What Do Tariffs and the War On Pain Patients Have in Common? Fentanyl-Phobia

By Crystal Lindell

Did you know that there’s a drug that kills 480,000 people in the United States annually? Based on years of headlines, you might assume that the drug in question is fentanyl, but you’d be wrong. It’s actually tobacco.

There’s another drug that kills 178,000 people in the United States annually. It's called alcohol. 

Meanwhile, illicit fentanyl, the street drug everyone loves to be scared of, was involved in the deaths of 73,654 people in 2022.

Any death is too many, but those statistics highlight how disproportionately we focus on fentanyl as the deadly drug we should fear most. 

For years now, overdoses involving fentanyl have been used to justify denying pain patients access to much safer prescription opioids, such as hydrocodone. Now it’s also being used as an excuse for new tariffs against Canada, Mexico and China, which went into effect this week. 

During his speech Tuesday night, President Donald Trump justified the tariffs by saying: “They’ve allowed fentanyl to come into our country at levels never seen before, killing hundreds of thousands of our citizens and many very young, beautiful people, destroying families. Nobody has ever seen anything like it.”

The situation shows how many aspects of our daily lives are impacted by the War on Drugs, whether it’s a doctor’s visit or economic policy. It also highlights just how much the war is used to justify whatever economic, healthcare, and law enforcement policies our government wants at any given time. 

Because, of course, if any of this was actually about saving lives, then we would be focusing on the drugs that kill more people than fentanyl: alcohol and tobacco. Those are both still sold over the counter though. 

Instead, our leaders lean on whipping up a moral panic about fentanyl. The end result is the same, whether that moral panic is used against patients or neighboring countries: it causes unnecessary pain and suffering. 

The headline on an NBC News article calls out the fact that the tariffs probably won’t reduce fentanyl deaths: “Trump says tariffs were enacted to curb fentanyl, but U.S. overdose deaths are already declining.”

The article also points out that nearly all confiscated fentanyl is seized at the US-Mexican border. In the current fiscal year, just 10 pounds of fentanyl have been recovered at the Canadian border, compared to 5,400 pounds at the Mexican border.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is under no illusion that fentanyl deaths are the real reason for the tariffs. MarketWatch reported that Trudeau called Trump’s rationale for using tariffs to stop the miniscule amount of fentanyl coming from Canada "completely bogus." 

"We have to fall back on the one thing he has said repeatedly – that what he wants is to see a total collapse of the Canadian economy, because that will make it easier to annex us," Trudeau said. "We are, of course, open to starting negotiations, (but) let us not fool ourselves about what he seems to be wanting."

Stepping back a bit, it’s important to note that the fentanyl bogeyman is just the latest facet of the War on Drugs, which the United States has been fighting and losing since 1971. The tariffs highlight how little the so-called war has ever been based on actually helping anyone. 

It would be wise to be skeptical anytime the War on Drugs is used as a justification for government policy. Just because a government claims something is the reason for a law or policy, that does not mean that that is the actual reason. That applies to tariffs, as well as limiting opioid pain medication. 

Skepticism should be applied to all drug-related policy in the United States.