Texas Gov. Greg Abbott stated on Friday the amount of fentanyl U.S. border agents intercepted on the Texas-Mexico border has increased by 800 percent in April compared to the same month in the previous year.
“But I gotta tell you there’s a new dynamic about what’s going on at the border that Americans need to know about and that is increased apprehension of fentanyl coming across the border,” Abbott said during an interview with Fox News. “Yes, there may be people coming across but there are dangerous drugs coming across the border.”
“We had almost an 800 percent increase April over April of the amount of fentanyl that has been apprehended by the Texas Department of Public Safety,” the governor said, noting that the amount of fentanyl intercepted is enough to “kill every single person in the state of New York.”
What is fentanyl? Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic opioid that is similar to morphine but is 50 to 100 times more potent. Synthetic opioids, including fentanyl, are now the most common drugs involved in drug overdose deaths in the United States. In 2017, 59 percent of opioid-related deaths involved fentanyl compared to 14.3 percent in 2010. On average, there are 70,000 opioid deaths each year and fentanyl is the chief killer. Most drug overdose deaths are from fentanyl. Here are the sums of overdose deaths from 2017 to 2020.
- 2017: 70,237
- 2018: 67,367
- 2019: 70,630
- 2020: 75,500
By how much will the eight-fold increase in illegal fentanyl increase drug overdose deaths this year? Double? Triple?
Gov. Abbott says the amount of fentanyl illegally brought into our country over the now-open southern border is enough “kill every single person in the state of New York.”
Our brave Border Patrol personnel are grossly overworked by the incessant flood of humanity over the border, here by invitation of Pres. Joe Biden. They are changing diapers and now doubling up as trash collectors. Teams of uniformed Border Patrol agents from the Casa Grande station are being ordered to spend their duty shifts cleaning up trash on the Tohono O’Odham Indian reservation instead of performing the police work they were hired for.
John White
Rockwall, Texas
John N. White 