to put an “extremely big dent” in the scourge of drug addiction.

Fatal heroin overdoses rose in the U.S. between 2015 and 2016, with a nearly 25 per cent increase in the Northeast and more than 22 per cent in the South. Most of the heroin sold in the U.S. is being trafficked from Mexico, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers seize the most amount of heroin along the Mexico border, near San Diego, California, the report said.

The DEA has said China is a main source of fentanyl and other synthetic opioids that have been flooding the North American market. U.S. officials have stressed they work closely with their Chinese counterparts as they try to stem the flow.

Legislation that Trump signed last week will add treatment options and force the U.S. Postal Service to screen overseas packages for fentanyl.

The DEA’s report also noted that methamphetamine is making its way into communities where the drug normally wasn’t heavily used, the report said. Meth, a highly addictive stimulant, can cause paranoia, hallucinations and delusions.

Mexican and Latin American drug cartels that had primarily dabbled in heroin and cocaine trafficking are now also peddling methamphetamine.