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Published: 17 December 2024

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‘Drug checking’, just like pill testing, is premised on the demonstrably incorrect inference that most drug-related deaths are tied to either unknown purity of drugs bought from criminals, or deadly contaminants or other toxic drugs mixed in with such purchased drugs. 

For decades now, the same parties now requesting substantial government funding for ‘drug checking’ have been pushing the same spurious misinformation.

Here are the direct words from ANCD Research Paper 1 – ‘Heroin Overdose’ coming from the Prime Minister’s own Australian National Council on Drugs (ANCD) in the year 2000.  This paper was produced in the midst of Australia’s highest rates of opioid overdose.

On page xiii, under the heading ‘Purity’ the NDARC researchers assert,

“If overdose were a simple function of purity one would expect the blood morphine concentrations of fatal overdose victims to be significantly higher than living intoxicated heroin users. As described above, it has been found that many individuals who die of an opioid overdose have blood morphine concentrations at autopsy which are below the commonly accepted toxic dose.  Studies that have investigated the relationship between the purity of street heroin seizures and fatality from overdose report a weak correlation, or no correlation, between heroin purity and fatality from overdose.”

Then on page xiv, under ‘Contaminants’ it reports,

“In general, studies outside the eastern United States do not report the detection of impurities in seized heroin. Adulterants found in Australian heroin samples are largely pharmacologically inactive dilutants (used to add bulk) or caffeine (believed to increase the bioavailability of heroin when smoked).”

We were speciously told for decades that it was the criminal sourcing of these drugs that led to so many deaths, even as equal numbers of opiate users were dying from pharmacologically pure Oxycodone and the like.  But ‘drug checking’ is spinning the same narrative.

Drug Free Australia does not deny that criminal-manufactured pills with high potency opioids masquerading as lower potency opioids will cause some unexpected fatalities, but much more evidence is needed to show that these are anything but the tiny minority of fatalities.

Balanced against this are the massive number of opiate deaths caused by the harm reductionist messaging which teaches the ‘safe use of illicit drugs’, of which drug checking is seminally a part.  This messaging quadrupled opiate deaths between 1984 (below 250 for 15-44 year olds) and 1,116 for 15-54 year olds in 1999.  The prevention and rehabilitation priorities of Tough on Drugs made opiate deaths plummet by 67% (or a massive 750 opiate deaths per year), where they stayed for 7 years until a new Federal Government scrapped them.  In the decade following, with the ‘safe use of drugs’ message again prioritised, opiate deaths skyrocketed 260% with other contributing polydrug-use illicit drug deaths increasing 210-590%.  Harm Reduction’s ‘safe use of drugs’ ideology has very demonstrably added many, many thousands of opiate deaths to Australian mortality tolls and heavily weights any set of balances against a few lives saved by ‘drug checking’.  Drug Free Australia has no problem with law enforcement continuing to publicise contaminants or adulterants in seized drugs, maintaining the message that drug use is not acceptable, rather than allowing drug-normalisating NGOs to take that role.  

In case you missed our documents supporting the above paragraph last time we sent them, here they are once again for your information and edification.

Gary Christian

PRESIDENT

Drug Free Australia

0422 163 141

They Were Wrong

NSW Drug Summit 4 DFA handouts

Harm Reduction 2024 A4 short

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Published: 20 November 2024

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Published: 07 November 2024

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The fentanyl crisis has emerged as one of America’s most pressing public health emergencies, with devastating consequences that touch every corner of society. Only ‘layering’ up on the worst opioid addiction disaster (arguably) in US history. In a shocking revelation of the crisis’s scope, fatal drug poisonings reached a record 111,451 in the 12 months ending in August 2023, with fentanyl driving the majority of these deaths. Yet as the body count rises, America’s response remains fragmented, ineffective, and mired in political theatre.

A Perfect Storm

What makes fentanyl particularly dangerous is its unique nature as a synthetic drug. Unlike traditional narcotics such as heroin or cocaine that require crop cultivation, fentanyl is purely chemical-based. As DEA officials note, the only limitation on fentanyl production is access to precursor chemicals, making it potentially limitless in supply. This fundamental difference from traditional drugs has created an unprecedented challenge that our current drug control infrastructure seems woefully unprepared to address.

The crisis is further complicated by the cartels’ deceptive tactics. Drug traffickers are pressing fentanyl into counterfeit pills designed to look identical to legitimate medications like oxycodone, Percocet, or Adderall. This practice has led to countless deaths among users who had no intention of taking fentanyl, creating an unprecedented public health challenge that demands far more urgent attention than it’s receiving.

