Its response has been more of the same policing tactics that, regardless of the substance, have gotten us nowhere in the last five decades. While xylazine has been on the radar of some drug policy experts for years, the DEA only recently seemed to notice this growing issue. Recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicates a 276% increase in overdose deaths in which xylazine was detected between January 2019 and June 2022. In fact, the situation seems to be intensifying, given that many drug mixtures sold as â€œheroinâ€ now include the animal tranquilizer xylazine, which can incapacitate users for up to eight hours and generate horrific skin lesions. The body count from overdoses continues to rise, and thereâ€™s no end to the flow of drugs into the U.S.

Nonetheless, polydrug use â€” the mixing of multiple substances â€” is a far more lethal combination than any drug on its own, as well as the true underbelly of this drug crisis disaster.ĭespite decades of increased funding, more seizures and more policing, the DEA cannot seem to make a dent in this crisis.

Approximately 1 million people have died of overdoses since 1999, many of these deaths driven by powerful opioids like illicit fentanyl and its many analogs. Thereâ€™s no denying the drug situation in the U.S.

Instead of truly addressing the deepening drug problem in the U.S., the DEA has worsened public health outcomes related to drug use, promoted racially stigmatizing policies, stomped on civil liberties and burned stacks of cash in a vain effort to control the uncontrollable. (RJ Sangosti/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images)1200Ã-800 95.7 KBĪs of this week, the United States has â€œenjoyedâ€ half a century under the thumb of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), a wing of the Department of Justice established in 1973 by former President Richard Nixon. Members of the Drug Enforcement Administration raided two homes side-by-side, in an assumed illegal marijuana operation, on Januin Commerce City, Colorado. (RJ Sangosti/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images) The Drug Enforcement Administration has spent half a century worsening public health. Fifty years later, drugs are deadlier and more abundant than ever

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