Victims of fentanyl are not just illicit drug users

(NEXSTAR) – Deaths from fentanyl increased as President Biden took office, according to the White House. Now, at the end of his term, that trend has reversed. However, who those victims are has not changed.

“One of the things that’s scary about fentanyl and other synthetic drugs is that they’re often mixed with other drugs,” White House Deputy Homeland Security Advisor Jen Daskal said in an interview with Nexstar Media’s Chip Brewster.

“We hear stories over and over again of individuals purchasing a Xanax pill that they think is a what the causes are.” Daskal said. “There are obviously both long-term addiction problems that require treatment and interventions, and there is also a significant number of overdoses.”

The interview came shortly after Biden held a bilateral meeting with U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres and joined other world leaders in an event highlighting their partnership in the fight against the production and distribution of synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, which kills tens of thousands cause deaths in the US. annually only.

As the president nears the end of his term and his vice president campaigns to replace him, there is a clear effort to publicize the administration’s actions to combat fentanyl and other synthetic opioids.

For example, the U.S. Treasury Department said Tuesday that it has sanctioned two Mexican companies — an ice cream chain and a local pharmacy — for allegedly using proceeds from fentanyl trafficking to finance their activities linked to the Sinaloa cartel.

The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control – the US agency that combats illicit funds and money laundering – said people previously charged with money laundering had set up a chain of ice cream and popsicle shops in the state Sinaloa.

“President Biden and Vice President Harris are committed to using every tool at our disposal to fight the cartels that are poisoning our communities with fentanyl and other deadly drugs,” Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said in a statement.

The cartel is responsible for a significant portion of the fentanyl trade into the US. They use chemicals from China and India to make the synthetic opioid and smuggle it into the United States, where it causes about 70,000 overdose deaths every year.

In July, US President Joe Biden announced a series of proposals to curb the ongoing drug epidemic. These include a push for Congress to pass legislation to establish a registry for pill presses and tablet machines and to strengthen penalties against convicted drug smugglers and fentanyl traffickers.

Brewster and Daskal also discussed fentanyl seizures in the past two fiscal years, which Daskal said totaled more than the previous five fiscal years combined, and how the government has spent $82 billion to support drug treatment programs. Watch the full, unedited interview in the video above.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.