The opioid epidemic has ravaged American communities for well over a decade, and 2023 data shows Pennsylvania remains one of the hardest-hit states.
Many American states face challenges that pose a direct threat to the lives of their citizens. Florida has hurricanes, Missouri has tornadoes, and Pennsylvania has the opioid crisis.
Unlike states beset by natural disasters, however, Pennsylvania cannot blame the deaths of its citizens on nature or poor preparedness. The sources of the opioid crisis can be traced over our southern border to Mexican cartels and their Chinese Communist Party backers.
According to the House Select Committee on the CCP, fentanyl precursors are shipped from production facilities in China directly to Mexican drug cartels, with the entire transaction fueled by corrupt money-laundering entities controlled by the CCP. Today, it is believed that 97 percent of all fentanyl in the US originates in China.
Pennsylvania has been the epicenter of the fentanyl epidemic in the United States, with nearly 100,000 naloxone doses administered by EMS from January 2018 to January 2024. About 3,422 Pennsylvanians died of a drug overdose in 2023.
In a recent article, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette profiled Elliott Henry, one Pennsylvanian who died of an overdose of fentanyl and cocaine in June of last year. Henry, who died at 33, first developed an opioid addiction as a middle schooler in the 2000s with oxycontin.
Oxycontin was one of the prescription painkillers that helped fuel the beginning of the opioid crisis long before the rise of fentanyl caused overdoses and deaths to skyrocket. In 2013, only 3% of Allegheny County deaths involved fentanyl. In 2023, fentanyl accounted for 85% of overdose deaths.
Pennsylvania’s opioid deaths declined in 2023, but overdose deaths remain far above their pre-fentanyl levels. Absent strong action on the southern border or initiatives to stop the CCP-cartel fentanyl flow, this crisis appears likely to continue well into the 2020s.
