Fentanyl Doesn't Come Through the Caribbean

""Please be warned that we will blow you out of existence," President Donald Trump said during his speech at the United Nations on Tuesday, issuing a politely phrased mortal threat to would-be drug traffickers. Already, the administration has killed 17 people-"narco-terrorists," Trump calls them-in air strikes on three boats allegedly from Venezuela and loaded with what the president has described as "big bags of cocaine and fentanyl.""

"Trump and his aides have justified the extrajudicial killings as a decisive measure to protect Americans from dangerous drugs, especially fentanyl, the synthetic opioid behind the worst overdose epidemic in U.S. history, which accelerated during his first term in office."

"But here's the thing: Although the United States Coast Guard interdicts staggering quantities of illegal drugs in the Caribbean each year, it does not encounter fentanyl on the high seas. South American cocaine and marijuana account for the overwhelming majority of maritime seizures, according to Coast Guard data, and there isn't a single instance of a fentanyl seizure-let alone "bags" of the drug-in the agency's press releases."

"Last month, the U.S. cutter Hamilton returned to Florida with what the agency called "the largest quantity of drugs offloaded in Coast Guard history": 61,740 pounds of cocaine and 14,400 pounds of marijuana (that's the weight of about three city buses). The haul, gathered by multiple federal agencies during 19 seizure incidents in the Caribbean as well as the Pacific, had an estimated street value of $473 million. But there wasn't any fentanyl on the boat."

President Donald Trump warned of destroying drug-trafficking boats and the administration conducted air strikes that killed 17 people described as "narco-terrorists," allegedly targeting three Venezuelan vessels carrying cocaine and fentanyl. The administration framed the killings as necessary to protect Americans from fentanyl, citing the opioid's role in a severe overdose epidemic and claiming each sunk boat would have killed thousands. United States Coast Guard data show maritime seizures are overwhelmingly cocaine and marijuana, with no recorded fentanyl seizures in agency press releases. A recent large Coast Guard offload included tens of thousands of pounds of cocaine and marijuana but no fentanyl.

Read at The Atlantic