Should Fentanyl Be Reclassified to Reflect the Scale of the Crisis?

(NewsNation) — As calls for a new classification of fentanyl grow louder, from both victims’ families and lawmakers, some experts are concerned whether the drug’s potential repositioning as a “weapon of mass destruction” will help or hurt the cause.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the synthetic opioid is one of the leading causes of death in America, with an estimated 74,702 people expected to die from overdoses in 2023.

Mothers Deborah Dinnocenzo and Sarah Chittum have experienced the fentanyl epidemic firsthand. Both lost children to fentanyl-laced drugs and are pushing for change in honor of their children.

Dinnocenzo lost a daughter, Dana, and a son, Ricky — both to fentanyl-laced cocaine. “Unfortunately, this has become more and more normalized in the world,” she told NewsNation.

Chittum, whose son Seth died after taking Xanax, a substance containing fentanyl, said she and the group Lost Voices of Fentanyl are working to change the way people view these deaths.

“We want cartels to be labeled as terrorists,” Chittum said. “And we want the stigma behind these deaths to change.”

Dinnocenzo and Chittum are both trying to have the drug classified as a “weapon of mass destruction” so that harsher penalties can be imposed on those who distribute the drug.

The Department of Homeland Security currently defines a weapon of mass destruction as a “nuclear, radiological, chemical, biological, or other device intended to harm a large number of people.”

“We need help from our government to do a lot of things that haven’t been done at all so far,” she added.

A similar sentiment has been building in government for years. In 2022, Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody argued that fentanyl could be used as a weapon and lead to a mass casualty scenario.

“The reality is that the lethality of fentanyl, combined with its vast availability in Mexico to criminal cartels and non-state actors, makes it an increasingly likely weapon for use,” Moody wrote. Other lawmakers calling for a WMD classification include U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., and U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo.

Despite the calls, no national action has been taken to reclassify the drug.

A 2019 paper from the Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction analyzed fentanyl as a chemical weapon and concluded that “there is no basis or need for, or net benefit from, officially designating fentanyl compounds as weapons of mass destruction.”

“Given that fentanyl and its various analogues are widely used for legitimate medical purposes, unlike traditional chemical warfare agents and some of their precursors, special attention should be paid to whether an explicit designation of fentanyl compounds as weapons of mass destruction would pose problems for the legitimate trade in fentanyl,” the article said.

Eric Reinhart, a law and public health anthropologist and physician in training at Northwestern University, told Vice in 2022 that fentanyl has only become so toxic because of decades of prohibition. Further restrictions and reclassification would only make the problem worse.

Reinhart claimed that a WMD declaration would only allow Pentagon dollars to be used to fund “domestic warfare against the poorest Americans.”

The real solutions, Reinhart believes, include universal health care, regulated access to medicines and better scientific research.

“We already have a massive casualty rate in the United States, and it’s not because of Russia or Colombia or some other foreign country. It’s because of American criminal justice policies that have created an absurd opioid overdose epidemic,” Reinhart told Vice.