A new UN report states that illicit drugs like fentanyl and various nitazenes—synthetic opioids several times more potent than fentanyl—are taking over the illicit drug market from traditional drugs like heroin, opium and morphine, creating a dreadful recipe for a massive increase in global addiction.
Here’s why: When drug peddlers process their deadly products in makeshift laboratories rather than grow them in poppy fields, they change the economic nature of the entire illicit drug market. That’s because synthetics are simple to make, require no large-scale farming facility and acreage, and are easier and cheaper for drug traffickers to produce and transport to points of sale.
“We need to work together to take stronger action against this deadly problem.”
Worse, fentanyl can be 50 times more powerful than heroin and nitazenes can be up to 40 times more powerful than fentanyl.
That means, based on current trends in the international drug supply, there will likely be a vast increase in overdose deaths. Some drug users are taking fentanyl and nitazenes without even knowing it, making their usual heroin dose strong enough to kill them—easily—if laced with these murderously powerful synthetics.
More than 100,000 Americans died from a drug overdose every year between 2021 and 2023. The Centers for Disease Control states that nearly 108,000 people, a world record, died from drug overdoses in 2022. Two-thirds were from synthetic opioids, primarily fentanyl.
The problem is serious enough that the United Nations International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) is urging member states to step up the fight against this new and ominous threat.
“The rapid expansion of the illicit synthetic drug industry represents a major global public health threat with potentially disastrous consequences for humankind,” INCB President Jallal Toufiq said. “We need to work together to take stronger action against this deadly problem, which is causing hundreds of deaths and untold harm to communities.”
The report notes that a heroin deficit in Europe, caused by Afghanistan’s ban on opium production, has caused European opioid addicts to switch to synthetic, more dangerous substitutes; while, in North America, synthetic opioid-related deaths reached record highs in recent years.
In Asia and the Pacific, drug users and traffickers have turned to other synthetics like methamphetamine and ketamine, while the use of amphetamine-type stimulants is becoming more common in the Middle East and Africa.
In an effort to evade drug laws, manufacturers often change recipes slightly, tweaking their formula to create newer forms of the same lethal, addictive drugs—forms that may not yet be banned under current legislation.
It’s a market of murder.
“The number of new psychoactive substances emerging on illicit drug markets has increased sixfold in the past decade and reached a record high of over 1,000 unique substances in 2020,” the UNODC reports. “Annual global seizures of amphetamine-type stimulants increased by 64 percent in 2019, while opioid use … deaths have gone up by 71 percent over the past decade.”
One major part of the international problem involves China, where chemical companies have been selling and shipping precursor chemicals for the manufacture of fentanyl. These chemicals end up in makeshift labs run by Mexican drug cartels, which use them to make the fentanyl that is then peddled to addicts in the United States.
It’s a market of murder.
While the Chinese government claims they are working to shut down this China-Mexico illegal drug operation, in truth, they are giving tax breaks and subsidies to the companies that produce the fentanyl precursors that fuel the international fentanyl trade.
“This is the time to take … action to stem the synthetic drug crisis,” UNODC Executive Director Ghada Waly said. “We can save lives, protect the health and sustainable development of our societies and help to prevent the next crisis.”
To indicate that they are getting serious about that looming crisis, the UNODC has put together a four-phase plan of action to deal with the new synthetic boom in the drug trade, including multilateralism and international cooperation, early warning on emerging synthetic drug threats and counternarcotic interventions.
The UN report concluded: “The INCB is urging governments to strengthen international collaboration, improve data-sharing and expand drug prevention and treatment services.
“Without decisive action, the synthetic drug trade will continue to evolve, putting more lives at risk.”
The UN is right: Decisive action is all that is needed at this juncture. Luckily, we already have effective tools to tackle the worldwide drug problem: The Church of Scientology sponsors the largest nongovernmental antidrug information and prevention campaign on Earth, the Truth About Drugs.
To date, 160 million educational booklets have been distributed and hundreds of thousands of youth have been prevented from a life of addiction thanks to the program—which has been used by more than 400 law enforcement agencies and is praised by educators and government officials across the globe. As one educator put it, when they encounter the Truth About Drugs, “youth stop and listen.”
The UN needs to turn to effective approaches to battling drugs if they truly want to use “decisive” action.
There is no question about it: Education is the most effective weapon and the Truth About Drugs works.
So, yes, this is a battle that can—and must—be won.
