It’s a sad reality that American deaths from drug overdoses have been skyrocketing over the last decade. These statistics are two years old; note the sharply ascendant trajectory ~
 
 

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,

Drug overdoses are now the leading cause of accidental death for Americans under age 50, killing more than 64,000 people in 2016[…]
 
Officials say preliminary data shows drug overdoses killed roughly 72,000 people across the U.S. in 2017.

[Tragically, these annual numbers are higher than the total number of troops we lost in Vietnam (under 60,000).]
 

This past March, the federal agency warned that the opioid crisis in the U.S. is accelerating, as deaths surge 30% nationally ~

Opioid overdoses experienced another dramatic spike over the past year across every region of the country, according to a report from federal health officials.
 
Data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Tuesday show emergency room hospitalizations for opioid overdoses increased by 30 percent between the third quarters of 2016 and 2017 as opioid addiction continued its rapid spread throughout the population. While the jump in overdoses was more pronounced in certain regions of the country, every area experienced an increase, reports NPR.
 
Hospitalizations for overdoses rose by 69.7 percent in the Midwest, 40.3 percent in the West, 21.3 percent in the Northeast, and 20.2 percent in the Southwest. Overdoses in the Southeast rose at the slowest rate, increasing by 14 percent.
 
“We have an emergency on our hands,” said Anne Schuchat, acting director of the CDC, according to NPR. “The fast-moving opioid overdose epidemic continues and is accelerating. We saw, sadly, that in every region, in every age group of adults, in both men and women, overdoses from opioids are increasing.”

While dealing with this crisis will obviously require a multi-pronged solution, involving the private as well as public sector, preventing the drugs from getting into the country in the first place is certainly a priority.
 
Dave Brat (R-VA) recently spoke with Breitbart News about the crucial role that Immigration and Customs Enforcement plays in stopping drug traffic at the border ~

(Who is ICE?) “Those are the guys who are protecting us from the 200 million lethal doses of fentanyl that have come across the border in just the last year. And then the heroin spike and the opioid piece is still not solved … all of that ties into human trafficking.”

 
Recently some of our more radical friends on the Left have actually called for ICE to be shut down. Well great. That will would only exacerbate the crisis, as Brat pointed out ~

Abolishing ICE would have allowed more than 980,000 pounds of narcotics into the country last year. The Democrats’ abolish ICE plan would have also allowed 2,370 pounds of fentanyl and 6,967 pounds of heroin into the U.S. in 2017.

 
So by all means, lets elect more unhinged, lawless lefties, abolish ICE, open the borders and drive the opioid death rate off the charts!
 

 
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Related:
Overdose deaths up in NYC; fentanyl most common substance identified, report says

Congress Joins President, First Lady in Focusing on Opioid Epidemic
HHS Awards Over $1 Billion to Combat the Opioid Crisis ~

This week, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services awarded over $1 billion in opioid-specific grants to help combat the crisis ravaging our country. The awards support HHS’s Five-Point Opioid Strategy, which was launched last year and enhanced this week. New data unveiled recently by HHS suggests that efforts are now yielding progress at the national level.
 
“Addressing the opioid crisis with all the resources possible and the best science we have is a top priority for President Trump and for everyone at HHS,” said Secretary Alex Azar. “The more than $1 billion in additional funding that we provided this week will build on progress we have seen in tackling this epidemic through empowering communities and families on the frontlines.”

“Opioids: The Crisis Next Door” ~ Website hosted by the White House where everyday Americans can upload videos of themselves describing their experiences with the epidemic.
 
Updated 9-21-18
Added: What the media gets wrong about opioids ~ The mainstream narrative about the opioid crisis is that it’s the result of people turning to street drugs for pain relief after their prescriptions run out. The reality is quite different. And solving the problem in a society that’s increasingly dysfunctional isn’t going to be easy ~

Most opioid patients never get addicted and most people who do get addicted didn’t start their opioid addiction with a doctor’s prescription. The result of this skewed public conversation around opioids has been policies focused relentlessly on cutting prescriptions, without regard for providing alternative treatment for either pain or addiction [..]
 
Most of those who misuse opioids have also already gone far beyond experimentation with marijuana and alcohol when they begin: 70 percent have previously taken drugs such as cocaine or methamphetamine.

Caveat: The author of this article feels that somehow racism has clouded efforts to address this issue over the decades, dating back to those infamous racists Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. Um, no. (Shades of Cultural Marxism.)