Dumbest Stories of the Week: Prosecutor Warns of Juul Fentanyl, Cop Felled by White Powder, Toddler Finds Dollar Stuffed with Fentanyl

American institutional failures as seen in several of this week's stupidest stories.

Overdose deaths exploded during the pandemic thanks to deadly fentanyl and, well, the pandemic driving all of us bonkers. Alcohol-related deaths also increased, as did violent crime, and teen mental health is considered a national emergency—all signs and symptoms of immense suffering, a catastrophe that doesn’t seem to be getting better anytime soon. We recently covered the most optimistic projections into future overdose deaths that estimate well over half a million deaths will occur between 2020 and 2032.

And here comes the DEA, justifying its $3.28 billion budget by boasting of interdiction efforts that have virtually no long-term impact on the drug supply, aside from producing more rogue chemists creating ungodly potent synthetic substances. You’ve seen the absurd headlines that frame the DEA’s drug war as saving millions of innocent lives. Like this story from the Daily Caller: “Border Agents Stop Driver Attempting To Smuggle Enough Fentanyl To Kill Around 2 Million People.”

These headlines, of course, are based nothing other than DEA press releases that wildly inflate the threat of drugs to justify their existence. The DEA’s metric is calculated thusly: “Drug trafficking organizations typically distribute fentanyl by the kilogram. One kilogram of fentanyl has the potential to kill 500,000 people.” That huge number doesn’t square with the reality that illicitly manufactured fentanyl is attributed to roughly 70,000 deaths annually.