Fentanyl overdose epidemic needs attention

I am a youth minister in Marin County. In the past three years, five Marin kids I personally knew have died from fentanyl-laced contraband pharmaceuticals (each instance involved Percocet and all were procured through the social media app Snapchat).

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration claims it is working on the problem. I can say that nobody on “the front lines” sees any evidence of that. Anyone who walks in certain San Francisco neighborhoods can personally attest that issues of addiction ruining lives aren't getting better.

There is a need for prioritized enforcement, yes, but there is no way the DEA or local politicians will ever stop the flow. These actors are not criminals, they are addicts and gangster stooges for what are likely to be international operatives. I see fentanyl as similar to malicious code in cyberwarfare. It is a weapon and it is being targeted to bring U.S. residents down.

I don't see the fentanyl overdose epidemic as a drug enforcement problem. I think it is a national security issue. Fentanyl is not just killing kids, it is killing hope — which I believe is the goal of those seeking to bring us down.

As much as bureaucrats like those in the DEA think they know, I suggest they really don't know anything about this crisis. I think the DEA is too bureaucratic, too trapped in its old paradigms of the Nancy Reagan “just say no” era. That was about racist crackdowns on marijuana and crack cocaine users, as well as fighting mob-distributed heroin. Those days are gone.

A properly focused enforcement counterattack will not succeed without thinking in terms of national security and without a complementary intervention program on a national scale. President Joe Biden needs to create a task force — including unconventional people from the field.

Stale ideas, impotent bureaucrats and time are the enemies. Kids are dying.

— Jon Myers, San Rafael