Obama Administration Refused to Declare Public Health Emergency for Fentanyl

The Washington Post on Wednesday published a searing indictment of the Obama administration for disregarding a plea from health experts to declare a public health emergency for overdoses from fentanyl, the powerful synthetic opioid that was already racking up a body count in 2016 and would go on to kill thousands of people over the next three years.

Fentanyl is so deadly that its most dedicated adversaries compare it to a weapon of mass destruction, a chemical weapons attack by China launched across the U.S. border. Whatever one thinks about the motivations of fentanyl smugglers – greed and/or the desire to kill as many Americans as possible – the drug is so potent that it literally could be used as a chemical weapon, and one suitcase full of the stuff could depopulate a city.

The gist of the Washington Post story is that 11 nationally-recognized health experts sent a private letter to Obama administration officials in May 2016 describing the spread of fentanyl as an “extraordinary public health challenge” and asking President Barack Obama to declare a public health emergency. Among the recipients of the letter were Obama’s drug czar and the head of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

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