During the cold war, the American "government" put the economic gronk on the Soviet Union in many ways in order to hamstring Russia's capacity to make practical advances in technology, including the ability to augment the quality and reliability of their "products", such as they may have been.
Among the strategies was the restriction on exporting certain material capabilities to the Soviets, constituting a technology embargo. Silicon chips, for example, could not be sent into the Soviet Union, nor could any sort of computer or computer controlled machinery. Even manual machinery such as lathes made my Hardinge were part of the embargo.
The manner and mechanism used to make such restrictions legally binding was to declare them as "munitions". Just as rifles, artillery, explosives, tanks, aircraft, and ammo were restricted based on the fact that they were munitions, the selling of which would constitute aid and comfort to an enemy†, so it was declared for other technologies, the provision of which would expand an enemy's capacity to bring harm to American interests.
That ability remains intact, and my idea is to apply it to fentanyl. Consider the devastating potential of the illicit forms of a drug with approximately 300 times the potency of morphine in the hands of an enemy who might balk at the idea of engaging America in direct military conflict, knowing that they would be crushed. Fentanyl is an obvious candidate forf bringing America to a state of sufficient decay and chaos to allow its enemies to then control it from within with no immediately obvious ties to the enemy forces responsible.
This may be the reality we now face. China is not an American ally. The Meso-American and South American drug cartels are not American allies. These are all enemies and they are all shipping large quantities of fentanyl into the United States. The Drug Enforcement Agency estimates about 7 metric tons of fentanyl enter the United States every year. At an assumed LD50 of .667 mg/kg, 7 metric tons of pure fentanyl would be enough to kill about 115 million people. This, of course is idealized, the practical reality being likely very different due to factors such as losses in administration of the drug to vast populations in places such as cities. The more practical likelihood is about 10% of that 6.8 tons is actual fentanyl, which is still 680 kg and enough to kill about ten million people, were it to be distributed in lethal dosages. While this modified scenario greatly decreases concern for a chemical warfare strike on America, the possibility should not be dismissed quite completely because technologies advance daily and human conniving for the sake of political gain never ceases. The combination of those two factors with the raw potency of pure fentanyl, not to mention its far more potent derivatives is the stuff of nightmares and must at least be held in mental reserve.
But all paranoid speculations aside, fentanyl is by all means proving a threat to American lives and to America's security. The estimates of overdose deaths at this time is about 74,000 per year in America. This figure appears to be on a plateau for now, but it is anyone's guess where it may go, though my hope is for a downward slope. In any event, given the potential for use by an enemy as a weapon of mass destruction or as one of slow and steady decay, fentanyl could and perhaps ought to be classified as munitions. This would open the door to a broader menu of possible responses to nations known to be supporting the manufacture, smuggling, and distribution of this chemical agent.
Nations like China have been skating in terms of any consequences for their clear complicity in the illicit and illegal fentanyl trade. Perhaps it is time to alter the cost-benefit dynamics for these enemies of the American people. If we can classify a lathe as munitions, I hold little doubt we could do the same for a potent and readily lethal drug such as fentanyl.
Until next time, please accept my best wishes.
† In other words, an act of treason.
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