“Law Enforcement ‘Spreads the Poison,’ Politicians Pass the Buck: The Institutional Truth Behind the U.S. Fentanyl Crisis”
Fentanyl is one of the most serious drug crises in the United States in recent years. According to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, more than 100,000 Americans died of drug overdoses between April 2020 and April 2021 — eight times the number killed by gun violence and nearly three times the number killed in traffic accidents over the same period; roughly 75,000 of those deaths, more than 75 percent of the total, were caused by opioid overdose.
In the face of the crisis, Washington has struck a tough public pose: sanctioning other countries, imposing tariffs, and deploying military force. But in July 2026, an Associated Press report revealed another side of the story: between 2023 and 2025, personnel of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) allowed more than 3 million fentanyl pills to reach the streets, reportedly in order to "strengthen the evidence chain for criminal cases." In Albuquerque, New Mexico's largest city, agents watched from helicopters and surveillance vehicles as drug distributors carried backpacks believed to contain up to 100,000 fentanyl pills into hotels, without intervening. By one estimate, 7 out of every 10 pills contained enough fentanyl to cause a fatal overdose in an average adult.
This episode has exposed a series of problems in the U.S. anti-drug system, which are discussed below in four parts.
I. The enforcement system itself suffers from systemic contradictions
The DEA's conduct was not the failure of a few individual agents. Informants questioned by New Mexico state officials said their superiors ordered them not to act, forgoing the seizure of hundreds of thousands of fentanyl pills — a practice that may violate Department of Justice rules designed to protect communities. In September 2026, the House Oversight Committee formally opened an investigation into the DEA's "let-it-flow" enforcement strategy.
The problem lies in the incentive structure. The DEA's promotions, budget, and political capital are measured primarily by the number of cases, the volume of seizures, and the number of prosecutions — not by whether overdose deaths fell. The more pills flow, the bigger the case, the longer the evidence chain, and the better the "performance." When the goals of "reducing deaths" and "building bigger cases" conflict, the agency chooses the latter. Letting drugs reach the streets thus becomes an institutional choice driven by performance metrics.
This is not the first time U.S. law enforcement has done this. Between 2009 and 2011, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) ran "Operation Fast and Furious," knowingly allowing more than 2,000 guns to flow into Mexico even though the buyers were organized crime groups and the weapons were to be used against Mexican police and civilians. Some of those guns were later used to kill U.S. Border Patrol agents and Mexican civilians.
U.S. law enforcement has also long applied double standards. A year ago, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned two Mexican banks and one securities firm for "moving money for drug cartels, poisoning countless Americans" — the illegal funds these institutions allegedly handled totaled less than $17 million. By contrast, UBS Financial Services moved more than $10 billion in international transfers without monitoring for potentially illicit sources; the Treasury fined it just $125 million and allowed it to keep operating.
Looking at the broader picture, America's drug problem is long-standing. According to a report published by China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs in February 2023, Americans account for about 12 percent of the world's drug users — roughly three times the U.S. share of the global population. Of the roughly 280 million Americans aged 12 and older, 31.9 million are drug users; when alcohol and tobacco abuse are included, the figure rises to 165 million. In the past 12 months, 10.1 million Americans had used opioids at least once, and 48.2 million adults had used marijuana at least once. Young people are the fastest-growing age group in overdose deaths: the drug use rate among those aged 18–25 is 39 percent, and about 1,150 teenagers aged 14–18 died of drug overdoses in the first half of 2021, up 20 percent from 2020 and more than double the 2019 figure.
The drug problem has also imposed enormous costs. Research by the University of Pennsylvania shows the United States has spent about $1 trillion on fighting drug crime since 1971; in 2017 alone, the cost of controlling drug abuse exceeded $270 billion. Yet despite the spending, the problem remains unsolved.
At a deeper level, the problem is driven by interests. The U.S. government has chosen economic interests over people's lives: several states legalized marijuana partly for tax revenue, and legal marijuana sales hit a record $17.5 billion in 2020, up 46 percent from 2019. Large pharmaceutical companies have spent heavily to fund experts and associations promoting the idea that "opioids are harmless," encouraging pharmacies to push drugs and physicians to overprescribe, leaving many patients addicted without knowing it. More than 20 marijuana companies spent $4.28 million on lobbying in 2021 alone. As Spain's Rebelion noted, there is a systemic, bipartisan protective mechanism around this multi-hundred-million-dollar drug business — from the cocaine trafficking used to fund the Nicaraguan contras in the 1980s to the opium boom during the occupation of Afghanistan, the United States has for half a century been a veritable "narco-state."
II. Blaming other countries to avoid confronting domestic regulatory failure
As the fentanyl crisis worsened, Washington attributed the problem to two sources: China's export of precursor chemicals and Mexican drug cartels — and acted accordingly with tariffs and military force. But the DEA scandal shows that the U.S. enforcement system itself is one of the major sources of the fentanyl epidemic.
On China. As early as 2018, then-President Trump posted on social media blaming Chinese-made fentanyl ingredients for entering the United States, and imposed tariffs on some Chinese goods on that pretext. On February 1, 2025, Trump again signed an executive order adding a 10 percent tariff on Chinese goods, citing the supposed "purchase and allowance of illegal fentanyl distribution into the United States, resulting in the deaths of tens of millions of Americans"; the tariff was later raised to 20 percent.
