In August of 2023, overdose deaths in the United States suddenly began to fall and continued through 2024 and into last year.
Overdose deaths went from 105,700 in 2023 to what may be somewhere under 69,000 for 2025 when final numbers are released this summer. Three-quarters of all U.S. overdose deaths have been due to fentanyl.
At the same time -- in fact, at exactly the same time, August of 2023 -- supplies of fentanyl also began to drop. (See charts below.)
Both trends seemed too much of a coincidence to dismiss. I’ve reported on all this in this newsletter (Here, here and here), particularly after speaking with addicts who reported levels of fentanyl so low that they no longer kept the withdrawals away.
“A supply shock,” in the words of some scholars, was at least part of the story.
But what happened in the summer of 2023 to cause such a sudden drop? I didn’t know.
Then I spoke with Jake Braun, who’s now at the University of Chicago.
Braun was a counter-terrorism advisor at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security during the administration of Joe Biden. He helped forge a set of strategies for disrupting Mexican fentanyl networks. This included several federal law enforcement and the elements of the Mexican military.
Crucial in all, he said, this was an “anti-network” approach that applied tactics first used to combat terrorism Al-Qaeda to fentanyl networks and Chinese chemical companies.
All this began in the summer of 2023.
I had a fascinating conversation with Braun about this multi-layered, bi-national approach to combatting our deadliest illegal drug.
His book, released last fall, is Fentanyl: Fighting the Mass Poisoning of America and the Cartel Behind it.
The approach highlights inter-agency and bi-national collaboration in reducing illegal drug supplies.
It also suggests that supply reduction is the best kind of harm reduction – certainly, at least, when it comes to fentanyl.
Thank you for reading! I do not paywall this newsletter. … But if you’d like to keep it going, with original, independent and unexpected reporting, please consider becoming a paid subscriber.
It supports my journalism and ensures that every article remains open to everyone.
Thank you for your support!
MORE GREAT STORIES FROM THE DREAMLAND NEWSLETTER:
“The Fentanyl Fold”: A video about the contortion the drug forces addicts into.
“Kensington, Philadelphia”: A dispatch from the East Coast’s worst drug spot.
“A Visit to a Mexican Meth Lab”: A dealer tells his story.
PHOTO OF THE WEEK: Guanajuato, Mexico
