This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
While fentanyl kills tens of thousands of Americans every year – indeed, it's the No. 1 cause of death for younger Americans aged 18 to 45 – now there's an even deadlier drug on the rise.
Two milligrams of fentanyl, equal in volume to just a few grains of table salt, is considered a deadly dose. Hundreds of thousands have been poisoned by the dangerous drug.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 76,226 and 74,702 deaths attributed to the use of synthetic opioids containing fentanyl in 2022 and 2023, respectively.
WorldNetDaily spoke to Derek Maltz, a former head of the Special Operations Division of the Drug Enforcement Administration and well-respected advocate for families who have lost their loved ones through fentanyl poisoning and more.
The spread of fentanyl through the United States, Maltz tells WND, is nothing less than "a chemical bombing coming out of China." As a recent Reuters report explained, "Chemical brokers are the supply chiefs of the illicit fentanyl trade, funneling Chinese ingredients to Mexico's producers, [using] bribery, tricks and violence to feed the pipeline."
For years, says Maltz, the Chinese regime has been "taking advantage of the drug addiction in America," flooding the streets with "very powerful synthetic drugs," and adding that the goal is to "destabilize and destroy America's future generations."
With the CDC's recent warning about a significant rise in illegally manufactured fentanyls (so-called IMFs) like carfentanil, the regime is moving closer to its objective, says Maltz. Incredibly, according to the Department of Justice, "Carfentanil is a synthetic opioid approximately 10,000 times more potent than morphine and 100 times more potent than fentanyl." Carfentanil was originally developed as an opioid analgesic to be used by veterinarians for anesthetizing huge animals like elephants and rhinoceroses.
Yet in the last year, carfentanil deaths of humans rose by more than 700%. "Chinese laboratories are selling [fentanyl and carfentanil] directly to customers in America, and people are getting sick and people are dying," Maltz told WND.
How could the United States get the upper hand and save the lives of those being poisoned?
The flow of these drugs into the country must be recognized as a national security threat, Maltz said, and agencies then must take a comprehensive approach to bring the massive assault on America to an end. "The next director [of the DEA] would have to integrate meetings between both law enforcement agencies and the intelligence community, and take a collective step to halt this stuff," he explained. In addition, each of these federal agencies and soon-to-be President Donald Trump would have to "sit down and develop strategies to end the money laundering, the cartels' involvement, and keep China in check."
"All of higher-level leadership needs to be discussing strategies to stop this madness," Maltz stressed. "Precursor chemicals and money are the root of the problem, and without the chemicals from China and without the money to the Mexican cartels, America would see a drastic drop in deaths."
