Reducing Border Fentanyl Flow Won’t Curb Opioid Crisis, Expert Says
Trump wants to solve the opioid epidemic by keeping Fentanyl from crossing the border. But according to an addiction specialist, that’s, “like taking a hammer to fix someone’s toilet.”
“There are so many ways drugs can come into this country. People will find a way to reproduce and get Fentanyl,” said Dr. Holly Sawyer(PhD, LPC, NCC, ACS, CAADC, CASAC SAP), Director of the Masters in Addictions Counseling (MAC) program and Assistant Clinical Professor in the department of Counseling and Family Therapy at Drexel University in Philadelphia. Even if border measures slow the flow of Fentanyl into the U.S. she believes another drug will just take its place. “Every drug has had its time to be popular in this country,” she said.
Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic opioid manufactured by pharmaceutical companies. Prescribed for pain management, it’s 50 times more potent than heroin and up to 100 times more potent than morphine. There is a wide underground network of non-pharmaceutical production. According to the National Coalition Against Prescription Drug Abuse, more than 67% of drug overdoses involve fentanyl.
Solving the addiction crisis goes beyond an access problem – it’s related to the entire mental health system.
“People with a substance abuse disorder, nine times out of 10, also have another mental health disorder like PTSD, depression, schizophrenia, or bipolar. So if Fentanyl magically disappears overnight, people will still find a way to get a different opioid or synthetic opioid. Because getting treatment [for addiction] in this country can be a barrier,” Dr. Holly said.
Dr. Holly, who lives in Philadelphia, one of America’s “Fentanyl capitals,” explained, “If I go to Kensington and remove 10 drug dealers off of a few blocks, there’ll be 10 more that pop up the next day.”
If someone is sad, scared, anxious, or desperate, they might go to great lengths to find something to alleviate their pain, whether that pain is physical or psychological. And mental health treatment is complicated. To make matters worse, there are so many barriers to getting help.
Mental health and addiction centers are lacking funding and resources. And that’s where Dr. Holly thinks we should be putting our limited fentanyl-fighting resources. “A lot of our processes here could be streamlined—city to city, town to town, state to state. To put a tariff or close the border – the tool doesn’t fit the actual need.”
Deciding you need help and getting yourself to a treatment center can be hard enough. But because the systems are so overtaxed, it’s not uncommon for someone who shows up for treatment to be told they need to go to a different clinic. This might be because they get diagnosed with a different mental health condition that can’t be treated at the addiction clinic, or they’ve gone to a clinic that doesn’t take their insurance. Dr. Holly says that, due to the barriers they’ve likely had to overcome to make it to the first center, many don’t want to have to go through that again to make it to the referral. This especially impacts people from lower socio-economic backgrounds who are dependent on government assistance.
So, how does an addiction expert wish the government was addressing the Fentanyl problem?
“This is a country that makes a lot of money off of people’s sickness, not their wealth and health. Put money into community health centers and mental health centers and addiction centers to help treat people,” Dr. Holly said. That’s where the real work in battling addiction is done.
