“Open Borders” & “China,” How Politicians Duck Responsibility and Cast Blame for Overdose Crisis
Politicians hijack the overdose crisis to advance their own agendas while never actually trying to save lives and solve the problem.
Did you get the memo? “Lock down the border,” American children are dying from fentanyl overdoses.
The high rates of overdose deaths are a serious problem. In 2020, a record-breaking 100,000 Americans died from drug overdoses, a 30 percent increase from the prior year. But rather than look inward and ask why Americans are in so much pain and why there’s such fierce demand for relief; or why so many people are using substances alone, with nobody around to revive them; or why naloxone, the life-saving overdose antidote, isn’t widely accessible; instead of drilling down to the root causes driving unprecedented mortality, these politicians cast blame outward, on “bad actors,” foreign “enemies,” and baddy countries to throw red meat at their base.
By turning a public health emergency into an issue of border security, politicians actively assign and avoid blame. Take Republican senator of Tennessee Marsha Blackburn, who so clearly display the symptoms at hand:
Blackburn has been on a bit of a tear lately about China, Mexico, and fentanyl. But here’s some facts about overdose deaths in Tennessee that you won’t find on Blackburn’s Twitter feed:
During Blackburn’s first year as Tennessee’s senator, overdose deaths climbed to 3,032 in 2020 from 2,089 in 2019. That’s a 45 percent spike.
Only four other states saw such a drastic jump in overdose mortality during that time.
Tennessee’s overdose death rate ranks 11th out of 50 states, according to the CDC’s 2019 data (CDC has huge lag in their tally, a different problem for a future post).
Oh, and Tennessee has long refused to expand Medicaid through the Affordable Care Act. If the state were to expand Medicaid (a.k.a. using federal funds to pay for poor people’s health care), at least 330,000 more people in Tennessee would gain health care coverage. That means more people would be able to access addiction treatment and other critical services.
Harm reduction groups in Tennessee are quite frustrated with the state’s naloxone distribution strategy (or lack thereof). Not nearly enough of the life-saving drug gets into the hands of those who need it.
All this bluster about overdose deaths and fentanyl are essentially mashing buttons on a GOP soundboard: China, Mexico, open borders, drug cartels, Save The Children, and on and on. Take, for instance, J.D. Vance’s campaign for an open Senate seat in Ohio. He regularly discusses Mexico and fentanyl in his stump speech: “The left pushed for lax border control while average Americans were the ones overdosing on fentanyl from Mexico.”
Their ire is directed at the supply-side of the drug policy equation, blaming other countries and foreigners for problems that are uniquely American, like our plunging life expectancy, insatiable demand for substances, and unprecedented overdose deaths.
Blackburn and her ilk use the issue to sound off on Trump’s “build the wall” slogan. Only “the wall” could stop “drug cartels flooding across our southern border.” The truth is you can build a wall and send 3,000 DEA agents to the border and there will still be an overdose crisis.
This is why: The US-Mexico border is indeed “open,” but for commerce and capital, not people. Right-wingers like Blackburn intentionally blur the lines, conflating migrants with cartels and traffickers. But most migrants who arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border are seeking legal asylum and fleeing from violent gangs and governments (often propped up by America in the first place). These people and families are not smuggling fentanyl. Rather, bulk shipments of illicit fentanyl enter the U.S. via mail or through ports of entry on trucks or trailers that carry products manufactured in Mexico destined for stores like Walmart. America’s consumer economy is far too dependent on cheap goods manufactured in Mexico for this arrangement to end anytime soon. Put bluntly: The conditions of American capitalism pave the way for an endless flow of illicit drugs.
Blackburn, Vance, Boebert et al. also blame China for manufacturing fentanyl. They’re not entirely wrong, China does have a massive chemical industry that produces precursors used to synthesize fentanyl and its analogues. What their rhetoric neglects is that China’s approach to this problem is actually the same as America’s: Both countries have recently scheduled nearly every single “fentanyl-like” substance under the sun, tightening control of these substances. While that approach hasn’t stopped production or demand, it has arguably created a much more dangerous drug supply by pushing underground chemists to cook up evermore obscure synthetic analogues to try and skirt regulations and international controls. Hence bizarre, monstrous sounding analogues like Cyclopropylfentanyl popping up in the drug supply. Making matters worse, the potency of these fentanyl analogues vary wildly, which makes safe dosing nearly impossible and raises the risk of fatal overdose to unsuspecting users.
Back to Blackburn’s bluster. Under her watch, overdose deaths in Tennessee have risen significantly. Of course, it’s not totally fair to pin blame for Tennessee's overdose crisis on one politician. Overdoses surged across the entire country during the pandemic. But this crisis will continue to worsen, especially if politicians are too busy yelling at China and Mexico while neglecting to implement obvious life-saving measures at home: Why hasn’t Tennessee expanded Medicaid? Why isn’t naloxone more widely distributed? You don’t hear any of these politicians advocating for more methadone clinics or to make harm reduction a central plank of their platforms. That’s because they only care about the issue to the extent they can use it to rile up their base and wax tough on Mexico and China.
All the xenophobia and scapegoating conveniently papers over responsibility for the declining health, life expectancy, and livelihood of their constituents. By shifting attention to China and Mexico, they dodge their own ineptitude.
p.s. Before ending my first post for Substance, I just want to say thanks for being here! Tana and I are embarking on a new writing project together that will take a critical look at how our society digests stories about drugs and crime. We already spelled out why we’re doing this and what we’re all about in our introductory post. But briefly, as journalists on this beat we realized just how many interesting and revealing nuggets, facts, quotes, and riffs we collectively sit on that, for one reason or another, don’t make it into our big feature stories. I really see this as a place to have fun, to pull no punches, and wrestle with complex ideas. I’ll also regularly post about recent studies and research in drug policy, harm reduction, and public health.
Zach