The Politics of Failure

As the crisis deepens, American politicians have reduced this complex challenge to simplistic campaign fodder. Republicans, led by former President Trump, hammer Democrats over border policies, while Vice President Kamala Harris responds by touting her prosecution record and promising more border agents. Lost in this rhetorical crossfire is any meaningful discussion of what primary prevention and demand reduction; or drug use exiting treatment and recovery – the very elements experts say are crucial to addressing the crisis.

It has been said by many a pundit… “we cannot arrest our way out of this mess”, but be rest assured, we cannot ‘treat our way out’ either, especially with treatment is but a ‘mop’ and the faucet of demand continues to flow unchecked, only driving supply.

A Global Criminal Enterprise

The fentanyl supply chain represents a complex international network that makes a mockery of traditional drug enforcement approaches. The DEA has identified two primary cartels responsible for most of the fentanyl entering the United States: the Sinaloa cartel and the Jalisco cartel. These organisations operate as sophisticated multinational corporations, with operations spanning more than 45 countries.

The supply chain typically begins in China, where precursor chemicals are purchased, before moving through Mexico, where the final product is synthesised. Last year alone, the DEA seized enough fentanyl to kill every American – approximately 410 million deadly doses. Yet, significant quantities continue to enter the country through various means: by air, land, and sea, often through the Southwest border. This stark reality raises serious questions about the effectiveness of our current enforcement-first approach.

The Social Media Scandal

Perhaps most damning is the role of social media companies in this crisis. These platforms have become what DEA officials call “the last mile” in the deadly supply chain, providing cartels with direct access to potential victims. Despite their own terms of service prohibiting drug sales, social media companies have provided what law enforcement describes as minimal cooperation in addressing the crisis. The result is a digital marketplace for death, operating in plain sight.

Institutional Inertia

The international response has been equally inadequate. China, the primary source of precursor chemicals, has effectively ceased cooperation with U.S. law enforcement over the past year. Mexico’s president has gone so far as to deny that fentanyl is even synthesised in his country, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Meanwhile, U.S. authorities are left to combat what amounts to a multinational criminal enterprise with fragmented resources and inconsistent international support.

Again, the demand coming from not only a now ‘addicted’ cohort, but a demographic that wants to either party or medicate away everything from perceived ‘boredom’ and trauma’ to genuine cultural and psycho-social despair you have the incentive that addiction for profit actors love. When a society tacitly enables pleasure seeking as a ‘right’ and refuses to identify contributing factors to self-harming behaviours or celebrated unaccountability that needs to be called out and addressed, then those ‘supplying’ have a continuingly enabled ‘demand’ for the preferred ‘agent of symptom annihilation’.

Ground-Level Reality

The human cost of this institutional failure is stark. At DEA headquarters, a memorial wall now displays over 4,000 photographs of fentanyl victims, with hundreds more being added regularly. These images – showing victims as young as 12 or 13 – stand in silent rebuke to the political grandstanding and institutional paralysis that characterises the current response.

The stories of survivors paint an equally damning picture. Crystal Long, who survived multiple overdoses before finding recovery, describes fentanyl’s overwhelming pull: “All of your problems go away… it’s like this tingling feeling from head to toe that just you’re calm, nothing else matters.” Her survival, thanks to a drug court program, represents the exception rather than the rule in a system that prioritises enforcement over treatment.

We see here again a perception in, arguably, the world’s most affluent and ‘free’ nation that every form of positive emotional disruption is viewed as trauma, and the faux right to comfort as all costs drives self-soothing behaviours in some many of the population who are not genuinely traumatised or suffering privation.

A Glimmer of Hope?

Recent CDC data showing a 13 percent decline in overdose deaths between May 2023 and May 2024 offers some encouragement. This improvement is attributed to expanded treatment access, over-the-counter naloxone availability, and increased border seizures. However, with deaths still hovering near 100,000 annually, celebrating such marginal improvement seems premature at best.

The Path Forward

The solution to the fentanyl crisis requires more than campaign promises and border security theatre. It demands a three-pronged approach that has thus far been largely absent from the national conversation: demand reduction, supply reduction, and recovery support.

