The U.S. Military's Newest Enemy: Fentanyl

""There's no doubt that America's adversaries are trafficking fentanyl into the United States in part because they want to kill Americans. If this were a war, that would be one of the worst wars. I believe they killed over the last five or six years, per year, 200-to-300,000 people. You hear about a 100,000, which is a lot of people, but the number is much higher than that. That's been proven.""

"I am focusing on this rather odd EO because to me it is another sign that President Trump is bringing the U.S. military into yet another essentially domestic American problem, drug use. I also see it as the Trump administration regularizing employment of the U.S. military to be a normal response to control civil issues. Remember, President Trump has employed some 9,000 active and National Guard service members on the U.S. southern border to block what he termed an invasion of illegal immigrants."

"He has also federalized National Guard troops in U.S. cities like Washington, D.C. claiming they were needed to combat crime, and required hundreds of Marines and originally 4,000 California National Guard personnel in Los Angeles to put down protests against immigration raids. There was even a military atmosphere in the Oval Office on December 15, because the President used that same meeting to make the first awards of a Mexican Border Defense Medal to 13 Army and Marine service member"

President Trump signed an Executive Order designating illicit fentanyl and its core precursor chemicals as Weapons of Mass Destruction. He claimed foreign adversaries traffic fentanyl into the United States to kill Americans and asserted death tolls far higher than official counts; actual reported fentanyl deaths were 48,000 in 2024. The Executive Order accompanies increased use of the U.S. military for domestic issues. Trump previously deployed about 9,000 active-duty and National Guard personnel to the southern border, federalized Guard troops in cities, and ordered Marines and California Guard forces to Los Angeles for immigration-related protests, with military-style ceremonies and awards.

Read at The Cipher Brief