When President Trump announced plans to impose tariffs on Mexico and Canada, one of his reasons stated was to force the US to flow fentanyl on those countries. In 2024, US Customs and Border Protection seized 22,000 pounds of tablets, powders and other products containing fentanyl, starting from £27,000 in the previous fiscal year. In 2023, over 105,000 people died from overdose, three-quarters of fentanyl and other opioids. It's not taking much illegal fentanyl. It causes a fatal overdose.
In my article in the magazine, note that one of the many tragedies of the opioid epidemic is that a proven treatment for opioid addiction called buprenorphine has been available in the US for over 20 years. Please. . If it had previously been widely used, it could have saved tens of thousands of lives. In his actions and rhetoric, Trump appears to emphasize a decline in supply as an answer to the fentanyl crisis. But Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum points to the US demands as a driver of the issue. In fact, if sufficient opioid users in the US receive buprenorphine or other effective drug-based treatments, they will likely be able to reduce the demand for illegal opioids like fentanyl.
Comparison of buprenorphine and abstinence-based treatments for opioid use disorders.
Abundant evidence suggests that drug-based approaches using buprenorphine (which itself is a type of opioid) are much more effective at preventing overdose deaths than a ceri-based approach. (Methadone, a slightly more potent opioid, is also effective as a treatment.) Greater success is that buprenorphine (and methadone) is craving and craving, by involving the same receptor stimulated by fentanyl and other illegal opioids. This is partly due to the fact that it can drastically slow the withdrawal. Symptoms. Several studies show that people leaving a celibate programme actually face the risk of overdose than when they use illegal opioids chronically. After a long abstain, the former user lost resistance to opioids. Dosages that were previously healthy can be fatal. This is one reason many addiction experts believe that drugs like buprenorphine are more effective in treating opioid use disorders than stopping cold turkeys. It greatly reduces cravings and misery that can cause recurrence.
If buprenorphine reduces death.
The US government partially funded the development of buprenorphine as a treatment for opioid addiction, but France was one of the first countries to take advantage of its potential most fully. In the 1990s, French health authorities allowed all doctors to prescribe buprenorphine. By the early 2000s, deaths from overdose from heroin and other opioids had fallen by nearly 80%. Other European countries, such as Switzerland, are making medicines to make opioid use disorders easier to access. There is also a much lower overdose mortality rate than is seen in the US.
