The President's drug policy is dangerously uninspired
Over 100,000 people died by drug overdose last year, preliminary statistics from the CDC show. That death toll, essentially unprecedented in American history, is driven by the rise of the synthetic opioid fentanyl, a far-deadlier cousin of heroin responsible for the lion’s share of the fatalities. The problems are new and dramatic, and media stories in recent days have drawn attention to the crisis. So why are politicians acting like everything is fine?
Take the Biden administration’s response. In the Government’s 2022 National Drug Control Strategy, the bible of its drug policy approach, it aims for a 13% reduction in deaths by overdose. If achieved, this would be only slightly below 2020 figures. To reach that unambitious goal, the administration mostly plans to continue what it has been doing up until now, only at greater scale.
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Charles Fain Lehman is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal.
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