DEA Recognizes First National Fentanyl Awareness Day with Overdose Deaths on the Rise
Mel Evans | AP
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) recognized May 10, 2022, as the first ever National Fentanyl Awareness Day. This public awareness event informs Americans about the dangers fentanyl poses to safety, health, and national security.
According to preliminary data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), nearly 107,000 people in the U.S. because of a drug overdose in the 12 months ending November 2021. Fentanyl was a key component of 66 percent of these recorded overdoses. As little as 2 milligrams of fentanyl may be fatal, but it may differ depending on the individual’s size and consumption. DEA officials have also revealed that about four out of ten pills in the U.S. have an excess of the 2 milligrams threshold.
Connecting National Fentanyl Awareness Day and the agency’s One Pill Can Kill campaign, DEA Administrator Anne Milgram spoke about the dangers of fentanyl and the need for immediate action.
“Fentanyl is killing Americans at unprecedented rates,” said Administrator Milgram. “On this first-ever National Fentanyl Awareness Day, please help save lives by making sure you talk with your friends and family about the dangers of this deadly drug.”
The Biden Administration also recently released a new National Drug Control Strategy, which aims at treating drug addiction while ramping up law enforcement to disrupt drug trafficking into the country.
“All too often, these drugs wind up in communities where naloxone isn’t readily available, where harm reduction services are restricted or underfunded, where there are unacceptable barriers to treatment,” said Rahul Gupta, Director of National Drug Control Policy. “It is unacceptable that we are losing a life to overdose every five minutes. Everyone who wants treatment should be able to get it.”
The national strategy includes measures to reduce harm, such as increasing access to the lifesaving overdose drug naloxone and drug test strips that detect if drugs contain potent synthetic opioids to reduce overdose risk. The White House reports that implementing the strategy would increase enrollment in treatment programs and improve data collection on drug use, treatment, and recovery.