The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) says that in 2022, federal drug agents intercepted 379 million potentially deadly fentanyl doses, which at just two milligrams is enough of the synthetic opioid to kill every American.
Fentanyl is around 100 times stronger than morphine and about 50 times stronger than heroin.
“In the past year, the men and women of the DEA have relentlessly worked to seize over 379 million deadly doses of fentanyl from communities across the country,” said DEA Administrator Anne Milgram.
“These seizures – enough deadly doses of fentanyl to kill every American – reflect DEA’s unwavering commitment to protect Americans and save lives, by tenaciously pursuing those responsible for the trafficking of fentanyl across the United States,” said Milgram, a former state attorney general in New Jersey. “DEA’s top operational priority is to defeat the two Mexican drug cartels—the Sinaloa and Jalisco (CJNG) Cartels—that are primarily responsible for the fentanyl that is killing Americans today.”
Milgram called fentanyl the deadliest drug threat facing this country.
Just two milligrams of fentanyl, the small amount that fits on the tip of a pencil, is considered a potentially deadly dose.
The flow of fentanyl mainly originates in Chinese factories which produce fentanyl or fentanyl precursors; it is then trafficked to other countries for illicit production and sale. In the United States, finished fentanyl arrives primarily from Mexico smuggled by cartels.
An East Brunswick native, Milgram was the 57th Attorney General of New Jersey, serving from 2007 to 2010. On April 22, 2021, President Joe Biden nominated her to lead the DEA and she was confirmed by the US Senate by unanimous consent on June 24, 2021.