One of the most devastating costs of the Democrats' open borders policy is the widespread trafficking of illicit drugs across the U.S. border, effectively flooding the heartland with dangerous chemical substances that destroy lives. Those chemicals are now killing more Americans every year than the entire Vietnam War.
According to an analysis report published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, overdose deaths from illicit drugs have reached war-like levels of annual deaths:
(Data were not yet available for 2016.)
The drugs cited for causing the overdose deaths are many of the same drugs brought into the United States by Mexican drug cartels, using smuggling routes that were left largely undefended by the Obama administration, which sought to leave America's borders wide open for political purposes:
"A multifaceted, collaborative public health and law enforcement approach is urgently needed" to stem the growing epidemic, urges the CDC report, yet Democrats have systematically opposed any substantial support of police, Border Patrol or any law enforcement body that would substantially reduce the inflow of these addictive, dangerous substances into the United States. (Related: Find more news about drug addiction at Addiction.news.)
In other words, just to keep winning elections, the Democrats have allowed a deadly drug war to be waged on the American people by drug cartels that largely originate from South of the border. Just to get Hillary Clinton elected, the Democrats subjected America to Vietnam War levels of carnage, suffering and death. That's how much the Democrats despise America (and are willing to do anything to attain political power).
"The ongoing epidemic of opioid deaths requires intense attention and action," warns the CDC report, which also points out the role of Big Pharma and the overprescription of addictive opioids. Yet the Obama administration did absolutely nothing to reel in the domineering power of the "legal" drug cartels in America: the pharmaceutical industry. While Americans are dying by the tens of thousands, Big Pharma is reaping a windfall of profits from addictive opioids. Follow the saga of opioids at OPIOIDS.news.
For eight years under Obama, the Democrats sold out America to both the pharmaceutical giants and the Mexican drug cartels, and now we're paying a devastating price across society. The loss of productive lives, the addiction treatment costs and the law enforcement burden are all adding enormous economic burdens to cities and states that are already drowning in debt.
At the same time, treasonous, lunatic Leftists declared their cities to be "sanctuary cities" to actually harbor violent criminals and drug dealers, further adding to the scourge of drug deaths now devastating Americans across the country. (Question: When will President Trump arrest the mayors who openly violate immigration law and harbor violent criminals under the treasonous scheme of "sanctuary?")
The upshot of all this is that this enormous problem with drug deaths has been dumped in President Trump's lap. Fortunately for us, DHS Secretary John Kelly appears to be taking this problem seriously. In prepared remarks delivered at George Washington University, Kelly rips into the enormity of the drug smuggling / drug cartels fiasco left behind by Obama, promising to finally allow law enforcement to take aim at the flow of these illicit street drugs that are killing tens of thousands.
"[T]he damage TCOs [Transnational Criminal Organizations] do is not only violence and potential terror. It is also vast tonnages of marijuana and hard drugs—cocaine, heroin, counterfeit opiates, fentanyl, and meth amphetamines—they smuggle across our borders to feed both the recreational and addictive U.S. drug demand," Kelly said. His remarks continue:
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the U.S. Coast Guard all bear witness to the massive quantity of drugs TCOs are bringing to our homeland every day—with devastating consequences.
In 2015, which is the most recent data we have, there were 52,404 [1] deaths in the United States caused by a drug overdose.
It’s the highest number of drug-related deaths our country has ever seen. It’s more deaths than the peak of the AIDS epidemic in 1995 [2]. In a single year, we’ve lost nearly as many Americans to drug overdose as we lost in battle in World War I [3]. Almost as many as was lost in 12 years in Vietnam.
And that’s just overdose deaths. That number—as high as it is—says nothing about the long-term health damage to our citizens who survive, to say nothing about the human misery, the families ripped apart, and the extremes of crime and violence inherent in the illegal-drug enterprise.
Frustratingly, Kelly goes on to denounce marijuana as a "gateway drug" without making a distinction between non-psychoactive CBD products vs. high-THC (psychoactive) marijuana, saying, "DHS personnel will continue to investigate marijuana’s illegal pathways along the network into the U.S., its distribution within the homeland, and will arrest those involved in the drug trade according to federal law."
Nevertheless, it's refreshing to finally see someone at DHS who is actively seeking to thwart drug cartels and drug smuggling into the United States. It may take far more than eight years under President Trump, however, to finally get a grip on this massive problem that's been allowed to fester under Obama and the Democrats.
While much of the so-called "War on Drugs" is a total sham and a complete waste of money, filling our prisons with non-violent marijuana users, the problem of heroin smuggling and hard drugs from Mexican drug cartels is a very serious and costly problem that must be urgently dealt with. We must also, of course, deal with Big Pharma's opioid epidemic and the mass over-prescribing of such dangerous drugs by corrupt doctors who are routinely bribed by drug companies across America.
Watch my mini-documentary on the drug war's "fake science" problem in this shocking video:
https://youtu.be/RqJ7kLGjU9s
Mike Adams (aka the "Health Ranger") is the founding editor of NaturalNews.com, a best selling author (#1 best selling science book on Amazon.com called "Food Forensics"), an environmental scientist, a patent holder for a cesium radioactive isotope elimination invention, a multiple award winner for outstanding journalism, a science news publisher and influential commentator on topics ranging from science and medicine to culture and politics.
Mike Adams also serves as the lab science director of an internationally accredited (ISO 17025) analytical laboratory known as CWC Labs. There, he was awarded a Certificate of Excellence for achieving extremely high accuracy in the analysis of toxic elements in unknown water samples using ICP-MS instrumentation.
In his laboratory research, Adams has made numerous food safety breakthroughs such as revealing rice protein products imported from Asia to be contaminated with toxic heavy metals like lead, cadmium and tungsten. Adams was the first food science researcher to document high levels of tungsten in superfoods. He also discovered over 11 ppm lead in imported mangosteen powder, and led an industry-wide voluntary agreement to limit heavy metals in rice protein products.
Adams has also helped defend the rights of home gardeners and protect the medical freedom rights of parents. Adams is widely recognized to have made a remarkable global impact on issues like GMOs, vaccines, nutrition therapies, human consciousness.