Demand Reduction: The most glaring oversight in current policy is the lack of comprehensive demand reduction strategies. While politicians focus on border security, they largely ignore the factors driving Americans to seek out opioids in the first place. Effective demand reduction requires:

• Expanded access to mental health services, particularly in underserved communities where fentanyl use often takes root
• Prevention programs that address the root causes of addiction, including trauma, poverty, and lack of economic opportunity
• Educational initiatives that go beyond by include the “just say no” messaging, as this powerful protective factor now seems to have been erased (if not eroded) in our first world entitled culture. Not uptake, No problem! No, is powerful and needs to be empowered and equipped, not undermined by throw away and evidence-deprived ideology that saying no doesn’t work.
• Early intervention programs in schools and communities, with particular focus on the vulnerable 12-25 age group that’s increasingly falling victim to fentanyl. This must include sound anthropologically anchored resilience building factors in the individual, family and the community.

Supply Reduction: While current supply reduction efforts focus almost exclusively on border interdiction, a truly effective strategy must be more comprehensive:

• International cooperation agreements with real enforcement mechanisms, particularly with China and Mexico
• Regulatory reform to better track and control precursor chemicals
• Enhanced prosecution of social media platforms that fail to adequately police drug sales
• Targeted disruption of cartel financial networks through enhanced cooperation between law enforcement and financial institutions
• Investment in advanced detection technologies at all points of entry, not just the Southwest border

Recovery Support: Of course, for those caught in the tyranny of this addiction, we need a fundamental shift in how we approach recovery, particularly in light of recent scientific evidence. A 2024 study in the Journal of Addiction Medicine has conclusively demonstrated that Medications for Opioid Use Disorder (MOUD) remain highly effective even against highly potent synthetic opioids like fentanyl. Whilst this can be a good start, it can also be an ongoing addiction trap, as much lived experience and earned resiliency has made clear. The healthcare system should not place bureaucratic barriers in the way of these proven treatments but should also harness them to other proven drug use exiting protocols that empower the substance use to live substance free. That is what recovery has always meant.

The evidence is clear:

• Both buprenorphine and methadone have proven effective in preventing death and opioid overdose – This, again, is a great start, but the Gold standard for treatment isn’t ‘death prevention’, it is the exiting of practices that facilitate the near death experiences.
• Higher daily buprenorphine doses (>16mg per day) show increased effectiveness
• Low-dose buprenorphine initiation protocols have demonstrated feasibility even with ongoing opioid use
• These Medically Assisted Treatments (MAT) must be part of a more holistic approach for recovery to not only be lifesaving, but also life affirming, developing and recalibrating – thus ensuring the very thing causing all this grief is no longer in play.

Despite this compelling evidence, we continue to underutilise these life-saving treatments. A comprehensive recovery support system must include:

• Creation of robust aftercare programs to prevent relapse and support long-term recovery
• Investment in job training and educational programs for recovering addicts to break the cycle of addiction and poverty.
• Immediate expansion of medication-assisted treatment programs, with particular attention to optimal dosing strategies that research shows are most effective
• Removal of bureaucratic barriers that prevent addiction specialists from prescribing treatment medications, especially given the proven effectiveness of MOUD against synthetic opioids
• Insurance reform to ensure that recovery programs are covered at the same level as other medical conditions, including coverage for higher-dose treatment protocols that research shows are more effective

The tools and knowledge to implement these solutions exist. What’s lacking is the political will to move beyond simplistic enforcement narratives and invest in comprehensive solutions. The success stories – like Crystal Long’s journey through drug court to recovery – demonstrate what’s possible when we implement evidence-based solutions. But these success stories remain the exception rather than the rule.

Each day we delay implementing this comprehensive approach, more faces appear on the DEA’s memorial wall. The choice is clear: we can continue with the current failed approach of political posturing and enforcement-only solutions, or we can implement the comprehensive strategy that evidence shows will work. The fentanyl crisis is not unsolvable – it’s simply unsolved because we’ve lacked the courage and commitment to implement real solutions.

Until we embrace this three-pronged approach and marshal the resources and political will to implement it effectively, Americans (and all other cultures wrestling with this nightmare) will continue to die needlessly. The question isn’t what needs to be done – we know what works. The question is whether we’re finally ready to do it.

Dalgarno Institute

Endnotes

• Everyone’s tough on drugs again
• DEA’S Faces of Fentanyl documents extent of drug crisis
• Full DEA head: ‘We don’t know the exact amount’ of fentanyl that gets through to the U.S.
• Recovering fentanyl addict speaks out about dangers of the drug
• Dramatic turnaround for fentanyl addict
• Medications for Opioid Use Disorder Remain Effective as Highly Potent Synthetic Opioids Permeate North American Illicit Drug Supplies