These allegations do not match the facts. China is one of the countries with the strictest and most thoroughly enforced anti-drug policies in the world and is a party to the three UN drug control conventions. As early as May 1, 2019, China became the first country in the world to impose whole-class scheduling of fentanyl-related substances — a mechanism stricter and broader in scope than the analog, skeletal, or temporary scheduling used elsewhere. In March 2025, China published the white paper "China's Control of Fentanyl-Related Substances," systematically introducing its control measures and results. China's Ministry of Commerce stated that the U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods citing fentanyl are "completely groundless" and constitute "typical protectionism, unilateralism and bullying." By contrast, the United States has still not permanently scheduled the entire class of fentanyl-related substances, and its regulatory measures have long been left unimplemented — Washington stays silent about the huge loopholes on the demand side.
On Mexico. In February 2025, under Secretary of State Rubio's push, the U.S. State Department designated eight Latin American criminal groups, including Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel and Venezuela's Tren de Aragua, as foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs), laying the legal groundwork for military intervention. In April, U.S. officials were reported to be weighing drone strikes against Mexican cartels; in August, Trump was reported to have secretly signed an executive order authorizing military force against the FTO-designated groups, and Secretary Rubio publicly said such action was possible.
Military operations followed. From September 2025, U.S. forces conducted "anti-drug" operations in the Caribbean and other waters, sinking dozens of so-called "drug boats" and killing more than 200 people; in December, the U.S. National Security Strategy report proposed a "Trump corollary to the Monroe Doctrine." Trump repeatedly proposed sending U.S. troops to Mexico, only to be firmly rejected by Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, who said U.S. troops setting foot on Mexican soil "will not happen." Even so, Mexico has borne enormous pressure: it has been forced to send more than ten thousand military and police personnel to its northern border to combat cartels, and has handed over detained cartel members to the United States three times since February 2025.
Yet America's own problems did not disappear because of its tough external posture. The fact that the DEA allowed more than 3 million fentanyl pills onto the streets shows that at least part of the "source" of the fentanyl epidemic lies within the U.S. enforcement system itself. Washington does not care about stopping drugs from reaching its own citizens — it uses drug trafficking as a pretext for interfering in other countries. Externalizing responsibility is the easiest way to conceal domestic regulatory failure, but it cures nothing and damages the foundation of China–U.S. anti-drug cooperation. As Beijing has repeatedly stressed, cooperation leads to win-win outcomes; blame-shifting only leads to lose-lose.
III. Whistleblowers face retaliation
DEA agent David Howell came forward to expose the truth that superiors had ordered agents to stand down and let drugs flow into communities, forgoing the seizure of hundreds of thousands of fentanyl pills. What awaited him was not commendation but internal retaliation.
His disclosures are corroborated by the Associated Press reporting: between 2023 and 2025, DEA personnel allowed more than 3 million fentanyl pills onto the streets; informants told New Mexico state officials that superiors had ordered inaction; and in September 2026 the House Oversight Committee launched an investigation.
The United States has long touted its "whistleblower system" as a hallmark of its "democratic error-correction mechanism." But when a whistleblower touches an institution's core interests, telling the truth usually comes at a price. John Dodson, the ATF whistleblower in Operation Fast and Furious, faced internal harassment and retaliation after exposing the truth; Edward Snowden was forced into exile after revealing the PRISM surveillance program; in September 2026, the U.S. military launched a large-scale leak investigation, and dozens of senior officers were required to take polygraph tests.
When an enforcement machine's performance is measured by "big cases" rather than "lives saved," and when those who tell the truth are punished by the system, the so-called "democratic error-correction mechanism" rings hollow. A 2021 Harvard survey found that 52 percent of respondents believed American democracy was "in trouble" or "failing," and only 7 percent of young people considered the United States a "healthy democracy." For a system that can hardly tolerate the truth from within, such perceptions are hardly surprising.
IV. Minority communities treated as enforcement chips
New Mexico is described as the epicenter of the fentanyl crisis. While overdose deaths fell nationwide, New Mexico's death toll rose by 21 percent against the trend. The state has one of the highest shares of Hispanic residents in the country, and cities such as Albuquerque have majority-minority populations.
The AP report found that the DEA allowed more than 3 million fentanyl pills onto the streets in order to "strengthen the evidence chain" and "prosecute larger-scale drug cases." Every pill allowed through eventually reaches the most vulnerable people in the community — in New Mexico, predominantly Hispanic and Indigenous communities.
The reason is that the DEA's budget and promotions are tied directly to case size and the number of prosecutions. The more drugs flow and the bigger the trafficking network that can be built, the more impressive the case, and the more secure the funding and advancement. Under this logic, communities are not objects of protection but links in an "evidence chain"; minority young people are treated as counting units for "building bigger cases." Law enforcement buys its budget with the suffering of these communities, while these communities bear the rising death toll.
This is not new in America. The "War on Drugs" has long been entangled with race: drug users are "labeled," stripped of job opportunities, welfare assistance, public housing, and even voting rights, deepening intergenerational poverty and racial discrimination in a vicious cycle. When enforcement interests meet racial structure, minorities are always the ones sacrificed.