Fentanyl and the U.S. Opioid Epidemic
www.cfr.org
Opioid addiction has become one of the United States’ biggest killers, endangering public health, the economy, and national security. But closing the floodgates on fentanyl poses a significant foreig…
  • Since 2000, more than one million people in the United States have died of drug overdoses, the majority of which were due to opioids.
  • Fentanyl and other synthetic opioids have been driving the crisis in recent years, with the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbating the public’s abuse of the drug.
  • The crisis has also become a major U.S. foreign policy issue, with most supply coming from China and Mexico.