By: Fanniella Brice

“Law enforcement seized 2,420 pounds of the synthetic opioid across the state last year, with 95 percent of that haul, 2,300 pounds, in the Big Apple alone,” according to disturbing new Drug Enforcement Administration data obtained by The New York Post.

“The annual total represents a staggering 206 percent increase over the previous record 790 pounds of fentanyl seized in 2020. “Throughout my 30 years in law enforcement I have never seen anything with greater killing power,” warned DEA New York Division acting special agent in charge Tim Foley”, Kerry J. Byrne reports.

“Overdose deaths in NYC peaked at 596 in the first quarter of 2021, the latest period for which the city has data, steadily rising each quarter since 2018. More than 100,000 Americans died of drug overdoses last year — a 29 percent spike in just one year.  Fentanyl increasingly arrives in New York City in ready-to-ingest pill form, designed to look like legitimate OxyContin, Vicodin or Adderall, among other prescription drugs. The DEA of New York seized 82,087 fentanyl pills in 2021, up more than fourfold over the 19,378 pills found in 2020”, The New York Post reports.

Byrne writes that “the blame for the fentanyl crisis on America’s addiction to painkillers caused by the Food and Drug Administration’s ill-fated decision to approve OxyContin in 1995, which was “falsely marketed as an easy, nonaddictive fix for pain.” Drug overdoses in America have “steadily climbed” since that decision, the report states.

The opioid crisis has most recently been in the news because of the Hulu miniseries Dopesick, starting Michael Keaton. The show has become the darling of awards season and is based on the true story of the effects that OxyContin has on a small West Virginia town.

Recently, The New York Post did a cover story on the crisis in Florida.  Axel Giovany Casseus, 21, was jailed Saturday in lieu of $50,000 bail, Local10 News reported. Four West Point Cadets overdosed in a Florida hotel during Spring Break after ingesting cocaine laced with fentanyl. All were brought to the hospital and survived. The drug dealer who sold them the substances was arrested. “After identifying Casseus, an undercover police officer was successfully able to purchase 43 grams of cocaine from him for $1,000, according to an arrest report, the network reported. While in custody, Casseus admitted to selling drugs to the West Point cadets and his phone contained correspondence with them, authorities said.”